Have you ever attended a meeting where you felt like the facilitator was artful with their facilitation moves, so you were engaged and gained a great deal? Have you ever attended a meeting where you felt a pit in your stomach because of how participants weren’t heard or brought into the conversation? I had both experiences this week, in back to back Zoom meetings, and want to write about some of the moves that made the effective facilitation lead to a richer dialogue and sense of community. Both of the meetings took place with participants from across the United States. Participants were educators in Pre-K through college and beyond. We came from a diverse set of roles and cultural backgrounds. 

Artful facilitation begins with stating the purpose of the meeting and asking participants to reflect on, or process, the purpose. They connect the purpose to their own context and set an intention around the purpose and the meeting.

Artful facilitators set up brave spaces by co-developing working agreements or “Pop Up Rules.” These lead to a sense of trust and equity of voice that allow participants to bring their whole selves and have vulnerable, rich conversations. Priya Parker talks about Pop Up Rules in her Ted Talk, 3 Steps to Turn Everyday Get-Togethers into Transformative Gatherings. Instead of unspoken norms, groups develop the agreements that fit their purpose and “constitutions for a specific purpose.” However, I add a reminder that we consider cultural ways of being in a meeting. In Color Brave Space — How to Run a Better Equity Focused Meeting, Heidi Schillinger and Erin Okuno write about how “too often safe space translates into too comfortable for white people and they take safe to mean, ‘don’t threaten my ways of thinking’ or ‘don’t make me feel uncomfortable.” As a facilitator, it is imperative to keep this in mind in facilitating work around working agreements. 

“Pop Up Rules allow us to gather across difference,
to connect, to make meaning together
without having to be the same.”
– Priya Parker

 

Artful facilitators encourage multiple ways of engaging in discourse, to bring in each participant’s voice. Opportunities are provided to reflect, journal, add ideas to the chat box, a Sli.do, a google doc, or on post it notes. Some dialogue is whole group and some is small group or in partnerships. Often, protocols are used to clarify the process. And, with each opportunity, equity of participation is an explicit expectation. Every voice is valued.

Artful facilitators rephrase, highlight, summarize, and restate participants’ comments. They probe for deeper understanding. They are strategic in lifting as many participant’s ideas as possible into the conversation. Facilitators are responsive to the needs of the group, truly acting in service to the purpose, and both shared and individual learning.

It is noteworthy that many (if not all) of the strategies above can be used with students. In addition, both of the meetings I referred to in the introduction were on topics of equity and action. In both, people gathered to learn and collaborate to understand themselves more deeply, in order to then act as change agents. Fortunately, one of the meetings met the goal, and I appreciate all I will take away from the meeting, as a facilitator and as someone who strives to grow in my antiracist abilities.

See Also
The Power of Protocols for Equity, Zaretta Hammond