Advanced Facilitation Skills

Specialized techniques for leading high-stakes meetings

Facilitating high-stakes meetings requires a delicate blend of unique skills. In nearly every meeting, you’ll have the “bulldozers” – those who are vocal and there to push their own agenda – and the “nearly invisible” – those who are so quiet you might actually forget they’re there. Corporate politics generally are a factor in who contributes and who doesn't. The fact remains that everyone in the meeting deserves the chance to be heard, and it’s the facilitator’s job to make that happen.

Our Advanced Facilitation Skills workshop helps facilitators bring structure to chaos while simultaneously going where the group leads and reaching a logical conclusion. It provides insights for setting an agenda everyone can get behind, proper note-taking, how and when to use co-facilitators, facilitating effectively in different environments (hybrid, virtual, or in-person), and much more.
This workshop builds the skills necessary to facilitate high-stakes meetings such as strategic planning sessions, quality
initiatives, and family council meetings.

All Turpin Workshops are highly customized to your organization's and employees' specific goals
and challenges and can be delivered on-site or virtually.

Experience Level

Medium to High

Overview

Duration: 2+ days
Maximum Enrollment: 6
Number of Instructors: 2
Location: Client Site & Virtual Classroom

Degree of Coaching

High: personal coaching occurs both in the classroom and in private video review after every in-class exercise

Intended For

Individuals who facilitate high-stakes meetings

Advanced Facilitation Skills

Specialized techniques for leading high-stakes meetings

Throughout the class, participants apply the principles of The Orderly Conversation® to their own real-life high-stakes meetings. The attendees’ audience may vary – from small or large in-person groups to remote or hybrid environments.

Successful participants will learn to

Set clear expectations and engage attendees in a comfortable, goal-oriented conversation
Frame the meeting to communicate (1) purpose, (2) direction, and (3) context
Create the conditions for a fruitful exchange of ideas and facilitate the interaction
Communicate effectively face-to-face, virtually, and in hybrid situations
Deliver content using slides, flip charts, or handouts
Use virtual tools, including video, for maximum engagement
Listen effectively and reserve judgment
Think on their feet
Manage disengaged, difficult, emotional, and hostile attendees
Connect dots and identify common themes
Document discussions using flip charts or white boards and/or work with scribes and co-facilitators
Set next steps and assign responsibilities
Get the business of the meeting done effectively and efficiently

Attendees receive a copy of The Orderly Conversation: Business Presentations Redefined

Additional Post-Workshop Skill-Reinforcement Options

In addition to the skill-reinforcement resources included in eCoach, consider this option:

Manager Support Program: Managers play a critical role in helping employees apply what they learn in class to the situations they face outside of it. To help managers support the learning, and when appropriate to do so, we provide guidance for setting expectations prior to the workshop and for providing support after.

Communication Training Yields Business Results

We believe that business communication training must focus on business results: making work easier, employees more successful, workplaces more cooperative, and goals more attainable.

Getting Business Done and Growing Leadership Capability: Everything we do is designed to help people get business done and grow their capabilities. While a particular workshop may focus on a specific business goal—closing a deal, making a decision, learning something new, or gaining alignment—every workshop is designed to help the participants be more comfortable, effective, and confident communicators. When employees communicate more effectively, leadership capability increases and careers advance. This brings positive results for your team and company.

Private Video Review: Capturing learners on video as they work on their real-life content, which is followed by private video playback and coaching, is an essential element of this training. It helps workshop participants understand their natural strengths (and weaknesses). As they grow their self-awareness, they can apply what they learn in class to the variety of situations they face outside of it.