Making sure that decisions are made democratically.Involving everyone in the meeting, including drawing out the quiet participants and controlling the domineering ones.Keeping the group on the agenda and moving forward.Understanding the goals of the meeting and the organization.To put it another way, facilitating actually means: But other meetings and planning sessions don't require that any one person act as facilitators, so your organization can draw on members who have the skill and the talent.
#Sometimes you just need to go through a quiet storm how to#
Sometimes organization leaders are required to facilitate meetings: thus, board presidents must be trained in how to facilitate. It is an art in that some people just have more of a knack for it than others. It is a skill in that people can learn certain techniques and can improve their ability with practice. Being a good facilitator is both a skill and an art. Can anyone learn to facilitate a meeting? Remember, these facilitation skills are useful beyond meetings: for planning for "growing" new leaders for resolving conflicts and for keeping good communication in your organization. But here, we're going to work on the process skills that good meeting leaders need to have. The next session in the Tool Box covers planning and having good meetings in depth. We seem to always be going from one meeting to the next. Meetings are a big part of our organizing life. The more you know about how to shape and run a good learning and planning process, the more your members will feel empowered about their own ideas and participation, stay invested in your organization, take on responsibility and ownership, and the better your meetings will be.
If you want to do good planning, keep members involved, and create real leadership opportunities in your organization and skills in your members, you need facilitator skills. Supporting everyone's ideas and not criticizing anyone for what they've said.