My Facilitation Challenges: The People (Part 1)

Having run multiple workshops and client meetings tackling all shapes and sizes of problems, I’ve arrived at a list of things that make Facilitation difficult. I’ve decided to document these things into a new series called My Facilitation Challenges. I hope it’s beneficial and don’t forget to leave me a note about your own experiences.

The first challenge I’m going to focus on is the People.

That’s right the very people you are tasked with facilitating. Hurrah! Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much effort you’ve put into creating a safe space for the group, or on the format of the workshop there’s always that one (or maybe more than one) participant who throws a spanner in the works.

It’s a tough gig, but these spanner throwing folks are the very reason we chose to become Facilitators. We love the challenge, but above all, we get a real kick out of bringing everyone on the journey. Hallelujah!

Here I’ll use the classic “6-types-of-bullet-pointed-list” style to illustrate the types of participants I’ve experienced, why they pose a challenge to the facilitation process along with techniques I’ve used to get them on the same page.

A tip on the tips:

A lot of these tips will depend on your experience and confidence in commanding a room (or a group of participants). Some participants are more challenging other regardless of the behaviour they demonstrate. Don’t forget, we are also human and can have bad days. Use these tips based on your energy levels and where you need to focus them to get the best outcome for the group.

Let’s go!

1. Trigger Happy Sally

Ah trigger happy Sally. This is the participant who will start the activity before you have even finished giving the instruction. Thereby circumventing the timebox and the pre-established rules for participation. Oh boy.

The Facilitation Challenge: A participant that starts without letting you finish is ultimately not listening to the full instruction set. This will pose a problem later in the activity when they’re done with the first task and start looking around to see what’s next. Ultimately this behaviour disadvantages the participant in that it breaks them away from the group and has a secondary effect on the group who is working together to arrive at an agreed outcome.

Facilitation Technique(s):

(A) Call it out. Interrupt yourself and address the participant’s behaviour by suggesting they wait for the complete instructions and remind them about the timebox.

If you need to, wait until the participant stops what they’re doing before moving on so they can move their focus back to the process.

(B) Pre-empt this by framing your workshop with expectations from the day. You can do this as a “Ground Rules” activity where participants volunteer their views on expected behaviour from the group.

(C)Pull the participant aside. If the behaviour continues and it becomes disruptive to group work, have a one on one chat with your participant to really understand what’s driving their behaviour. Some participants just need one on one time to really grasp the message you’re delivering. Similarly there might be a problem that they weren’t comfortable sharing with the rest of the group during the one on one chat.

2. Never Neville

This person comes up during an ideation session. When the ask is to brainstorm ways to tackle an existing (or future) problem. Never Neville will tell you it’s not possible, he’ll let you know it’s an impossible ask. And worst of all, he’ll stick to his guns too.

The Facilitation Challenge: This particular situation is quite challenging. Depending on what is being asked and how it has previously unfolded in that participant’s work life. You’ll have to do a little digging to resolve this one. The challenge here is twofold, first, you have a participant refusing to partake in an activity. Second, depending on their volume, Never Nevilles can have a negative effect on the rest of the group. Ultimately you face the risk of not eliciting too many ideas from the group.

Facilitation Technique(s):

(D) Get Curious. Before starting the timebox on the activity, address the participant’s stance by asking them what they see as an obstacle. More than likely they will quote historical reasons or lack of influence the participant (or their team) have over this problem. At this stage you have options. Depending on what you’ve just heard you can choose to activate technique © or you can open up the conversation with the table. The third option is to reiterate the purpose of the exercise and how the outputs will be used*.

Techniques (B) & (C) also apply here.

3. The Silent Sage

Also known as the “I have no issues to report/I have no ideas on this topic”. This participant is another way your activity can get derailed. If the purpose of the activity is to open people up and get their input, having this participant can be a major bummer. It can also deeply affect your confidence and make you question whether you’ve created safety for the participants.

The Facilitation Challenge: The whole premise of facilitation hinges on participation. This participant is a good indicator of the safety in the room, or more widely in the organisation. People’s context differs greatly and you may not be able to address the historical events that brought this person to be tight lipped about their experiences.

It becomes very easy then to simply move on without this participant’s input but don’t. Every bit of input is valuable, especially from those who at first seem reluctant. So how do you go about cracking this problem?

Facilitation Techniques:

(E) Gauge it. Is it nerves? Is this person’s direct report sitting at the table? I would advise the one on one conversation and once you’ve established trust, feel free to call on them to give their opinion in the next activity.

Alternatively you can offer your time to the participant for a post workshop chat. I tend not to use this approach much due to the amount of work that goes into wrapping up a workshop and resetting the room. If however you feel this is the best approach, use at your discretion. Just don’t forget to circle back with them.

That concludes Part 1. Stay tuned for Part 2 where I cover off:

4. Roger the Rambler (the opposite of the Silent Sage)

5. The Turntable Participant (she’s permanently on the same loop)

6. The Solutions Guy! (he knows a lot about the solution)

*This is where the problem of you/the process comes in. As a facilitator you need to be certain of the purpose of the workshop and how the outputs will be consumed and shared.