Learning through facilitation

Being a facilitator means I'm always very aware of other people's facilitation - and I learn from everyone, whether it's picking up ideas of things I want to do, or writing a note of "remember not to X!" when something doesn't land well with me.

I used to think of it as a bit of a curse, until I repositioned my framing and remembered I learn as much (if not more) from facilitation that doesn't suit my style/needs as from people I have huge facilitator-crushes on.

For years, I've kept an ongoing list of "things I learn from other facilitators" in the back pages of my work notebook. These are phrases, practices, ideas and activities that I pick up while being facilitated by someone else.

I've found it incredibly useful to have somewhere else to keep these, so I don't get distracted from what I'm meant to be paying attention to by geeking out on how it's being facilitated, and also so these gems don't get lost in amongst my notes on the content of whatever it is I'm there for.

As I've been going back through notes to put them into a new learning log that helps me synthesise, spot themes and plan actions from what I'm learning (more on this another time!) I though I'd share some of the top tips/phrases I've picked up from watching others...

🧍🏻 "Remind yourself you still have a body"

1️⃣ For those who don't want to join a breakout room, put a 1 in front of your name on Zoom and we will offer you a few reflection questions instead

🧭 "Agency over everything"

💪🏽 "I encourage rebellion"

🗣️ A definition of a meeting is that it hasn't started until everyone has spoken

🤝🏾 Reframing 'group agreement' as 'learning culture'

🎁 Offering a 'parting gift' at the end of an Action Learning Round (reframing of question/offer at the end)

⭕ Circle for things still going around in your head, ⏹️ square for things that have been consolidated, ♦️ diamond for things that stand out as a gem

🔊 Inviting large groups to all just unmute and say hi at the start of a webinar or other less participatory session

🧘🏻‍♀️ Remember to leave plenty of space for participants to fill in the gaps with their own thoughts when guiding somatic practices (i.e. not giving too many examples and filling the space)

(thanks to Kate Chester, Lucy Hawthorne and many others for being the source of these!)

Which of these top tips do you like, and might use?

And how do you pick up nuggets of wisdom and good practice from others in your profession?