Facilitation and Meetings Skills for Line Managers
Course Description
One of the most common difficulties for managers is to use meetings as a way to bring people together and solve problems. This workshop will be designed to refresh the skills of the managers and equip them to run meetings and manage group settings. It will provide realistic, relevant techniques and strategies to support the manager. It also addresses the situation where the manager may need to manage inappropriate behaviour and difficult situations. Specifically this workshop will help the managers to capture the real value from productive team meetings.
Duration: 2 days
Prerequisites
Training Objectives
Having completed the training participants will:
• Understand how their communication style can impact on the meeting effectiveness
• Use active listening and effective questioning to generate realistic solutions to a variety of problems
• Conduct productive team meetings
• Encourage participatory decision making and enhance ownership of issues
• Manage inappropriate behaviour
• Recognise that disagreement is not always negative
The role of the facilitator
Preparing for success
The important of impartiality
Getting the session started
Focussing the group
1+1+1+1=5
Your organisation
Setting the context
Understanding the external influences
Facilitators Toolkit
Agenda
Ground rules
Active agreement
Prioritising
Ownership
Note taking
Mood watcher
Reframing
Tension breakers
Group Dynamics
Dysfunction as a symptom not a root cause
Managing dysfunction
Conscious prevention
Early detection of conflict
Conflict as a valuable tool
Building consensus
Encouraging participation
Using new voices
Using visual aids
The value of the flip charts
Affect of room layout
Debate or dialogue
Review
Were the objectives met
What progress was made
What to do with items not addressed
Confirming commitment to decisions
Assigning responsibility for possible action lists
Evaluate
What was accomplished?
Are there tangible results
End
Next Steps
Debrief
Meet with stakeholders or meeting sponsors to review areas for improvement
Facilitating at meetings
Why do meetings need facilitators
Dominators and repeaters
Gender issues in meetings and groups
Who is heard and why?
Actions and delegations
Identifying the weight of the actions