I’m excited to share the top tips from participants in our recently-completed Fabulous Facilitation program. If you run meetings at work or spend time in front of the room running workshops, these tips came from people just like you.

From May through to July an enthusiastic group of people from across Australia came together for an hour a week as part of our Fabulous Facilitation program to learn and reflect on aspects of meeting and workshop leadership. In our first session they shared their facilitation challenges, which included things like:

  • How to manage online and hybrid sessions in a way that keeps people engaged (no more blank screens and subtle sounds of typing in the background)?
  • How to deal with power dynamics, when some people in the meeting have more power and ‘voice’ than others?
  • How to deal with emotion in the room?
  • How to ensure we get to outcomes in our meetings?

Sound familiar? I’ve certainly grappled with each of these in my time.

Having co-designed our learning program in session one, over the remaining sessions we explored these and other issues using frameworks that I have found useful. We also drew heavily on the experience of participants, who had lots of insights to share.

At the end of our six-week program these fabulous facilitators shared their top tips and takeaways. These five resonated strongly with me:

  1. When planning a meeting, consider relational as well as rational objectives. In other words, think about how you want people to feel as well as what outcome you are seeking.
  2. Design your sessions with participants. Seek to get their fingerprints on the process, the agenda and desired outcomes. This often means co-design conversations in the lead-up to your meeting.
  3. In on-line meetings liberal use of breakout rooms, whiteboards, polls and other tools can keep people actively engaged. Music helps too. As a bonus, these processes help to manage power differentials by democratising inputs.
  4. Emotion in meetings is ok and often constructive. Denying participants the right to bring their emotional selves to difficult conversations can make disengagement and distrust more likely.
  5. As a meeting leader/facilitator it’s ok to have an opinion and even to express it, as long as you stay curious about other opinions and other perspectives and model that curiosity and open-mindedness.

There you have it. Five hot tips from our fabulous facilitators. If you’d like to know more about what it takes to run meetings and workshops please be in touch. And if you would like to participate in a future program you can register your interest here.