Do you sometimes feel exhausted after a meeting? Do meetings seem endlessly long? Do you sometimes feel you are not really relevant or able to contribute? Does the real meeting happen in the corridor after the actual meeting?

Working together also means consulting together, solving problems, developing strategies, making decisions, clarifying corporate or departmental visions, making budget exercises, setting up intervision groups, facilitating management meetings, mapping out business processes, working out project plans, implementing change processes, etc.

After this intensive training you will be able to design and successfully facilitate such meetings and workshops.

Learning objectives

After this programme, participants are able to:

• lift meetings and workshops to a higher level
• guide all kinds of meetings and processes
• deal with resistance
• get people to participate more easily
• lead discussions, meetings and workshops to desired outcomes

This programme is meant for executives, project managers and coaches who want to sharpen their skills to lead (or guide) conversations, meetings and workshops. The principles and techniques taught are closely aligned with and enrich Agile andSociocracy 3.0.

This training programme consists of 4 half-day modules. In each module, we first bring the general framework. Then, we put the principles and techniques into practice and participants work through examples and cases that fit their own work situation.

Programme

Day 1: Competencies for facilitators:

Module 1. How to encourage participation and engagement

• techniques to engage all participants
• working with what comes up
• working with resistance
• your role as a facilitator

Module 2. How to facilitate a safe and stimulating environment

• focus on process
• group report
• observation of verbal and non-verbal signals
• active listening
• encouraging feedback loops
• ensuring inclusiveness
• ensuring sharing
• fair-witness
• framing conflicts and resistance
• promoting creativity
• effective consultation
• decision formation

Day 2: Learning to use various adapted work forms

Module 3. Applications:

We collect and discuss work formats that participants are already using: e.g. presentation, discussion rounds, serious games, activities, braingym, role plays, ...

• We learn to choose suitable work formats according to learning processes and desired outcomes:
  • different variants of work formats and their pros and cons.
  • when is a particular work form an appropriate methodology?
• How do we ensure variation and variety?
  • how do we ensure that everyone participates in each work form?
• We learn to supervise specific work forms.
• We learn to harvest:
  • How do we ensure valuable learning experiences?
  • How do we ensure support and joint decision-making?
• We practice working forms in combination with the built-up facilitation skills.
• We learn how to use the available time efficiently.

Module 4. Practice and reflection

In this module, participants put the principles and techniques taught into practice themselves. In doing so, they have to work in small working groups:

• Prepare a 'typical' meeting context and choose appropriate working form(s);
• Open the meeting room and invite the participants;
• Facilitate a process;
• Closing the conversation space and concluding;

The participants give each other constructive feedback. In this way, we apply the principle of meta-cognition (learning about one's own learning) to take people to the next level. As a result, people experience directly what the impact of learning process facilitation can be and can immediately start using deployable principles and techniques.

Participants work in alternating teams. The facilitator provides an open space that invites people to share experiences and adopt new principles and techniques.

Experiential Learning at The House of Coaching

The House of Coaching stands for experiential learning. As a participant, you continuously engage with theory through practical, experiential exercises that teach you to apply your skills in real situations. We facilitate the learning process through maximum interaction and sharing of experiences. That's learning that really sticks!