Continuing our series on facilitation, Paul asks Rob and Richard how they create the trust and ‘safety’ required to get honesty and openness from workshop participants.

Creating a safe space is one of the primary responsibilities of a facilitator.

If you get the environment and dynamic wrong, it may cause people to close down, limiting the ideas, challenge and acceptance of the group. Getting it wrong makes the facilitator’s role harder.

A series of simple interventions, from the room layout to the first few minutes, can make all the difference, even though the group may not even notice you are doing it.

The Thinking Focus team have facilitated workshops all over the world.  We facilitate thinking for companies large and small, as well as charities, and government bodies; if you have something that you need the team to think about, then the team can help.

In this short series, Paul talks to Richard and Rob to understand how master facilitators work, giving you some inside tips on how to be a better facilitator, so you can get better outcomes in the meeting you are running.

This first podcast explores the thinking of the facilitator when they are planning the workshop, from the goal to the group; what do you need to know?

How many goals should you have?   Should you have goals for everything, or just focus on one thing?  

Ricky and Rob have one goal in this podcast, to talk about how many goals should have if you want to make sure you achieve all of the goals that you set yourself.

Ricky and Rob get ARCI in this podcast, looking at how (and why) people often confuse accountability and responsibility.  

The RACI model is a great tool to help understand different roles and responsibilities, but is Responsible (the R in RACI) really the place to start, or should Accountable go first? 

In this episode of the podcast, we explore motivation. 

Ricky and Paul consider why the typical motivational strategy of rewards and consequences (Carrot and Stick) might not be getting the best out of your team.  They consider why this approach is so common when it has such a limited impact, and discuss alternative strategies that will create more engaged and motivated team members.

By the way, sorry about the audio quality on this one. Even though it sounds like it, we can assure you that Paul was not recording from the toilets!