While workplace conflict may initially seem destructive and uncomfortable, it can help organizations take creative and innovative approaches to refreshing processes, products, services and solutions. However, strong management is required to ensure a focus on innovation and creativity remains throughout the resolution process.
Effective facilitation is key to promoting collaborative problem solving for, planning, completing or updating procedures for tasks within a team. Skilled facilitators can help teams identify breakdowns in processes, make decisions for improvement, plan and implement procedures to achieve outcomes everyone agrees on. While some companies maintain the basic resolution format of setting objectives and allowing time and resources for internal teams to figure things out, many have realized the productivity of hiring effective facilitators to achieve their goals.
Why Effective Facilitation Is Important
Every organization requires management or personnel with exceptional facilitation skills to avoid unintended conflicts at any level of organizational structure. An effective facilitator takes control at important moments and in important meetings, allowing everyone to feel involved in and heard in working toward and achieving desired outcomes.
Oftentimes when an effective facilitator is lacking in a team, the groups or people whose voices are heard the loudest get their way—to the detriment of collective consideration and decision making. This can contribute to teams that avoid challenging the most assertive personalities in the group simply to keep the peace, leading to toxic workplace culture with diminished employee morale and no space for organizational creativity and innovation.
If you are finding your organization has become an echo chamber of agreeableness or is lacking in diversity of ideas and opinions, finding an external facilitator with exceptional skill and experience in cultivating effective communication and collective problem solving may be in order. Facilitators who have no direct interest in the organization or preexisting bias allow each person and group to be heard. They are great guides who help teams solve conflicts and achieve shared goals, ultimately allowing organizations to realize innovative and creative ideas for increasing business productivity.
What To Expect From an External Facilitator
Organizational meetings are platforms where important business decisions are made. However, in most cases, senior or executive team members are likely to guide business decisions and direction while junior employees have less sway. To enhance a more robust environment for creative contribution, bringing in an external facilitator for important business conferences can regulate an environment of respect and equity to enable cooperative decision making. Their responsibilities often include:
Guiding Conversations
Facilitators allow team members to hear and learn from each other by guiding conversations. They are trained to enable and manage an environment for positive engagement, constructive feedback and healthy disagreements. Tense situations can be experienced during organizational meetings that can make team members at any level of an organization feel intimidated or disengaged. Facilitators proactively prevent tense situations from escalating, and actively enhance engagement from all participants.
Encouraging Objectivity
Facilitators model and encourage open communication in organizations. A skilled facilitator will have a strong knack for explaining and demonstrating s how to remain objective while considering different opinions in discussions. Objectivity allows everyone to participate in constructive problem solving instead of falling victim to defensive combat. Facilitators assist in allowing the team to reflect on views from all members and encouraging space for new approaches and plans to achieve organizational objectives.
Improving Employee Confidence
Besides promoting objectivity in business discussions, facilitators aid in nurturing employee confidence. Confidence is critical for employee participation and performance in an environment. Many employees report feeling that their organizations value them less if they lack the opportunity to be heard or contribute to workplace solutions and goals.
An effective facilitator creates an environment of psychological safety for all team members, ensuring employees that they are valued members of the team and with the company for a reason. The creation of a safe space and encouragement that their opinions matter invites employees at all levels to share ideas. The result is more effective discussions, increased employee confidence in expressing their opinions without trepidation and, ultimately, greater diversity in productive ideas within an organization.
Optimizing Team Productivity
After guiding discussions to clarify organizational goals, process assessment and possible solutions, a key responsibility of an effective facilitator is to ensure a team collaborates to build next steps and a plan to achieve desired objectives. By giving each team member an opportunity to express their views in preceding discussions, facilitators have ensured all important points have been considered vetted in advance of establishing a go-forward plan. This allows for a smooth, natural transition into strategy building and implementation that is sped up by access to collective feedback from the team. Facilitators assist the team in agreeing on and establishing a clear go-forward plan, optimizing implementation, solution and productivity.
Essential Skills for Effective Facilitators
For optimal outcomes, organizations should seek out the services of the best facilitators around. Here are important skills to look for when assessing a potential external facilitator:
Effective and Authentic Communicator
A meeting can only be as good as its communication. Effective facilitators make you feel comfortable and understand how to convey ideas simply and concisely to a particular audience. Great facilitators speak confidently, especially when giving instructions and guiding discussion progress, and they inspire teams to action.
In addition, effective communication involves a clear understanding of the topic at hand and its context within an organization—facilitators are required to paraphrase individual ideas in the context of shared objectives to promote mutual understanding. When assessing an external facilitator, focus on candidates who have deep experience with team management, but also someone who comes across as authentic and altruistic. This will ensure a facilitator can quickly and easily inspire credibility and establish authority with your team. Authenticity is a key factor in establishing trust and personal connection, and achieving both with a team offers a facilitator better insight into understanding group dynamics and how to best support each group.
Adaptable and Relationship-Oriented
Facilitators are used to dealing with different groups, but they must be able to adapt to your organization’s particular dynamics. An effective facilitator will demonstrate flexibility in exploring the process and strategies used within different teams. For example, executive and junior employees teams have different facilitation needs, and an effective facilitator must recognize the teams’ social and professional relationships and incorporate processes and strategies relevant to each group.
Look for an effective facilitator who does not stick to a methodical management structure, but who is able to enjoy a playful moment or interact informally with the group at appropriate times. This promotes bonding and humanizes a situation or conflict resolution, and when members feel the facilitation is personal and adapts to their unique needs they’re more likely to engage effectively.
Time Management Pro
Time management is a critical skill for any facilitator. Guiding productive conversations entails keeping control over time allotted to group member contributions to maintain momentum and enthusiasm from everyone involved. It’s easy to become overwhelmed in sessions with many stakeholders and often conversations with a lot of contributors can get derailed.
An effective facilitator is an experienced pro and understands how to manage time and stakeholder contributions to ensure a meeting covers all important discussion points. A skilled facilitator will also understand how to afford all group members adequate time to address their agenda items without feeling rushed, as well as building in moments for reflection and response so all members are able to participate in productive contributions.
