The role of a facilitator in team development

What a facilitator actually does has become a thing of myth and magic. Defining it is a bit like trying to nail jelly to a wall (I have tried the former, not the latter!). For me there are two main reasons that facilitation defies definition:

1. It’s a very broad discipline that can be applied in so many situations. A facilitator can work with different groups to help them achieve many different things depending on what the objectives of the session are.
2. Facilitators quite often do appear to perform magic (I actually do know a facilitator that DOES perform magic). We somehow get people talking, get ideas rolling, alleviate tensions and frustrations. We also enable people to create all sorts of plans, make decisions and reach consensus all with a few activities and questions. (Hint – it’s not magic but a lot of practise and skill and we get results in a couple of hours that team leaders might have struggled with for years!)

So when it comes to team development, what exactly is the role of a facilitator?

First off, let’s be specific about ‘team development’ which is usually different from, say a team collaborating on creating a strategic plan. The focus there is the thing they are actually working on, ie the strategic plan.

In team development, the focus is on the relationships and issues that the team itself is experiencing. Of course, the reality is that the ‘work’ that the team does and the ‘way’ the team is are intertwined. And while a coach will work on supporting individuals to develop themselves, a facilitator will help those individuals work together as a team. The focus is on the ‘we’ rather than the ‘I’.

When we think about the ‘we’ the emphasis will be on areas such as:

Trust, communication, relationships, roles and responsibilities, team culture and norms, structure, team rules and much more.

The role of the facilitator is then to help the team work together to decide for themselves, agree (or allow disagreements to surface and decide how to move forwards when they can’t be resolved), generate ideas, come to a consensus, create plans and define next steps on how they can improve these things.

To do this, the first role of a facilitator in team development is to work with you to explore, define and establish the objectives and desired outputs. 

Some typical session objectives might be: 

• To agree on ways we can work better together as a team.  
• For team members to see how they fit into the big picture, and to recognise their importance in contributing to the team.   
• To understand our goals and how we as a team can these goals.  

What does a facilitator ACTUALLY do?

The short answer is that a facilitator can speed up and smooth out the process of team development.

Once objectives are agreed, they will design and prepare a session plan outlining a process that they will take the team through to meet those objectives. They will choose particular tools and activities to get the results you need and work with you to define any key questions. The facilitator will guide the group through the process in an Away Day or workshop.

The role of a facilitator in team development doesn’t end when the workshop does. Feedback and follow up are key components of getting the best results for a team. 

To the uninitiated it may indeed look as if professional facilitators play with post it notes, flipcharts and pens.

Or it may look like magic.

And while it is both, it is also neither of those things. Facilitation is process, planning and skills that help your team to work together to build trust, communicate better and even lay down the foundations for some new ways of working. In the short term, it speeds up the development of your team. In the long term, it keeps teams on track. What’s not to love about that?

Can we help develop your team with you? Get in touch.