Why use a professional facilitator?
Facilitation is not like ‘running a meeting’ or being the MC at an event. It’s not all about keeping to time or to an agenda, although experienced facilitators know the importance of timing, agenda flow and keeping a conversation moving forward.
Facilitation is a specialist skill, where communication and engagement knowledge and experience, specialist methods and techniques come together to support an organisation, a team or a whole community to reach or realise an outcome.
When would you use a professional facilitator?
There are many reasons why you, your stakeholders or your organisation would benefit from the skills of a facilitator. These might include:
- Exploring ideas and concepts.
- Examining information for decision making.
- Providing input and feedback on a project or proposal.
- Helping a group to connect and collaborate.
- Coming to a decision or clearing a pathway for decision making.
- Solving a problem or openly discussing an issue to seek better understanding or a resolution.
- Designing a roadmap for change.
- Changing an opinion or a mindset.
Six key benefits of using a professional facilitator:
- An objective view – Engaging the services of a professional facilitator means having someone who is an objective voice and listener, who can help you and your stakeholders reach an equitable outcome. In complex and contentious situations or projects, an objective person to lead and guide the conversation ensures everyone is heard, and decisions are made or outcomes are realised in a fair and equitable way.
- Experience – An experienced facilitator is not a ‘show up on the day and perform’ resource. They will be involved in every aspect of the planning and preparation for the session. Their experience will help you design the best possible approach and delivery method and provide an objective assessment of how best to communicate and engage with stakeholders. They will review content and information to ensure it is in a format that is easy for everyone to understand and access, removing overly technical and difficult language. Most importantly, their experience and skills in engaging participants will guide the design of materials and the selection and development of exercises to help engage stakeholders and improve understanding.
- Participation – Skilled facilitators ensure all session participants have the opportunity to get involved in the conversation. From finding ways for the quieter members of the group to share their thoughts to managing the louder, more dominant voices in the room, facilitators balance conversations, listen carefully, ask questions and skillfully apply tactics to deepen discussion and unpack problems. Their specific skillset is adept at managing emotions in the room, they know when to push and when to pull back.
- Engagement – Facilitation requires an advanced understanding of what sparks people’s interest, how people like to engage and explores the ways in which we think and connect ideas. An experienced facilitator has a limitless supply of engagement exercises to keep all participants engaged as well as focused on the topic at hand. They know when to move the conversation along and when to stop and reframe a conversation for better understanding. As skilled listeners and with high emotional intelligence, facilitators can read a room and quickly work to re-energise or calm a group.
- Results, outcomes, insights – A professional facilitator will get you results, outcomes and insights. Sessions will be designed with desired outcomes in mind, including exercises that bring to light golden insights, and recommendations of where to next. Although solid outcomes are not always easy to achieve, facilitators can pave the way for future decision making, uncover any barriers to progress and provide clear insights and recommendations on next steps.
- Saves time and money – Finally, because sometimes the choice to hire a professional facilitator is a financial one, they will save you time and money! Bringing a group of stakeholders together, asking for their time and input, can be an expensive exercise and you want to make sure you are moving toward your desired outcome and building – rather than damaging – relationships in the process.
Next time your project needs consultation or discussion with a group of stakeholders, consider using a professional facilitator. Open a conversation today.
Lucy Beytagh has more than 25 years’ experience in communication and engagement, with a focus on providing facilitation services over the last 15 years. Most recently Lucy facilitated industry roundtables for the NSW Minister for Climate Change, Energy and the Environment, as well as executive level strategy sessions for various NSW Government departments and their senior leadership teams. Lucy has facilitated large staff consultations sessions in both the public and private sector, and community information and consultation sessions for councils and state government.
