If you’ve ever spent an afternoon in a meeting wondering, “Why on earth am I here?” you understand the difference between an engaging collaborative session and a waste of time. Poor facilitation often leads to ineffective meetings.
The caliber and skill of the facilitator makes a huge difference in distinguishing the highly successful meetings from the rest.
So, what does the role of a meeting facilitator entail?
“Meeting facilitation is a structured way to help people reach common understandings and solve problems. It’s a skill, a process, and an art.”
– Means, T. Adams & M. Spivey
A good meeting facilitator is a neutral member of the group, with the purpose of keeping the team on track and leading a discussion that allows all ideas and opinions to be heard and acknowledged. The facilitator is not a member of the discussion, but rather acts as a neutral conductor.
If you are slated to run your company’s upcoming meeting, it’s time to put on your conductor hat and prepare to lead your team to success.
Here are five practical and proven tips to set you up for success before, during and after the meeting.
BEFORE THE MEETING: The effectiveness of a meeting is determined before the meeting even begins. You can’t fake preparation. There is a lot of careful planning that (should) go into preparing for a collaborative meeting. In my post, Starting With Logistics, I discuss in detail the keys to planning a successful meeting. Here are a few of the essentials to get you started:
- Set a date, time and location for your meeting
- Define your meeting objectives
- Identify your participants
- Create a goal focused agenda
- Share your agenda with your participants
DURING THE MEETING:
Running an effective meeting requires a few key elements: creating an environment that encourages participation and maintaining engagement throughout the entirety of the meeting.
Creating A Comfortable Environment
The environment is set when participants walk through the door. A good environment encourages openness, collaboration, and innovation. This can include things like having coffee and snacks prepared, building time for mingling into the schedule, and beginning with a team building activity.
Maintaining Participant Engagement
Meetings are only effective as long as the participants are engaged. As soon as your team members begin scrolling through their phones instead of sharing openly with the group, you might as well end the meeting.
In a room full of individuals who process information, think, and respond in their unique ways, it’s essential to use a variety of strategies to keep the whole group engaged and participating. These are all effective tactics.
- Review meeting ground rules
- Assign meeting roles
- Begin with a fun activity (Here are some examples)
- Provide hard copy of meeting agenda
- Model active listening
- Take visible notes as each member shares (Dry erase board, chart paper etc.)
AFTER THE MEETING:
How often have you been to a meeting where the decisions made were never put into action? Truly effective meetings have actionable results. This requires follow-up from the facilitator.
After the meeting has ended, the facilitator should:
- Get feedback from participants (evaluate the meeting)
- Share meeting minutes with everyone involved
- Document and distribute agreements about “next steps”
- Follow up in a timely manner
Facilitating a high-quality meeting is so much more than walking your team through an agenda. It requires careful planning, skillful leadership, and strategic follow up.
If you’ve got a meeting coming up, I’d love to help you prepare to lead your team in an effective and meaningful way. Click here to schedule a call to walk through your personal meeting approach and whether it’s working for you.
Resources:
https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/four-techniques-facilitate-project-meetings-7249
