Facilitation is underrated

Or the one skill that I wish to master

Sep 29, 2024

People tend to talk more about the must-have soft skills like teamwork, project management, leadership, etc yet not so much about facilitation. I want to put a spotlight to it today.

In my experience, there’re rare occasions or environment that would teach me this type of skill set, although the utilities this skill brings could be on and on. Back then at college, I learned about economic terms, business management over textbooks, while rushing my ass off every morning so I wouldn’t miss the 6:45 AM check-in hour. Later when I got to the 9-to-5 world, a lot of the times I was spending were for making pretty slides, navigating internal and external discussions, while trying to “find my true calling”.

I’ve never paid so much attention to facilitation, till I was exposed to the very occasions that were surrounded by the excelled facilitators. Mostly from the online courses that I joined this year including the ones from my coaches, many live sessions from Mở - Mơ & Hỏi and this movie night.

Facilitator (n) someone who helps to make something happen, or who makes it easier - Cambridge Dictionary

Why is this important?

You need this skill for literally so many occasions. From professional settings like at work, workshops, conferences to casual spaces like group reflection, break-out room discussions or a play date of a close friend group.

Imagine sitting in a boring class. Joining bad group discussions. Being dragged into meaningless meetings at work. You got the idea. Whenever holding these kinds of activities, remember there’re always work for better facilitation. I mean this for both one-on-one and one-to-many activities.

Good facilitation at good gatherings and discussions lead to us speaking from our heart, opening up our mind, while fostering better engagement between participants, and facilitators. Bad facilitation lets alone us feeling unwelcome, ideas couldn’t spark during brainstorming sessions, and other unmet needs remain at the end of the activity.

What have I learned from those good facilitators?

#1 Facilitate with safety

I’m talking about creating a psychological-safety environment, which very likely would affect how both facilitators and participants feel while attending.

Let’s take learning environment as an example. According to the four stages of psychological safety by Timothy R. Clarke, a safe classroom should allow these 4 elements:

Inclusion: Participants should feel safe when joining this community.
Learner: Participants are allowed to learn by speaking up and asking questions.
Contributor: Participants should feel safe when sharing information and ideas to others.
Challenger: Participants can bring up new ideas and challenge assumptions in a constructive conflicting setting.

There’re signs that you can tell about a non-safety classes where you feel intimidated by the instructors, embarrassed to raise voice, scared to speak up or be laughed at your questions. It’s when people don’t treat each other with enough respect and empathy, causing us stuck in the anxious zone of the room and never ask any question again.

Senior management: Why are you so shy? Can’t you say something?
The intern: Er…

Apparently not a very cool way to strike discussions in meetings when someone is focusing on calling out your assumed-negative emotions.

On other note, safety does not just lie on how the discussion is hold, it can start from the beginning when the facilitator gives his audience tactics to become more present with the setting. There’re several tips I’ve picked up from good facilitators in how to kick off an online workshop with safety:

Set up an almost perfect safe net:

Think about the venue where something is hosted, your bedroom and your learning desk at home before you do a Zoom call, the coffee shop you want to gather everyone for a group practice.

What are the sitting arrangement? How’s the room temperature gonna be? Will there be music or no sound at all? Are you gonna be surrounded by a crowd when you do that thing? Can you provide yourself other supported equipments and essentials to calm your nervous system? (Think of scented candles, a cup of warm beverage, your ready-to-use learning materials, etc)

Bring in warm-up activities:

Could be an open question. A quick poll. A freestyle check-in. A a round introduction. A 5-min meditation practice.

One of my favorite thing to do before joining an online workshop that was introduced by a mental health instructor is to do an emotion check-in and write down whatever thoughts we feel connected at that moment. Before we jump to the main agenda of the day.

Another good example is to use these practices that help regulate our nervous system and bring in balance:

Care to spread the words so we have more and more good facilitators?

#2 Facilitate with purpose

Sure there will be plenty of times when you do something just for the sake of having fun with it, or really to deliver small catching up talk after having seen your close friends for a long time. Many other times, there’s a need for meaningful gatherings, where the host aka the main facilitator brings ideas into life.

I joined a “casual meetup” of an online mental health course thinking that it was only a time for everyone to see each other IRL. It turned out to involve art crafting experiences, tarot reading, and a bunch of deep-talking conversations.

A brave host is the one who realizes that, unlike casual meetups, a gathering doesn’t have to be all about fun. Like a good book, a good gathering is meant to transport us. It’s meant to be meaningful and transformative. Walking out of a good gathering, we know there are parts of life that won’t be lived the same way. (Don’t be a chill host)

This movie night got me thinking about the theme of this post - facilitation in the art of hosting. And I thought there would never gonna be something that can replicate the experience and my feelings during that night, the day after that night, or so many other days passing after that night. There were triggering questions, thoughtful introduction and follow-up activities in that movie night that got us all hook.

bao chau

suddenly sets a very high standard for me when I think about similar gatherings.

Who knows being a first-time joiner could be so much fun and stimulated. That’s when I realize how heavy the role of facilitators play in gatherings and discussions could hold.

What do you want your audience to remember at the end of the event? What’s your 5-second lesson?

#3 Facilitate with attention

After carefully observing some experts of facilitation, I recognize some strength themes you could acquire and nurture to get better at it. All of those strengths need to be executed with attention, and handled with care.

From a daily standup of a team of 5 to a 200-participant kind of workshop, it gets harder and harder depending on the scale and the setting of such activities. Your attention soon needs to be on another level. You’re not just focusing on delivering the workshop idea, the gathering topic, yet also engaging with a large group of attendants. In which, not everyone can be progressive and proactive in helping you make this facilitating task less troublesome.

I’d like to use terms from CliftonStrengths (a strength test by Gallup) to discuss this topic. Below are the strengths that you’d love to earn when you need to be a facilitator or if you’re thinking of becoming one:

Empathy + Relator:
These help you feel and deeply resonate with what others are feeling in such environment. You can notice someone that is being uncomfortable within the group, or someone else that is making others uncomfortable due to their behaviors. You know when to be a big brother, when to be a bad cop. You learn to take action quick, and act wise on these situations.
Includer + Developer + Individualization:
These allow you to pay attention to the ones who haven’t had the chance to raise their voice yet, while knowing exactly what to say to make them feel acknowledge and accepted in a large (and sometimes full of strangers) group.
Strategic + Maximizer:
You know how the agenda should go, what should be done first and next, who should do what at which time and how to maximize the outcome of the activity you facilitate.
Arranger + Connectedness:
These give you the ability to actively listen to what the audience say while taking smart and quick notes before delivering to the whole group or bring in a recap slide. It’s also the ability to arrange the unplanned mess generated during gatherings and discussions and try to get everyone align.
The list can go on and on, depending on the context and event you facilitate.

Let’s try harder on facilitation

This post is a gentle reminder for me and a kind invitation to you to pay more attention whenever you get to host a discussion, a gathering, a meeting, a live class, etc.

Let’s make meaningful events while giving our audience a welcoming and memorable experience so they feel heard and seen when they come to us, to the thing that we facilitate. Let’s make things easier yet unforgettable. Let’s not be chill facilitators and let alone people with their digital devices or zoning out faces while others are passionately speaking.

Got any stories related to this topic? Feel free to drop me a comment, I’d love to hear from you <3

Help spread the words cuz the world needs more good facilitators, don’t you think?

Bài viết thuộc thử thách Viết Đều và Hay của Writing On The Net Alumni.

#wotn #vietdeuvahay