Your team is uncooperative during a facilitation session. How can you encourage collaboration?
When a facilitation session hits a rough patch, it's crucial to re-engage your team. To navigate this challenge:
What strategies have worked for you in encouraging team collaboration?
Your team is uncooperative during a facilitation session. How can you encourage collaboration?
When a facilitation session hits a rough patch, it's crucial to re-engage your team. To navigate this challenge:
What strategies have worked for you in encouraging team collaboration?
-
Take a pause - a break can help to reflect what went wrong and sometimes change the mood Use ice breakers - a quick team activity to change the mood and bring in collaboration Change the format / approach - break into smaller groups for brainstorm and invite diverse perspectives.. this might bring in collaboration back
-
I like to start by naming the elephant: "Seems like we are stuck and I am not sure why, can someone help me out?" Or: "It feels like this facilitation isn't quite what you all are looking for, how should we proceed to achieve [state purpose and desired outcome of the meeting]?"
-
When a team is not clear with the objectives of meetings and sessions, it sometimes brings resistance. It is important to always communicate meeting objectives and give room for teams and participants to make inputs. Let them feel seen and heard. Make room for group work and some energizers that fosters communication and team work.
-
Uncooperative can mean a lot of things, and can be driven by a variety of things. Before you can even adjust and adapt to a situation, try to figure out why its occurring. Before a session starts there's some ways to prime people and understand their expectations: ↳ Start with a 'Worries + Wishes' activity (this is my personal take on Hopes + Fears) — what do they wish will happen in the session and what are they worried about. During a session you can also pause and: ↳ Do a quick 'call for curiosity' or 'mini reflection' - what's on their mind, or get more specific with, "What’s going well, and what could we adjust to make this session better for everyone?” (you can make it anonymous)
-
Set the ground rules and reminding the participants about the main objective of today's discussion. Facilitator shall stay firm and open in order to create collaborative ambience by putting in place different communication tools with Q&A sessions, gamification and/or FGD.
-
Don’t try to solve it all now. Let it breathe. Get where you can get, maybe even end early and schedule a follow-up down the road. In between, make some one-on-one time with team members and find out what’s really going on. Deeper issues take time to develop and they deserve time to unpack. Don’t try to force or rush it.
-
There can be many reasons why a team is uncooperative with a facilitation session. For example: unclear on the session's objectives, they don't see the relevance of the content; the session itself my lack interactive elements and therefore monotonous or there is a lack of shared vision - to name a few. In my experience, Honesty is the best policy - call it as you see it. Share you observation with the group to foster an open dialogue and harness the wisdom in the room to get back on track.
-
-- have a 10minute break. - you did something wrong while planning the Meeting. Ask your self what it is. - Name the points in the Meeting and ask for Feedback. - e.g. Lack of transparency, Agenda, target.... - trust
-
We set intentions at the beginning of each session - and ask people to commit to keeping our discussions and actions within those intentions which 99% of the time works. If people are being difficult it's typically due to something going on that I haven't been informed of so we take the time to acknowledge it, address it if we can and if not then we make agreements about how we are going to spend the remainder of our time - or when we can address their issue.
Rate this article
More relevant reading
-
Senior Stakeholder ManagementWhat are the best ways to foster collaboration between Senior Stakeholders with conflicting goals?
-
Cross-functional CollaborationsHow do you align cross-functional team goals and roles with the organizational strategy and vision?
-
Executive ManagementHow can you build team consensus during meetings?
-
Team FacilitationHow can you improve communication and collaboration across teams?