Importance Of A Strategic Planning Facilitator

By Author: SamJacob Thomas
Total Articles: 40
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“A meeting is an event where minutes are kept, and hours are lost” – raise your hand if you agree. If someone were to count the amount of time spent in scheduling, cancelling, rescheduling and attending meetings, the results would be shocking! A recent study shows that employees spent 35%-60% of their time in meetings. What’s worse,most of these meetings tend to be ineffective as the agendais not clearly identified, the discussions tend to go awry, or they are not properly facilitated. Now, that certainly is a criminal waste of time and money. What options do organizations have to mitigate these situations?

They couldfix a limit to the number of meetings each team conducts per week, but this would result in an administrative nightmare. A simpler option is to select a few employees and make them undergo meeting facilitation training. By combining the fundamental tools from De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats, Lateral Thinking and Power of Perception, it equips employees with skills to conduct effective meetings.

Let us understandthis in more detail:

1. Being able to employ parallel thinking, that is, get ...
... everyone’s attention to focus on using a particular thinking tool,which enables them to think innovatively and productively about the problem

2. To be able to conceptualize various thinking methods, which will help solve a variety of problems

3. The ability to speak clearly on a subject and direct the attention of the attendees to enable them to think more effectively

Having understood what skills the training will impart, let us now understandthe role of a strategic planning facilitator:

• As a leader, he must drive the meeting by ensuring that the agendais adhered to andthe objectiveis met

• He must create an atmosphere that is conducive for everyone to participate in

• In case the meeting is going to be conducted in accordance with the Six Thinking Hats process, he will direct the meeting and ensure that each participant is focusing ononlya particular aspect of the problem

• He will urge everyone (including the quiet ones) to give their opinion and ensure that itis heard by all attendees

• He must ensure that there is minimumdiversion from the agenda and addressall queries

• He should encourage participants to get out of their comfort zones by asking probing questions and forcing them to think of out-of-the-box solutions

• He should direct the group towards solutions that are practical and feasible

Thus, by simply training afew select employees with facilitationskills for conducting meetings, organizations can save thousands of dollars that are wasted on ineffective meetings.