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Have an agenda and objectives.
Post them on large charts in a prominent place. Use them as a frequent
reminders: the goals and objectives remind all that the group has
a purpose in meeting and the agenda reminds them that some thought
was given to how to achieve the purpose. When building your agenda,
always know what you're going to do with the output of any activity
or exercise.
If you don't know in advance
what the meeting is about, the first thing you do with the group
is gather ideas from them and build the charts. Ask people to state
the problem and write down their proffered problem statements. Monitor
the group responses to the ideas: sometimes one participant's way
of stating the problem will resonate with the group, other times
you will have to use voting or some other technique to prioritize
the problems. At this and every other point, be explicit about getting
the group to agree to the process. If you're going to vote, get
consensus that voting is okay: otherwise find another way of coming
to a choice.
It is key that you be sure the
group understands that, while there may be many pressing problems,
nothing will get done if they don't work on one problem at a time.
They are only selecting the first one to work on, not the one and
only one that they will ever get a chance to do anything about.
Once they've agreed to work on
a problem, use a similar process to get them to agree on an approach
to solving the problem. As you gain experience and knowledge as
a facilitator, you will have a number of tools in your toolbox that
you can offer as problem solving approaches. But I find it best
to see if there are ideas from within the group. They will have
greater understanding and ownership of something they're familiar
with, and we cannot overemphasize the importance of buy-in.
In the Tao Te Ching, Lao
Tzu says, "Of the best leader, when the job is done the people
say 'we did it ourselves.'
At every opportunity, the skilled
facilitator risks the group not recognizing her contribution by
letting them provide not only all the content input but as much
process input as possible. Besides, I find this is a great way for
me to learn new techniques!
However you arrive at your objectives
(problem statement) and agenda (way of proceeding), once you have
them posted, get the group to agree to them. Give them a chance
to add or modify objectives and agenda items. Once the group has
agreed to the objectives and agenda, don't let participants stray
from them for very long without asking the group to either return
to working on them or explicitly agree to changes in them.
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