Create an Equitable, Inclusive, and Safe Climate (Facilitation Friday #5)
One of the core principles of effective facilitation
For people to engage honestly and authentically, they must believe it is safe to do so in the meeting or learning environment.
When I ask people to define an equitable, inclusive, and safe climate common responses include:
understanding goals and roles
knowing the process and expectations for their participation
ground rules or shared agreements that guide discussions
a comfortable environment that makes it easy to engage and interact
permission to share thoughts not fully formed, to “think out loud”
accommodations for individuals needs so they can participate fully
no fear of retribution either in real-time or after the gathering
time to think and prepare so they can contribute fully
maintaining an open mind and remaining open to persuasion
positional power and personal politics do not dominate
respect and appreciation for differences and individuality
knowing enough about the other people in the conversation
Working with participants to create and maintain this climate is a baseline requirement for effective meeting or workshop facilitation.
Why Climate?
Many think of such work in terms of safe (or brave) spaces. While those terms are perhaps most commonly used, in some circles they now are dismissed or derided.
For many reasons, I find the climate metaphor more apt. Let's explore why, first in terms of weather and then the corresponding application in facilitation:
Climate varies depending on your locale. People’s experience of organizational culture and climate varies depending on where they reside in an organization or community, their role and tenure, and with whom they interact.
Weather conditions can change rapidly. A day that starts sunny might end with brief afternoon rain showers. In meetings and workshops, the same is true. A safe climate established at the start of a discussion may deteriorate into stormy conditions with later topics. Or a group that struggles early on may become more engaged once a degree of comfort takes hold.
Climate trends are reasonable indicators for seasonal or even daily conditions, but they are not 100% reliable forecasts. While what worked or didn't work in past sessions of a workshop or meeting on a similar topic can offer possible insights for a future iteration, they aren't sure indicators of what may unfold.
Climate Considerations
Understanding what seems safe in the existing organizational environment, to/for whom, and why enhances your session design and facilitation. When participants know this same information it can help them be more respectful and supportive of others who experience the climate and culture differently.
Every organization (or workshop or conference) also has normative behavior in its culture: this is the way we do things around here. Considering how existing norms enhance or impede equity, inclusion, and perceptions of safety—as well as for whom—is critical for session design and facilitation.
People may bring these norms into any individual meeting environment; i.e., don't bring up controversial matters. This can create interesting conditions—think weather fronts colliding—when people from different departments or sites of a large organization enact their respective norms, ones that aren’t always identical. The same occurs in workshops or conferences.
Climate Preparation Questions
Helping create an equitable, inclusive, and safe climate requires facilitators to think about the overall climate or culture of the organization (conference) and what implications it has for the meeting or workshop design and facilitation. It also requires anticipating potential climate shifts that might unfold in real-time and how to respond to them.
I find it useful to think through a series of questions, ones I contemplate on my own, as well as explore in some form with participants through surveys, individual interviews, or in some cases, facilitated discussion with participants themselves.
What is the general climate for people to speak their truth(s), offer feedback openly, and raise tough questions or challenging issues?
How do perceptions of equity, inclusion, and safety seem to vary? For/by whom and why? What might most account for these varied perceptions?
What are the desired outcomes for the meeting or session I am facilitating and who will participate?
How might I design the session components (advance communications, pre-work, physical or virtual environment, opening and closing, et al) to accelerate participants’ sense of safety, equity, and inclusion?
What existing politics, norms, “rules of engagement,” or power dynamics may need disruption or interruption for better discussions and decisions?
Involving Participants as Climate Advocates
Ultimately, each participant determines whether the meeting or learning environment feels equitable, inclusive, and safe for them to contribute freely and honestly. As such, creating and maintaining that environment is not the facilitator’s responsibility alone, but one shared by all who have a stake in the session’s outcome. Interestingly, participants with little or no investment in a gathering’s outcome often don’t care how their contributions affect the climate everyone else experiences.
A potentially challenging, but ultimately rewarding conversation we should facilitate involves enlisting participants and co-creators and maintainers of the conversation climate by asking:
What must we collectively do to ensure people can speak their minds freely today and that we can produce the results you want to achieve by the end of our time together?
If the meeting or workshop climate begins to seem unsafe or lack equity, what might we collectively do to reset the environment to one more conducive to productive discussions?
Bottom line?
An equitable, inclusive, and safe climate is critical to making it easier for better discussions, decisions, and results. Creating and maintaining it is a shared responsibility of participants and the facilitator(s). Every meeting or workshop should be designed to help contribute to a productive discussion and decision-making environment. Future posts will explore additional tips, tools, and resources to help make this easier.
Getting in Action
Anonymously survey colleagues to identify their general perceptions of equity, inclusion, and safety in your existing meetings and what shifts would improve those perceptions.
Identify shifts in meeting agendas or formats that might improve the overall discussion and decision-making climate.
Determine what facilitative contributions you might make when as a meeting participant you perceive the climate is less equitable, inclusive, or safe than is desirable.
Consider evaluating the perceived safety, equity, and inclusion climate of every meeting with a simple one-question rating and an open-ended question asking for additional thoughts. Track this metric over time and use it to improve overall meeting conditions, as well as identify which gatherings and/or which facilitators may need extra attention and support.
Related Reading
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