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Newsletter 9, 2007:
Facilitation Skills
Facilitating Personal and Professional Growth in Your Teams
Available now: Workshop
booklet and PowerPoint "Facilitating Personal and Professional
Growth" for you to conduct your own
PD. (See below).
The essence of effective
leadership and productive management is skilled facilitation.
Following is the introduction to an excellent article on
Facilitation:
Facilitation is about process
and progress. It very nicely extends to meet the needs of focused and
productive meetings and develops skills which can also be used
elsewhere.
In essence the art of Facilitation is about being able to support
outcomes, where there are a group of people, by 'oiling the wheels' and
letting the process work. Whilst it is something of a specialist area,
much can be done in making businesses successful, through understanding
the key points.
"It is a process of diverting
scattered forces into one powerful channel."
(with apologies to) James Allen
Facilitation focuses the attention of, say, meetings towards the goal of
the meeting, rather than get distracted. It generates all present to an
equal level and encourages a perspective of collaboration.
Other sections of the article
are:
Top Ten Things
About Facilitation
Ten Ways to be Better at Facilitation
5 Simple Actions You Can Take Today!
Bibliography - resources and useful links.
To download the complete article (author unknown)
CLICK HERE.
Active Listening is an
important skill for facilitators, especially for effective training or
coaching. Active listening helps you to involve your employees and to
get their ideas and commitment on how to improve their performance, and
how to continue developing their skills. Active listening encourages
two-way communication; shows employees that you value what they have to
say; motivates them to share information, ideas, concerns, and feelings;
prevents misunderstanding; encourages creativity; enhances learning; and
builds trust.
How good are your Active Listening skills?
Here is a very basic exercise in effective
listening:
Here's a little self-evaluation exercise to help you pin down just how
good you are at listening. Rate yourself, on a scale of 1-5, on each
statement:
1. I enjoy listening to people talk.
2. I encourage other people to talk.
3. I listen, even when I do not particularly like the person talking.
4. The sex of the person talking makes no difference in how well I listen.
5. I listen equally well to a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.
The complete questionnaire is 20 items. For the full set of questions, CLICK HERE.
TRAINING MATERIALS:
Our materials take the effort out of quality professional
development, allowing you to deliver the goods at a realistic cost.
These are provided in electronic format to keep costs low. Hard
copy (full colour laser print) and files on CD cost $33 + P&H extra as
you would understand.
Facilitation Skills
The ability to facilitate groups within the organisation has become a
critical leadership skill.
Program Description
Within this Learning package participants will develop competence in:
What is Facilitation?
When is it appropriate to employ facilitation?
The Facilitator
What is a Facilitator?
Traits of an Excellent Facilitator
Are You A Facilitator?
Functions and Styles
Facilitation Techniques
Awareness
Brainstorming
Nominal Group
Affinity Diagram
Fishbowl
Undiscussables
Multiple Perspectives
The Hangar
People in the Process
Facilitation and People
Group Dynamics
Personality Types
Dealing with Conflict
Program materials:
54 page workbook (MS Word) and 79 slide PowerPoint.
Cost: $55.00 incl GST.
Email Mel
to order, providing school order number and address details. |
High Performance Organisation
Workshops
The
High Performance Team:
Workshops are designed to suit your needs and your
desired outcomes. They are based on the TMS Work Wheel and
Team Wheel models. A personal profile in Team Management Systems
is desirable, but if the team has their Myers-Briggsฎ profiles,
cross-over exercises are used at no extra cost.
High Performance Team Workshop:
The workshop sessions involve participants in exploring the team wheel -
Who are we? Where are we now? Where are we going? How will we get there?
What is expected of us? What support will we receive? How will we know
how effective we are? What recognition will we receive?
The final sessions cover Communication and Problem Solving in depth.
The High
Performance Leader:
Workshops are at 2 levels, New Leaders and Developing High Performance
Leadership.
New Leader Series:
Leadership 101; Management 101; Change Management 101; Effective Time
Management; Effective Meeting Management.
Developing High Performance Leadership:
Expectation: The leader has been closely involved with the team in
the High Performance Team workshop series, modelling the program's value
personally and professionally in gaining those skills.
Management Linking Skills (middle and high-level leadership):
Sessions cover skilling in Work Allocation; Team Development;
Delegation; Objectives Setting; Quality Standards.
Leadership Linking Skills (high-level leadership):
Sessions cover skilling in Motivation and Strategy.
Workshop sessions are based on participants normal tasks and are
ongoing, with expectations of evidence of implementation of skills back
in the workplace provided to each participant's coach / mentor.
Mel will be able to help design a program that will suit your team's
development needs. With 35 years in EQ, a degree in Business,
teacher qualifications, Cert IV (Workplace Training and Assessment), Dip
Bus (Frontline Management) and 13 years at a Band 11 level, he has the
qualifications and experience to help!
Email
Mel Phillips (or phone on 07 5530 2676) to discuss how you and your
organisation can grow your skills and achieve improved outcomes.
STRATEGIC ALLIANCE:
We are pleased to announce that we have
developed a special relationship with Team Management Systems. TMS
is a "home grown" Queensland company that has grown to become an
international force in leadership and team development. Mel is
fully accredited as a facilitator for the Team Management Systems
(TMS) profile and the
innovative
action learning solution, Communication and Problem Solving
(CPS) Program.
These programs have been used with huge, multi-national corporations in
banking, finance, aviation and industry with significant success.
Contact Mel if you and your team have any needs in any of these areas:
- Coaching & Mentoring
- Teamwork & Leadership
- Conflict Resolution
- Project Management
Email
Mel Phillips (or phone on 07 5530 2676) to discuss how you and your
organisation can grow your skills and achieve improved outcomes.
MindSights
"Your Mind At Work"
This
easy-to-use software
is an amazing tool for all leaders who want to excel at their jobs.
The MS Word software complements all our training and development
materials. It provides thinking and planning patterns based on tasks you face!
These are
the sections in our "Consultants On Demand" software. This
software provides around 500 pages (17.4 Mb of files) of templates for
actions, prepared meeting agenda formats and expertly developed
facilitation questions to assist in rapid progress towards goals.
CLICK HERE
to download a free
demonstration version of "Consultants On Demand" (170kb
download)
Problem
Solving Consultants
Basic
Problem Solving
Systems Problem Solving
Root Cause Analysis Problem Solving
Resolve Major Problems.
Innovation
& Performance Improvement Consultants
Brainstorm,
Creativity & Innovation.
Performance Improvement.
Describe & Define.
Planning
Consultants
Strategic
Planning.
Goal
Setting.
Preferred
Futures.
Management
& Leadership Consultants
Project
Management.
Time
Management.
Decision
Making.
Team
Building.
"Thinklets"
These are amazingly
useful tools for leaders as part of the process for making things
happen.
CLICK HERE for a working demo version of "Thinklets Toolkit"
that shows the full range of amazing tools available. (370kb download)
Please
contact Mel with suggestions for
improvement, requests for articles, etc. Please let me know how
useful this is. Feedback is valuable in improving the service -
thanks.
In
response to a request, I will soon have an archive of past "Pearls of
Wisdom" and Newsletters available from the website. |