As a facilitator, I work with business teams across APAC. My focus is team development and leadership and my main goal is to help teams collaborate more effectively. I do this by supporting my clients with workshop facilitation and team development training. I am based in Thailand and most of my work is conducted in either Bangkok or Phuket. However, since Singapore and Kuala Lumpur are just a short flight away, you’ll often find me there as well.
You can read more about my team development workshops and the most common subject areas here.
Alternatively, if you are more interested in my team building programs and team bonding activities in Phuket and Bangkok, click here.
What’s My Facilitation Style?
I have a rather cheerful and fun style of facilitation. While the topics covered in my training workshops may be serious and crucial to the success of the teams I work with, I see no reason why we can’t keep things lively and humorous. I strongly believe that this approach to facilitation keeps participants fully engaged in the learning process and makes each workshop more memorable. Client feedback would seem to support this belief.
I once attended a team training workshop in Phuket many years ago, at the start of my career. The trainer presented ten points to becoming a better team player and point no. 6 was “never take yourself too seriously”. I am a firm advocate of this theory and apply it in my work as a team facilitator. You’ll find that my workshops are activity-focused (no boring Powerpoint presentations), inclusive for both introverts and extroverts, sometimes noisy, and filled with plenty of laughs.
“Thank you for the wonderful facilitation. Everyone was highly engaged and the workshop really delivered.”
WL GORE
What Is A Facilitator?
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word facilitator as “a person or thing which facilitates an action”. That definition doesn’t appear to be too helpful though. Let’s try Cambridge. Their definition is “someone who helps a person or organisation do something more easily or find the answer to a problem, by discussing things and suggesting ways of doing things”. That’s better.
A facilitator is not a teacher. As a facilitator, I do not stand at the front of the room with a boring powerpoint presentation reading through a list of bullet points on a particular topic. In fact, in my workshops, I very rarely use a presentation screen at all. Facilitators design and lead the learning process. We understand the group’s goals and design activities and exercises to help the group achieve those goals. We guide discussions, keep participants engaged, provide prompts when necessary, and support the group through a structured process.
Typically, a facilitator remains impartial and neutral and does not take an active role in conversations or exercises. We provide the framework and act more like a guide as the group collaborates to generate their own ideas and solutions. These facilitative skills ensure all participants are heard and valued. Unlike a coach, facilitators usually work with groups in a one-to-many relationship.
While facilitators are more focused on the group learning process, we each have our own specialties and will often change hats to step into a trainer role if and when required. Remember that a facilitator’s role is to support and so, if a group would benefit from some external knowledge, we will take the opportunity to present information and knowledge-based theory. My own focus is team development and team leadership.
What Does a Facilitator Do Exactly?
Planning & Preparation: Often based on an intial consultation with the client, we will spend time planning the session. What specific topics will be covered? How much time will be spent on each topic? What activities or exercises will be incorporated? What are the overall learning outcomes?
Leading The Session: Even though a lot of our work is in the planning stage, it’s leading the session that is arguably the most crucial bit. This is where our skills are tested. Leading a group (sometimes a dysfunctional group) can be tough and it requires special skills and experience to be able to guide the conversations, ask probing questions when relevant, and keep participants fully engaged in the process. There are even times when we need to manage conflict in the group. This must all be done with a group of people with differing personalities, varying role seniority, different cultures and working styles, and whom we have never met before!
Time Management: I think every reader will know how easily time can get away from you when dealing with a group of people. Facilitators help keep things on track. We know exactly how long our activities will take but, when conversations develop and good things are happening, we also know how to adjust the session flow in order to catch up again and finish when we said we would.
Sparking Conversations: When a facilitator has expert knowledge of a particular topic, we can change hats to become more of a trainer. I often do this in my team development and leadership workshops. I’ve got plenty of crucial knowledge and experience in this subject matter. But even when we’re facilitating a meeting about a topic we know little about (for example, software-related matters relating to our client’s internal processes) we are skilled in asking clarifying questions at key points in the conversation. Sometimes, these layperson questions highlight areas or weaknesses in a system that is managed by experts. Sometimes experts may miss something that the end user or customer may be struggling with. It’s often the case that a facilitator’s questions may raise an issue the group didn’t know they had. At other times, our questions can spark a conversation and uncover hidden concerns, particularly amongst the less outspoken team members. A facilitator’s knack for asking questions to the right person at the right time is both an art and a science.
Debriefing: It’s important to wrap up a session effectively so that the learning points are clarified and the group commits to agreed-upon actions. Facilitators may be asked to provide a report on the group, written from a neutral standpoint, to assist the group leaders in making changes and improvements.
What Are The Benefits Of Engaging A Facilitator?
I’m sure many of you have attended meetings and couldn’t wait to leave. Meetings often have a bad reputation as, far too often, they achieve absolutely nothing. Lots of talking over each other with no decisions being made. A professional facilitator can cut through this mess and streamline the whole meeting or workshop. Each individual gets the opportunity to be heard. It’s not just the big bosses or the most outgoing individuals who get to have a say.
The activities and exercises that facilitators make use of are designed specifically to extract ideas, knowledge, and solutions from the group. These exercises provide an efficient way to get to the heart of an issue and highlight action areas. For me, there is nothing worse than a meeting ending without any clear path forward. What’s the point of a meeting or workshop if no decisions are made and there is no plan of action? As a facilitator, my job is not done until the group has clearly outlined what it is they are going to do moving forward. What changes are they going to make? What ideas are going to be implemented? But these action plans also require commitment from the group and this is a key part of my session debriefs.
So, in summary, using a professional facilitator will streamline the learning process and lead the group more efficiently towards generating ideas or making real change. This ensures that your multi-day offsite in Bangkok or Phuket will not be a wasted opportunity. Team offsites can be very costly what with flights, accommodation, F&B, transportation, and multiple days away from the office when work is not getting done. Without effective meeting facilitation, your trip could simply turn in to a holiday for your team. While this certainly can bring its own benefits, if your intention was to discuss and solve some internal issues, then your investment would have been wasted. A facilitator will help keep things on point.