Facilitation
Overview
One of the most important sets of skills for those in leadership and client facing roles are facilitation skills. These are the “process” skills used to guide and direct how you organise work with groups of people such as meetings, clients, planning sessions, and training.
Whilst a group of people might set the agenda and goals, a facilitator shapes and guides the process of working together so that session objectives are met. However, maintaining neutrality can be difficult in a highly charged political environment with strong characters.
One option might be to use a third party, either a trusted advisor, Non-Executive Director or specialist firm to facilitate the meeting. Many of our clients ask Openside to advise on how to set up facilitation sessions and, in some cases, to lead them.
Recent examples of our work include working with groups in professional networks and associations around business recovery post-covid and facilitating Partner sessions to address challenging behaviours, such as toxic performers.
If you would like to find how group facilitation can improve your meetings and workshops enabling greater collaboration, please contact us directly.