Taking the Lead – How to Run, Control, and Master Your Role As A Facilitator

For most of us, facilitation may be one of the key roles you may have to play, be it a senior executive in your organisation or as a communicator. This can range from a simple focus-group discussion to a full company retreat to manage. Between leading the group and nudging them to their objective, a facilitator role can be daunting. Add the potential of being assessed by your boss, and the entire communication setting becomes a high-stakes one!

But what is facilitation? We see facilitation as the process of helping or guiding someone to an objective, be it an educational goal or an organisational goal. For example, one may play a facilitator’s role in a corporate retreat to help a department or a team brainstorm for ideas for a department mission/vision. In an educational setting, a facilitator gently nudges the group to achieve the learning outcomes for the session.

No matter the facilitation scenario, here are three tips you can apply to ensure that you can run your role like a champ!

Tip #1: Set the Boundaries

Take the opportunity to start the facilitation session with clear ground rules or guidelines for your audience. Don’t get us wrong – this is not an excuse to unleash a rigid, regimental side of yourself! Instead, your audience is likely to be confused and fuzzy over what they need to achieve in the session. By setting the expectations early, you can reduce the anxiety and fill the information gap. Better still, you can set your session off on a strong, positive note!

As part of your facilitator introduction, aim to share the purpose, expectation, and relevance. For purpose, highlight the big, over-arching goal that you may have for them. Think of it as the destination at the end of the road-trip – where are we going, and how are we likely to get there? For expectations, aim to set the key standards for the session itself. For example, if you facilitate a large-scale discussion, an order needs to be established in terms of when and how anyone can contribute their views. For relevance, show your audience why the session is important to them. Intimate knowledge of your audience profile will come in handy here!

Tip #2: Remember the 80-20 Rule

As a facilitator, the bulk of your time should be focussed on information gathering instead of explaining. After setting out the boundaries at the start, the majority of the session should ideally be dominated by the audience members. For example, in a focus group discussion, you may want the solutions to come from the attendees instead of spoon-feeding. Help them build ownership over the sharing of ideas!

You can use the 80-20 rule as a general guide – 80% of the time should be dominated by the attendees (with your input limited to probing questions or higher-order prompts). If you find keeping track of the exact time a hassle, think of this as your audience spending the majority of the time speaking. If you encounter a tough or cold crowd, start with suitable warm-up activities, such as ice-breakers or even prompting more enthusiastic members to set the ball rolling!

Tip #3: Introspection is Key

Finally, a facilitation role often aims to help the audience members to introspect or ruminate more. Instead of simply discussing the “what“, a strong facilitator can gently push the audience members to expand their comfort zone and dive deeper into a discussion. Building on the 80-20 rule, spend more time clarifying questions that help to drill down the key points of the session.

One powerful method to encourage introspection is through a consolidate-and-contemplate approach. Remember to take adequate notes (while keeping attention!) as the session is running. At an appropriate juncture (e.g., a change in topic or a new idea), pause the session to consolidate the main learning points. You can choose to check in with the audience to confirm that you have not missed out on the discussion points. The points you consolidated would then form the platform for subsequent contemplation. As you repeat the process a few times, you will find yourself (and your audience) with a precise and valuable output from the facilitation session!

Take Charge and Facilitate!

A facilitation role can happen in many settings – whether as an executive in a corporate structure or even a trainer (e.g., for adult learning). What is common for these settings is ensuring the process moves smoothly towards an effective outcome. If you find yourself in such a facilitation role, try our three quick tips today and share your experiences with us!

WATCH our YouTube video on: “Listen Up! For Those Thinking of Becoming Speakers and Trainers  |  How To Excel At It”

By The Way…

If you are keen to take your public speaking skills & presentation skills (either business/corporate presentation / kids in-class presentation) to the next level so that you may communicate and deliver speeches with greater flair and charisma, feel free to check out our public speaking/ presentation skills course for adults and public speaking course for children below!

For more about our (weekly group classes) Public Speaking/ Presentation Skills Course for Adults :

https://publicspeakingacademy.com.sg/courses-and-programs/group-classes-for-adults/

If you are looking for a 2-day intensive public speaking/ presentation skills course for adults instead (for our adult learners who can’t do weekends), learn more about our presentation skills training course here: https://publicspeakingacademy.com.sg/presentation-skills-training-course-by-world-champion/

If you are looking for Public Speaking/ Presentation Courses for Kids / Children:

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If you are a human resources manager/ business owner in your company…

We want to help you bring out the best in your team, organization, and company. Public speaking and communication skills for the workplace, such as persuasion, remain a priority for most corporate training out there. We believe in staying ahead of the curve in sharing the contemporary communication skills to help you and your team remain relevant, competitive and nimble. Through our customized corporate training programmes, your team will benefit from an in-depth, hands-on, and potential-maximising public speaking & presentation skills training programme!

Feel free to reach out to us to curate your own public speaking corporate training programme for your team, company, or organization! Let us help you develop them into highly effective public speakers at work, empowered with effective presentation skills & storytelling skills – them giving speeches with charisma, influence and impact is something you can look forward to!

For effective presentation skills training Singapore & public speaking training for corporates/ employees: https://publicspeakingacademy.com.sg/corporate-public-speaking-training-workshop/