Facilitator mindset to win
In a previous article, I wrote about how important is to be better facilitators as individuals in our organisations, and mostly in the world we live in nowadays. In some way, we’re responsible not only of any initiative but the personal and professional development of our coworkers. To understand that we’re real catalysers of change of people that surround us, and that should carry a sense of responsibility to us.
A coworker told me one day “The first step is not the shorter one”, but it is needed to make it to start walking.
That said, the first step I propose to start walking in the path is to acquire the correct mindset.
I’m gonna share a couple of bullets that I believe are key to acquire the facilitator mindset.
Include and respect all the team members
We must understand that all voices are equally important. Everyone should have freedom of expression, and share in the session. When a space of conversation is being opened, we need to balance the psychological safety, so everyone can feel free to contribute equally. We need to appreciate and respect the magic of co-creation.
According to The about my brain institute a neuroscience blog that studies how brain modifies our behaviours according how we relate with each other:
Co-creation is the magic that happens when we find harmony with this moment. The magic of collective flow. The magic comes from the state of expansiveness rather than the self-centric fears that comes from a heart in a hurry. When the mind finally finds rest in the heart are we freed from the linear, goal directed thought patterns that betray this moment.
The art of co-creation and its importance, as described above, we can realise we’re co-creating when the magic happens.
Encourage ownership
There is nothing like seeing a team co-creating together and writing their post-its, while owning that moment.
When a team member writes in her post-it note, that post-it note contains not only crucial information in her language and style but emotional content that is key to understand and preserve.
It is really common to see teams that don’t want to write, they just want to “dictate” their insights. There is when the facilitator should invite them politely to write their post-it notes, to generate ownership across the workshop and dynamics. That’s the way to generate buy-in, team involves in the challenge, and as a result, we will produce a better outcome.
Helps to differentiate between process and content
As Facilitators, it is key to understand what’s the challenge and get an alignment on what’s the outcome we need to obtain from the workshop, so then we can structure the dynamics towards that. TIP: For my workshops, I always order all the pieces to tell a story. Human beings are made from stories, so it is important to know the workshop attendees and tell a story throughout the workshop to engage with the team better.
Extra hack: Tic…tac…tic…tac!…Don’t forget to watch your clock!. Each dynamic within the workshop should be related to a specific dedicated time, that should be planned before the workshop time, and communicated properly to the team.
Key takeaways
A Facilitator should be on top of everything, the timebox, the flow of the dynamics, holding the momentum, the constant collaboration and motivation between all the team members, among others. If some of this does not happen, the team will let us know immediately.
Diversity is the key. The workshop outcome will be much richer when the game is opened to everyone. Every voice should be heard in a safe workshop environment. When saying diversity we should consider gender, culture, age, experiences, etc.
Co-create, co-create y co-create. When we open the space for co-creation team expands their limits. We witness interactions that wasn’t happening before, each team member lose their what-if beliefs and just expand their limits.
As the facilitator, it is key to understand what we want to get from the team, so then we can structure the workshop narrative, in other words, to walk through a path achieving small objectives contributing to a major one.
