Skip to main content

Can anybody become a facilitator?

Some time back I was approached by someone who wanted to do a bit of training - since she was free, had recently retired and had time on her hands. Another one told me, I am a trainer - I always had the gift of the gab. Another time, it was recommended for the juniormost employee to work on leadership training. And a set of students wanted to train people on creativity. 

All fairly common problems faced by organizations and people and sometimes they meet - to disastrous effect. 

Many years ago when I was somewhat new to leadershp training (I did have the experience of few training sessions under my belt), the organization I was part of had paired an HR person and a non-HR person to train First Time Managers. This is an experience I am immensely grateful to because I was able to see both views - the employees, the HR and the system. And it sharpened my instincts as a facilitator. And one thing, I have done over the years is never lost touch with this perspective - but thats for later.

Is it enough if you have "gift of the gab" and can talk? Sure yes, if you want speeches and anecdotes (most of which you would have already read in whatsapp forwards). You will get many talkers and this is one of the fundamental issues with trainers. They love to talk - whereas they really need to listen and make people participate and learn. 

These are some of the things I learnt on my journey (that still continues) to be a good facilitator

Trainers are not equal to talkers. Facilitators, definitely not. 

Great accents or voices are extraneous factors, like looks. 

The best facilitators talk less, facilitate more and are comfortable with the sound of silence in the classroom. They often silence effectively - as a reflective space.

As a facilitator, you can never say, everyone is right. If you say that, you better substantiate it. And definitely give a directional answer if not a definitive answer. Take a stand as a facilitator. Don't leave people hanging on the fence. 

Facilitators answer questions, mostly by getting learning teams to practice and by asking questions. 

Sure, you can have people come and regurgitate training manuals or facilitator guides, but if you want real change to happen, hire a facilitator.

(Inspired by this - Nick Foster on Design Thinking, but did not meet those standards)

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Be Civil. Make nice!

Popular posts from this blog

Zero to One

Zero to One by Peter Thiel is a nice read. (Yes - if I sit down to write a book review - the book has to be worth it - and usually good - so most of my book reviews are about good books.You can stop here if that's the information you seek.) Where this book scores is in contrarian thoughts and contrarian questions that make you think. It starts with a four big lessons learned from the 90s dot-com crash that is, Make incremental advances, Stay lean and flexible, Improve on the competition and Focus on product, not sales. Just as you warm up to it, he says, the opposite rules are more correct - which are: It is better to risk boldness than triviality. A bad plan is better than no plan. Competitive markets destroy profits. Sales matters just as much as products. And finally leaves with a simple definition of contrarianism - it is not to oppose the crowd (or follow a smaller or newer or older crowd) but to think for yourself. "All happy companies are different"...
Post a Comment
Read more

The man who saved Pumpelsdrop

This was a story we had in college if I am not mistaken. Perhaps it was in school, but a delightful story it was. The story goes somewhat like this ( reproduced from here ), but the college version we had was slightly different from this.  I t was a dull, gloomy and a depressing morning in a town named Pumpelsdrop in northern England. The Great Depression had brought all the businesses to a standstill. The bored automobile dealer was spending time alone, as usual. But, this seems to be an unusual morning as an odd entity (customer) appeared on the horizon. A man in a bright suit walks up to the dealer and says, "I need to buy a Rolls Royce Phantom II. We have a business conference coming up and I need to impress my customers". Then proceeds to pay 10% of the deal with a single check for 2000 pounds. The rest he says will pay when he takes the delivery.   The auto dealer was stunned. He was delighted to hear that someone is holding a business conference of some kind and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Anti networking year

I dont usually go out of my way to network. But over the last few years, I ensured that I spend some time creating new connections. It is a small fragment of my time that goes into it, but what I realised was that some of those networking events were not really working out. I also took time to post about the things I do (mostly on Linkedin) and here (nobody reads this - this is more of a note to myself).  It seemed to be the same set of people saying the same set of things. So, this year I have decided to step back.  Unless it is a truly unique event, I wont be going to any event - and thats how the unconference happened.  Unless it is a really significant update, I wont be posting about it.  And spend time creating and doing the things I like to do. Perhaps read more. Or write more. It is April now and I have done well so far.  Managed to read a few books. Actively working on a few creations. And then some. Lets see.  So for all I know, I might write less ...
Post a Comment
Read more