With its widely covered areas, some people may already have come across the new not-so-new term “facilitation” before. Having heard the term or not, a lot of people often wonder what it really means and what the actual benefits of facilitation are for their groups or organizations. 

For those of you who have never heard the term before, facilitation, in its loosest definition, can basically mean any person who jumps up during a meeting and start writing key points on a chalkboard as they are being discussed. But among professional facilitators, good facilitation requires mastery in communication, thorough understanding of tools and methods and a number of other skills that thus plays a vital role for the outcome of an event.

Have you ever been in a meeting where you wish the end were near; the topic doesn’t meet your interest in the slightest, you feel you and your colleagues are wasting your precious time and energy?  Facilitation is the very skill to prevent that kind of unproductive meetings.  To facilitate is to assist a meeting and maximize its results in many possible ways.  Facilitation provides neutral leadership and assistance without taking the reins in the group.  A meeting with good facilitation will be assured that the performance in the group will be increased as well as the important issues will be clearly emphasized and worked on.  Some examples of facilitator’s contribution to the group are:

• Helping the group define its overall goal, as well as specific objectives.
• Helping the group communicate effectively.
• Fostering leadership in others by sharing the responsibility for leading the group.
• Making accurate notes that reflect the ideas of members.

The list can go on and on.  Nowadays since almost all of the organizations have to deal with working with large groups of people in the fast pace, more and more businesses and organizations in every field consider facilitation a key competency their personnel should possess. The impact of facilitation can go beyond just a good meeting. It can go as far as restructuring an organization, making a decision, training the staff, cultivating the collective wisdom and so on.