Week 13 Coaching Assignment - Reflective entry: Group and Team Facilitation

by Muriel Guillod 
 

Probably the first difference which struck me in our stories was that they all involved another kind of facilitation. Phuong’s story involved a facilitator (himself) from inside the team, Noora’s story was about an external facilitator, not belonging to the team in itself, and in my story… well there was unfortunately no facilitator at all. Thus, we have covered a very broad range of situations, and seen advantages and disadvantages of various cases, which helped us draw the following conclusions.

First of all, we’ve seen the importance of setting clear rules and have a strict discipline. In Noora’s facilitation experience, the external consultant defined during the very first meeting the rules by which the game was to be played. People were allocated a restricted time to fulfill a task, no phone or external distraction was allowed, and only once the time was over and the task completed were they allowed to take a short break and chat about other topics. In contrast, in my team, no such rules have ever been clearly stated, which resulted in precious loss of time. Comparing Phuong’s and Noora’s stories, we discovered that it is often easier to have an outsider as a facilitator, rather than someone from within the group. Indeed, being a member of the group makes it hard not to be afraid of team members’ judgement, and not to fear to be rejected or hurt the relationships between you and them. On the same line, relationships can hinder the facilitation process. If the group dynamics is all messed up, if people are unable to get along with each other, if they are not ready to make some effort, then even the best and most willing facilitator won’t be able to fix the relationships. As highlighted by Noora, even if her group was a bit reticent to enter the meeting in the first place, they all got along well together and there was a positive group dynamic. By opposition, in my team, there is not a really good group dynamic. Indeed, there is always someone who is not totally present during the meeting, e.g. he is choosing his course for the next semester and bringing his choice to the Direction des Programmes, thinking about his other group project, chatting on Facebook with his friends… What is more, some team members don’t seem to be fully committed to do their best in this project. In fact, it happened more than once that one person came to the meeting and admitted (without any kind of remorse or embarrassment) that he hasn’t completed the task that was assigned to him since our last meeting. Such behaviours eventually impact on the willingness of others to do their best, as they are always the ones to work hard for the ones who don’t. Consequently, this creates some kind of frustration within the group, and no one openly dares to speak out. In this kind of situation, a good facilitator would help to put that frustration on the table, for instance by observing what is happening, by looking at faces, by feelings the atmosphere within the room. He would notice it and say out loud “I feel some kind of frustration here”, without necessary pointing at anyone in particular. However, simply the fact to publicly recognise it would help team members to feel better, and nobody would have to personally take responsibility for it. A further advantage of having an outside facilitator is that he is not personally implicated in the project and thus is better able to take a step back and see the bigger picture. In my group project, this would have benefited us a lot if someone could have helped us find some clarity in all the details into which we got lost, and thus make us re-focus on the main task that we have to complete. Furthermore, he would have been able to make us see and consider all the options out there, whereas with all the time spent on the project so far we have lost our ability to see new options, new directions. It has even become hard to erase the part that we’ve been working on earlier in the semester and which are not relevant anymore, but knowing how much time we’ve spent on them makes it kind of painful to suddenly delete them like that.

All in all, a good facilitator helps to create a good working environment, where everyone is set equal, and where there is no fear to express opinions and feelings freely. This is greatly eased when the facilitator comes from outside the group, as he won’t fear judgment from team members. Finally, the facilitator helps see the bigger picture and fosters creativity by creating workshops aimed at promoting new ways of thinking.