Facilitation Skills
This two-day workshop builds core facilitation skills for managers, supervisors, and team leaders who are asked to facilitate rather than instruct or manage their meetings and training sessions. Drawing on twenty years of active facilitation experience, participants will learn how to guide group decision-making, manage team dynamics, apply communication techniques, and build sustainable agreements—transforming the way their organizations run meetings.
What you'll learn
- Distinguish facilitation from instruction, training, and chairing
- Identify the competencies and skill levels linked to effective small group facilitation
- Understand the difference between content and process in facilitated sessions
- Apply divergent and convergent thinking techniques to group problem solving
- Use common facilitation techniques including active listening, paraphrasing, queuing, and parking lots
- Provide and receive effective feedback in a facilitation context
- Manage divergent perspectives and difficult group dynamics
- Build sustainable agreements and guide groups toward consensus
- Identify the five stages of team development and apply appropriate facilitator strategies at each stage
- Use analysis tools such as SWOT and Force Field Analysis to support group decision-making
Preview a lesson
Facilitation, Training, and Chairing: What's the Difference? When you step into a meeting room, the role you play matters enormously. Historically, many meetings have been run by a **chair**—a person whose job is to control the order of proceedings, often following formal rules like those Robert's Rules of Order introduced in the 1870s. A chair keeps order, but the format is often rigid and top-down. **Training**, on the other hand, is instructional. As a trainer, you hold the expertise and deliver it to participants. Your goal is knowledge transfer, and you direct the flow of content. **Facilitation** is different from both. The word itself comes from the Latin *facilis*, meaning "easy." As a facilitator, your job is to make work easier for the participants—not to deliver content or control the agenda through authority, but to guide the group through a process that is fair, inclusive, and productive. As a **process leader**, you manage *how* the group works so participants can focus on *what* they are working on. This means you remain detached from the content and the outcome. You don't take sides or advocate for a particular solution—you create the conditions under which the group can do its best thinking together. You may hear the terms facilitation, training, instruction, and chairing used interchangeably in your organization. Part of your role
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Curriculum
Defining Your Role as a Facilitator
3 lessons- textFacilitation, Training, and Chairing: What's the Difference?Preview
- textHow Facilitators Work: Key Skills and Roles
- quizModule 1 Quiz: Defining Your Role
Establishing the Facilitation Environment
3 lessons- textEstablishing Ground Rules and Managing Transitions
- textContent vs. Process and Types of Thinking
- quizModule 2 Quiz: Facilitation Environment
Communication Skills for Facilitators
3 lessons- textActive Listening and Asking Powerful Questions
- textNon-Verbal Communication and Listening for Common Ground
- quizModule 3 Quiz: Communication Skills
Core Facilitation Techniques
3 lessons- textTop Facilitation Techniques in Practice
- textProviding and Receiving Effective Feedback
- quizModule 4 Quiz: Core Facilitation Techniques
Managing Group Dynamics and Difficult Situations
3 lessons- textManaging Divergent Perspectives and the Language of Facilitation
- textDealing with Difficult Dynamics and Building Sustainable Agreements
- quizModule 5 Quiz: Group Dynamics and Agreements
Team Development and Analysis Tools
3 lessons- textStages of Team Development
- textBuilding Agendas and Using Analysis Tools
- quizModule 6 Quiz: Team Development and Analysis Tools