One of the most engaging types of sessions for any meeting or conference is the large group facilitation. This is where the audience has the opportunity to be the expert, to share their opinions, to network with their colleagues and to collaborate with others. It takes a confident public speaker and leader to direct large groups of people in engaging discussions and to keep them on task. There are several tips that will help ensure your large group facilitation is successful. These are my top 5 tips.
1. Strategic Preparation
The most important step is to think about what you want to accomplish by having a large group facilitated discussion. This is where the strategic preparation begins. You have to think about what are the key strategic things you want the group to accomplish or what should be the main takeaways. Preparation for a full day or multi-day conference should begin weeks ahead of time by establishing objectives then strategically planning how to achieve them.
2. Know the Audience
It is important to know the audience. The audience will contain different types of learners and communicators. Some people will be introvert and less likely to participate while others will be extrovert and want to be the center of attention. Engaging participants means having activities that meet the needs of the visual, auditory and kinetic learner. It is important to have a mix of these types of activities in order to keep everyone engaged. By knowing the audience and encouraging each person to take a role which they feel comfortable in the group dynamics will be more successful which will encourage them to achieve more. For example, an introvert might be very good at being the note taker while an extrovert might be a good table leader. It is relatively easy to identify the different personalities during the introductions and ice breakers. This will allow you to assign the roles. Alternatively, after the ice breaker during the group norming and rules of engagement activity, table participants can self select into different roles.
3. Identify a mutual purpose or common drive
It is important to understand what drives the group. Identify the common element or mutual purpose that will bring all the participants together. This is critical when having discussions that might result in different and potentially opposing recommendations. Being able to remind the group that collectively they are working towards the mutual purpose or common goal will help keep the focus on the task at hand rather than having participants take it personal or try to dominate and get their way with their own agenda.
As part of the initial group forming, norming and group engagement rule setting, each table should write down the mutual purpose in their own words. This should be kept visible at their table whether on a page in the middle or a large poster board.
4. Keep tabs on the energy and direction of the group
Throughout the facilitation it is important to constantly be aware of the pulse of the group. Pay attention to the energy level of the group as a whole as well as the individual participants. If you find the energy level is falling, it might be time to ask the tables to share the information they are currently working on in order to give the groups a break from the task at hand. This will allow them to recover while you take the lead and reenergize them through your enthusiastic leadership.
It is also important to keep track of the direction of the group. While the participants are having table discussions it is important to walk around and listen to the discussions. Make sure that the discussions are headed in the right direction. Ensure that no one individual is dominating the conversation and the group is free from friction and maintaining open communication. If you find that the communication seems to be strained, it might be important to interject with a question as to why they feel so strongly about a certain position or if they might be able to think about the pros and cons of the opposing view.
5. Be willing to change direction and improvise
This seems to be completely contradictory to the first tip of strategic preparation. It is not. If you have prepared strategically, you should have done a lot of brainstorming about how to lead the group to accomplish the task at hand. There might have been many things that due to time limitations were discarded. However, each group has different dynamics and even when they typically behave one way, there are those days when the group gets up on the wrong side of the bed so to say. This is when it is important that as a facilitator you have the ability and willingness to change direction and improvise. As I mentioned previously, this is not happening in a vacuum, but instead it relies on pulling back out previously considered strategies and activities that might be more appropriate given the unexpected responses.
Some times, telling a story that reconnect the audience with the task making it more personal and helping bring the importance of it to life is all it takes. Other times, it is a joke or an anecdote, or even a totally different activity that can reenergize and simultaneously be used to illustrate a point. For example, let’s say the group is not communicating effectively, having them do an activity where they pair up back to back with one person giving the other one instructions about how to draw a circle with a square and a triangle without being able to say draw a circle, square and triangle with the objective of having the other person make a exact photocopy of the page they hold goes a really far way into illustrating the importance of clear communication. After that activity and a discussion about clear communication, continuing the planned activities will likely have redirected the group and provided valuable information.
Conclusion
Large group facilitation is dynamic. It is important to plan ahead and know what you want to accomplish. Keeping the main purpose in mind and helping the group understand the common goal will result in an effective facilitated meeting. While it is great to have a plan, it is important to remember that you have to read and know the audience. You have to respond to their energy, where they are at and how they are communicating in order to guide them. This might mean you need to improvise and pull out activities previously discussed or tell a story to bring everyone back into focus. I know you will do well. You got this!