“Super-facilitators are people with a talent for bringing individual group members together, combining each one’s unique strengths to promote optimal team performance. They integrate diverse expertise, promote equitable contributions, and cultivate trust among teammates, generating collective intelligence—a group’s ability to solve problems together.”
That’s the description Jamil Zaki provides in a HBR article titled, “Every Team Needs a Super Facilitator.” Zaki’s adds an important point, “We can become them (super facilitators) ourselves. With the right mindset and a few key practices, anyone can turn talent into trust, and groups into something greater than the sum of their parts.”
He suggests three super facilitator powers to build:
- Attunement to Emotions – Because empathy is socially magnetic, connecting with others’ emotions provides a sharper grasp of the team’s makeup and encourages maximizing members contributions.
- Communication – Super facilitators communicate their beliefs in their colleagues and highlight each teammates potential, encouraging the same practice among members.
- Distribution – During collaboration super facilitators distribute time and attention so that everyone contributes and no one dominates.
Elizabeth Dity provides some insights for facilitators to consider for the opening, middle, and end of sessions.
Opening – Most of us need to warm up to get into a creative spirit. Neuroscience tells us that to do this well, people must feel welcome and connect with one another. As a rule, the sooner people speak, the more engaged they will be throughout the meeting. In a smaller group, provide an opening question for everyone to respond to. (When did a student put a smile on your face this past week?) If your group is larger form pairs or triads? Key is that everyone talks. Next, it’s the facilitator’s job to bring the purpose to life, to activate people’s interest in the challenge or task at hand. This is a reason that I am big on PLC’s having minutes and agendas. Notes from our last session and an agenda for this one. If our last meeting ended by setting an agenda for this PLC, we should be ready to move forward and make progress.
Middle – Choose a “prompt” to focus the discussion. Usually framed as a question, a strong prompt is specific enough that people can respond without too much effort, and broad enough to invite diverse views and new thinking. The ideal stimulus meets three criteria: it gets people oriented or reoriented to the task and relevant context; it adds something new to their thinking; and, if possible, it sparks some emotion. The more vivid and concrete, the better.
I describe this element as the facilitator providing a spark. The spark, most often students’ work or concern, leads to conversation among the participants with the facilitator recognizing when the time is right to move to the next step or action. Taking action is key to PLC colleagues finding value in PLC time.
“PLC time is supposed to be sacred; a space for educators to collaborate, reflect, and, most importantly, move the needle for students. But somewhere along the way, many teams lost steam. Meetings became routine. Goals got fuzzy. And what was once a promising structure started to feel like…just another meeting.”
(Otus.com)
Ending – Tight timelines, such as the start of the next class period, can lead to rushed endings that at times leave members feeling stressed with what was left “in the air” or sensing that their time was just wasted. Doty provides suggestions for facilitators concerning meeting endings:
- Cue the close– A usual meeting process is open-narrow-close. Cuing the members to be narrowing can increase the likelihood of ending with action. I’ve suggested for most PLCs that 20 minutes of discussion should lead to action. That action may not be that we have a plan to implement. It could be that we have raised questions that need to be explored so that we start the next meeting with information that leads us forward. Discussing a struggling student, members might ask about information from last year’s teacher, specialist teachers’ experiences, or the student’s interests outside school. The team can make commitments for different members to gather pieces of information prior to the next PLC meeting.
- Call for the decision– Agreement on how a decision will be reached should be part of the PLC norms and/or decided upon before the group begins exploring options on a particular decision. Is the group under a fixed deadline for a decision to be reached in this meeting or is there time to leave the meeting to explore further and decide at the next meeting? Is the decision a critical one and time is available for coming to a consensus or is a majority view decision agreeable to members. Commitment to the decision is needed in either case.
- Outline next steps and open questions– If a decision was reached and action is to begin, it is critical that next steps with a suggested timeline are stated. If the decision was delayed, what are the questions that still need to be explored? What research does the group desire to gather? I am a big fan of minutes being taken at PLC meetings and forwarded to members along with the agenda for the next meeting. Most PLC sessions end with homework to be completed prior to the next session. Nothing is worse than starting the next meeting with different expectations of what was agreed to be done or data to be collected and brought to the meeting. Minutes encourage the commitment of team members. I also believe that reading minutes assists administrators in assessing how PLC time is being invested. Some schools share minutes with everyone or with all PLC facilitators to encourage teaming across PLCs, using each other as resources.
Having quality PLC time requires each member to take some responsibility for the group’s effectiveness. All members learning facilitation skills, (which also apply in the classroom) advances greater learning and success. School leaders should provide opportunities for training and coaching feedback in facilitation skills. As members fulfill PLC commitments, trust builds among the team. Increased trust leads to members being more vulnerable which increases risk-taking and increases member learning, leading to increased student success. A strong upward spiral!
