Hiring a Board Retreat Facilitator: How to Get One Day That’s Actually Worth It

Your board gets together once or twice a year for a real working session. One day, maybe two. And too often it ends the same way: a good discussion, a few flip-chart pages nobody types up, and a quiet agreement to “circle back.” The right board retreat facilitator is the difference between that and a board that leaves with decisions made and owners assigned.

We run hundreds of strategic sessions a year, and the pattern is consistent: board retreats rarely fail in the room. They fail because no neutral person was responsible for getting the group to a result. Here’s how to fix that before you book anything.

What a board retreat facilitator actually does

A board retreat facilitator is a neutral professional who designs and runs your board’s offsite so the group reaches real decisions — not just a productive-feeling conversation. Because the facilitator has no stake in the outcome and no vote to protect, they can stay neutral, manage the hard dynamics around the table, and keep a room full of strong-willed leaders moving toward a result.

That neutrality is the whole point. Your board chair or executive director can run the meeting, but they can’t run it and be a full participant in it. The moment the person holding the marker has a position on the question, the room knows it — and the quietest, most important voices go quieter. A skilled facilitator holds the process so your leaders can hold the content.

When you actually need one

Not every board meeting needs an outside facilitator. A board retreat usually does. Bring one in when:

• The stakes are high. Strategic planning, a CEO transition, a merger conversation, a mission or bylaws review — anything where a wandering day costs you a year.
• The board is divided. If two camps have already formed, a neutral third party is the only person who can keep the conversation honest and get to a decision both sides will own.
• The chair needs to participate. When the chair has the most at stake in the outcome, they shouldn’t be the one steering the process.
• Last time disappointed. If your last retreat “felt good” but changed nothing, that’s the tell. A good day produces a product, not a feeling.

This is especially true in the nonprofit world. Guidance for boards consistently recommends an outside facilitator precisely so the board and executive staff can be in the conversation instead of running it (Bloomerang; Boardable). A nonprofit board retreat facilitator also brings sector-specific experience — they’ve navigated the founder dynamics, the volunteer-vs-staff tensions, and the mission conversations that for-profit boards never have.

Get ready before you hire: the 6 Ps

The best board retreat facilitator can’t save a retreat that was never defined. Before you book, run your retreat through the 6 Ps of Preparation — the same readiness check our facilitators use:

1. Purpose — Why are we holding this retreat? If your board members would give five different answers, you’re not ready yet.
2. Product — What will we physically have when it’s over? A written plan? A set of decisions? “A good discussion” is not a product.
3. Participants — Who’s in the room, and where does each person stand?
4. Probable issues — What tensions might surface? Name them now so your facilitator can design for them.
5. Process — How will we get from start to finish? This is what the facilitator builds — but you should know your constraints.
6. Place — Where, how long, and what logistics shape what’s possible?

Hand a facilitator clear answers to these and you’ve done more for your retreat than any venue or icebreaker ever will.

How to vet a board retreat facilitator

Most boards hire on a referral and a friendly phone call. That’s how you end up with someone who shows up with a flip chart and good energy but no method for getting to a decision. Ask every candidate the same questions — how they prepare before the day, how they move a divided group from debate to a decision, how they stay neutral with a strong chair in the room, exactly what you’ll walk away with, and what happens in the 90 days after. We’ve put the full list in our 10 questions to ask any facilitator.

And look for a top-tier, peer-assessed credential — the INIFAC Certified Master Facilitator (CMF) or the IAF Certified Professional Facilitator | Master (CPF | Master). The most accomplished facilitators often hold both.

You might be thinking: “We can run this ourselves.”

Maybe you can. But ask whether your chair can fully participate in the most important strategic conversation of the year and stay neutral enough to draw out the board member who disagrees. Those two jobs work against each other. The cost of a wasted board retreat — a year pointed in the wrong direction — dwarfs the cost of a facilitator. Boards get the outcomes they prepare for.

Find the right board retreat facilitator

You don’t have to guess. FindAFacilitator connects you with vetted facilitators matched to your board, your goals, and your timeline — including more INIFAC Certified Master Facilitators than any other source. Tell a Client Executive what you’re trying to accomplish and we’ll present facilitators who’ve run your kind of retreat before. Every one of our 200+ is already vetted, so you skip the guesswork. This is the FindAFacilitator marketplace, backed by Leadership Strategies, which has trained more than 35,000 professionals in facilitation.

Get matched with your facilitator →  ·  Call 1-877-312-4068

For the complete planning toolkit — the readiness check, the vetting questions, and the full blueprint — see our guide to hiring an executive retreat facilitator.

You know that meetings are critical to achieving your organization’s goals. Chances are, you also know that meetings are rarely conducted in the timeliest manner possible, and that they may not result in a consensus that meets the desired outcome. These are costly truths for many companies – but they can be resolved (even revolutionized) with strong leadership from someone skilled at the ‘5 W’s’ of successful meeting facilitation:

1. Who (is involved)
2. What (is the point)
3. When (will it happen)
4. Where (will it happen)
5. Why (should your stakeholders care)

Strong meeting leadership starts with a predetermined goal that can be simply defined. The three most common goals for a meeting include brainstorming, planning, and decision-making. Your company is a brain trust of your employees’ great ideas. You only need facilitation to inspire creativity, productive discussion, preparation, and reflection on outcomes.

The 5 W’s of Good Meetings

To see your meeting through from planning to success, tap into the time-tested ‘5 W’s’ approach.

Who

While it may be tempting to overuse the cc: option in an email, choosing who to invite to a meeting needs to be a carefully-made intentional decision. First look at numbers. Experts like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos suggest a “2 pizza rule.” Some meetings may require larger attendance, but in general, a productive team session should require only two pizzas.

With the number of attendees top of mind, think about who from your team can best assist you in achieving the goal of your meeting. Those key people are who you want to invite.

What

Before sending out the meeting invite, be prepared to explain your meeting plan. An agenda is important but try not to stay confined to template agendas you have used in the past. Instead, outline your overall goal and be sure everyone understands it before the meeting.

As you prepare for the meeting, keep in mind who your attendees will be. Have your agendas in the past outlined items to discuss the meeting’s order or flow? If not, prioritizing those items can help. Your priorities may vary depending on attendees and how you best communicate with them. If it is still difficult to order these priorities, facilitation training can give anyone willing to commit themselves to the program the proven tools for successful facilitation.

Where

When picking a location, consider somewhere with the least amount of distraction. You have probably sat in a few meetings where passersby through a window or even distraction from a computer, have extended the intended meeting time or prevented a successful outcome. Try to prepare for those unnecessary disruptions. The location of a meeting also allows for innovative tactics. You might want a place that offers helpful technology for notetaking. Or you may be interested in testing out a standing meeting depending on your attendees. Environment can make a huge difference. 

When

Timing is an invaluable factor when facilitating a meeting. Experts recommend avoiding Monday mornings when team members can be engrossed in catching up with emails or loose ends from the previous week. Similarly, avoid Fridays when focus is easily drawn to quickly finishing work in preparation for the weekend.

Connie Williams, CMO & Chief Knowledge Officers at Syneticsworld, recommends a shift in the common duration of meetings from an hour to 30-40 minutes. Imagine hitting your meeting goal in such a compressed amount of time! By lessening attendance to key invites and prioritizing the meeting in a conducive environment, this timeframe can be possible.

Why

With everything else in place, it is time to return to your original goal. There is a strategic transformation process that occurs during that (30-60 minute) time when all the attendees need to reach the desired consensus. Do not wait for the last five minutes to address that consensus. Every facet of the meeting should keep your original goal and priorities in mind.

As successful meeting facilitators, our advice has often been sought by clients who want to hold productive business meetings. Below are some practical and effective tips you can try at your next corporate get-together.

Set a Good Pace

This does not mean you are constantly bombarding your audience with information, slides, questions, etc. Quite the opposite; in between your talk, slides, Q&A and other activities, be sure to pause at critical intervals to give your participants a chance to absorb and digest the information you just shared. Setting a good pace during a meeting involves more than a flurry of non-stop activities and talk. Rather, it is about achieving a balance between meaningful silence and information sharing.

Vary the Activities

Unless you’re a gifted and charismatic speaker, we don’t recommend trying to hold a meeting by lecturing to your audience from beginning to end. From PowerPoint presentations and Q&A sessions to questionnaires and small group discussions, there is no shortage of effective meeting activities you can resort to in order to engage and hold the attention of your participants. Shifting activities every 20 minutes will keep your meeting going at a good clip.

Start Early

Ask participants to come at least 10 minutes before the meeting is set to start and use that time as a brief social mixer. Your participants can exchange business pleasantries and talk about light issues that may or may not be business-related. Getting them there early is also a good way to start the meeting on time.

Creative Recap

Set aside 15 minutes at the end of the meeting for a recap of the session. But instead of merely enumerating the issues discussed, have small groups act it out in a song, dance or even mime. This gives your participants a creative outlet and also a chance to demonstrate how much of the discussion they really understood. It will also help them to retain the important points of the meeting.

Take It Outside

Weather permitting, hold your meeting outside. A change of scenery may be just what you need for your participants to come up with innovative ideas and bold, creative schemes.

A “Moving” Experience

No matter where you choose to hold your meeting, get your attendees on their feet at the half-time mark (more often than that for meetings that will last longer than an hour). Five minutes of standing and walking as they casually chat about what has been discussed thus far will be enough to get their blood flowing again and break the monotony of sitting.

Productive, engaging, and effective board meetings do not happen overnight. As professional facilitators, we know that successful meetings take a lot of hard work and meticulous planning. Below are practical tips you may want to consider before holding your next board meeting.

Follow the Agenda

In any meeting, the agenda is the road map to success – or at the very least, it is the way to have an organized and orderly session. Make it clear to everyone that it will be followed. If there are any side issues that come up that need to be discussed, table it for another meeting, or set aside some time toward the end of the meeting to briefly address the issue.

Lay the Ground Rules

Establish time limits for sharing, and be clear on the topics that are on the table as well as what can be reasonably and realistically expected from the meeting. The less ambiguous the ground rules are for the meeting, the better your participants will be able to conform to them.

Guide the Process by Dealing with the Personalities

In any business meeting, there will be different personalities in attendance. Your job as facilitator is to make sure the meeting is not sabotaged or taken hostage by any single person. Be firm when you have to step in when someone is starting to dominate the discussion unfairly. Don’t wait too long to interrupt or this person could seriously derail your meeting.

Involve Everyone

If you were careful about inviting only the necessary stakeholders to the meeting, all your participants should have a meaningful contribution to make toward the outcome of the meeting. Make sure this is so. Sometimes less confrontational people shy away from speaking their mind when facing a dominant personality. Create a meeting environment that is non-threatening and open so people will feel free to speak their mind, share their opinions and form solutions.

Provide Feedback Opportunity

Give your participants the chance to process the information and ideas generated by the meeting. Even a simple online group where they can continue to share and build on what they learned is a helpful step. Be sure you monitor these feedback opportunities so you can use the data to improve or fine tune your next meeting.

Ineffective meetings waste time and money. They can also engender frustration, lack of respect and even anger among employees who feel that their time and ideas aren’t valued.

Meetings, both small and large, can provide leaders with a chance to motivate and encourage their employees. However, done badly, they can have a negative effect on morale that can curtail the flow of new ideas and ultimately hurt your business.

Habits To Steer Clear Of in a Meeting

We’re going to look at three habits of meeting facilitators and leaders that can be particularly damaging. We’ll also discuss ways to avoid them. These habits can also manifest themselves in other parts of your work and relationships with employees, so it’s particularly important to recognize them in yourself or your management team and then to change them. As one author on successful business strategies put it, “bad managers run bad meetings.”

1. Being a “Know-it-All”
Ineffective leaders refuse to recognize the expertise of the people who work for them. In meetings, they discourage questions and discussion, perhaps because they lack confidence in their own expertise.

A good manager encourages employees to bring their ideas to the meetings and to question the status quo. Not only does that lead to new, improved processes and strategies, but it also improves morale and encourages people to bring their best to their job.

2. Not Respecting People’s Time
There are a lot of ways in which managers show their disregard for employees in the scheduling of meetings. Some, particularly if they don’t have a personal life that they want to get home to, schedule meetings late in the day and run past people’s normal departure time. These can disrupt people’s ability to pick up kids, get home to dinner with the family and keep non-work-related appointments. Others hold unnecessarily long meetings, keeping employees from doing their job and possibly making sales calls that would bring more money to the company.

Leaders who work for international companies sometimes schedule meetings without any regard to the fact that they might be asking their Hong Kong team to get up at 4 a.m. or their London team to stay at work past 8 p.m.

Experienced corporate facilitators know that a good meeting leader is respectful of employees’ time, doesn’t keep them longer than necessary, and tries not to hold meetings outside of normal work hours. If you have to occasionally, at least buy breakfast or dinner for the group to show your appreciation.

3. Stealing Credit
We’ve all had bosses who took credit for other people’s ideas when they were successful but were only too happy to point to an employee who suggested an idea that didn’t work. One key way that a leader can undermine his or her own meetings is to listen to ideas from the group and then present them to senior management as if they were all his or hers.

This is a common flaw of poor leaders, whether because they are too vain or too insecure to recognize other people’s contributions. By giving credit to the team member(s) who came up with the idea when it succeeds, they encourage participation in brainstorming, strategy and process improvement meetings. Moreover, if an idea doesn’t pan out, a good boss accepts responsibility and doesn’t blame others. Leaders who are comfortable giving credit where it’s due are also more likely to delegate responsibilities to give employees further ownership of their ideas.

How a Professional Facilitator Can Help

One of the many advantages of hiring a professional facilitator for important meetings and conferences is to avoid some of the pitfalls that happen when a manager leads a meeting of people who work for him or her. Experienced corporate facilitators like those that FindaFacilitator provides focus on getting the most out of the meeting and the employees participating in it. Because the employees don’t work for them and the facilitators don’t have a history, good or bad, with the employees, a freer flow of ideas often results.

Our Certified Master Facilitators work in a variety of industries all over the world. Their expertise and well-honed instincts are invaluable for productive and highly-focused meetings. Below are a few easy and practical suggestions on how to host your own targeted and efficient business meeting.

Invite the Right People

Not everyone in your office (or even a department) needs to attend every schedule meeting. Having only the right stakeholders at your meeting ensures that everyone has a meaningful contribution to make. You don’t have to deal with bored attendees (because they have nothing to do with the matter at hand) or participants who make irrelevant comments (because they do not know what the meeting is really about).

Devise a Tight Agenda

Coming up with concise topics for your meeting will keep it focused and running smoothly. It will also prevent your participants from raising other, non-related issues or concerns during the meeting. Make sure all your invited attendees receive a copy of the agenda one or two days before the meeting. On the day of the meeting, stick to your agenda; do however, take note of important side issues that may be raised in the course of the discussion. Perhaps you can set another meeting to deal with them if the group deems them to be important enough.

Set Strict Ground Rules

An efficient meeting can easily be set off-course by a participant with an axe to grind or pet topics they want the group to address but are not on the agenda. Be clear on the onset that topics not on the agenda will not be discussed (but may be tabled for another meeting).

Set a time limit for sharing and don’t be timid about stepping in when one participant is constantly ignoring it. Unambiguous ground rules make it clear who is in charge and go a long way in eliciting proper behavior among your participants.

Have Meeting Equipment and Tools Ready

Nothing can derail a meeting more than a piece of vital equipment that suddenly dies in the middle of an important presentation. Have back-up plans in place in case of any equipment malfunction to keep your meeting humming along nicely.

On average, employees spend more than a third of their workday in meetings. For many of us, it seems like a lot more than that. A poorly organized, unproductive meeting can feel endless. Moreover, when we leave a meeting where little, if anything, has been accomplished, it feels like we have wasted time that could have been spent doing something more productive.

How do you keep a meeting for which you’re responsible from being one that people dread coming to and leave feeling frustrated? Here are 10 signs that you need effective meeting facilitation, whether from an outside certified facilitator or someone on your team:

1. There is no agenda.
An agenda can be as detailed or general as you like, but a good agenda lays out what you want to accomplish and can help you get things back on course if the participants stray from the purpose of the meeting.

2. It has no stated purpose.
Speaking of purpose, your meeting needs to have one. Otherwise, why bother? Even if it’s just a chance for you to touch base with your team, there should be something you want to accomplish. Otherwise, you risk one or a few people taking it over with their own agenda or complaints.

3. A few people dominate the meeting.
Unless the meeting is called for the purpose of hearing from a few specific people, everyone should have an equal opportunity to participate.

4. The discussion gets off track.
One of the marks of a good meeting leader is keeping the discussion on track. That’s why everyone should have a copy of the agenda. It helps bring the conversation back to the issues at hand.

5. Everyone’s talking, and no one is listening.
This is a problem that a strong meeting facilitator or leader can prevent. You can lay out the rules upfront if necessary. Make it clear that only one person speaks at a time and that others need to listen. Do not tolerate side conversations.

6. No one is talking.
That can be a sign of any number of things. Maybe people don’t feel free to express their thoughts in front of the leader and/or other employees. A good group facilitator encourages everyone to speak and requires that others be respectful of everyone’s ideas and viewpoints.

7. The wrong people are in the meeting.
This could be another reason why no one is speaking. They don’t have a vested interest in the topic. This is something you can prevent with proper meeting planning. Make sure that the decision-makers are included, or at least people who can relay the outcomes of the meeting to the decision-makers.

On the other hand, be sure that everyone impacted by the decisions made at the meeting is invited so that they can be part of the discussion. You don’t want to reach a decision and then find out later that it can’t be implemented. By giving everyone a chance to be present or a least send a representative, you can prevent the meeting from being a waste of time. Perhaps more importantly, this way you won’t anger or hurt those whose help and support you’ll need.

8. Only one point of view is heard.
When a meeting facilitator or leader is invested in a particular solution or point of view, that’s often the time to call in a professional facilitator. If you truly want a diversity of opinions, it’s essential that people feel free to offer them. That’s the only way to get people to think outside the box.

9. Nothing is accomplished.
Unfortunately, you often don’t realize this until it’s too late. If the meeting ends with nothing decided or accomplished, except possibly the scheduling of another meeting, it hasn’t been effective. Learn from your mistakes for next time.

10. There’s no follow-through.
Communicate with the people who were at the meeting afterward to let them know what happened with issues that were raised or decisions that were made. It’s fine to do this at the next meeting if you’re having regular meetings on a project, but the sooner you follow up via email or other communication, the more they’ll feel like their input matters and that you’re on top of the situation.

People want to know that their time is respected. If you invite them to meetings where nothing is accomplished, the discussion is disorganized, there is no follow-up on the issues or decisions that come out of the meeting, or they sense that you aren’t in control, pretty soon people will start finding a reason to skip your meetings.

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Whether its strategic planning, process improvement, team building, or issue resolution, we can match you with a certified facilitator with the skills and experience that will serve your specific needs.

Every business wants to increase productivity. One important way to do that is to increase the efficiency and productivity of meetings. That can be done by changing the emphasis you place on the various types of meeting communication.

Types of Meeting Communication

We’ve identified five types of meeting communication:

• Debating, Decision Making, Point Proving
• Info Sharing
• Sharing Oneself
• Promises
• Requests

In most meetings, the meeting facilitator allows the first three types of communication to dominate the discussion. The problem is that they don’t drive results. While it’s important to have those types of communication with your team, they should not be the focus of your meetings.

Communication Outside of Meetings

There are other, more efficient ways to have these types of communication with your team. If you need to share information with the group, send an email. If you want to share your feelings or thoughts with one or a few people, have a quick huddle.

The purpose of a meeting is to reach a conclusion. To focus on that outcome, meetings should be effective, efficient and require accountability. Of course, you also want to keep your team happy, but do endless, unproductive, boring meetings do that?

Unlikely.

One-on-one and more informal communication around the office can help make employees feel appreciated on a more personal level.

Key Steps to a Winning Meeting Strategy

1. Determine what you want to accomplish with the meeting.
2. Invite only those people who are needed to facilitate the meeting and those who will be impacted by it. The more extraneous people are included, the more likely it is that these other types of communications will dominate. You’ll also be wasting people’s valuable time.
3. Have a detailed agenda with time frames for each section and stick to it.
4. Assign a group facilitator or leader who can keep the meeting moving and keep the focus on what you want to accomplish. The leader or facilitator needs to be someone who isn’t afraid to step in and get people back on track if they wander too far into one of the less productive types of communication. This can be done by moving these topics to an “offline” conversation involving only the necessary people.
5. The leader will also ensure that requests are clear so that the person who has made the promise to deliver understands it. He or she also needs to make sure that those who made promises have or receive what they need to do their assigned job.
6. Finally, the leader should send an email recapping everyone’s responsibilities to all concerned parties after the meeting.

Obviously, there are some types of meetings where it is necessary to go beyond the focus on requests and promises. Some business owners like to take time with their teams on a quarterly basis to review company performance and discuss goals for the future. However, these can also be handled with efficiency by sticking to an agenda.

Meetings are ironically one of the biggest time-wasters in the modern office – but they don’t have to be! You can effectively share important information about upcoming news or projects without taking a huge chunk out of the day’s productivity, but it takes some degree of forethought and planning.

Leadership Strategies specializes in helping companies large and small manage their time effectively in meetings. Though many of our clients prefer hiring meeting facilitators to alleviate this added strain, it can be done in-house as well. Here are a few tips for ensuring effective time management in your next meeting.

Create an Outline

Establish clear goals for yourself and then create a rough outline of how you want your meeting to progress according to those goals. Include an agenda with time estimates for each topic that needs to be addressed. Block out the absolute maximum amount of time that you can spend and plan for at least half an hour of unanticipated dialogue and questions. Then, divvy the remaining time accordingly, assigning the most amount of time to more complex or important topic areas.

Prepare for and Avoid Disruptions

It’s important to anticipate disturbances early on in the meeting so that you can prepare accordingly for them. If meeting rooms are shared spaces, ask that others work elsewhere to avoid disruptive conversations. Ask attendees to power off cell phones if they are distractions and be sure to keep dialogue and questions relevant to the topic at hand. All irrelevant questions should be held until after a more appropriate opportunity arises, as they can eat up several minutes’ worth of important meeting time otherwise.

Respect the Time

Assigning the role of timekeeper to a trusted colleague is the best way to stay on top of your agenda. Discuss how you will be delivering time checks and pay attention throughout the meeting for cues from your timekeeper that you must slow down or speed up to cover your material effectively.

Creative problem-solving (“CPS”) takes your meetings beyond conventional thinking styles. It is a deliberate process that corporate facilitators use to help organizations solve problems or find opportunities that have not been explored previously. The key word here is deliberate. Creative problem-solving should be facilitated by a professional facilitator for it to be successful.

Before the Session

Any creative problem-solving facilitated session actually begins with a pre-session meeting with the client. During this meeting, the certified facilitator discusses the situation with the client, assesses what the client’s needs and goals are for the session, gathers important data and determines what stage of creative problem-solving would most benefit the session. Every situation is different, and the facilitator will do his or her part to be fully prepared for the unique task at hand.

A Typical Session

When the actual facilitated session occurs, it will involve three parties: the client, the resource group (typically employees who have been working on the problem with no solution) and the facilitator. The facilitator will guide the session, make decisions about where to start with the CPS process, guide the participants through relevant process stages and offer specific tools as needed.

Beyond that basic summary, though, every session is unique. One group may need to start at one part of the creative problem-solving process and work through each step to get to their goal, whereas another might start with a completely different part of the process and find the solution to their issue almost immediately. Ultimately, it all depends on how the participants react and what the professional facilitator believes will benefit the session most. At the end of the session, the facilitator will provide a wrap-up to determine what has been accomplished and what steps will need to be taken in the future.

Process Steps

There are six steps that can be explored during creative problem-solving sessions. They can be explored in any order and are typically represented in a hexagon figure instead of an ordered list. These steps, in no particular order, are:

1. Plan for action.
2. Imagine the future.
3. Find the questions.
4. Generate ideas.
5. Craft solutions.
6. Explore acceptance.

The central and most essential piece to the CPS diagram, though, is a seventh step: facilitation. A Certified Master Facilitator is essential to the success of any creative problem-solving exercise, as they provide the participants with gentle guidance and a neutral perspective while they work through the process.

Working with a small group for a facilitated session is dramatically different than working with a large group of individuals. With a small group, the majority of the attendees have similar reasons and goals for attending the session, whereas members of a large group may have very different reasons for attending. Professional meeting facilitators customize their approach depending on the size of the group they are facilitating.

Encouraging Productive Participation

When a Certified Master Facilitator begins a session, no matter the group size, they must do at least a brief overview of how the session will go and how a consensus will be reached. With small groups, this is typically a quick process, but with large groups, the facilitator must take the time to address procedures and information that will be covered.

Once those topics are handled, the professional facilitator will have to address participation. Usually participation is encouraged within a small group, especially because everyone can speak their mind without creating a sense of unbalanced participation. With larger groups that is simply not possible. If every person spoke for just one minute, the meeting would go for over an hour. Instead, participation rules must be firm with large groups. Many facilitators limit the number of times any one person may speak while the group is together.

Conflict resolution and power dynamics in facilitated sessions also become more difficult as you add people. One displeased participant in a small group is easy to manage on a personal level. But, move that same person to a larger group, and they either leave feeling their voice was not heard or find other like-minded individuals to create a faction of conflict.

Special Techniques for Large Groups

One of the ways a group facilitator can manage a larger group is to encourage the members to break out into smaller groups. These groups can have impassioned discussions on their own, brainstorm options and then report back their opinions or findings. However, before a facilitator can just break a large group up to let teams go free, they must be able to focus the groups on specific tasks. It may be necessary to outline what can and cannot be decided in smaller groups with the larger group.

Consider a Floor Team

With a large meeting, a company may want to hire additional facilitators or even assistants to help ease the burden on the primary facilitator. These individuals can help to talk with the smaller groups, listen to the points individuals might want to make and communicate more information to the facilitator than they might be able to gather on their own.

Our certified facilitators know that the key to pulling off a corporate meeting is being adequately prepared. This includes creating a structured outline, rehearsing the information multiple times, and determining the best way to deliver the message to your staff.

Every project manager, corporate executive, and business owner should strive to perfect their communication skills. Regardless of the substance of the content, if you are unable to transmit it in an easy-to-understand way, the likelihood that your employees will retain the information, much less utilize it, is slim. 

One invaluable resource that has been helped teachers, students, and corporate meeting planners alike is the handout. Please note that these are not intended to be replacement materials – although many employees tend to perceive them as such. Make it very clear that meeting attendance is crucial and that a mere scan-through of the day’s handouts is not sufficient. With that in mind, there are a few ways to make the most of this material, especially when attempting to maintain your staff’s interest.

How To Use Handouts in Your Business Meetings

Handouts are best suited for subject matter that is complex and/or technical. You cannot expect your employees to memorize a bunch of new terms and concepts inside of a 30-minute to one-hour window, which is why having access to a resource that one can review later on is very important.

This is also a great place to include supporting and supplementary data that you did not have time to address during the presentation. Corporate meetings must be structured around a central topic or theme and delivered in a concise manner. Thus, any and all additional information should be reserved for later.

A common question our group facilitators and certified master facilitators are asked when working with clients is whether handouts should be given out at the beginning or end of the meeting. Does waiting until the end increase the chances your employees will pay attention and remain focused, or would having the material in front of them help maintain their focus?

We recommend waiting since people have a natural tendency to get distracted. While they may indeed be interested in the material, you do not want your audience disengaging from your presentation or missing the key details discussed.