I frequently facilitate off-site retreats, strategic planning sessions, and other meetings where complex situations require smart decisions that are strongly supported by everyone present. I enjoy it and I’m good at it. Nonetheless, I cringe when people ask me to be their facilitator.

I cringe because of what they think a facilitator does. Just this week I received another of these typical inquiries: “We are still working on the agenda but want to know if you would be available to facilitate.” As this statement suggests, they plan to decide what we will do in the meeting and I will just keep people on track and be sure everyone gets the chance to talk. Sorry, that doesn’t work.

What does “success” usually look like using this approach?

• Everyone participates, by cattle prod if necessary, and no one is allowed to dominate.
• Each specified activity is completed in the allotted time.
• The group is kept busy and they don’t run out of things to do.
• The participants thank the organizers for hosting an informative and interesting day.
• They leave with vague ideas related to vague objectives.

By the way, the absolute favorite activity in these plans is SWOT. It’s a super familiar acronym and easy to do, but that doesn’t mean it’s relevant or even effective. See There is No ‘C’ in SWOT.

How do I measure success?

• Every hour of the day makes discernible and clear progress – with concrete decisions and plans – toward our ultimate goal for the day.
• I arrive with a process – a planned path of intermediate outcomes – based on my knowledge of the ultimate goal plus an understanding of the equally important starting point: what people are concerned about, what they believe has or hasn’t already been decided, their risk tolerance, how they would measure the day’s success, etc. If I come in from the outside for a one day session, this necessitates brief individual interviews ahead of time.
• Clarity of process focuses the collective brainpower, ensures everyone knows how and when to participate, and renders personal baggage, power plays, ground rules, timekeepers, and other “crowd control” techniques irrelevant.
• Participants contribute readily and with rapt attention because our objective at each step is uncommonly clear, transparent, and important to them.
• I am able to adjust my process on the fly as I discover additional decisions the group needs to make before moving on, as well as matters of less importance that we can speed through, intentionally set aside for future attention, or dismiss altogether.
• We conclude on time, or early, having made specific, concrete decisions and plans that achieve our goal.

If you want to run meetings effectively, you must strive for clarity of purpose and process each step of the way. You are there to ask the right questions, in the right order, clarify the collective answers, and extract the essence that constitutes progress. You aren’t there to prod the silent and referee the power struggles. If you create a clear and transparent process and constantly bring any detractors back to the current step, the crowd control issues take care of themselves.

If you want to hire a facilitator so you can focus on content, not process, and ensure objectivity, hire a process expert, work with them to understand your objectives, and then let the expert design the process and pave the way to strongly shared conclusions.

Facing strategic or other important, complex group decisions? I can help you prepare and lead the process. I can also provide that onsite process leadership that frees you up to focus on the content instead of the process and also ensures the objectivity that frees others to say what needs to be said. Let’s talk: 603-784-5727 or ann@uncommonclarity.com.