Group meetings and discussions are a central part of any business. Making sure that they are optimally engaging and productive takes a distinct set of skills. Unfortunately, even the most talented executives and leaders lack what it takes to...

What makes a good learning facilitator?
One of the most valuable traits of a business leader is to be a good learning facilitator for colleagues and employees. This person likely leads training or instructional meetings, which requires them to be prepared, skilled, knowledgeable, and engaging....

Facilitation Improves Your Chance of a Successful Acquisition
The first few months after acquiring a new company can be exhilarating. All your hard work and negotiations have led to this. It may be tempting to roll right into the new growth and celebrate your success with your...

The Top 9 Reasons to Use a Facilitator for your Group Meeting
Every day, 25 million group meetings bring people together across the U.S. Executives consider 67% of these sessions to be a failure and most leaders try to avoid meetings when possible. Too little gets accomplished, too much discussion is...

The Best Way for Your Leader to be Part of a Strategic Planning Retreat
For most organizations, the start of a new year signals a time for assessment and planning. Disciplined organizations will do this via a strategic planning retreat. While these are sometimes informal sessions, more often they are conducted in a...

The 8 Roles of a Facilitator
By definition, a facilitator is “a person…that makes an action or process easy or easier.” If ever there was an insufficient definition for something, this is it. Effective facilitators have to wear many hats in any given session. The...

Use This Chart to Improve Your Chances of a Successful Facilitation
If there’s one thing you can count on with every strategy session, it’s that it will be completely unique. People are involved. Often, emotions get involved too – particularly if the outcome of a decision will impact the success...

These 6 Questions are Your Secret to Successful Meetings
Planning for a meeting that successfully meets every objective takes rigorous discipline and clear purpose. Fortunately, there are some best practices that you can take to create a facilitated interaction that is purposeful and productive. Whether you are preparing...

Are you a Masterful Meeting Participant? Take this Quiz to find out.
A masterful meeting is a well-prepared, skillfully executed, results-oriented meeting with a timely start, a decisive close, and a clear follow-up plan. Just as the meeting leader has a specific role in creating masterful meetings, each meeting participant has...

These 6 Questions will Make Your First Meeting a Success
It shouldn’t surprise you to hear that the first meeting of any group is critically important. In fact, this is probably the most important meeting you’ll hold during the life of your group. Think about it like embarking on...