Leading Groups to Solutions: Facilitation Skills for Team Leaders

Participants in CMOE’s facilitation-skills workshop, Leading Groups to Solutions, develop a variety of skills that can be used not only to facilitate group decision-making, but to improve team and organizational communication overall. As a result of their training in facilitation skills, participants are able to

• Recognize how facilitating group discussions differs from making presentations.
• Improve group communication and maximize the contributions of team members.
• Manage and provide greater structure and increased effectiveness to all team sessions.
• Analyze, diagnose, and expose the root cause of a problem.
• Prevent others from speculating, making assumptions, and jumping to premature conclusions.
• Take a collaborative approach to solving problems.
• Think through and identify innovative alternatives.
• Compare the relative worth of the options available and determine which solutions are best.
• Consider risks and threats to making a successful choice.
• Provide direction and confidently move forward with the solution determined to be best.
• Build trusting and collaborative relationships with others.

Leading Groups to Solutions is a powerful and application-oriented learning experience: 30% of the time in the workshop is spent on the “what” and “why” of facilitation and 70% is spent on facilitation “how to’s” using real, common organizational issues. Participants also have a chance to assess their baseline facilitation skills so they can identify their strengths and opportunities for development. This unique learning approach allows participants to develop facilitation skills and practice using them with real scenarios that the business is facing.

这个approac最重要的成果之一h is that the workshop raises a leader’s awareness that the ability to facilitate the work of a team or group is a critical leadership capability—and one that is often overlooked or underdeveloped. Exposing participants to the need for this skill re-frames the mindset and underscores the importance of effectively facilitating the work of teams and groups. Once their awareness has been raised, participants are positioned to develop the skills and apply the concepts and tools to their teams.