Facilitating with Ease! Core Skills for Facilitators, Team Leaders and Members, Managers, Consultants, and Trainers E-Book

Ingrid Bens

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 366

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Since the publication of the first edition of Facilitating withEase! in 2000, this bestselling book has become the "go-to"reference for anyone who wants to become skilled in the art offacilitation. This thoroughly revised and updated third editionincludes easy-to-follow instructions, techniques, and hands-ontools. Facilitating with Ease! offers the basics on runningproductive meetings with confidence and includes the informationneeded to train others to become skilled facilitators as well.Filled with dozens of exercises, surveys, and checklists that canbe used to transform anyone into an effective facilitator, thisrevised editioncovers new topics such as: * Why and when leaders should facilitate and how to manageneutrality * Diversity, globalization, new technologies, and employeeengagement * When leaders should facilitate and when others should doit * Sharing facilitation with others * This new edition also includes meeting design template,surveys, and questionnaires Praise for Facilitating with Ease! "Facilitating With Ease! provides clear and effectiveguidelines for group facilitation. In China we are using this bookto help organizations develop facilitative leaders who cansuccessfully invoke the spirit of cooperation and teamsynergy." ?Ren Wei, professional facilitator, X'ian, China "Facilitating With Ease! helps beginners as well asexperienced facilitators find their way among different aspects offacilitation. Easy to understand, this book provides insight intothe principles of facilitation and examples of practicalapplications for concrete situations." ?Sieglinde Hinger, Siemens Corporation, Austria "Facilitating with Ease! is the fundamental read if you wantto be an effective facilitator. We refer to it all the time andconsider it a core competency for our consultants." ?Ian Madell, managing director, LEVEL5 Branded Business Advisors,Toronto, Canada "If you're only going to buy one book on facilitation, this is theone to buy! That's what we tell the managers, consultants andfacilitators who attend our facilitation training programs. It's agold mine of ideas, resources and practical tools." ?Ronnie McEwan, director, Kinharvie Institute, Glasgow, Scotland "I have been using Ingrid's materials for many years and find herbooks to be far above everything else out there. This latestrevision builds on what was already great and will surely increasethe effectiveness of any practitioner." ?Mark Vilbert, program leader, Boeing Leadership Center

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter One: Understanding Facilitation

What is Facilitation?

What Does a Facilitator Do?

What Do Facilitators Believe?

What Are Typical Facilitator Assignments?

Differentiating Between Process and Content

Facilitation Tools

Core Practices Overview

What Does Neutral Mean?

How Assertive Can a Facilitator Be?

The Language of Facilitation

Conversation Structures

Starting a Facilitation

During a Facilitation

Ending a Facilitation

Effective Note Taking

The Rules of Wording

Managing the Flip Chart

Focus on Questioning

Best and Worst Facilitator Practices

Facilitator Behaviors and Strategies

Core Practices Observation Sheet

Process Flow Observation Sheet

Facilitation Skill Levels

Facilitation Skills Self-Assessment

Chapter Two: Who Can Facilitate

When to Use an Internal Facilitator

When to Use an External Facilitator

When Leaders Facilitate

Facilitation Strategies for Leaders

Best and Worst Facilitation Practices for Leaders

Facilitation As a Leadership Style

Additional Role Challenges

Chapter Three: Facilitation Stages

1. Assessment and Design

2. Feedback and Refinement

3. Final Preparation

4. Starting a Facilitation

5. During a Facilitation

6. Ending a Facilitation

7. Following Up on a Facilitation

Seeking Feedback on Your Facilitation

Chapter Four: Knowing Your Participants

Conducting an Assessment

Group Assessment Survey

Comparing Groups to Teams

Understanding Team Stages

Forming—The Honeymoon Stage

Storming—The Potential Death of the Team

Norming—The Turning Point

Performing—The Ultimate Team Growth Stage

Adjourning—The Final Stage

Facilitation Strategies Chart

Team Effectiveness Survey

Chapter Five: Creating Participation

Creating the Conditions for Full Participation

Removing the Blocks to Participation

High-Participation Techniques

Group Participation Survey

Encouraging Effective Meeting Behaviors

Group Behaviors Handout

Observing Group Behaviors in Action

Peer Review Instructions

Peer Review Worksheet

Chapter Six: Effective Decision Making

Know the Four Types of Conversations

The Four Levels of Empowerment

Clarifying the Four Empowerment Levels

Shifting Decision-Making Paradigms

The Decision-Making Options

The Divergence/Convergence Model

The Importance of Building Consensus

Effective Decision-Making Behaviors

Symptoms, Causes, and Cures of Poor Decisions

Decision Effectiveness Survey

Chapter Seven: Facilitating Conflict

Comparing Arguments and Debates

Steps in Managing Conflict

The Five Conflict Options: Pros and Cons

Conflict Management Norms

Giving and Receiving Feedback

Making Interventions

Wording an Intervention

Dealing with Resistance

The Right Approach

Common Conflict Dilemmas

The Facilitative Conflict Management Process

Interpersonal Conflict Worksheet

Group Conflict Checklist

Conflict Observation Sheet

Conflict Effectiveness Survey

Chapter Eight: Meeting Management

Meetings That Work

Our Meetings Are Terrible!

The Fundamentals of Meeting Management

Sample Process Check Survey

Sample Exit Survey

Meeting Effectiveness Survey

Facilitating Virtual Meetings

Chapter Nine: Process Tools for Facilitators

Visioning

Sequential Questioning

S.W.O.T.

S.O.A.R.

Facilitative Listening

Appreciative Review

Brainstorming

Written Brainstorming

Affinity Diagrams

Gap Analysis

Needs and Offers Dialogue

Force-Field Analysis

Root-Cause Analysis

The Five Whys

Gallery Walk

Multi-Voting

Decision Grids

Constructive Controversy

Exit Surveys

Survey Feedback

Systematic Problem Solving

Systematic Problem Solving Worksheet 1

Systematic Problem Solving Worksheet 2

Systematic Problem Solving Worksheet 3

Systematic Problem Solving Worksheet 4

Systematic Problem Solving Worksheet 5

Systematic Problem Solving Worksheet 6

Systematic Problem Solving Worksheet 7

Systematic Problem Solving Worksheet 8

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting Worksheet

Chapter Ten: Process Designs

Introduction to the Sample Agendas

Session Planning Worksheet

About the Author

Acknowledgments

About the Website

Bibliography

More Praise for Facilitating with Ease!

“I have rarely run into a better collection of pragmatic tips, tools, and techniques. If you work with people to accomplish something important, save yourself a lifetime of trial and error: read this book, put its message to use, and start seeing where real collaboration can lead your organization.”

—Adriano Pianesi, ParticipAction Consulting, Inc., Washington, D.C.

“Ingrid Bens’ masterful book Facilitation with Ease! is a must-have for any facilitator regardless of experience. I use it extensively to review processes, tools and techniques before any engagement.”

—George F. Smith, CPF, Summit Consultants, Atlanta, Georgia

“Facilitating with Ease! is by far the easiest to use, most comprehensive and well structured resource guide I have ever seen! No wonder both new and seasoned facilitators find it invaluable. A must have if facilitation is a skill you need in your toolbox.”

—Larry L. Looker, Manager, Global Leadership Development, Amway Corporation, USA

“This book is just excellent! The comprehensive set of practical tools are for everyone engaged in improving how groups work. Helps you to just do it!”

—Ewa Malia, CPF, Polish Insitutute of Facilitation, Warsaw

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bens, Ingrid.

Facilitating with ease! : core skills for facilitators, team leaders and members, managers, consultants, and trainers / Ingrid Bens.—3rd ed.

p. cm. — (The Jossey-Bass Business and management series)

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-118-10774-4 (pbk.); 978-1-118-18114-0 (ebk.); 978-1-118-18115-7 (ebk.); 978-1-118-18116-4 (ebk.)

1. Teams in the workplace. 2. Group facilitation. I. Title.

HD66.B445 2012

658.4’022—dc23

2011042749

Introduction

It’s impossible to be part of an organization today and not attend meetings. Staff meetings, project meetings, task force meetings, planning and coordinating meetings ...the list is endless. The worst thing about many of these meetings is that they’re poorly run and waste valuable time.

Today, there’s been a growing recognition that effective meetings happen when proper attention has been paid to the process elements and when proceedings are skillfully facilitated.

For a long time, facilitation has been a rather vague and poorly understood practice, mastered only by human resource types. This is beginning to change. We’re now spending so much time in meetings and being asked to achieve so many important goals in teams that there’s a growing need for skilled facilitation throughout our organizations and our communities.

With its focus on asking instead of telling, listening, and building consensus, facilitation is the essential skill for anyone working collaboratively with others.

Instead of being relegated to HR, facilitation is fast becoming a core competency for anyone who leads a team, manages a project, heads up a committee, or manages a department. All of these people need to be able to create and manage effective group dynamics that foster true collaboration.

Facilitation is also a central skill for today’s managers, who are riding wave after wave of change. New demands are being placed on them. At the same time, the old command and control model of supervision, which worked for decades, is no longer as effective.

To get the most from people today, leaders have to know how to create buy-in, generate participation, and empower people.

To keep pace, today’s leaders need to be coaches, mentors, and teachers. At the core of each of these new roles is the skill of facilitation.

The Goal of This Book

This practical workbook has been created to make core facilitation tools and techniques readily available to the growing number of people who want to improve their process skills. It represents materials and ideas that have been collected, tested, and refined over decades of active facilitation in all types of settings. This third edition retains the core tools and instruments that made the first two editions so popular. In addition, new materials have been added to every chapter.

As in the first two editions, Facilitating with Ease! remains a practical workbook. While it builds on the theories of organization development pioneers such as Chris Argyris, Donald Schön, and Edgar Schein, this resource doesn’t aim to be theoretical. Instead, its focus is on providing the reader with the most commonly used process tools, in a simple and accessible format. This is not so much a book to be read, as one to be used!

The Audience

This workbook contains valuable information for anyone facilitating group interactions. This is a huge constituency, which includes:

team leaders and team membersproject managersany supervisor or manager who holds staff meetingscommunity developersteachers in traditional classroom settingstherapists who lead support groupsmarketing consultants who run focus groupsteachers of adult continuing education programsnegotiators and conflict mediatorsquality consultants leading process improvement initiatives like Six Sigmaconsultants intervening in conflictsanyone teaching others to facilitateanyone called on to lead a discussion or run a meeting.

Since facilitation was designed as a role for neutral outsiders, the strategies and techniques in this book are described from the perspective of the external facilitator. Since more and more facilitation is being done by those who have a stake in the outcome of discussions, the third edition includes strategies that help leaders and group members manage the challenges of staying neutral.

Content Overview

The book is organized into ten chapters. Checklists and tools have not been collected in an appendix, but are located throughout each chapter, near the related materials.

Chapter One outlines what facilitation is and its main applications. It differentiates process from content and outlines the core practices. It also addresses facilitation issues such as neutrality, how assertive a facilitator can be, and how to balance the role of the group leader with that of the facilitator.

Chapter One also describes what facilitators do at the beginning, middle, and end of discussions. It provides information about the language of facilitation, the principles of giving and receiving feedback, plus a thumbnail sketch of the best and worst practices of facilitators.

At the end of the chapter, there are two observation sheets and a four-level skills self-assessment, useful to anyone hoping for feedback on current skills.

Chapter Two focuses on how facilitation can be managed by leaders. This is a major new addition and reflects the growing awareness among leaders of the importance of process management.

This new chapter explores the challenges leaders face when they facilitate and provides strategies that help leaders effectively manage group process. This chapter also discusses the issues encountered when the facilitator feels he or she lacks authority or is working with people of senior rank.

Chapter Three explores the stages of designing and managing a facilitation assignment. It describes the importance of each step in the facilitation process: assessment, design, feedback, refinement, and final preparation. Helpful checklists are also provided to guide the start, middle, and end of any facilitation session.

Chapter Four focuses on knowing your participants and provides information about the four most commonly used needs-assessment techniques. Sample assessment questions and surveys are provided. This chapter also discusses the differences between facilitating groups and facilitating teams and passes along strategies for getting any group to behave more like an effective team. The creation of team norms is discussed, along with an overview of the team growth stages and the corresponding facilitation strategies that work best at each stage.

Chapter Five begins with a frank discussion of the many reasons people are often less than enthusiastic to be involved in a meeting or workshop and provides tested strategies for overcoming these blocks, including ideas on gaining buy-in. High participation techniques are also shared, along with a training plan to encourage effective meeting behaviors in members.

Chapter Six delves into the complexities of decision making. Facilitators are introduced to the types of discussions and the importance of clarifying empowerment. Various methods for reaching decisions are described and differentiated. The pros, cons, and uses of each approach are explored, along with an expanded discussion of consensus building. Chapter Six also offers an overview of the behaviors that help decision effectiveness and provides the steps in the systematic consensus-building process. The chapter ends with a discussion of poor decisions: their symptoms, causes, and cures. A survey is provided with which a group can assess its current decision-making effectiveness.

Chapter Seven deals with facilitative strategies for handling both conflict and resistance. It begins with an overview of the difference between healthy debates and dysfunctional arguments. It goes on to share techniques that encourage healthy debates and the steps in managing any conflict. Special attention is paid to strategies for venting emotions. The five conflict-management options are also explored and placed into the context of which are most appropriate for facilitators.

Chapter Seven also provides a three-part format for wording interventions that tactfully allows a facilitator to redirect inappropriate behavior. Also described are the two approaches a facilitator can choose when confronted with resistance and why one is superior. At the end of the chapter, nine common facilitator dilemmas and their solutions are presented.

Chapter Eight focuses on meeting management. There’s a useful checklist and meeting effectiveness diagnostic that lets groups assess whether or not their meetings are working. There’s also a chart that outlines the symptoms and cures for common meeting ills. The fundamentals of meeting management are outlined, with special emphasis on the role of the facilitator as compared to the traditional chairperson role. Both mid-point checks and exit surveys are explained, and samples are provided. Since virtual meetings are on the rise, strategies are offered for using facilitation techniques during distance meetings.

Chapter Nine contains some of the process tools that are fundamental to all facilitation activities. These include: visioning, sequential questioning, force-field analysis, brainstorming, gap analysis, root cause analysis, decision grids, affinity diagrams, needs and offers dialogue, systematic problem solving, survey feedback, multi-voting, and troubleshooting. Each tool is described, and step-by-step directions are given for using it.

Chapter Ten pulls it all together by providing twelve sample process designs, complete with facilitator notes. These notes describe each meeting design in detail and set an example for how facilitators should prepare their design notes. The twelve samples are some of the most commonly requested facilitations and provide the reader with graphic illustrations of the level of detail a facilitator needs to consider before stepping in front of any group.

After years of experience as a consultant, project manager, team leader, and trainer, I’m convinced that it’s impossible to build teams, consistently achieve consensus, or run effective decision-making meetings without highly developed facilitation skills. The good news is that these skills can be mastered by anyone! I hope you find the third edition of Facilitating with Ease! to be a valuable resource in your quest to gain this important skill.

January 2012

Ingrid Bens, M.Ed., CPF

Questions Answered in This Book

What is facilitation? When do I use it?

What’s the role of the facilitator?

What are the main tools and techniques?

What are the values and attitudes of a facilitator?

How neutral do I really need to be?

How assertive am I allowed to be?

How can facilitation be used in the classroom?

How can those who have a stake in the group’s decisions facilitate?

How can I facilitate when I’m not the official facilitator?

How do I get everyone to participate?

Can facilitation techniques be used to manage distance meetings?

How do I overcome people’s reluctance to open up?

What’s the difference between a group and a team?

How can I get a group to act like a team?

What do I do if a group is very cynical?

What do I do if I encounter high resistance?

What if there’s zero buy-in?

What are my options for dealing with conflict?

What if a meeting falls apart and I lose control?

What decision-making techniques are available?

Why is consensus building most effective for arriving at a group decision?

What can go wrong in making decisions?

How do I make sure that discussions achieve closure?

How can facilitation be used to manage conference calls?

How do I balance the roles of chairperson and facilitator?

What facilitation tools are available?

How do I design an effective process?

How do I know whether the meeting is going well?

What are the elements of an effective meeting design?

Some Definitions

Facilitator: One who contributes structure and process to interactions so groups are able to function effectively and make high-quality decisions. A helper and enabler whose goal is to support others as they pursue their objectives.

Content: The topics or subjects under discussion at any meeting. Also referred to as the task, the decisions made, or the issues explored.

Process: The structure, framework, methods, and tools used in interactions. Also refers to the climate or spirit established, as well as the style of the facilitator.

Intervention: An action or set of actions that aims to improve the functioning of a group.

Plenary: A large group session held to share the ideas developed in separate subgroups.

Norms: A set of rules created by group members with which they mutually agree to govern themselves.

Group: A collection of individuals who come together to share information, coordinate their efforts, or achieve a task, but who mainly pursue their own individual goals and work independently.

Team: A collection of individuals who are committed to achieving a common goal, who support each other, who fully utilize member resources, and who have closely linked roles.

Process Agenda: A detailed step-by-step description of the tools and techniques used to bring structure to conversations.

Project: A collaborative enterprise, frequently involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim.

Process Improvement: A series of actions taken by a process owner to identify, analyze, and improve existing processes within an organization to meet new goals and objectives.

Lean: A production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination. Basically, lean is centered on preserving value with less work.

Six Sigma: A business management strategy that seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects or errors and minimizing variability. A six sigma process is one in which 99.99966 percent of the products manufactured are statistically expected to be free of defects (3.4 defects per million).

Chapter One

Understanding Facilitation

If you look up the word facilitator in the dictionary, you’ll see it described as someone who helps a group of people understand their common objectives and assists them to achieve these objectives without taking a particular position in the discussion.

The goal of facilitation is enhanced group effectiveness.

This role basically did not exist until the middle of the last century, when theorists in the emerging field of behavioral science identified the need for a leadership style that contributed structure to complex group interactions instead of direction and answers.

The work of these behavioral pioneers led to the emergence of a new and important role in which the person who manages the meeting no longer participates in the discussion or tries to influence the outcome. Instead, he or she stays out of all conversations in order to focus on how the meeting is being run. Instead of offering opinions, this person provides participants with structure and tools. Instead of promoting a point of view, he or she manages participation to ensure that everyone is heard. Instead of making decisions and giving orders, he or she supports the participants in identifying their own goals and developing their own action plans.