There’s lots of tasks when the ‘do it yourself’ approach works a treat, and other times, not so much. For example, performing your own dental surgery isn’t a great idea. Neither is being your own brainstorm facilitator.
Let’s be clear. As the brainstorm sponsor, you have your tasks, such as …
- Clarifying the purpose and direction of the brainstorm
- Listening and encouraging concepts and ideas you like, and
- Participating in idea generation – and as long as you’re not just liking your own ideas
In contrast, the facilitator has an entirely different set of tasks, such as …
- Focusing the group in positive ways on the goal, problem or need
- Creating an open risk-free atmosphere
- Inspiring participants to generate ideas across the full spectrum
- Introducing and conducting brainstorm exercises
- Keeping the group – and individuals – energised
- Minimising negativity and criticism
- Ensuring everyone contributes in their own way, particularly engaging the quiet participants or balancing them against the louder ones
- Writing down ideas on flipcharts
- Watching the clock
- Never sitting down
- Never giving up the pen
Lots of people have said “Oh, it’s not that hard to run a meeting.” Indeed, compared with prepping for an Iron Man Competition, facilitation is a fairly easy skill to learn.
However, I’ve been professionally trained by six different accredited workshops, and I would never run my own brainstorm because I wouldn’t want to dilute my focus on the important task at hand: helping to generate ideas.
If it helps, here’s a post on the 10 Qualities of a Brainstorm Facilitator.
A Good Facilitator Improves Every Meeting
If you’ve ever been in a brainstorm run by a good facilitator, you know how much benefit they bring. If you’ve had a bad facilitator, you know how much damage they can cause. So, meet with the facilitator in advance. Get references. Make sure you’re in sync.
Either in the interview, or after you’ve hired the facilitator, meet in advance of the brainstorm to agree on purpose, agenda, exercises and outcomes. Ask them to talk about how they’d facilitate the meeting, what exercises they’d use, how they’d get the inspiration started, and how they’d bring the meeting to a close.
During the brainstorm itself, you – as the host – should participate as any other attendee, but confer at every quiet opportunity with the facilitator to make ensure the direction is clear and the outcomes are within reach. Talk about what could go wrong and how you’d fix it in the middle of the meeting. Talk about the participants: who’s loud? who’s quiet? who takes awhile to warm up? Who will be against us?
Above all else, do not take over the meeting. First and foremost, you’ll like a hyper-controlling dictator. Discuss all potential problems in advance so you don’t have to get up and take control.
Is there ever a time when you can run your own brainstorm?
Of course. You may not have enough time to find someone internally or externally, or enough experience to brief the facilitator, or the budget to hire one. But in these cases, try to divert some of the lesser tasks to others.
Speaking of budget, ‘cost’ is the single biggest issue why most organisations don’t hire a facilitator. One way to get around this (if your organisation or department runs lots of brainstorms) is to assign the ongoing task to a person in your group who’d like to run brainstorms. There’s plenty of workshops, books and websites giving advice how to conduct one, and it’s also a great opportunity for career development too.
Any other thoughts on how you work with brainstorm facilitators? Please add your Comments and Thoughts below.
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