Fearless Facilitation: The Ultimate Field Guide to Engaging (and Involving!) Your Audience

As the workforce ages and younger trainers and managers emerge, facilitation skills take on a new importance and, with the increased use of social networks, new facilitation skills are needed. Written by two facilitation gurus, this book shows how to make any learning environment come alive. It outlines proven guidelines any trainer can use to unify groups, inspire creativity, and get audiences, teams, and colleagues to speak up, talk back, participate, and engage in meetings.

Table of Contents:
Preface xi Acknowledgments xiii About the Authors xv Introduction xvii One Heard on the Street: The Audience Does Know! 1 The Audience Doesn’t Lie 1 It’s About Time! 6 It All Begins with Courage 7 Three Keys to Facilitate Fearlessly 8 And on a Final and Very Important Note 16 Coach’s Comments 16 Two Organic Facilitation 19 Organic Facilitation Is Less Known 20 Organic Facilitation Is Healthier in the Long Run 21 Organic Facilitation Takes Time to Perfect (or, Actually, Make Appear Imperfect) 22 Intimacy Is Key 23 Coach’s Comments 29 Three The Fourth Wall 33 The Wall It’s OK to Break 33 Food, Fun, and Safety 34 Five Tools for Your Fearless Tool Bag 37 Three Rules for Breaking the Wall 38 Dance Naked! The Wisdom Is in the Room 39 How to Work (and Not Work) the Room 39 How Fred Friedman Broke the Fourth Wall 41 Coach’s Comments 42 Four Have Fun with One or with One Hundred 45 Take It Professionally, Not Personally 47 As You Begin, Notice Who Is “with” You Through Their Reactions, Eye Contact, or What Seems to Be Working, Even in a Small Way 48 Be Ready to Adapt 51 Know That You Can’t Win Them All 53 Yes, Facilitation Works with Very Large Audiences! 54 Adapting to an Unexpectedly Small Audience 56 Coach’s Comments 57 Five Dialogue Not Monologue (Worse, Duologue) 61 Conversation Is Not Easy for Most 61 Can You Converse Without a Cocktail? 62 Conversation: Begin at the Beginning 64 The Break Is Never Really a Break 65 Dialogue During Your Meeting 66 Dialogue Post-Meeting 66 Coach’s Comments 67 Six The Set-Up: Making It Happen 71 The Learning Environment 72 You Can Always Facilitate, No Matter the Circumstances 75 Lessons from One Executive’s Transformation 77 Coach’s Comments 80 Seven Listen Live, Then Disappear! 85 What Oprah and Larry Know 86 What the Best Do Not Do 88 What the Journalist Uncovers 89 What the Orchestra Conductor Knows 90 What the Sales Professional Knows 93 Really Good Facilitators Use These Questions 94 Really Good Facilitators Avoid These Questions 97 What Listening Live Is Not 101 Timing Is Everything 102 Your Natural Resources 105 Coach’s Comments 105 Eight Go with It! 107 Take What They Give You 108 Trust! 108 When You Know More and They Came to Hear It 108 When You Need to (and Should) Keep Emotion at Bay 110 When You Can’t Think and Hit at the Same Time 111 Home Run! 112 Coach’s Comments 113 Nine It’s About the Audience, First and Always, in All Ways! 115 What a Ninety-One-Year-Old Knows 117 What a Professional Magician Knows 119 What an Eighth-Grade Teacher Knows 120 What Engineers Know 121 Connection Is Never Perfection 122 What the Professional Comedian Knows 123 Audiences Will React Differently to the Same Story 125 Avoid Death by Committee 126 Ten Yikes! A Whole Room Full of 131 When Times Go Less Well Than Planned 132 People and Groups Who Exhibit Predictable Challenges 133 People Who Are Disconnected 138 Only One Person to Facilitate 142 In Your Writing, Especially When You Need to Persuade 146 Gaining Traction 146 Keeping Momentum 147 When All Else Fails People Who Won’t Change, No Matter What 148 Coach’s Comments 150 Eleven Conclusion: Now Is the Beginning of Your New Skill 153 Appendix A: Sure Things: Eight Discussion Topics That Never Fail 155 Appendix B: Four Keys to Making It Easier 157 Appendix C: Momentum Magic 161 Appendix D: Oops! When Meetings Don’t Go So Well 163 Appendix E: Techniques for Teleconference and Virtual Meeting Facilitation 167 Index 169