9 Meeting Facilitation Skills for Managers to Practice

9 Meeting Facilitation Skills for Managers to Practice9 Meeting Facilitation Skills for Managers to PracticeMeetings can either be opportunities to share ideas, discuss challenges and define action plans, or they can end up as unproductive time wasters. Unfortunately, managers are often the major contributors to meeting process dysfunction. You need skills to run meetings properly. Strengthening Your Meeting Facilitation Skills By definition, facilitating means, To make easier or less difficult help forward.For a manager to facilitate a meeting (instead of running it), they need to be willing to let go of their power and be open to different outcomes and approaches. Where Managers Go Wrong With Meetings Many managers think they know how to run a meeting. They set the agenda, do all of the talking, and make all of the decisions. While this may feel easy and efficient for managers, its often a waste of peoples time, and it doesnt tap into the creative potential of the team. In fact, it has the opposite effect as employees tend to withdraw, deferring to the manager who wants to be in charge. Why Managers Fail to Involve Employees Many reasons exist for why managers dont involve their employees mora in meetings. While the first three items below are behaviors of poor managers, the brde one, facilitation skills, can be learned and strengthened with practiceFear of letting goThe false belief that because they are in charge, they need to provide all of the answersA lack of confidence in the abilities or harte nuss-solving skills of their employeesA lack of meeting facilitation skills These ideas for managers at all levels will strengthen their meeting facilitation skills in support of improving meeting productivity. Skills Managers Need to Facilitate Meetings Proper meeting facilitation involves getting everyone at the meeting involved in identifying and solving problems. Teams will almost always develop better, mora creative solutions than any manager cou ld alone. Teams are also more likely to support the implementation of the solutions they helped create. You can break ansicht meeting facilitation skills down into three different categories Planning a MeetingConducting a MeetingResolving Meeting Problems How to Plan a Meeting Before you begin any meeting you need an agenda. For a collaborative meeting, invite meeting attendees to tell you what problems the team needs to solve or what changes the team needs to pursue. Make sure the topics are ones that allow for group participation. Facilitating a meeting is different than presenting information at a meeting. 1. Enable Group Involvement Make sure you allow ample time for group involvement and that you dont try to solve too many problems in a short time period. However, too much time can also result in an endless cycle of well what about.... Make sure your agenda meets the time allotted for the meeting. Skills needed include these. Group Facilitation SkillsMeeting PlanningProble m SolvingDecision MakingAgenda Development 2. Make Sure You Provide Proper Logistics Choose your meeting location and time carefully. If you try to cram 15 people into a conference room with six chairs, the meeting will be a disaster. When people are uncomfortable, cant see each other, cant hear, or are hungry, meeting results will suffer. Learn how to use logistics as a way to encourage great participation and remove barriers. You need to plan all of this in advance. Sending someone out mid-meeting to order sandwiches makes your meeting less effective. Logistics planning involves these skills. Logistics Planning and ExperienceDecision MakingThoughtful Consideration of the Needs of Others 3. Recording the Meeting Minutes The last critical part of planning a meeting is the meeting minutes. Who will take them? Who will distribute them? If you dont have a designated administrative person, consider doing them yourself or rotate the responsibility among the team members. If Jane did the minutes last week, its Johns turn this week. If youre using a whiteboard or a flip chart to collect ideas, give the person writing enough time to document them correctly. Note-Taking SkillsDocumentation RelevanceUnderstanding Diversity and Inclusion How to Conduct a Meeting With your solid agenda, good location, and appropriate refreshments, you are ready for your meeting. To make your meeting a great working meeting (and not just an information dump), you will need to demonstrate appropriate meeting facilitation skills. To do this, you will want to focus on these three components of meeting facilitation. 1. Ask Questions Great questions stimulate great discussion. The article, 70 Awesome Coaching Questions Using the GROW Model, offers some outstanding discussion prompters. Ask questions to gain additional informationAsk questions to learn about different viewpointsAsk questions to note areas of agreement and disagreementAsk questions to confirm that you are really hearing exact ly what team members are contributingAsk questions to ascertain that you are sharing meaning with team members 2. Demonstrate Active Listening Active listening allows you to really and deeply know that you and the person you are listening to share meaning and have come to a thoughtful understanding of each others positions. When you paraphrase, check for understanding, and ask follow-up questions, it encourages more participation and keeps the discussion flowing. Make head nodding and other appropriate gestures to indicate understandingRepeat what you heard back to the other party so that you know you share meaningAsk questions to clarify anything you are uncertain aboutAsk follow-up questions to further expand your understandingUse words such as ah-ha, yes, I understand, and the like to indicate understanding 3. Lead a Proper Brainstorming Session Most people think they already know how to brainstorm. However, they usually dont. In too many settings, the effectiveness of brainstorm ing is reduced by poor process management, strong social or political pressures and poor facilitation skills. Many people have never truly experienced the power of a well-run brainstorming session. Practice effective facilitation skillsManage the introduction of ideas by participantsMake certain that all participants have an equal opportunity to speakManage competing conversations and people talking over one anotherDevise an effective way to narrow down the brainstormed choices to a manageable numberResolve any conflicts that arise How to Solve Problems in a Meeting The second type of meeting requires different meeting facilitation skills. You wouldnt need to meet if everyone already agreed on the solution. You come together to share information and develop answers and this means youll need to bring people together. Here are the skills youll need. 1. Consensus-Building Skills Consensus does not mean that everybody has to agree with a decision. It means that everyone has had an o pportunity to share their perspectives (potentially by brainstorming) and propose ideas. Following this, the key to consensus is that all team members agree to support the direction even if it was not their original choice. Proper meeting facilitation will guide the group from idea sharing to the development of an effective decision.Reaching consensus takes more time, but will usually gain stronger buy-in from the group at large. However, remember that consensus is not the ultimate goal.An effective decision for the problem at hand is the most important issue. Consensus Decision Making Resource See A Six-Step Consensus Decision Making Framework for more on how to lead a team through a consensus decision-making process. 2. Conflict Resolution Skills Whenever there is a roomful of people involved in solving a problem, conflict is inevitable. In fact, conflict over the task or issue is viewed by team researchers as part of the process for effective decision-making. A manager must learn how to harness the power of conflict in a positive way. Manage the discussion to listen to all viewpointsLead the discussion to identify areas of agreement and disagreementUse facilitation skills to make certain participants feel heard out 3. Non-Verbal Communication Skills While researchers argue over the exact percentages, most would agree that more than 50% of communication is non-verbal. A manager needs to be able to read the groups tone and body language to assess their level of engagement, candor, and commitment.Your understanding of non-verbal communication can help see when there is true agreement versus spoken agreement just to finish the meeting.Be cognizant of body language as a way to experience the total communication voice of an individual or a team. The Bottom Line Time is a precious asset in life and at work. Strive to manage meetings for optimal efficiency and effectiveness. Learning, practicing and applying the nine facilitation skills identified above is a great place to start.