Facilitation

Facilitation is, without question, the toughest type of assignment that we undertake. That's because there is no way of knowing where the assignment will head, and the facilitator must be prepared to encounter a wide range of situations of varying complexity, and 

Typically the brief is one of two situations. 

The first, most common, is that the client is undertaking a strategic planning meeting and wishes a facilitator to lead the meeting. The facilitator does not add specific substantive input, but rather provides:

• Structure - a roadmap of the process
• Discipline - particularly in time keeping
• Socratic questioning - acting as the naïf observer - and continually questioning the assumptions which underlie contributions from the floor. In this way the facilitator forces everyone to test and refine their views.
• An opportunity for all members of the management team to be involved in the discussion, preventing one person to dominate through being too involved with the process

A typical assignment would proceed as follows. Following an approach by the client, an in depth meeting would be held and expectations discussed and context explored. We would agree a framework and may have one or more subsequent meetings to refine that framework.

The session itself would typically be held over 2-3 days.

The second brief is a management meeting which is specifically called to discuss an issue, where the management team feels that there is too much emotional involvement to allow them to facilitate - they need someone to clear the detritus