Busy week last week and much of it was saw me facilitating. Most people know me as a speaker and when they see me facilitate they sometimes ask if I am OK. Yes, just playing a different role.

Facilitation is about the group members doing the talking, not me, and finding their own solutions. I enjoy it but it is truly more stressful for me than speaking to an audience of 1000. Why? In the speech I know where  I am going and how it will end. In facilitation none of that is fully known.

Anyway, in both cases last week it was wonderful to see the groups work together. Each one started very cautiously, even suspiciously, but we kept talking and before you knew it the ideas were flying. In both cases the senior decision maker opted to be absent to insure the group members spoke freely. After the session we briefed the boss and all was well.

Each team now has a clear path they WANT to proceed on. This probably would not have happened had they not had the conversation  and waited for the boss to issue the orders. The goal is buy-in and people generally buy-in to something they help create.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 9th, 2011 at 2:08 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.