Facilitative Skills for Collaborative Leaders with Donna Ching

On Jan. 10-11th, 2013 I attended Donna Ching’s Facilitative Skills for Collaborative Leaders workshop.  It was absolutely worth it! and by far one of the most productive and influential workshops I have attended that I can directly apply to my profession.  The content covered will benefit my personal growth, management, and work ethics.  I’ve come to realize that the process for planning a meeting comes with experience, but also knowing the proper tools to use.  From Donna’s experience and the mana’o she shared, proper meeting facilitation should include the following:

1. Gathering expectations prior to the meeting
2. Being on time
3. Having an agenda
4. Proper introductions
5. Setting ground rules
6. Having and communicating the purpose
7. Staying impartial as a facilitator
8. Legitimizing comments or contributions
9. Redirecting participants
10. Brainstorming, clustering, and decision making
11. Capturing the group’s comments through the group memory board, which is gathered by a recorder.

Donna had a way of making all participants feel safe.  Some strategies she used were snow cards, keeping the group close together when sitting (no energy holes), addressing criticism from the very beginning, and frequently legitimizing participants.  Over the course of the two days, I became more and more confident to participate and took advantage of the opportunities she provided for the class to practice facilitator and recorder roles.  She definitely equipped me for the next meeting I attend.  

I look forward to attending another workshop and applying the skills I learned to my job to promote a collaborative work environment.

Donna shared an article with the class (Collaborative Leadership for Building Trust & Driving Business Results), which can be found at the link below:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2013winter/#/22

A Hui Hou for now,

Jenny Tanaka