Are you a meeting facilitator? These are some of the most important skills you need!
Are you facilitating meetings and want to make sure that productive, open communication is happening? Facilitating meetings isn’t always as easy as you may think, so it’s important to keep a few key skills in mind.
Question, don’t lecture
Remember that as a facilitator, your main goal is to draw out opinions and ideas of the meeting participants. So, don’t focus on sharing your own opinion, but rather focus on what you can do to draw out the opinions and ideas of those in the meeting.
This doesn’t mean you can’t make suggestions; but the key is to make sure they truly are suggestions rather than telling people what needs to happen.
Encourage participation and focus on asking the right questions that will encourage the team to interact and explore new ideas!
Be patient
When issues come up in meetings or when people aren’t participating as much as they should be, it’s easy to grow frustrated. This is where it’s extra important for you to remain patient.
Rather than showing your frustration, focus on valuing and respecting those in the group. One way you can do this is simply by being open to change, because you may have to change the agenda or come up with new ways to encourage participation.
Other meeting facilitation tips
These aren’t the only important tips to keep in mind when it comes to meeting facilitation. There are a few other skills you should be aware of, which is why I’ve created a video that goes through all of those in more detail.
Make sure you head over to YouTube so we can finish this conversation there!
I really hope that you found this helpful – and if you did, it would mean so much to me if you would share it on your social media.
Meanwhile, if you really are committed to mastering your next project, do consider taking my SLAY Project Management online course where I show you step-by-step how to successfully manage a project, plus you get access to every template you will need, along with detailed video instructions on how to fill them out.
-Adriana
