The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Facilitating design workshops
New workshop, new reflection. I’m so glad to have the opportunity to facilitate a number of design workshops. It's a challenging but rewarding role, and I'm learning a lot about myself, my skills and my confidence in the process.
Takeaways (TL:DR)
Facilitating design workshops is a balancing act. You need to be three things at different times. You need to be able to care about people, but you also need to be able to be tough. You need to be able to be supportive, but you also need to be able to challenge people. What’s more you need to understand the people you have in front of you to react to balance the three characters accordingly.
🍊 Welcome to the latest issue of Already, Yet – a weekly retrospective about not feeling ready, but doing things anyway.
🙋🏻♂️ If you’re a new reader, thanks for stopping by. Feel free to check out this introductory post, which explains what Already, Yet is all about.
📬 To get future issues delivered to your inbox, please subscribe with your preferred email.
Weekly retrospective
One of the things that I've found most challenging about facilitation is the need to balance being "the good," "the bad," and "the ugly."
The Good
The good facilitator is the one who cares about the participants and about the success of the session. They are patient, understanding, and supportive. They need to be able to build rapport with the group and create a sense of trust. The group of participants need to feel cared and free to participate at their best.
The Bad
The bad facilitator is the one who needs to keep order among the group. They need to be able to deal with conflict, or even attract conflict to themselves in order to bring peace to the group. They need to challenge people's assumptions, and make tough decisions. They need to be able to hold people accountable and keep the discussion moving forward even if it upsets participants.
The Ugly
The ugly facilitator is the one who needs to ask uncomfortable questions to stimulate discussion. They need to be able to challenge people's thinking and push them outside of their comfort zones. They need to be able to be disruptive in a way that is productive. A role that often need to take the burden of make obvious or uncomfortable questions and feel that cringy feeling down the spine.
I've found that the best way to balance these three roles is to be intentional about my facilitation style. I start by setting clear expectations for the workshop and establishing ground rules. I then try to be as patient and understanding as possible, but I'm also not afraid to challenge people's thinking. If the discussion starts to get off track, I'll gently bring it back on track. And if someone is being disruptive, or not participative I'll try to balance them with a counter role.
It's not always easy to be the good, the bad, and the ugly. But I've found that it's essential for facilitating successful design workshops. By being intentional about my style and by being willing to be flexible, I'm able to create a space where everyone feels comfortable participating and where we can generate value and get to the goals of the session.
Participants
The role of a facilitator can also be seen as a parallel to the different types of participants in a design workshop.
The Good participant is the one who is involved, participates with intention, and brings value to the table. They are the ones who are willing to share their ideas, listen to the ideas of others, and work collaboratively to find solutions.
The Bad participant is the one who disrupts discussion, hardly follows the rules given for facilitation, and tries to drive attention to themselves. They are the ones who are more interested in being right than in finding solutions, and they can often derail the discussion.
The Ugly participant is the cynical one who doesn't participate and slows down processes with indifference and detachment. They are the ones who are not interested in the outcome of the workshop, and they can often be a drain on the energy of the group.
As a facilitator, it is important to be aware of these different types of participants and how to deal with them. The good news is that even the bad and ugly participants can sometimes be valuable members of the group. It is up to the facilitator to find ways to engage them and bring their unique perspectives to the table
.
I hope you liked this post. This time I tried a more brief and less introspective writing style. As you know I’m still experimenting with this space and I’ll be glad to receive feedbacks from you, with a comment below or by writing me an email.
If you liked this post and you think some of your friends would like as well, please share it with whoever you like.
Thanks for reading to the finish and see you next week!
Tobia