Friday, June 13, 2008

The Magic of Facilitation - Just When …

I thought that the group I first trained had left feeling that this 'facilitation thing is for the birds'. I once again have experienced the magic of fate showing me otherwise.

The Feedback from the initial session was okay. But okay for me rarely cuts it. And by the way, I had the chance to see the participants put the learning in to practice and my lord you would have thought they had never attended the class! The next facilitators were sitting down, they were constantly giving their opinions and showing their bias. And, most of the ideas getting of the flipchart were theirs! I left feeling like I created a monster rather than helping this group move foward. So, asta la vista, let's move on to a new client.

Two years later … what's this? The client's calling me back now asking me to design and coordinate a whole bunch of meetings using the people I had trained 2 years previously. Needless to say I was somewhat resistant to help, but part of me was hopeful based on them having come back to seek support. With only a little initial coaching, the folks who facilitated did a pretty darn good job considering how much time had gone by since the last training. They were standing this time, asking probing questions, merging and linking ideas together and intervening with 1 or 2 difficult personalities. What a turn of events!

So what did I learn?

Never assume that because people don't 'immediately' demo a skill that it's not going to happen at a later date. Also, continue to believe that what we have to offer as facilitators is a good thing and that when people truly see the need, they have all the potential to stand up and take charge of the skill.