Facilitation pointers

We could all use a lot more ‘easier’ in our lives, especially in the complex field of community conservation. Fortunately, we have a solution for you: great facilitation. Effective facilitation of meetings, gatherings, and processes can help to increase productivity, foster collaboration, improve decision-making, build trust, and prevent or resolve conflicts. We’re not making this up: to ‘facilitate’ means to make an action or process easy or easier. 

In this Reader, we asked some of our Maliasili team members who are expert facilitators to provide their facilitation tips and tricks for you to help make your work a little bit easier.

Make your participants feel comfortable →

Scenario:You have a group of people who have never been all together in a room before, but are now with you for a day-long meeting. What’s the first thing you do to make them feel welcome and comfortable? 

Top Tip: The first thing we like to do at Maliasili before starting any meeting is to get everyone’s voice in the room. We want to bring their focus to the group and encourage them to open up and feel comfortable to speak. So we do a ‘check-in.’ Basically, we ask a question that is engaging and shares new information about each person that the others would like to know. This helps you to gauge how people are doing, and starts to build trust within the group. It also levels the playing field as it gives everyone a chance to speak right from the start. 

Some check-in examples:

• What is top of mind for you coming into this workshop/meeting? (what are you thinking?)

• If you were to describe your current state of being as the weather, what would you be right now? (e.g., ‘sunny', 'scattered clouds', 'stormy', etc.)

• Top Tool: Here’s a great resource to help you generate check-ins and check-outs.

Ensure participatory decision-making →

Scenario:You want to get everyone's input on something, but you are concerned that because there are senior staff members in the room, their opinions will influence what others say, or don't say.

Top tips: Getting everyone’s voices and opinions helps ensure an organization makes accurate decisions and choices that address real and urgent needs. When power dynamics pose a challenge, you can use a few different strategies: 

• Same-time voting: To get everyone's opinion, use a voting mechanism, such as voting dots or voting with marker pens, where everyone has to vote at the same time. You can tally the votes to see which improvement area gets the most votes and becomes the key priority area to take forward.

• Break-out groups: Break people into small groups to discuss a topic on their own and present back their recommendations and opinions. When you select your groups, be aware of power dynamics and consider creating groups where senior leaders won’t sway other’s opinions.

Handling difficult situations →

Scenario:You are holding a community, team, or partner meeting. One participant is overzealous and is dominating the discussion. Their points are useful and interesting, but they leave few chances for others to comment and they keep taking the conversation in a different direction than it should be going. You want to ensure everyone's voice is heard in the plenary and also contain this participant. 

Top Tips: We’ve all been there. That overly excited person who is dominating the discussion and taking you off course. Here are some ways you can take back control without letting them know it!

• The ‘Parking Lot’: Designate an area as the “parking lot” at the start of your workshop or meeting. Tell participants that if they provide suggestions or points that are useful but not relevant to the topic, you’ll write them down and put them there so that they can be returned to at a later date. This helps ensure great ideas don’t get lost, it helps people know they’ve been heard, and it also allows for you to stay on track in a polite way. 

• Be honest: For the difficult participant who is disruptive, consider having a private side conversation with that person during a break to give feedback so they can understand how their behavior affects the group. Also, as the facilitator you have the ability to call on others, you can say, “I’d like to hear from people who haven’t spoken yet” when asking for input.

• Use breakout groups: To get everyone’s opinion, you could also put people into groups to shift the dynamic, and give others an opportunity to share in a smaller gathering. The smaller groups make most people feel more comfortable to open up and voice opinions.

Avoid putting people on the ‘defense’ →

Scenario:When looking to improve on something, it first means you need to understand what needs improving. This can make people feel vulnerable. Rather than seeing it as an opportunity to improve, they may stay on the defensive, which is less productive.    

Top Tips: As a facilitator you want to make sure people feel safe and that negative attention isn’t going to be placed on them. Here are some tips to help people stay comfortable and productive even during tough conversations. Frame the conversation along the lines of what needs to be done to improve delivery on the organization’s mission (or ensure the strategic plan is implemented effectively) rather than directly asking what needs to be done to improve the organization. This reframing often helps put a different perspective on the issues and helps bring out a more positive and forward looking discussion. 

• Leaders go first: Identify the people who hold more power or responsibility and talk to them about what you want to achieve in the discussion. Ask that they model the behavior of being open about reflection and critical feedback and call on them first so others feel more comfortable.

• Small groups and paired walk: Use small groups to dig into challenging areas first. At Maliasili we love paired walks where participants team up and walk while discussing a specific question.

• Sticky-note out the problem: Ask people to write down their concerns or challenges on sticky notes and then collect them together before sharing them all back with the group. This will allow people’s opinions to remain anonymous while still getting a lot of valuable feedback.

When you’re running out of time during an important discussion →

Scenario: You have underestimated the amount of time you need for your entire agenda.You are running behind schedule, but the participants in the workshop are engaged and getting involved in important discussions that might result in really fruitful feedback and ideas.

Top tips:

• Be flexible: When facilitating, you want to stay flexible and allow sessions at times to unfold organically so that there is space for good thinking and discussions. When planning for your session, always overestimate time needed for meaty discussions. If in the moment, you are running out of time, that’s okay. Alone or with your co-facilitators, work to adapt the plan to prioritize what’s most important. 

• Do a Who/What/When: If you completely run out of time, doing a ‘Who, What, When’ with the group as part of the closing makes it clear how the discussions can be brought forward. 

Here is an example of what a “Who/What/When” might look like after you have worked with your group to fill it out together.

Mediating in moments of conflict →

Scenario:You are running a workshop or meeting that is becoming increasingly heated. People feel passionate about a topic and are getting angry and charged the more they talk about it. It's an important issue to discuss, and you know it's critical that it gets discussed, but the conversation is not feeling productive.

Top Tips: 

• Use the 'Stop and Notice' method: It’s easy to try to avoid conflict, seeking to harmonize a group or resolve conflict at the earliest opportunity. But conflict can be a creative and necessary process for a group to explore their purpose and make decisions fully. If things are heightened, use the 'Stop and Notice' method. Ask everyone to just notice and share what they are thinking or feeling. Use this especially when there is a lot of emotion in the room, things are getting out of control, the meeting is stuck, or the group is exhibiting unproductive behaviors. You can also lead a short breathing exercise. When we are stressed, our breathing can become shallow and rapid, which can exacerbate feelings of anxiety and tension. By taking deep, intentional breaths, we can slow down our heart rate, and promote relaxation and calm. 
   

• Ask the group to suggest the best way forward: Don't feel as the facilitator you have come up with the solution to the group's problem. Ask them to share ideas about the best way forward - you should avoid sharing your personal opinions and instead confine your contributions to observations on process, statements of fact, questions to help propel the discussion, and clarification and summarization.

People are losing focus and group energy is low →

Scenario: During a workshop, you notice the group is disengaged and low on energy (note: this often happens just after lunch!). Despite your attempts to get them to participate, no one is speaking up. You begin to feel frustrated and panicked, worrying that you are doing something wrong… 

Top tip: It’s normal for group energy to fluctuate during a workshop - with  highs, lows, and in betweens. Part of your job as a  facilitator is tuning into this energy and adjusting your approach accordingly. When energy is low, encourage individual reflective or creative work, like free writing or drawing. Alternatively, send people outside for a paired walk to get them moving. When they return, do a quick energizer before resuming the workshop. Playing upbeat music is a great way to energize the group.

Bringing a session to a close →

Scenario:You have just facilitated an intense, energetic, and important session, but time is almost finished and you need to wrap things up quickly. What could you do to bring closure so that people don’t feel like things are unfinished?   

Top tip: Something that we like to do at Maliasili when ending any meeting is a ‘check-out.’ This pretty much mirrors the ‘check-in’. Once again, this usually involves asking a question that is aimed at getting some feedback from people about how they’re feeling or what they’re thinking. This is especially useful when facilitating a multi-day session as it can give you an important indication of how things are going and what you may need to prioritize the next day.  

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