Leadership Meeting Facilitation

Written by Brian McElyea

The Learning Facilitator (Success is in the Conversation) Since JLC just finished a wonderful 2-day symposium on effective meeting facilitation, it seems fitting to discuss the learning facilitator this month. Francois La Rochefoucauld appropriately stated, "the reason why so few people are agreeable in conversations is that each is thinking more about what he intends to say than about what others are saying, and we never listen when we are eager to speak." Sound familiar? What does it feel like when you know you were really heard? In meetings, a critical component is to listen for understanding. To create a conversation that is based on attempting to learn from one another requires that we really listen to what others are saying. To make sure their point of view is heard and understood. For me, this was not an easy task until I began to step back from every conversation and ask myself, “what did I learn?” That simple question created a space for me to critically analyze whether or not I was listening for learning or listening to be polite. Adults like to know that they are truly being heard so we must create effective communication strategies that allow for learning to occur during our meetings. Secondly, Anthony Robbins states, "To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others." In JLC speak, we call these mental models. Essentially, mental models are representations of reality that we use to understand particular phenomena. Mental models are so powerful to our human construction that they can strongly influence how and who we listen to. Understanding how to surface and suspend our mental models becomes critical if we want to break down communication barriers. Specifically since all of our mental models are incomplete, constantly evolving, usually not accurate representations of reality and they contain measures of uncertainty but still allow them to be used even if incorrect. As a learning facilitator, it becomes critical to understand mental models and their role in hampering and enhancing communication during a meeting. Thirdly, Peter Drucker states, “The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said." A learning facilitator must read the room for tension and apprehension on members to speak. To sense fear by the participants to not speak. These are all common items in meetings we facilitate. To overcome this issue, JLC creates small teams to discuss an issue then they come back to the big group and report their discussions for synthesis and group think. By doing this, we make sure all members get involved, diffuse the dominant personalities in the room and enhance team learning. JLC learning facilitators design the meeting as a learning container where all participants become engaged and enrolled in the expected outcomes of the meeting. Lastly, Edward Bulwer-Lytton made the point, “the true spirit of conversation consists in building on another man's observation, not overturning it." A learning facilitator recognizes every point as a valuable contribution to the learning process and creates that container which is safe to present ideas and let the team build on them to create a unified product for the team. There are certainly many other areas a learning facilitator needs to be effective in and those will be explored in the next issue. We will explore the JLC Learning Conversation Guidelines at that time. JLC specializes in learning facilitation and we now provide a means for those who are interested in learning more to do so in our 2-day workshops.