Group/Team Facilitation

Most organizations have groups of people meeting to solve problems either formally or informally. A conservative estimate stated by hundreds of clients we have worked with is that at least 50% of all group/team meeting time of any kind is unproductive, i.e., not producing useful outcomes. So we’re talking about thousands of hours of wasted time at enormous costs that an effective facilitator could have made more productive. We can also train some of your people to do the same thing. Click here to go to the Team Facilitation Skills for details of how we can do that.


We provide Group Facilitation to improve your teams’ effectiveness at accomplishing results. After all, that is why they are meeting, and you want them to make the best use of their time.


The Purpose:
Group facilitation is a process in which a person who is acceptable to all members of the group, substantively neutral (no vested interest in a specific outcome), and with no decision-making authority intervenes to help a group improve the way it identifies and solves problems and makes decisions, in order to increase the group’s effectiveness.
Intervene means “to enter into the system” for the purpose of helping those in the group/team to function more effectively. The outcome of these interventions is to develop the group’s long-term effectiveness while decreasing the group’s dependence on the facilitator. Intervening in a way that teaches the group members the skills of facilitation does this. We call this enabling a team. In Stephen Covey’s terms, it’s not providing them the fish, it’s teaching them how to fish so they can meet their own long term needs.

Facilitated group "A facilitator fulfills her responsibility to the group by designing an effective process for the group to accomplish its work and letting the group make free and informed choices on the basis of the facilitator's interventions."
Roger Schwarz, The Skilled Facilitator


The Role:
The Facilitator’s client is the entire group/team they are working with, not certain members of the group/team. The Facilitator’s primary task is to help the group/team increase its effectiveness by improving its process (how the team works together). This includes how the team members talk to each other, how they identify and solve problems, how they make decisions, and how they handle conflict. Ineffective team process reduces the team’s ability to solve problems and make decisions.
Essentially, the facilitator’s role is to help the group improve its process in a manner consistent with valid information, free and informed choice, and internal commitment to the choices. This also means the facilitator must remain neutral in regard to the content—what the team is working on—as much as possible while enabling the group process. The facilitator is not neutral about the content of a group’s discussion when it involves how to manage group or interpersonal process more effectively.

Facilitators need a variety of skills and abilities to fill their role, including accurately listening to, observing, and remembering behavior and conversation; communicating clearly; identifying similarities and differences among statements (making distinctions); understanding multiple perspectives; analyzing and synthesizing issues; identifying assumptions; diagnosing and intervening on effective and ineffective behavior; being a model of effective behavior; providing feedback without creating defensive reactions; accepting feedback without reacting defensively; monitoring and changing one’s own behavior while working with a group; developing the trust of clients; empathizing with clients; providing support and encouragement; and having patience. Please recognize this is not an all-inclusive list but does help you appreciate the complexity of the role.

The facilitator as content expert or information resource (when appropriate) is an acceptable role only when the facilitator and the group have explicitly contracted (agreed in advance) for it during specific time frames.

Core Values that guide effective Facilitation:


            Core Values                              Description   

 

Valid information
    • People share all relevant information
    • People share information in a way that others understand it
    • People share information in a way that others can independently validate it
    • People continuously seek new information to determine whether previous decisions should be changed

 

Free and informed choice
    • People define their own objectives and methods for achieving them
    • People are not coerced or manipulated
    • People base their choices on valid information

 

Internal commitment to the choice
    • People feel personally responsible for their decisions
    • People find their choices intrinsically compelling or satisfying

 

These three core values guide effective group/team behavior and effective facilitator behavior. These values are typically manifested through team agreed upon ground rules that can be monitored by the team and the facilitator as a part of their group process.
Source: Adapted from the work of Chris Argyris and Don Schon (Argyris, 1970; Argyris & Schon, 1974)

Results:

    • Increased productivity of work teams, at least by 50%
    • Enhanced ability for the team to stay focused on task and consistently meet deadlines
    • Improved quality of results
    • Higher levels of team satisfaction in accomplishing results
    • Higher team sponsor satisfaction with the outcomes of the their teams

If you are interested in improving the productivity of your work teams by as much as 50%, give us a call today to discuss how we can help you accomplish this.