Do Facilitators Make Good Trainers?
In January and February this year, I had the honor of providing customized trainings for a government organization. It was local, county-level government here in Virginia - and I love working with local government! Talk about government agencies that really try to be here for people. County and city governments have so much authority and leeway to help all of us:
Zoning
Stop signs
Medical help
Educational programs for adults, plus K-12 schools
Energy use
...the list could go on a lot longer - fill your fave local issue...
Anyway - the first of two trainings focused on how to run a respectful and engaging public meeting.
There's no real secret to how to do this well - it's all in the preparation. Participants were able to talk through and find solutions for specific circumstances that they've either had blow up in their faces in the past, or, they were afraid might happen in future public meetings.
The training went really well.
The second of this two-part series was, I'd been informed, to equip the same professionals with negotiation skills. Originally, the idea was that in some kinds of public meetings - or leading up to them - people have to negotiate, and they wanted negotiations, also, to be respectful.
But.
It became clear within the first 15 minutes of this half-day training that most of the participants had no interest in the subject matter. Multiple participants stated that they either already have been trained in negotiation, or, they have no need for this skill.
For some trainers, this is a nightmare scenario - what do you do? Continue on and hope that those who haven't spoken up actually want to learn this? Dismiss the whole group because you're not prepared to teach anything else? Send the people vocalizing opposition away, and teach a smaller group? Switch to another subject and hope the participants appreciate that?
Well, I kind of did that last thing - and it went even better than the first training.
As a facilitator and a mediator, I'm comfortable with giving meeting participants the opportunity to set the agenda - even in the moment. Being nimble and not relying on a slide deck or even notes from the client prep meetings: When you hire a facilitator who can train in certain subjects, that's the type of expert you're hiring.
So, I asked the group what issues they were dealing with.
They came up with a large list, and then we narrowed it down to three specific topics. We broke up into six small groups based on their job types. Each group took on one of the three chosen topics - that is, topics of their choosing - and created both an empathy map for the people they serve and a roadmap for how to move forward on that project.
And while, during small group reports, it became clear a few people did want some negotiation know-how, I dropped in just little basic info - enough to get people started on learning more, just for those who really needed it.
Sadly, a lot of trainers I've worked with don't feel able to switch gears quite so quickly. And not all facilitators do either - but it seems like way more facilitators are flexible to switch things around live than trainers.
Professional facilitators will:
come prepared with activities that focus on how the group interacts,
offer subject-matter expertise when needed,
give people opportunities to share wisdom from their own experiences,
and, be able to switch things up and let the participants lead when needed.
So the next time you're looking for a subject matter expert trainer, I suggest hiring a facilitator with some expertise in that specific topic - and then allowing them to facilitate rather than lecture.
