Using Facilitation to Beat the Economic Trend
By Michael Wilkinson, CMF
Managing Director, Leadership Strategies, Inc.
In talking with facilitators across the country, we are hearing significant concern about how the economic downturn is affecting their businesses. Existing clients are eliminating projects, recently sold work is being cancelled, and new work is hard to come by. At the same time, we are hearing from some facilitators who are as busy as they have ever been. Why the difference? While luck plays a big role, we think some facilitators have done a better job of positioning themselves to provide services clients need in the current climate.
So how are clients using facilitators during this economic downturn? While many organizations are cutting staff and cutting back on all unnecessary expense, we find that the more enlightened organizations are seeking ways to maximize the people they keep. Here are a few examples of how facilitation can make a difference.
Scenario planning
Scenario planning is used to get all management personnel on the same page concerning what will be done under a variety of performance scenarios. For example, scenario planning answers the question, “If revenue drops 20%, what actions will we take?”
Scenario planning gets the best thinking in the room and allows people to work together to plan for change in advance. Advance planning avoids the stress and political in-fighting that frequently occurs when a team has to respond to situations without a plan.
Team building and re-activation
When positions are reduced and workload shifted to people already at their capacity, you need people operating at their peak rather than worried about who has left and how it is impacting them.
Unfortunately, the result typically is higher levels of stress that often play out in strained work relationships and increasing ineffectiveness.
In high demand are programs designed to create a team vision, isolate issues preventing the vision, and putting in place strategies for immediate- and long-term benefit. The goal is to identify and help remove the barriers that inhibit high team performance under stressful conditions.
Learn More About Team Building
Maximizing effectiveness of face-to-face and virtual meetings
Meetings already have the reputation of being wasteful, ineffective, and inefficient – and deservedly so. Too many meetings occur without a purpose, without the right people in the room, and without producing a valuable result.
During tight budget times especially, organizations need to demand more from the time people spend in meetings. Organizations can’t afford to continue with meetings as usual.
Facilitators can help transform the meeting culture of an entire organization. Start by gaining buy-in at the top for establishing meeting rights. Then use these rights along with on-line and face-to-face training modules to cost-effectively transform meeting behavior.
Executive Coaching
It has been said that people should be like tea – they should show their real strength when they find themselves in hot water. Likewise, during difficult economic times, executives, managers, and supervisors are called upon to step it up a notch. Some will be equipped to make the adjustments. Others will not be.
We think of coaching as “facilitation for two.” Effective executive coaching services can provide your executives with the one-on-one focused guidance and feedback they need to excel during these times. And each executive performing at a higher level can have a positive rippling effect on every person in the organization that he or she impacts.
Learn More About Executive Coaching
Strategy/Outsource Coaching
During a troubling economic climate, it can become necessary to transition people out of the organization. Good organizations provide severance pay packages to help people economically make the transition. Great organizations provide outsource coaching and training packages to help people identify and skill up for that next position.
Facilitative coaches can help people identify where an organization wants to go and build a personal plan for getting there. An they can also help them hold themselves accountable for executing their plan.
Learn More About Strategy Coaching
About the Author
Michael Wilkinson is the Managing Director of Leadership Strategies – The Facilitation Company and author of The Secrets of Facilitation. He is a Certified Master Facilitator and a much sought after strategic planning facilitator and speaker.
