Facilitated Meetings: How to Run a Facilitated Meeting
A facilitated meeting is one where the chair or facilitator creates an effective conversation among participants. We can use facilitated meetings for exploring issues, resolving problems, generating ideas, or making decisions.
They are not different from other forms of meeting – it’s just a wrap-around for the problem-solving, creative thinking, or decision making part of the meeting. And there is very little guidance about how to facilitate a basic meeting.
So, for this video, I’m going to describe my own approach. And this isn’t just about what I think I do. It’s based on a client who was impressed by the way I facilitated meetings for him and his colleagues. He observed, made notes, and was good enough to share his observations with me. So, now, I’m sharing them with you.
Watching this Video is worth 3 Management Courses CPD Points*.
(See below for more details)
This video is part of course module number 2.3.2
Program 2: The Manager as Communicator
Course 3: Meetings
Section 2: Chairing Meetings
Primary videos that precede this video include:
– Planning Your Meeting https://youtu.be/u0hqoWIecNU
– Meetings as Conversations https://youtu.be/42kngpo0MPE
– Meeting Discipline https://youtu.be/NWLKP4Lk3BA
– Hosting the Meeting https://youtu.be/MyyoRz4fKP8
– Housekeeping https://youtu.be/U3PfBOBeqBY
– Managing the Meeting https://youtu.be/cRap-SJ8tpQ
– How to Deal with Challenging Participants https://youtu.be/BX6xoc3qg0Y
– What to Do When Your Meeting Goes Wrong https://youtu.be/PuikZ7Z9hds
– How to Chair Creative Meetings: Tools and Techniques https://youtu.be/PTlSAOFwvMc
Primary videos that follow this video include:
– How to Close Your Meeting https://youtu.be/S0V2-NsLFSs
– Meeting Minutes and Follow-up https://youtu.be/97j9Nq8UuGk
– Four Special Meeting Types and How to Run Them https://youtu.be/w_Ulehs8DEw
LESSON NOTES
============
The six steps for running a facilitated meeting, that I describe in the video, are:
Step 0: Strong Preparation
Step 1: Open with ‘What do we want to achieve at this meeting?’
Step 2: Establish a clear agenda and process
Step 3: Ensure that everybody gets a chance to comment
Step 4: Put counterviews, to test the robustness of thinking
Step 5: End with a review…
I also talk about three attitudes that are valuable for a facilitator:
1. Inclusivity
2. Impartiality
3. Flexibility
RECOMMENDED EXERCISE
======================
1. Next time you need to facilitate a meeting, make a point of preparing thoroughly. Talk to people, read information, think carefully. (2 MC CPD Points)
2. Make yourself a ‘cheat sheet checklist to take into your next facilitated meeting, so you have it to hand to help you structure your meeting (1 MC CPD Point)
3. If you have not already done so, watch our video on preventing Group Think (Score the points in that video) https://youtu.be/J4dt_rjsEJU
4. If you have not already done so, watch our video on setting ground rules (Score the points in that video) https://youtu.be/INqC8cVDOgo
3. At your next two meetings where it is appropriate, use the structure to facilitate your meeting and observe the quality of the conversation. (2×2 MC CPD Points)
DOWNLOADS
===========
Free Resources
– CPD Tools – https://gum.co/MC-CPD
Paid resources
– Management Courses Onboarding Kit – https://gum.co/MC-ObK ($3)
RECOMMENDED READING
=====================
– Managers As Facilitators https://geni.us/qbIePs8
– Facilitation Skills https://geni.us/0f1BYTD
– Meeting Magic https://geni.us/FWCUi2
– Running Meetings (HBR) https://geni.us/uTtzzH
– Meetings Suck https://geni.us/PnqAf
– Bad Meetings Happen to Good People https://geni.us/ehWHWW
– Six Thinking Hats https://geni.us/d8uq3
Management Courses Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Points
===========================================================
You can record your Management Courses CPD points on our free, downloadable CPD record log.
Download it here: https://gum.co/MC-CPD
Each video has two levels of MC CPD points. For this video:
– If you simply watched the video, record 3 MC CPD points
– If you also carried out all of the recommended exercises, score a total of 10 MC CPD points
___
Note:
Links to our book recommendations are affiliated through Amazon
source