Advanced Facilitation Blog

Perhaps you’ve been there before. You’re checking your inbox and suddenly you see a “high priority” email from your boss. The subject line reads: Great professional development opportunity for you!

You’re excited—maybe a bit nervous to open it. You read:

Hi!

I’d like you to facilitate a cross-functional needs assessment meeting with product development stakeholders to identify our gaps in new product rollouts. The goal would be for stakeholders to align on what support they need from the L&D team.

Let me know when you’d like to meet to discuss.

You think, “Me? Facilitate a cross-functional meeting with people who are senior to me? What did I do wrong to deserve this???!”

Or, you might think, “OK! Let me do some research on ‘facilitation best practice’ so I can at least be somewhat prepared for this opportunity.”

Facilitation Skills Are a Leadership Capability

Increasingly, senior leaders and executives are viewing facilitation skills as a means to develop high-potential team members. And even when that’s not the case, you may find yourself in a situation where you must lead a meeting of your peers or senior leaders. While many talent development professionals earn their living by facilitating training, the broader practice of facilitation encompasses many scenarios outside the traditional L&D environment. Brainstorming sessions, strategic planning, mediating, town hall meetings, and more are all arenas where good facilitation skills are needed to ensure a good meeting outcome. While your training skills will come in handy in those situations, some key differences come into play when facilitating discussions with a group of peers or senior leaders.

Skills like reading the room, managing disruption, executive presence, fostering safety, and participation are all components of facilitating well. Developing these skills can boost your credibility and visibility within your organization or with your clients. As you move up in your organization, you may find yourself relying on these skills more.

We’ve Got a Program for That

In our effort to dial in on skills and capabilities that address leadership and management skills gaps, we’ve created the Advanced Facilitation Skills Certificate program. Different from our Training & Facilitation Certificate or the ATD Master Trainer® Program, this course is specifically geared toward preparing professionals from any discipline to facilitate any type of meeting, gathering, or presentation with confidence and excellence.

If you or someone on your team is looking to develop this in-demand and career-enhancing capability, check out the course page. We’ve got a cohort starting soon.