Rockstar Facilitation Techniques for Any Situation

Become the star facilitator you’ve always wanted to be

From the boardroom to the kindergarten class, in-person or video conferencing — facilitating can cause anxiety and trigger flight-or-fight stress responses.

In the past, my sole strategy was to “fake it to you make it.” I wore an expensive dark suit jacket to hide the sweat stains and thought that having the right hair cut and the perfect color was half the battle. The other side of the coin included cracking mild jokes in the hopes of establishing a connection with the audience as if we were in a comedy bar at 2:00 PM minus any alcohol. My feeble attempt provided mediocre laughs and a surmounting dry clean bill.

After a few facilitation bombs, I became aware the jokes were a cover-up for the anxious behavior I was experiencing in front of people, and from there on in, I developed a natural, true-to-self approach.

To reduce nervousness and boost your facilitation skills to rock star status, try these strategies to elevate audience participation and engagement.

When you design the session and transition the team through the stages, allow the team to provide the content. If you hear yourself doing most of the talking, it’s not going well, and you should probably adjust the approach.

For specific comments regarding a solution-oriented discussion, ask the participant what led to their feedback to understand their intent better. People tend to skip to solutions, and it’s best to align on the underlying challenge or reason that leads to a better conversation.

Write the words spoken with precision, not what you wanted an individual to have said. Don’t change the actual conversation with your own biases. If there are different levels of seniority people in attendance, reinforce the session’s working agreements as needed to ensure all input be considered and valued.

If a person communicates with confusion during a presentation, re-say what you heard…

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