Facilitation

When you plan an offsite meeting for strategic thinking or planning, do you run the meeting? Or do you have one of the management team members run the meeting? Or do you use an “external” in the form of a professional facilitator? If you have not used an external facilitator, you are missing out on some key strategic benefits. Zest Learning can provide professional business facilitation services, which can help you achieve better results.

A professional business facilitator brings an independent and open-minded perspective.  They are able to keep the meeting focused and on track.  They will encourage team members to act as equals in the process. In our professional experience better outcomes are always achieved when an external professional facilitator is brought in.

Benefits of Professional Business Facilitation

Here are 10 powerful benefits of using an external facilitator:

1. Unbiased Objectivity. An outside facilitator is not biased and can be truly objective.  This ensures all aspects of your intention are covered.
2. Increased Successful Outcome. Our focus is to get you to reach your goal.  We bring people back on track, make sure the meeting stays on target and take people where they need to go.
3. Creative Thinking.  As professional facilitators we interact with a wide variety of audiences.  We can push your thinking when you get stuck, we will ask challenging questions and we’re not afraid to ask them!
4. Keeping it Fair.  Every opinion has to count.  We ensure a level playing field and gain greater buy-in and implementation from all team members.
5. Time is Money.  Think about the value of each person in the room.  A day of their time costs the business money.  It is really important that if you have managed to get key people in a room, that their time is used effectively.  We ensure that happens. 
6. Everyone Participates.  If you are running the meeting yourself it becomes difficult to both participate and keep things on track.  Our expertise is facilitation; use your expertise for what it’s meant for.
7. Keeping to Time.  We ensure completion of your meeting and achievement of your desire outcomes in a timely manner.  You need to get to your destination in the time you’ve set.
8. Raising Issues.   One of our skills is to observe both verbal and non verbal behaviour.  If we notice something that doesn’t ring true we will raise it.   As we are impartial and objective we will raise things that an internal person may try to avoid.  We can effectively resolve disagreements and channel intense moments into solutions.
9. Keep the Energy.   Thinking and processing is hard work.  It is tiring and energy levels can sag.   We monitor the pace and productivity of each part of the session, picking things up and slowing things down to keep the energy in the team.
10. Creating a Safe Place.  Having an external facilitator, who does all the things above, helps create a safe environment.  Knowing someone is there to keep the peace, ensures a non-threatening environment for open discussion.

What next?

• Contact us now to find out more.
• Read more about our skills workshops and management development services.
• Find out more about our psychometric testing services.
• Find out more from our case studies.