(Re)Calibrate Content and Process to Achieve Desired Outcomes (Facilitation Friday #9)
One of the core principles of effective facilitation
Some meetings convene to generate and discuss ideas. Some focus on evaluating ideas and making decisions. Many meetings are a bit of both. Some workshops are designed to raise awareness and change mindsets. Some focus on helping participants learn new skills or behaviors. Many workshops are a bit of both.
Achieving meeting or workshop outcomes requires an initial session design that appropriately calibrates both what the group discusses, decides, or learns (content) and how they do so (process), as well as real-time adjustments as warranted. When that does not occur, problems often result.
The right content rushed through too quick a process can leave participants not truly owning any commitments made or retaining any insights learned. A decision-making meeting that honors and elicits significant individual contributions, but produces no decisions or actions, could leave participants feeling their time had been wasted.
Well duh, right? Stick with me. Just because this core principle may seem simple or obvious doesn’t mean it lacks significant power to accelerate or impede your facilitation success … or that it is consistently and effectively applied to its full potential.
Initial session design and calibration
When designing a meeting or workshop agenda and content flow, facilitators determine an initial calibrated mix of content and formats, exercises, or processes that will work for (1) the outcomes specified, (2) the individuals who will be involved, and (3) the logistics (session length, room set or online platform, placement in the day or conference schedule, etc.). It’s our best guess of how things might unfold. Answering the three questions from my three-step Making It Easier framework can help you do so.
But we also should plan additional content, identify alternative formats for each segment of the meeting or workshop, create the requisite collateral materials (slides, handouts, et al), and prepare ourselves to draw on them when the need to do so becomes evident. This additional preparation sets us up for successful real-time recalibration as our initial content and process choices play out in real time with participants.
Content recalibration in action
During an initial workshop segment you’re leading it becomes apparent that many participants lack foundational knowledge upon which the rest of your session builds. You shift gears and do a quick quiz about some of these fundamentals, drawing out information about the correct answers from more knowledgeable participants and adding your own contributions as needed.
Process recalibration in action
A segment designed for large group discussion produces silence and blank stares. You opt to break the content into multiple questions and assign each to a small group to explore. When participants reconvene, each group briefly highlights their discussion and you facilitate open Q&A and large group discussion.
The ripple effects of recalibration
“Calling an audible,” modifying your planned content or process in real time, is a hallmark of effective facilitation as it increases the meeting or workshop value to participants. Doing so has a ripple effect for the rest of your meeting or workshop design and facilitation.
Consider the content and process recalibration examples offered. Both use more time and engage participants’ attention and energy differently than your initial design would have. This may mean that subsequent segments of your session need real-time recalibration.
You may have planned to divide into small groups for conversations after the segment you originally envisioned for large group discussion. Doing so now would be redundant since you used that format to address the lackluster response to your original design. You also likely need to make up some time. Always be vigilant in determining what additional adjustments any recalibrations you make may require.
Calibrating (and recalibrating) for participant expectations
Effective facilitation also manages and calibrates for participant expectations. Individuals enter meetings or workshops with their own expectations about content and process. Clarifying these expectations via advance surveying can inform your session design and facilitation, as well as your advance communications with participants.
Meeting agendas that restate the intended outcomes and how the agenda will help achieve them can help influence participants’ perceived value of the gathering. Explicitly distinguishing discussion vs. decision-making agenda segments helps shape participants’ expectations for their engagement during the meeting
We can similarly inform and influence participants’ expectations for workshops and other learning experiences. Because session marketing copy rarely tells the full story of a session, I almost always provide a session preview PDF exploring the content and formats in greater detail, as well as some of the questions people will be asked to discuss during the session. Here’s sample language I often use to help calibrate participants’ expectations for our time and their likely takeaways in my half-day facilitation workshops
Just as effective facilitation recalibrates content and process as a session unfolds, so must we manage individuals' expectations on a recurring basis. Example: It's not unusual that when some individuals feel a discussion is "beating a dead horse," others remain engaged and think there is more content to explore.
It's important to remember that as the facilitator, you serve the entire group, not any one segment of it, nor does the gathering’s success depend solely on you. Whenever possible, help the group be facilitative and manage the different process and content expectations that are appearing: "It seems some people are ready to move on to another topic. How do others feel?" Notice the facilitation restraint embedded in posing this question versus simply deciding for the group “Let’s move on.”
Bottom Line
Effective facilitation requires that you develop your competence and confidence for real-time recalibration of meeting or workshop content and process. Like standing on a balance board, feeling steady and secure while doing so is challenging. The more options you prepare for in advance, the easier it is to make real-time adjustments as needed.
Getting in Action
Think of your facilitation efforts. Identify a few that might require more significant real-time content and/or process adjustments. What personal prep will you do to help you comfortably and confidently shift to any alternative content or process options?
What might you observe from participants that would cause you to recalibrate your meeting or workshop design or facilitation? How might these cues differ from a virtual or hybrid gathering compared to an in-person session? Any potential implicit biases that you need to check about the inferences you make from what you notice?
How might you modify your meeting agendas or workshop outlines so that they better shape participants’ expectations for what will unfold during the session?
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