Here's where I've noticed facilitators in technical spaces get it wrong: Injecting their opinions It's hard to leave your expert opinion by the wayside. I get it. But you're there to PULL thoughts, not push them. Where's this tendency come from? From being told we're supposed to know the answer. OR Only answers get rewarded. We don't want to feel inferior, so we add our opinions to the mix OR we overemphasize the opinion of "experts" in the room. This ignores or straight shuts down valid thoughts from at least half the room most days. I've seen it. 👉 Here's the thing: Everyone else can see it and doesn't like it! If you're facilitating with expertise bias, my recommendation is to use the TWO HAT METHOD. One hat - Facilitator Two hat - Expert Take one off to use the other. BE CLEAR about when you change hats. You'll see better engagement and you'll still feel heard.

Public speaking? Fear of failure? Difficult people? For me, it would have to be handling difficult people. The thought of an obstinate person being openly negative makes my head spin. I tend to ignore or shut down when faced with such folk... But then a mentor laid some practical wisdom on me. How often do we actually encounter someone that really needs to be addressed? Not very often. In fact, almost never. I still want to be ready in the off chance that someone else is having a bad day, or shouldn't be in the session at all. However, knowing my mentor was constantly around some pretty openly critical people or troublemakers all the time and he rarely had to result to extreme measures, like booting them out, made me feel better about jumping into running sessions with new folks. Plus, I've found there's ways of identifying potentially difficult personalities early. What's the scariest part of facilitation for you?

When did you have the first feeling that you successfully conducted a team? For me, it was 10 years ago. It was a break-out group charged with planning out a complex scenario. There were about 30 experts in the room. I was the youngest by far, and I was intimidated. As the discussion started, things seemed on track. But very quickly, as engineers are want to do, they were diving down detailed paths and bickering over minutiae. It was painful because we weren't really meeting the intent. After 30 minutes of this, I had to speak up. I informed the group that we were well off track and that we needed to revisit our purpose there. After some stunned silence, the "team leader" agreed and brought the group back on track. While that moment may seem small to some, it was momentous to me. I experienced the directive clout that a facilitator brought to a room... Even a room of 20 to 30 year veterans! I've observed that good facilitative leaders: ✅ Sense the room ✅ Speak with conviction ✅ Hold people accountable When was your first facilitative moment?

I was leading an improvement event with a team of 2nd and 3rd level supervisors, customer representatives, and other experts. As a group, they were making decisions which impacted millions of dollars of assets and expenditures, and dozens of employees. Yet, in that room, for 5 days, they deferred to my leadership. - They did what I said - They answered my questions - Yet, I was the least vocal in the room - Yet, I only asked questions, reframed, or summarized I realized after the fact: - Even leaders beg to be facilitated - Facilitators are naturally viewed as leaders - Facilitation can be extremely simple and easy What's the point? 💎 If you'll adopt just a couple simple tools and principles, you'll have a skill set even senior leaders respect and are influenced by! Let's go! 💪