What Is The Role Of The Facilitator?

Many people are asked to facilitate meetings in their workplace. However, without appropriate training, such an invitation to facilitate can cause a person a good deal of anxiety, before, during and after the event.

The role of facilitator can be demanding and  a facilitator has a number of conflicting pressures on her:-

• to facilitate discussion and also keep the group moving forward so that they achieve their objectives.
• to facilitate processes and an approach that has been agreed with their client or project manager, and also to be able to respond effectively to the unexpected that emerges in the workshop.
• to facilitate individuals to voice opinions and also seek to achieve group consensus.
• to facilitate creativity, idea generation and speculation and also to gain commitment to action.

What Constitutes Excellent Facilitation?

A facilitator needs to be flexible. A facilitator also needs to be able to access their own reserves of energy and help the group to access theirs.

Another key attribute of a successful facilitator is the ability to ‘stay present’. This means being in the moment with the group, and what is going on in the room at each step of the journey together. This is necessary no matter whether the group is working together for a few hours or a few days. It is a skill that can be improved by becoming more self-aware.

Facilitation Training

Facilitation training needs to provide opportunities for participants to explore the types of approaches that they will need to take when they are facilitators.

Facilitation training should include topics such as how to engender a sense of cooperation and collaboration in the group, how to inspire a group, how to challenge individuals to go beyond their self-imposed boundaries, how to direct the group and how to handle difficult situations.

In order for facilitation training to be effective it needs to include both personal and professional development. Who you are and how you react to a group of people, is just as important to consider when facilitating, as any of the facilitation tools and techniques, or facilitation processes that you may learn.

Learning these skills in tandem will build real confidence to facilitate.

Business Benefits Of Facilitator Training

When your organisation has a cohort of trained facilitators there is a greater chance of improving the meeting culture of your organisation. A facilitator can help make meetings more enjoyable and productive by releasing more of the creative potential of your people.

With a group of trained facilitators you will be able to deliver real productivity improvements for your organisation.

Why Choose Anatellô Facilitation Training?

Anatellô has extensive experience in designing and delivering successful facilitation training. Our facilitation training includes both personal and professional development.

Anatellô offers facilitation courses tailored to the level of previous facilitation experience of the participants. We offer facilitator training course from beginners’ level, through to advanced. At advanced level facilitators are generally looking to increase their repertoire of tools and techniques or solve facilitation challenges they have encountered.

We can provide courses to focus on building skills in areas of particular interest to the participants – for example facilitating idea generation meetings or facilitating strategy and planning meetings.

A selection of some of the topics we cover on our courses.

• History of facilitation including the work of Carl Rogers and John Heron.
• What is facilitation?
• Planning for facilitated meetings
• Creating climates that support creativity
• Awareness of self and the impact you have on others
• Understanding group dynamics
• Tools and techniques to stimulate creativity
• Effective processes for meetings
• Designing workshops that deliver results
• Dealing with ambiguity and uncertainty for self and the group

Along with learning tools, techniques and processes, our courses encourage participants to explore the ‘human’ side of organisations and develop their own facilitation style. This means that Anatellô’s facilitation courses will enable participants to become fully rounded facilitators, who can face a variety of facilitation challenges and make your organisation’s meetings more productive.