Guide to Meetings

Chapter 7. Verbal Facilitation: Getting Them to Talk

Chapter 7 Outline

1. Facilitate: don’t dominate.

   • Decide whether to participate.

   • Be silent or talk infrequently.

2. Stimulate discussion.

   • Ask open-ended questions.

   • Use “door openers.”

   • Show support for every person’s right to speak.

   • Paraphrase what people say.

   • Paraphrase feelings.

   • Use brainstorming ground rules.

3. Encourage healthy debate.

   • Why healthy debate is good

   • How to encourage healthy debate

   • How to discourage unhealthy debate

4. Avoid meeting facilitation problems.

   • Avoid dominance by any one person or subgroup.

   • Deal with disrupters.

   • Avoid social loafing.

   • Avoid groupthink.

Once you have opened the meeting, you need to ensure active involvement from the participants so you can tap into the group’s diverse resources and ...