Step 3

Begin the Meeting

With the groundwork laid, it’s time to begin the meeting. Successful facilitation sessions open with a bang to get everyone on the same page and engaged in achieving the meeting’s objectives. A strong opening includes using icebreakers, reviewing the agenda, clarifying the purpose and objectives, establishing ground rules, and explaining the parking lot.

Develop a Strong Opening

The opening of a facilitation session should not only help to establish the credibility of the facilitator but also accomplish three things: Grab the participants’ attention, express the main goal of the meeting, and explain what the audience can expect to get out of the facilitation session.

The first 90 seconds of a facilitation session sets the tone for the rest of the meeting. If you start off on the right foot, chances are you’ll continue along that path. If, however, you start off on the wrong foot, it can be difficult to recover. It’s all about being prepared.

In the first 90 seconds, be sure to:

• Look like you’re confident, even if your knees are shaking. Acknowledge the group, smile (if appropriate), and start talking.

• Avoid reading from a script. Either memorize what you want to say or begin by asking questions of the participants.

• For virtual meetings, speak in a clear, confident voice. Also, consider asking each participant to remove any distractions from their field of vision.

Once you’ve used the first 90 seconds to set the right tone, it’s time to warm everyone up.

How often have you attended a meeting that quickly fell flat after the housekeeping details were discussed? This might not have happened if the facilitator had used an icebreaker. Icebreakers immediately get people involved, foster interaction, and inspire creative thinking. There are two main types of icebreakers: openers and acquainters. The next two sections provide some ideas for each. You may need to personalize these ideas so they apply to the session. Of course, there are meetings in which icebreakers and acquainters would not be appropriate, especially formal meetings, such as a board of directors meeting, or recurring meetings, such as a weekly sales meeting where participants already know each other.

Openers

Openers are intended to set the stage, ease into the session, and generally make participants comfortable. They’re not just for the beginning of the session, either. An effective opening bridges what the participants were doing to the tasks at hand and may energize groups after coffee breaks or lunch.

Keep in mind, if your opener does not tie into the topic, you will only confuse and distract the participants. Some suggestions for openers include:

Ask questions to stimulate thinking on the meeting topic. These might be rhetorical questions or requests for a show of hands. Besides stimulating the thought process, this technique helps participants to focus on the topic.

Share a personal experience or anecdote. You will spark participant interest if participants have experienced something similar. But limit your “war stories”; too many can turn listeners off instead.

Give a unique demonstration. This works well with technical topics. You can then proceed from the introduction to explanations of the “why” and “how” of the demonstration.

Use an interesting quotation, or perhaps modify a well-known quotation to fit the topic. For example: “Ask not what work teams can do for you, but what you can do for your work team.”

Relate the topic to previously covered content. Perhaps the speaker who preceded you, if another person gave an introduction, has established the groundwork for your meeting topic.

Acquainters

Acquainters work well for small-group meetings where the participants do not already know each other. These icebreakers serve two functions: they establish nonthreatening introductory contacts, and they increase participants’ familiarity with one another. Acquainters may have no relation to the topic of the meeting. They are designed to put participants at ease and relieve the initial anxiety that comes with any gathering of people new to one another. You can personalize the following acquainters for your group.

Fancy Saying

This activity challenges participants to “translate” written communications. For example, project the following on a screen and have them decode the meaning.

• “A feathered vertebrate enclosed in the grasping organ has an estimated worth that is higher than a duo encapsulated in the branched shrub.” (A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.)

• “It is sufficiently more tolerable to bestow upon than to come into possession.” (It is better to give than to receive.)

• “The medium of exchange is the origin or source of the amount of sorrow, distress, and calamity.” (Money is the root of all evil.)

• “A monetary unit equal to 1/100 of a pound that is stored aside is a monetary unit equal to 1/100 of a pound that is brought in by way of returns.” (A penny saved is a penny earned.)

The Question Web

Post a list of 20 questions somewhere in the room and ask the participants to stand in a circle. Hold on to the end of a spool of string or a ball of yarn and throw the ball to someone. That person then has to select a question and answer it. Holding a segment of the string, they then throw the rest of the ball to another member of the group. Eventually this creates a web.

Here are a few example questions. Adapt these for your group or invent your own:

• If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?

• What did you want to be when you were a child?

• If you didn’t have to sleep, what would you do with the extra time?

• If you could talk to any one person, living or dead, who would it be and why?

• Tea or coffee? Why?

Name That Person

Divide the group into two teams. Give each person a blank card and ask them to write five little-known facts about themselves. For example, “I played hockey in college, I was born in Iceland, I love to bake, I have a pet bird named Tweety, and I have never ridden a bicycle.” Collect the cards and divide into two piles by team. Taking turns, each team will draw one card from the opposing team’s pile. Each team tries to identify the person in as few clues as possible. Five points if they guess correctly on the first clue, then four, three, two, one, and zero on subsequent tries. The team with the most points wins.

People Bingo

This activity is great for groups who don’t know each other well. Make a 5 × 5 grid on a card and write descriptive statements in each box. Make copies for everyone in your group. Encourage the group to mix, talking to everyone to try and complete their card. If one of the items listed on the bingo card relates to the person they are talking with, have them sign their name in that box. End the activity after 10 minutes and review some of the interesting facts the group has discovered about each other. Adapt the statements in Tool 3-1 for your group.

TOOL 3-1

PEOPLE BINGO

Acquainters for Virtual Groups

If your team is meeting virtually, acquainters can be even more important because of the lack of opportunities for informal conversations and nonverbal communication, which often do the work of building trust and opening the lines of communication. Acquainters also give everyone the chance to speak at the beginning of the meeting, which increases the likelihood they will speak up again later on.

While some groups may already know each other, most of the time virtual work groups are convened because of distance, and the participants may never or rarely get the chance to meet in person. Consider the following acquainters to help your group establish rapport over computer screens and telephone lines. Adapt as necessary for your group.

Show and Tell

Before the meeting, ask each participant to take a picture and email it to you. The picture can be the participants’ choice, or can be a specific request. For example, you may ask everyone to send a picture of their shoes. Upload the pictures and share one at a time. Ask the owner of each pair of shoes to talk about their choice; for example, boots may indicate cold weather in one part of the country, sandals may indicate warm weather, and sneakers may indicate a running hobby. Or, you may ask the participants to take a picture of the weather outside their window, or of a favorite object on their desk. Use the photos as a basis for brief conversations.

Virtual Tours

For small teams using videoconferencing platforms, ask for a quick (30-second) virtual tour of their office space. This can be done either by a participant walking their laptop several steps in each direction and pointing out features of their space, or by a participant simply explaining what is visible to them: what pictures are on the wall, what’s outside the window, or a pet sitting at their feet in a home office. This is especially helpful to establish relationships for groups that will meet virtually frequently.

Quick Questions

This works well when you have a large group or if time is short. Ask each person to answer a question in one sentence. You can pose the same question to the group or vary the questions.

Questions might include:

• If money and time were no object, where would you most like to go on vacation?

• What does the weather look like where you are? (If possible, ask for a photo to be sent and share with the group.)

• What was your first job?

Two Truths and a Lie

Ask each team member to prepare a list of three interesting statements about themselves, one of which must be made up. Team members must guess which statement is the lie. For example, “I can play the guitar, I grew up on an island, and I have a sister who is 15 years older than I am.” Whoever is able to fool the most people wins.

Establish the Ground Rules, Goals, and the Parking Lot

From the very beginning of the session—or ideally, even before—participants should clearly understand the goal of the meeting, what the task is, why they are here, and how much time they have. These are accompanied by an explanation of ground rules and the parking lot.

The most successful facilitators usually provide a handout or display a flipchart detailing the agenda and estimated timing. This is an excellent point in the process to explain the planned approach to achieve the meeting outcomes. Spend a few minutes at the beginning to check for participants’ understanding and agreement. Often participants may want to modify or add to the outlined topics or process. Try to gain group consensus, because it is really the group that will be performing the work and achieving the goals—as a facilitator you are a guide on their journey. Then, let everyone know how you’ll get there together, by sharing the ground rules.

Establish Ground Rules

Ground rules are behavioral expectations that facilitators and participants have of each other. It is best to write out ground rules and display them every time the group meets. Don’t shortchange this process. The upfront time spent is well worth the investment. Not only do ground rules help to keep discussions on track, they also promote and maintain friendly group relations.

Developing ground rules can be an excellent opening activity. You can either:

• Present a list of proposed ground rules and facilitate an activity in which the participants react to and revise them.

• Facilitate an activity in which the participants propose their own ground rules and then come to a consensus or vote on them.

The best way to get buy-in is to have the group define its own ground rules for the meeting. If you choose this path, however, make sure you have already created a list of essential ground rules and keep it within your notes. Let the group list their own rules, but if you feel they have overlooked anything critical you can suggest a rule and ask them to consider how they would like to handle it.

To help you get started, consider using some of these ground rules for your facilitation sessions:

• Meetings begin and end on time.

• Attendees must actively participate.

• Only check phones and laptops at designated times.

• One person speaks at a time.

• No side conversations are permitted.

• Respect others and their opinions, even if different from yours.

• Speak up if you have something to say.

• What is said in this room is confidential and stays within the group.

• The group needs to come to a consensus when making decisions. If necessary, the group will vote to come to an agreement.

Once the group establishes and agrees to the ground rules, post them so that they are always visible. Quite often groups will “self-police,” which means participants call each other on the ground rules when one is broken. Depending on the formality of the environment, the self-policing method can be as low key as simply pointing out infractions verbally, mentioning a key word, or throwing paper wads or Nerf balls at the offender.

Establish the Goals of the Meeting

The goal of the meeting is not just to get through the meeting. You should already understand the goals of the meeting based on your initial interview with the client. Any information you were able to gather about the participants will help you understand their expectations and prior experience, and how those factors might help or hinder progress toward the goal. When discussing the purpose and objectives of the meeting, be very clear about what the group needs to accomplish by the end of the day, whether it’s to finalize a decision, brainstorm ideas, or provide a list of possible solutions. Make sure to ask if there are any questions or concerns about the group’s ability to achieve the day’s goal.

Reviewing the agenda is not the same as discussing the goals for the meeting. While a review is helpful at this point to get consensus for how the group will achieve those goals, a separate discussion to identify the deliverable itself is essential.

Create a Parking Lot

The parking lot—a blank sheet on a flipchart, poster board, or other visible area—establishes a designated place to collect ideas or topics that are off the agenda as you go through the day. These are ideas the group values enough to visit at a later date. For example, if, during a discussion about a client, the team begins to debate the pros and cons of building another satellite warehouse to accommodate them, you might suggest that discussion seems worthwhile, but best suited for another meeting. You, or another note-taker, may list it on the parking lot, visible to all.

By documenting these items, the participants can acknowledge any ideas or questions that need to be addressed later and maintain focus on the current tasks. Placing items in the parking lot enables the group to keep moving forward while avoiding tangents that sidetrack the group’s progress. At the end of the meeting, the group can determine if the parking lot items should be included in future meeting agendas or if any action is required by group participants outside of meetings.

This may seem like a lot to juggle in just the first few minutes of a meeting, but you can put all these steps into action by using the following checklist (Tool 3-2).

TOOL 3-2

BEGINNING A FACILITATION SESSION CHECKLIST

The Next Step

You’ve done your homework and already put it into action as you warm up the room, set ground rules, and begin the meeting. Now it’s time to get into the meat of it—helping the group generate ideas and make decisions.