Facilitation

Disciplines > Change Management > Creating change > Facilitation

Method | Example | Discussion | See also

Method

Use skilled facilitators to support change activities (if you don't have any, either hire them in or train your own).

Facilitators can be used to guide various group events, from brainstorming and planning to improvement projects and change activities.

Facilitators can also act as team coaches, helping people to improve within themselves and work together in better ways.

Example

A team wants to do some process improvement, but do not know how, so they take on a facilitator who manages this process for them, guiding them through the analysis and solution processes.

A leader wants to engage in a heart-to-heart discussion with her team. She gets a facilitator to manage the meeting for her. Afterwards, she sits down with the facilitator to discuss how well the meeting went and to plan a follow-up session.

Discussion

Often in change people know what needs doing, but they do not know how to change or work together in the new context. Facilitators literally 'make things easier'. They do this in meetings and group sessions by owning the process whereby decisions and other activities are done, although they never own the content. Thus, they will help you make a decision, but they will not make the decision for you.

Facilitators are particularly useful for leaders who want to engage in the meeting without worrying about its process.

Normal coaching feeds people, helping them solve problems without teaching them how to solve problems. 'Developmental Facilitation' seeks to teach people to fish, for example by having sessions at the end of meetings where dysfunctional behaviors are surfaced and discussed.