Listen Actively
Stay present and engaged throughout the session. Make eye contact with speakers, use attentive body language, and paraphrase their statements. Always maintain eye contact while they speak, during your paraphrasing, and when summarizing their key points. This approach helps you recognize unspoken thoughts and additional questions, and confirms that they feel heard. Use eye contact to indicate who can speak next and encourage quieter participants to join in.
Ask Questions
Asking questions is a vital tool in discussions, but aim to avoid sounding like an interrogator. Craft open-ended questions to challenge assumptions, gather insights, and inspire new lines of thought. Be adaptable in how and when you pose these questions. By becoming skilled at asking effective questions, you can uncover the root causes of issues and promote full engagement in the session.
Paraphrase to Clarify
Paraphrasing is a key listening technique that involves restating another person’s words to ensure understanding. It can also help the speaker process what they’ve just said. This method reassures participants that they are being listened to, but be careful to avoid sounding patronizing.
Examples of paraphrasing include:
- “Are you suggesting…?”
- “Do I understand you correctly in saying…?”
- “If I’m following you, your idea is…”
- “Is this an accurate reflection of your point?”
- “What you mean is…”
If someone is upset, repeating their words can be particularly helpful. Regularly paraphrase throughout the session to enhance your own understanding and contribute to accurate notes. This will also reassure participants that their contributions are valued, especially if the group seems to be losing momentum.
Build on Ideas
Encourage participants to expand on each other’s thoughts while withholding judgment until it’s time to analyze those ideas. Facilitate techniques like brainstorming, mind-mapping, and brain-writing to tap into creativity and secure commitment to the discussion.
Stay on Track
Establish time limits for each discussion and appoint someone to keep track of time, or use a timer to maintain momentum. Provide participants with warnings as they approach time constraints—five-minute, one-minute, and 30-second alerts can be very effective. Ensure you respect the time limits by starting and concluding discussions as scheduled.
As a facilitator, you must intervene when discussions veer off course, which can easily happen when creativity flows. Managing these situations with skill is a hallmark of effective facilitation.
Park It
During meetings, set up a flip chart to note sidetrack topics. These can be reviewed later for future agendas, or you can assign questions to someone for follow-up. Both you and participants can add to this list, and it’s your responsibility to ensure these items are addressed later.
Be a Conduit for Feedback
Occasionally provide feedback to the group to help them gauge their progress. If you notice disengagement—such as participants checking their phones or stepping out—tactfully remind them of the ground rules. Check in to see if they need a break, if the pace is appropriate, or if there’s anything on their minds.
Challenge Assumptions
Facilitators should bring assumptions to light so they can be examined and understood by the group. These may need to be debated or questioned. For instance: “Ian, you mentioned that Mark’s idea is too narrow. Could you explain what led you to that conclusion?”
Become a Tracker
Keep a record of decisions and ideas discussed. If you have a note-taker, ask them to document these. Use flip charts or digital boards to capture notes that everyone can reference. Summarize with bullet points and symbols like stars or checkmarks, ensuring you accurately reflect what has been said. Confirm with the group by asking, “Did I capture that correctly?”
Label Sidetracks
It’s your role to inform group members when they stray off topic. This allows them to decide whether to pursue the sidetrack or refocus on the main agenda. You might say, “We seem to be discussing a topic not on our agreed agenda. What would you like to do?”
Alleviate Nervousness
Some individuals may feel socially awkward or anxious when put on the spot. Use icebreakers and energizers to help ease tension, but also create opportunities for small group discussions to give quieter participants a chance to express themselves. Reassure them that spelling and drawing skills are not being evaluated when they contribute on flip charts or create diagrams.
Draw People Out
Utilize open-ended questions, probing, and positive body language to encourage individuals to share their ideas. Everyone tends to self-censor, so it’s important to foster a safe environment where they feel free from judgment.
The process of drawing people out is more directive than reflective listening. Questions like, “Can you elaborate on that?” or “Could you tell us more?” signal that the group would benefit from further insights from the speaker.
Use Mirroring
Mirroring involves adopting similar words or body language as another person. While this can feel uncomfortable or insincere, it often helps others feel more at ease with you.
Gather Ideas
Similar to brainstorming, this process involves using open questions and probing to ensure everyone’s ideas are shared. You never know where the best idea might come from. If there are quieter members in the group, actively seek their input alongside those who are more vocal. Small group discussions followed by reporting back can be particularly effective for this purpose.
Use Queuing or Stacking
This technique is particularly useful when several people want to speak to a topic or respond to something you or someone else has said. By naming the order in which people will speak, you reassure the group and the individuals in the group that you have not forgotten them and that you have created a space for them to speak. As an example, “OK, Tim is first, then Sue, followed by Michael, and then Rob.”
Do not use this technique too frequently, or people will feel as though they are being held up or that they will run out of time to speak.
You can also encourage others to speak up, reduce tangents, and prevent people from taking up too much talking time by using a question like, “Can we hear from someone we have not heard from in a while?” You can also use a time limit statement, like, “We have five minutes left and I want to make sure we have heard from anyone who has not had a chance to comment yet.”
To encourage people you have not heard from, try asking, “Does anyone have a different perspective on this issue?” or try, “Jim, you looked like you had something to say. Would you like to take a few minutes to speak now?”
Offer Balance
This is an especially useful neutrality technique. If you have several people present one side of an issue, or it seems that everyone is supporting one idea or one particular person, you might want to encourage the group to consider the other side as well. This is a way to draw out pros and cons of any issue before making decisions.
