We all share that fear, and it often drives us to over-facilitate or too feel overly responsible. In meetings, we are busy making ourselves look useful or helpful, or showing that we know something. But those behaviors are about us and not about the group’s needs. Our job as facilitators is to serve our clients’ needs.

If this dynamic sounds familiar to you, try the following exercise:

1. Define competence. What is competent?? List what you man by that. Don’t just list a few, try to list them all. Keep writing until you start to feel it’s silly. If you dig deep enough you find you have some funny beliefs driving you, and those need to be examined.
2. What’s driving you? When you look at the list, what sticks out? What is motivating your actions?? The need to be the expert? Fear of making a mistake? Of getting fired??
Examine your own motivation. Then move to step 3.
3. Decide what is in the best interest of the group. Ask yourself, how does my doing these things help the group build its own self-responsibility or capacity to resolve its own issues? What are a good facilitator’s goals? How am I supporting the group’s goals? Align your behavior with the outcomes you want for the group.
4. Make it manageable. Is it possible to achieve all those standards?? If you had to throw three quarters of the list out, what would you save?

As always, I’d love to hear your reactions or any tips you have for facilitators to help them and their groups be more successful.

• Summarizing: Recapping the conversation. “This is where I think you are…”
• Normalizing: Describing the situation as a normal part of the process. “This is exactly where you should be…, all groups go through this…”
• Gatekeeping: Maintaining a balanced conversation. Helping reluctant participants to get heard and reducing the airtime of “over-talkers.” “We haven’t heard from a few people in the room yet—I’d like to ask them if they have something to add.”
• Acknowledging: Recognizing a contribution or effort. “Thank you for offering that comment”, or “I understand how hard that must have been for you.”
• Giving context and locating the conversation: Stating the overall goal and how a conversation fits into the bigger picture. “Remember that we are discussing X; this conversation is connected in this way…”
• Paraphrasing and connecting: Repeating back what was said in your own words and helping the participants link what they are saying to the conversation at hand. “Is this what you mean? How does that relate to this conversation—or is it another topic?”
• Questioning: Actively exploring or asking questions to assist the group or an individual in contributing effectively. “Can anyone summarize where we are? Is this conversation important?”
• Interrupting and reiterating ground rules: Interceding to ask someone to abide by the agreed-upon rules of conduct. “Excuse me; I believe we agreed to one topic at a time” or XYZ…
• Naming the topic, the behavior: Simply stating what you are seeing or hearing. “Here is what I see happening…”
• Theming / taking a meta-view: Summarizing a series of related comments and finding a common theme, then tying the theme to the overall conversation. “Here is how what we are talking about relates to a bigger issue…”
• Locating lost threads: Noticing what topics or comments have been lost or ignored. “A minute ago you were discussing XYZ; are you done with that conversation?”

A week went by and I called him. With some surprise in his voice he told me that he had seen number of things that he had not seen before. He talked about how well this person handled a meeting, how she created a working paper that was very thorough. He also had seen her ask some really good questions, and so much more. Overall, he was surprised by what he had observed and now was reluctant to fire her. He admitted to becoming so focused on the negative that he had become blind to her strengths and contributions. His decision ultimately was to continue observing her over a longer period of time to ensure a balanced viewpoint.

This dynamic happens to us all. There is a saying, “We are what we see.” We create our lives through what we choose to see. It’s easy to go out every day and “see” rudeness or other negative behaviors, especially if that’s what we are looking for. That’s one of the ways we create our world view – that things are really bad in our society. But what if we decided to look for the good in the world – kind gestures, heroic acts, simple but polite kindnesses – would we begin to see good in our world? Would we change our world view? And if we change our world view, I believe we would be happier, which in turn, if my guess is correct, would make us more inclined to act accordingly.

Try it for a week and see what happens. Commit to looking for all the kind gestures or for all the good news. See what happens and notice the effect on you. I’d love to hear what you learn.

Time out.

My external reaction: Calm, cool, collected.

My internal reaction: Panic, fear and anxiety, accompanied with thoughts such as, “I am totally incompetent” and “I better find a way to crawl to the door without flying objects hitting me.”

Resume Action: I stand there looking like the consummate facilitator, thoughtful and nonplussed. I allow the silence to settle. After what seems like a century, another board member pipes up, “Of course! Every time we do strategic planning we get clear on our direction, how we will use our resources and how we will achieve our goals. When we get clear, some people decide that’s not the future they want. They decide to move on, while the
people who embrace the vision recommit.”

There is a palpable shift in energy and the rest of the board nods enthusiastically in agreement. They sign the deal.

What lessons can you take away from my experience?

1. Strategic planning, if done well, brings clarity of direction.
2. Silence can be your friend. Allow it.
3. There is wisdom in the room even if it’s not yours.
4. Look cool even if you don’t feel cool.