Developing Potential Australia

Facilitation skills

2 days

Two days packed with techniques for resolving issues in large or small groups.

Case studies are used to apply the skills and plenty of time is allocated to discuss specific situations that participants face.

What is facilitation?

Participants identify situations that require facilitation skills. These range from large formal meetings to informal chats with only a few people.

• How do you recognise a successful facilitation?
• What role does the facilitator play?
• The most important responsibility of the facilitator – protecting the process

Building your credibility as a facilitator

• What do people respect in a good a facilitator?
• How to establish a rapport with people
• When should the facilitator take control and when should they keep out of the discussion?
• How to use your body language and eye contact to look confident
• How to vary your tone of voice to get people’s attention

The broad structure for working through issues

Although it is not possible to structure every discussion we provide a general approach for working through issues logically.

• Agreeing the norms of behaviour for the meeting
• Clarifying the real issues
• Generating ideas
• Refining and evaluating ideas
• Agreeing actions

Recognising appropriate and inappropriate behaviour

One of the facilitator’s roles is to be aware people's behaviour and ensure it is acceptable to everyone involved.

• How to build trust with participants – simple ways to break down barriers
• How to get agreement for the ‘norms’ of behaviour
• What is passive, aggressive and assertive behaviour?
• What are the costs of passive behaviour?
• When does a ‘healthy debate’ become aggressive?
• How to recognise classic indicators of passive and aggressive behaviour

Encouraging assertive behaviour

• How to paraphrase personal attacks as objective criticism that the group can debate
• The importance of the facilitator’s behaviour as a role model

Encouraging discussion

• What are the best open and closed questions to encourage and control discussion?
• How do you encourage passive people to contribute without putting them under pressure?
• How to use eye contact to control people’s behaviour
• How to keep track of contributions and ensure everyone has a chance to speak
• Where should meetings take place and where should people sit?

Expressing your views confidently

• A proven 3 step technique for presenting your ideas in a clear and confident way
• Using questions to counter unreasonable demands or personal criticisms
• Simple techniques for ‘buying time’ when you are under pressure
• Summarising arguments clearly and succinctly

Breaking deadlocks & resolving conflict

• The three classic strategies for breaking a deadlock
• When is each strategy appropriate?
• How to bring the group back to the key issues when they become sidetracked

Controlling aggressive people

• Why are people aggressive in meetings?
• What is likely to increase a person’s aggression?
• Practical ways to slow aggressive people down and gain control of the situation
• When can you use allies in the group to calm aggressive people down?

Understanding differences between people

The main message from this section is to respect people who approach issues differently to you. Participants can complete a questionnaire to identify their type or they can simply learn about Jung’s theory and use this knowledge to determine their own type after the session.

• A brief overview of Jung’s theory of personality types
• What sort of information do sensing and intuitive people trust when solving problems?
• What do thinking and feeling people consider important when making a decision?
• Summarising people’s views using language that can bridge the gap in understanding between the various types
• What are other powerful barriers between people? (e.g. culture, age, education etc.)

Basic meeting skills (optional for in-house)

• How to prepare an informative and logical agenda
• Choosing the right time and place
• How to record discussions and actions
• Writing accurate minutes

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