Facilitation and Why Businesses Need It
Times arise, or rather meetings arise, when you find yourself needing to run a meeting that will almost certainly need a bit of grease to ensure it goes well. We believe that those are the moments when it pays off to use a facilitator. Why? Well, some meetings just do better when you bring someone in from the outside. You will probably benefit from bringing in a facilitator when there is:
a multiplicity of important desired outcomes
a need for sequenced approach to the agenda to enable problem solving
input from many stakeholders with (sometimes) conflicting agendas
a need for the meeting owner to step back from meeting management
a danger of diving down numerous rat-holes
a need to ensure all voices are heard & all value tabled
likely conflict
clearly a case that tried & tested approaches have tried & failed!
Over the years we have found that the investment in bringing in a facilitator really pays dividends in the following types of meetings:
Executive Off-Sites (eg. quarterly reviews, strategic plan reviews, leadership meetings)
Achieving alignment across matrixed, inter-dependent (multi-cultural) teams
New team ‘fast-starts’ (Vision or purpose days) when something ‘different’ is needed
Enhanced ‘ideation’ when creativity needs a boost
We have a great deal of experience in working with clients to ensure that their outcomes are met and that they too can actively contribute to the meeting. For multi-day meetings we can also talk to you about maximising the time the team spends together. For more on this please read the sections on off-sites and team performance.