A Facilitator is someone who engages in facilitation—any activity that makes a social process easy or easier.
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A Facilitator often helps a group of people to understand their common objectives and assists them to plan how to achieve these objectives. Is an individual who enables groups and organizations to work more effectively, to collaborate and achieve synergy. In doing so, the Facilitator remains "neutral", meaning he/she does not take a particular position in the discussion.
Some facilitator tools will try to assist the group in achieving a consensus on any disagreements that preexist or emerge in the meeting so that it has a strong basis for future action.
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The Facilitator's job is to support everyone to do their best thinking and practice. To do this, the Facilitator encourages full participation, promotes mutual understanding and cultivates shared responsibility.
By supporting everyone to do their best thinking, a Facilitator enables group members to search for inclusive solutions and build sustainable agreements.
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Many skills are required to be a good Facilitator. The basic skills of a Facilitator are about following good meeting practices: timekeeping, following an agreed-upon agenda, and keeping a clear record. The higher-order skills involve watching the group and its individuals in light of group dynamics.
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In addition, Facilitators also need a variety of listening skills including ability to paraphrase; stack a conversation; draw people out; balance participation; and make space for more reticent group members.
It is critical to the facilitator's role to have the knowledge and skill to be able to intervene in a way that adds to the group's creativity rather than taking away from it.
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A successful Facilitator embodies respect for others and a watchful awareness of the many layers of reality in a human group. In the event that a consensus cannot be reached then the facilitator would assist the group in understanding the differences that divide it.
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Facilitators also require good understanding of processes – how to enable group decision-making, structuring agendas for appropriate results, problem-solving, etc.
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The Facilitator's role is to make it easier for the group to arrive at its own answer, decision, or deliverable.
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Facilitation tools are the gimmicks, instruments, exercises, and tricks which facilitators employ to stimulate activity, illustrate a point, provide feedback, perform analysis, keep the participants on track and focused, and handle the unexpected.
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I have lots of tools in my toolkit waiting for you to discover them!
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Ilana Moncarz
Process Facilitator
