Great Meetings!: How to Facilitate Like a Pro

Rating:
Summary: Great Meetings is a Great Resource
Review: For the past 22 years, I've been designing and conducting experiential training events. I have also been teaching and coaching others in this work. I have found Great Meetings!to be an invaluable resource. Dee Kelsey and Pam Plumb have managed to present the most important concepts of facilitation in a straight-forward and engaging way. I frequently turn to Great Meetings! as a reference in my work, I recommend it to others, and I give it as a gift to colleagues and friends. Great Meetings! filled a void and I am grateful to the authors for knowing it was neededand for bringing it into being.

Rating:
Summary: Veteran facilitator comments
Review: I have used Great Meetings alongside several other facilitation texts for several years in a course on group facilitation in the Conflict Transformation Program at Eastern Mennonite University. Recently a student in our program wrote an enthusiastic review. She has many years of experience as a community facilitator and has demonstrated herself to be highly knowledgeable and competent. With permission of the author, Phoebe Kilby, owner of Sympoetica, [e-mail], I post it below. This is a review of the 2003 edition of the book. The book has been republished in a 2004 edition.
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Until I read Great Meetings! I thought the The Facilitator¡¦s Fieldbook by Thomas Justice and David W. Jamieson was one of the best books I had read on facilitation. I have used the latter a number of times as a reference to help me solve particular facilitation challenges. Now reading Great Meetings!, I found myself inspired to raise my facilitation to a higher level. Great Meetings! provides insights into facilitation as an art and by doing so I think it inspires more creativity.

On first reading, one might think that this book is just a beginner¡¦s introduction to facilitation. Actually, I have taught graduate courses in urban planning and would use this book enthusiastically if I had the opportunity to teach again. A great deal of most planners¡¦ work involves meeting facilitation, particularly facilitation of citizen task force meetings and open public forums and workshops. Even though I have been facilitating for many years, I still found this book very engaging and can see its potential usefulness. It is not organized like a reference guidebook. Rather it takes the reader through the whole process of planning for and conducting a meeting as well as various facilitation techniques in an easy-to-read style that is better consumed in one reading and taken as a whole like a novel. The writing has a flow that allows a more holistic understanding of facilitation. This is helpful for students and seasoned facilitators alike.

I found the conclusion of the book particularly insightful. Here is where the authors expound on essence of facilitation. Facilitation, while improved by technical skills, is really an art. It is not predictable or formulaic, because people are not so. Each time we work with people in a group, we learn something new about group dynamics. This requires us to respond in creative ways. Great meetings! encourages us to use our creativity.

I also enjoyed thinking about the facilitator as being on a continuum between meeting planner on the one end and therapist on the other. Arnold Mindell in his book Sitting in the Fire approaches facilitation very much like a therapist and in my opinion goes too far into group therapy to offer useful guidance to persons lacking his level of training in psychology. The Facilitator¡¦s Fieldbook is perhaps too formulaic and closer to the meeting planner end of the spectrum. Great Meetings! I think strikes the right balance.

Also, Great Meetings! is the first book I have encountered that describes well the type of facilitator that we planners often are ¡V the facilitator/expert. We are rarely purely facilitators. We facilitate meetings as just one part of our practice, since we are expected to be experts in urban planning and thus to offer advice to our groups on technical planning matters. The authors legitimize this role by articulating the primary reason why this has always seemed acceptable to us. While we have ¡§content expertise,¡¨ we do not have a stake in the outcome of the group¡¦s work. In other words, most of us now accept that we are here to help communities evolve into the type of community the citizens would like. We are not here to tell them what to do, but to help them to discover their goals and to help them find ways to achieve the goals.

Another set of insights I gained from this book that I have not seen in other books on facilitation are ideas about the ethics of facilitation, and particularly, when to say ¡§no.¡¨ Planners should ask themselves the questions on pages 161 and 162 before they agree to facilitate a project. Recently, I turned down a consulting job for one of the reasons the authors cite; it was ¡§a thinly veiled attempt for someone to put forth his own agenda.¡¨ The mayor of a small town called me to ask me to help a steering committee prepare a draft land use plan. He admitted to me he saw no point in this exercise, except that the county was pushing for this as a precursor to annexation. A developer had already given the mayor a plan for the annexation property that the mayor thought was just fine. He clearly was going to use the process as a way to legitimize a decision he had already made with no idea of really consulting the steering committee honestly. I was not comfortable with what appeared to me to be a sham of a process, so I declined. Another consultant took the job, and I had wondered whether I had been smart to give away work that another consultant was glad to have and told me so. This book helped me confirm that I had made the right decision.

I looked for weaknesses in Great Meetings!, but could not find much to report. It may be more difficult to use as a reference guide than The Facilitator¡¦s Handbook, but on the other hand, the chapter headings in the table of contents are clearly written and should be all you need to find the information you seek. Some of the warm-up exercises presented on pages 95 to 102 could appear lame to some groups or appear to trivialize the importance of the meeting if it involves a major conflict. On the other hand, the exercises are creative and fun. Perhaps, they would allow creative solutions to follow.

I found many more strengths than weaknesses. The book provides some good ideas on proper attitudes for facilitators on page 10. These are worth repeating:
„X Servant of the group and its process
„X Respect and compassion
„X Positive
„X Flexible
„X Non-defensive
„X Neutral
Other books may cover most of these, but I have seen few talk about compassion. This is something we all need to strive for, even (or especially) when there are difficult people in the group.

The book¡¦s discussion of group dynamics, while not an academically in depth analysis, is presented in a very accessible, comprehensive and easy-to-use way. For each group dynamic factor, the authors on pages 20-22 provide possible implications and/or interventions for facilitation. We are given insights into group dynamics, and then are provided tips on how to deal with them. This type of practical advice is carried over into the discussion of the various stages of group development: forming, storming, norming, performing. Many facilitation books discuss these stages. This book also provides specific tasks for the facilitator to carry out at each stage.

While I have said that this book is not like reference book, it does offer a few excellent checklists, like the meeting preparation checklist on pages 36-37 and the meeting location and facilities checklists on pages 48 and 49.

I also liked that the authors not only provide clear descriptions of problem solving tools, they tell which ones to use when, that is, when you are:
Defining and analyzing the problem
Visioning the ideal goal or preferred future state
Gathering information
Generating ideas
Clarifying, evaluating and narrowing options, and
Making the final decision
Planners could develop a whole process containing a series of meetings using this outline and the appropriate problem solving methods for each stage in the problem solving process.

Finally, I think the intervention case studies in Chapter 10 are very enlightening. They illustrate well how the various facilitation techniques can be used in plausible settings. These case studies would be particularly good reading for students who do not have much practical experience. Even seasoned facilitators might have an ¡§Ah! Ha!¡¨ moment, when they say, ¡§Oh that¡¦s what I could have done instead.¡¨

So, facilitators, read Great Meetings! one evening and enjoy a practical non-cookbook, non-academic guide to the art of facilitation.



Rating:
Summary: If you're running a meeting you should get this book
Review: This book is 15% theory, and 85% practical tools and techniques. Anybody responsible for facilitating any kind of meeting will find this book to be a treasure trove of helpful ideas, and welcome wisdom. It's light-hearted and easy to read. I'd be comfortable giving it to somebody quite inexperienced in running meetings, but also found much that spoke to this seasoned practitioner.

As the authors note in their introduction, "Meetings take planning and preparation to be successful. Agendas need to be designed carefully ... Managing a meeting takes a host of facilitation skills and a full bag of process tools." This book addresses all these needs in a very direct manner.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful resource for groups!
Review: This book was a real surprise. I am not sure why it is titled "Great Meetings" because it is an excellent toolbox for group development. As a peformance improvement coach, I have been using this book in my work with developing teams. Highly readable, this book explores group dynamics, roles, communication, conflict management, decision making, etc. Each chapter is well written and includes effective exercises. This is a great resource for a consultant, team leader, or facilitator. I have even used it as a gift to the team leader, a stay behind resource. Again, I am surprised at the limiting title. The authors have put together a greater resource than they may have realized. This is much more than a "how-to-have-a-meeting" book.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful resource for groups!
Review: This book was a real surprise. I am not sure why it is titled "Great Meetings" because it is an excellent toolbox for group development. As a peformance improvement coach, I have been using this book in my work with developing teams. Highly readable, this book explores group dynamics, roles, communication, conflict management, decision making, etc. Each chapter is well written and includes effective exercises. This is a great resource for a consultant, team leader, or facilitator. I have even used it as a gift to the team leader, a stay behind resource. Again, I am surprised at the limiting title. The authors have put together a greater resource than they may have realized. This is much more than a "how-to-have-a-meeting" book.

Rating:
Summary: How to eliminate swamp gas
Review: This is a revised and expanded edition of a book which has proven especially helpful to those responsible for planning and conducting meetings but also to those who need to improve their presentation skills in other situations such as when meeting with a supervisor (e.g. to provide a progress report) or with a client (e.g. to make recommendations concerning new initiatives). Kelsey and Plumb are professional meeting facilitators who also train others to become effective facilitators. In this new edition, they share much of the same material found in the first edition (Great Meetings! How to Facilitate Like a Pro) but develop it in much greater depth, in response to extensive feedback which they have obtained since 1997. They respond to questions such as these:

What distinguishes facilitation from meeting organization, process design, process coaching, and organizational development consulting?
How to achieve effective group dynamics?
How best to prepare for a meeting?
How to design a great meeting?
Which three basic process steps are involved?
Which tools are needed to generate and evaluate ideas which result in appropriate decisions?
How to maximize a group's potential?
Which skills are need to promote positive communication?
How best to avoid or resolve conflicts?
When should a facilitator intervene in a group discussion? (When not to?)
How to enhance the group discussion with graphics? How best to integrate them?
Which personal issues are most significant to effective facilitation?

Kelsey and Plumb offer countless suggestions as to What to do, How to do it, What NOT to do, and Why. Those who are relatively inexperienced in terms of meeting facilitation will probably derive the greatest value from this book but I think it can also be of substantial benefit to others in need of fresh perspectives, sharper skills, and additional tools as they prepare to facilitate the next group meeting. When concluding this brief commentary, I presume to share a few thoughts of my own. First, make certain that there is a compelling need for a meeting. Second, include only those who are essential to the success of the meeting. Third, share the agenda in advance. Fourth, identify specific objectives and limit the discussion to achieving them. Finally, make certain when determining next steps that each task has an "owner" and a deadline. Follow up to ensure that everyone follows through. Without direct accountability, nothing will be accomplished.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful book
Review: Wonderful book. As an organization consultant and facilitator I give it away to clients; sell it to people I'm training; gave it to my son and son-in-law to help them understand faciltation - and lots of other stuff as well.

It is much richer than just meeting management. Buy it! you'll find it really helpful.