Challenge
Meetings, meetings, meetings.
Meetings take a large share of the week, we go in circles, and no one is holding the room with the authority the facilitator role actually carries.
Signs this is you
- The same few people carry the conversation and everyone else goes quiet
- Disagreement either gets avoided or derails the whole meeting
- Meetings run long and end without a clear outcome
- Half of what we discuss did not need a meeting at all
- When the facilitator puts their own proposal on the table, no one feels free to push back on it
- Whoever called the meeting is also running it, taking notes, and deciding, so no one is actually holding the room
How we help
We treat facilitation as the earliest point of intervention in a conflict. Facilitation as conflict prevention, working with conflict in the room, communication and meeting systems, and decision-making architecture and protocols, so the room can hold disagreement instead of routing around it, everyone in it gets to speak, and whoever is facilitating uses the authority the role carries without using it to steer the outcome. Part of the work is deciding what needs a meeting at all.
What to expect
Facilitation is a skill a group builds together, not a role one person holds forever. Rotating who facilitates is part of the practice, so we train more than one person from each group. That can run as a cohort with other co-ops, a small class, or coaching for the people already doing it.
Related offerings
- Facilitation as conflict prevention
- Working with conflict in the room
- Communication and meeting systems
- Decision-making architecture and protocols