Lecturing or Facilitating?
Today I was intentional and hyper-aware of my facilitation style in a Leadership Development Workshop, based on feedback from a colleague in yesterday’s After Action Review. As such, while leading the discussion this morning, I deliberately looked for instances where I may have been defaulting to more of a lecture and judgment mode, rather than true facilitation.
Some of my thoughts during and after today’s opening session (expanded from my colleague's comments from yesterday) were:
- What percentage of my time did I spend talking vs. listening?
- How much was lecture vs true facilitation?
- How many questions did I ask of others but were answered by me, before they had a chance?
- Did I show interest in their thoughts versus trying to impose my own?
- Was I comfortable with silence?
- How many times did I interrupt participants or complete their sentences for them?
- How important was it to control my pace/speed of talking?
- Were my pauses sufficient?
- How many times did I make judgments on participant responses versus simply thanking them for their participation/feedback?
- Did I consider how the pace/speed of my talking or complexity of the material might affect English as a Second Language (ESL) participants?
- Were the participants able to articulate and apply two or three fundamental objectives, points, or key ideas from this session?
- Were the participants really learning or just hearing?
- How could I have better tailored my message to better equip participants to take useful action?
- How could I have made this session more about them and less about me? How could I have prevented it from becoming the Ed O’Neal show?
So, are these questions instructive in more than just workshop facilitation?
It’s been well said that “Telling ain’t Training" (Stolovich & Keeps) but those of you who aren't teachers, trainers, coaches or facilitators aren't off the hook.
How about how we lead and coach others on our jobs? As leaders are we defaulting only to a “telling mode” with our teams? There is absolutely a time to be directive, but is that the only tool on our belts?
If we really believe our leadership styles should be a function of the person and the situation, what opportunities do we miss when we’re only directive?
Project Manager at Progress Rail, A Caterpillar Company
5yIn the week I spent with you and your team, Ed, never once did I feel like it was about you. Even your intro to the class was as humble as it could be, somewhat to the disservice of your obvious talent, education, and experience.
Husband| Dad | Business & Leadership Coach and trusted advisor for leaders who want to perform better. Founder - JWM-Coaching, LLC / Mr New Dad. USCG Officer
5yHow about how we lead and coach others on our jobs? As leaders are we defaulting only to a “telling mode” with our teams? There is absolutely a time to be directive, but is that the only tool on our belts? Yes - agreed! There is a great tool I’ve used for leaders that helps them explore the differences between coaching, training, mentoring - the point is that you need to know which hat to put on and what model of thinking will work best for that person your speaking with. Great article and excellent points. Thanks for sharing.
Contributor to the Wall Street Journal Bestseller 'Becoming Coachable', Doctoral Student, C-Suite & Teams Coach, Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches, Fellow Harvard Institute of Coaching, LinkedIn Top Voice
5yI’m most impressed with three things. Your consistency of having After Action Reviews, your colleagues courage to give the feedback and your willingness to listen. Thanks for the post.