Master Your Game: Facilitated Meetings
Master Your Game: Facilitated Meetings
Last month, we started the series on Effective Meetings. This issue is about meeting management styles.
Run more effective and productive meetings by understanding the difference between chairing and facilitating meetings, then deciding which style works for you and your team in different situations. Are your meetings well-facilitated? Ask yourself these questions:
Who is your meeting leader?
Does the meeting leader chair your meetings or facilitate them?
Does the meeting leader make the final decision?
How well does one meeting link to the next?
What feedback do you get from meeting participants?
Chairing and Facilitating
There are two distinct meeting management styles, chairing and facilitating, both with an appropriate place in general office meetings.
Typically, the chair is not a neutral member of the meeting. Consequently, he or she tends to have a significant influence on the decisions and outcome of each meeting.* A chair is most useful at the start of a meeting - to review the minutes from a previous meeting, share information, and to manage a reporting session from members. In these meetings, the chair is often an active participant, sharing his or her views on the content of the meeting.
The facilitator, on the other hand, is a neutral member of the group and there to empower other members. The facilitator encourages full participation, promotes mutual understanding, fosters inclusive solutions and promotes broader thinking strategies. Group members are encouraged to expand their thinking outside of the obvious solution. The outcome is better decisions that are supported by all group members.**
Putting it together
The meeting leader sets the agenda, allocates discussion times and establishes the meeting process for discussing each topic. She or he will also determine what information needs to be compiled and distributed to members prior to the meeting.
Using two meeting management styles is one way of running effective meetings. Meeting leaders can be chair, facilitator, or both. Meeting leaders that act as facilitator must be neutral on the content. A common role arrangement is to have the meeting leader act as chair to open the meeting with the agenda, take care of the housekeeping and information sharing portions of the session, then either switch roles to facilitation, or hand the meeting over to a facilitator.
Facilitators are responsible for ensuring that all members are contributing to the discussion. He or she will do process checks throughout the meeting to ensure the discussion is on track with the objectives of the meeting. At the end of each meeting, the facilitator reviews the next steps to be taken – discussing what will be done, by whom and when. The final meeting step is the evaluation of the meeting process. Members get the opportunity to provide comments on which processes worked well and which areas require improvement.
Benefits of a well-managed meeting
Well-structured meetings that bring out the collective wisdom of all participants generate high quality solutions quickly that are more likely to be successfully implemented. Group members will have a higher level of buy in and will be more active in the implementation stage. Subsequent meetings to track the initiative allows group members to keep abreast of the implementation process and deal quickly with obstacles.
When working with corporate clients, meeting leaders will often say "this is a very quiet group, it is difficult to get them to participate." I have observed many chaired meetings where the majority of the group is disengaged from the conversation. However, in meetings I have facilitated, I have surprised many a leader with the results. By using facilitation techniques, I am able to create a safe environment and engage people in an in-depth focused dialogue. It is exciting to watch people become fully involved in the dialogue, contributing their thoughts on the issue being explored and expressing their commitment to take action on decisions. The bottom line: facilitation produces excellent results.
The next article in the series will cover Designing an Effective Meeting Agenda.
Wishing you effective meetings,
Jacque Small
Master Your Game Facilitated Meetings - To learn more about this author, visit Jacque Small's Website.
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Great meetings don't happen by chance they happen by design. Successful meetings are well thought out and well planned events. The sense of having a successful meeting is dependent on an appointed group member, a chair or facilitator, taking active responsibility for all aspects of the meeting from preplanning to evaluation.
Last month, we started the series on Effective Meetings. This issue is about meeting management styles.
Run more effective and productive meetings by understanding the difference between chairing and facilitating meetings, then deciding which style works for you and your team in different situations. Are your meetings well-facilitated? Ask yourself these questions:
Who is your meeting leader?
Does the meeting leader chair your meetings or facilitate them?
Does the meeting leader make the final decision?
How well does one meeting link to the next?
What feedback do you get from meeting participants?
Chairing and Facilitating
There are two distinct meeting management styles, chairing and facilitating, both with an appropriate place in general office meetings.
Typically, the chair is not a neutral member of the meeting. Consequently, he or she tends to have a significant influence on the decisions and outcome of each meeting.* A chair is most useful at the start of a meeting - to review the minutes from a previous meeting, share information, and to manage a reporting session from members. In these meetings, the chair is often an active participant, sharing his or her views on the content of the meeting.
The facilitator, on the other hand, is a neutral member of the group and there to empower other members. The facilitator encourages full participation, promotes mutual understanding, fosters inclusive solutions and promotes broader thinking strategies. Group members are encouraged to expand their thinking outside of the obvious solution. The outcome is better decisions that are supported by all group members.**
Putting it together
The meeting leader sets the agenda, allocates discussion times and establishes the meeting process for discussing each topic. She or he will also determine what information needs to be compiled and distributed to members prior to the meeting.
Using two meeting management styles is one way of running effective meetings. Meeting leaders can be chair, facilitator, or both. Meeting leaders that act as facilitator must be neutral on the content. A common role arrangement is to have the meeting leader act as chair to open the meeting with the agenda, take care of the housekeeping and information sharing portions of the session, then either switch roles to facilitation, or hand the meeting over to a facilitator.
Facilitators are responsible for ensuring that all members are contributing to the discussion. He or she will do process checks throughout the meeting to ensure the discussion is on track with the objectives of the meeting. At the end of each meeting, the facilitator reviews the next steps to be taken – discussing what will be done, by whom and when. The final meeting step is the evaluation of the meeting process. Members get the opportunity to provide comments on which processes worked well and which areas require improvement.
Benefits of a well-managed meeting
Well-structured meetings that bring out the collective wisdom of all participants generate high quality solutions quickly that are more likely to be successfully implemented. Group members will have a higher level of buy in and will be more active in the implementation stage. Subsequent meetings to track the initiative allows group members to keep abreast of the implementation process and deal quickly with obstacles.
When working with corporate clients, meeting leaders will often say "this is a very quiet group, it is difficult to get them to participate." I have observed many chaired meetings where the majority of the group is disengaged from the conversation. However, in meetings I have facilitated, I have surprised many a leader with the results. By using facilitation techniques, I am able to create a safe environment and engage people in an in-depth focused dialogue. It is exciting to watch people become fully involved in the dialogue, contributing their thoughts on the issue being explored and expressing their commitment to take action on decisions. The bottom line: facilitation produces excellent results.
The next article in the series will cover Designing an Effective Meeting Agenda.
Wishing you effective meetings,
Jacque Small
Master Your Game Facilitated Meetings - To learn more about this author, visit Jacque Small's Website.
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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David BarrDavid Barr is the President of Venture Opportunities, Inc. David has been a professional business broker/intermediary since 1980 focusing on General Business Brokerage and Mergers and Acquisitions representing client transaction value from $400,000 to $20,000,000. Mr. Barr has handled the sale of over four hundred and fifty companies. David earned a university degree from the State University of New York majoring in economics and business. David holds the Mergers and Acquisition Master Intermediary and the Certified Business Intermediary designations from the International Business Brokers Association. He is also a Senior Business Analyst and a Texas licensed Real Estate Agent. For more information about David and Venture Opportunities, visit www.bizdealmaker.com. - Visit David Barr's Website |
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