People Wit

Your role during a group discussion is to facilitate the flow of comments from participants. Although it is not necessary to interject your comments after each participant speaks, periodically assisting the group with their contributions can be helpful. Here is a ten-point facilitation menu to use as you lead group discussions.

1. Paraphrase what a participant has said so that he or she feels understood and so that the other participants can hear a concise summary of what has been said.

So what you’re saying is that you have to be very careful about asking applicants where they live during an interview because it might suggest some type of racial or ethnic affiliation.

2. Check your understanding of a participant’s statement or ask the participant to clarify what he or she is saying.

Are you saying that this plan is not realistic? I’m not sure that I understand exactly what you meant. Could you please run it by us again?

3. Compliment an interesting or insightful comment.

That’s a good point. I’m glad that you brought that to our attention.

4. Elaborate on a participant’s contribution to the discussion with examples, or suggest a new way to view the problem.

Your comments provide an interesting point from the employee’s perspective. It could also be useful to consider how a manager would view the same situation.

5. Energize a discussion by quickening the pace, using humor, or, if necessary, prodding the group for more contributions.

Here’s a challenge for you. For the next two minutes, let’s see how many ways you can think of to increase cooperation within your department.

6. Disagree (gently) with a participant’s comments to stimulate further discussion.

I can see where you are coming from, but I’m not sure that what you are describing is always the case. Has anyone else had an experience that is different from Jim’s?

7. Mediate differences of opinion between participants and relieve any tensions that may be brewing.

I think that Susan and Mary are not really disagreeing with each other but are just bringing out two different sides of this issue.

8. Pull together ideas, showing their relationship to each other.

As you can see from Dan’s and Jean’s comments, personal goal setting is very much a part of time management. You need to be able to establish goals for yourself on a daily basis in order to more effectively manage your time.

9. Change the group process by altering the method for obtaining participation or by having the group evaluate ideas that have been presented.

Let’s break into smaller groups and see whether you can come up with some typical customer objections to the products that were covered in the presentation this morning.

10. Summarize (and record, if desired) the major views of the group.

I have noted four major reasons that have come from our discussion as to why managers do not delegate: (1) lack of confidence, (2) fear of failure, (3) comfort in doing the task themselves, and (4) fear of being replaced.

Source : 101 Ways to Make Training Active, 2nd Ed. Mel Silberman.2005

One of the most effective and efficient ways to promote active training is to divide a class into pairs and compose learning partnerships. It is hard to get left out in a pair. It is also hard to hide in one. Learning partnerships can be short term or long-term. Learning partners can undertake a wide variety of quick tasks or more time-consuming assignments, such as those in the list below.

1. Share your reactions to an assigned reading, an exercise, or a video (for example, “What were your reactions to the ways in which customers were entertained in the Fish video?”).

2. Discuss a short written document with each other (for example, “Please discuss the strategic plan you read before class and identify anything you thought was unclear”).

3. Practice a skill with each other (for example, “Please take a few minutes with your partner and practice giving constructive performance feedback to someone you supervise”).

4. Recap a lecture or demonstration together (for example, “With your partner, review the key points of the presentation we just heard from our guest speaker”).

5. Develop questions together to ask the facilitator (for example, “I would like each pair to create a question together about the software we just tried out”).

6. Analyze a case problem or exercise together (for example, “Take the next ten minutes and work together on the business ethics problem concerning conflicts of interest”).

7. Test each other (for example, “I would like each of you to take turns testing your partner’s product knowledge of each of the four new loan programs we are introducing next month”).

8. Respond to a question posed by the facilitator (for example, “Get together with your partner and come up with a joint answer to the first question in our discussion guide”).

9. Compare how you completed a task, such as a survey (for example, “Show your partner your scores on the EQ scale we just completed. See where you differ”).

10. Read each other’s written work (for example, “Show your partner the functional resume you prepared for this session and ask for feedback”).

Source : 101 Ways to Make Training Active, 2nd Ed. Mel Silberman.2005