Four Attributes of a Group Facilitator

What is Group Facilitation?

A short answer would be : Helping groups do better.

And a long answer would be: its a lifetime journey to uncover various intricacies of group facilitation 😇

So a better place to start might be to understand what is not “group facilitation” !

✖︎ It is not “leading“ the group to a decision !

✖︎ It is not “teaching” the group something !

✖︎ It is not “impressing upon” the group about the better ways of doing things !

As many experienced group leaders and trainers have discovered - none of the above works for group facilitation.

I experienced such challenges long time back. Almost 2 decades ago ! Then I set on researching and exploring what would work for group facilitation? I did learn from many sources, experiences and mentors. You can read about my journey in the book “Fast Forward to Facilitation”.

We learn from Life. It's a hard journey. It's a rewarding journey.

The best answers I finally got were through people who wrote for IAF World. IAF World stands for International Association of Facilitators. Its a global body of Facilitators. And here is a line I remember from my learning

Here are four things I am sharing though my learning from The IAF Handbook of Group Facilitation.

1️⃣ Acceptability

The facilitator has to be acceptable to all members of the group.

So there is work facilitator has to do for this. Even before the session starts. Facilitator has to work towards creating this “acceptability”. Conversations with key stakeholders on the client side help. In my experience getting on calls one-on-one or as a group with some of the target audience always works. In fact I have started including this as an essential step as part of session design. Over time I have been able to position it as a value added service. Through which I am able to do a bit of "diagnosis" as well. About the attitude of the participants towards the session. Also use this conversation to set the expectations right. Through a soft approach one is able to position the session and the facilitator in the right manner.

2️⃣ Neutrality

The facilitator has to be substantively neutral.

The participants must perceive the facilitator as impartial and not taking any sides. The participants cannot perceive the facilitator favouring a certain set of ideas. Demonstrating neutrality and maintaining it has been a major challenge for me. I struggled with this a lot. It requires a conscious effort. All the time.

3️⃣ Acting as a Third-Party

The facilitator is some who has no substantive decision making authority.

Once we realise this we understand why businesses need external facilitators. We then can have conversations around the value we add as facilitators. One CEO mentioned that even he can lead the strategic planning exercise. And I had to ask questions around the challenges he has faced while doing such an exercise. Then he realised that expression of ideas get suppressed when is leads discussions. And he understood the value of a "third party".

What if the facilitator is working as an employee within the organisation? Well, that’s another struggle I went through. I will write about it in a future post.

4️⃣ Doing Diagnosis and Intervention

The facilitator must help diagnose the group's issues. The facilitator must help them improve their problem-solving.

Help the group to identify challenges. Help them frame the problem in the correct manner. And help the group improve how it makes decisions. A facilitator helps increase the group’s effectiveness. This itself requires work at multiple levels -

• working on the process design.
• setting up a safe space
• enabling inclusivity
• enabling expression and exchange of diverse of ideas
• enabling the deliberation of different aspects
• helping the group to arrive at some conclusions. If possible in alignment with the session objectives.

Transitioning into a Group Facilitator

Facilitation is dynamic. You can never repeat a session. Even with the same group at the same place, it's still a new dynamic.

All of this is sometimes a lot to process. And questions arise on how to go about it. I experienced my transition from "corporate trainer" to a "group facilitator". A turbulent transition. A difficult transition. And a very satisfying transition.

In my future posts, I will share about this transition from Corporate Trainer to Group Facilitator. Will share my learnings from my experiences and my search for answers. So stay tuned.

Mean time, what are your thoughts on Group Facilitation?

Do put in your comments.