Facilitation Skills for Leaders

This program is designed for anyone directly engaged in facilitating meetings or other gatherings of people who need to work collectively to achieve results.

• Feel confident in planning and facilitating meetings, both in person and online
• Build trust, participation and effective meeting outcomes
• Keep group discussions on a focused and productive track
• Foster a collaborative environment
• Increase accountability for ongoing results
• Create a personalized action plan for effective meeting facilitation

• Assessing your facilitation needs
• Managing the amount of time you spend in meetings

• Linking facilitation with leadership: building trust through facilitation, examples of excellent and poor facilitation
• Common facilitation challenges: what are your top challenges, sharing ideas (exercise and discussion)

The Five-Step Model to Facilitation:

• 1. Setting a positive climate: establishing ground rules, setting the facilitation environment, temperature checks, handling disagreements
• 2. Listening to understand (exercise and discussion) 
• 3. Anchoring discussions with a meaningful purpose: facilitation planning, identifying your purpose, shared goals and decision-making process, staying focused and productive
• 4. Keeping the conversation moving forward: calling out participants, creating a “parking lot,” managing time

(The Five-Step Model to Facilitation, continued):

• 5. Involving everyone: mastering facilitation online, overcoming barriers to participation, creating team charters, building commitment and accountability, getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, leveraging the expertise in the room
• Applying the five-step model: facilitating a meeting with a focus on inclusivity (exercise and discussion)
• Building your individualized facilitation plan: what do you want to achieve, mindsets and competencies for effective facilitation, persuasion and influence, getting to the next level (exercise and discussion)

You will gain hands-on experience by engaging in targeted skill-building exercises, and receive feedback from the program leader.

Note: participants in this program may qualify for up to $10,000 in funding through the Canada BC Job Grant program. Find out if you qualify.