A New Organizational Role: Meeting Facilitators
It would be great if we could all be good at everything. But we aren’t, and it’s not realistic.
I used to work for a relatively large for profit organization that adopted a practice that was very effective. The organization developed a pool of people, “Meeting Facilitators,” who were responsible for planning and facilitating meetings connected to organizational initiatives. They were also lent out to departments that were looking for someone to help them with an important meeting.
This organization had many more resources than most nonprofits I work with today. But, despite that disparity, this is a doable practice even for the smallest of nonprofits.
There are likely one or more people who could take on an increased role in planning, facilitating, and providing effective follow-up from meetings. In doing so, you leverage people's interests and skills and create an opportunity for their own professional development. Your meetings will improve. Your outcomes will be more evident. And it takes the stress off of people who may really struggle with planning and facilitation skills.
Some tips, if you are to do this:
Lean into people who naturally show these skills. Who in your meetings helps to drive decisions or automatically takes notes?
Focus the role on facilitation vs. content. It is not likely that your meeting facilitator will have content knowledge on all potential meeting topics. If their role focuses on preparation, process facilitation, and follow-up, they can leave the content experts free to focus on what they bring to the table.
Whose job is flexible enough that they could be available when the meetings are happening? Even if they are interested, selecting a person who has little control over their schedule is not a good match to the need.
Make sure that this new accountability is written into their job description and held as an important deliverable, just like the things they are currently doing. It probably means shedding some things in their current responsibilities to enable them to do this and do it well.
Utilize established tools and practices across the organization so that this person can be effective regardless of whom they are working with. This is also important if more than one person is going to take on this role.
If you have collaborative partners that you work with regularly, consider how you will integrate this practice with your partners. Perhaps you could collectively adopt this practice and share meeting resources and talents.
Provide professional development to the person(s) taking on this role. Honor what they bring to the discipline so that the investment is worth it. If you are the leader (or just a good colleague), set a good example of doing assigned tasks, showing up on time prepared, and respecting the role of the meeting facilitator.
Most of us own a mug or t-shirt that says “This could have been an email.” That sentiment will seem less relevant if you adopt a strategy to drive results from your invested time in meetings.
If I can be of help, let me know. If you check out my resources you will see I already have a lot of tools that could be adopted. I also provide meeting management and facilitation trainings.
