When most of us think of a facilitator, we think of someone who creates the ground rules, manages the agenda, the time, and the participants. However, a facilitator’s role goes beyond that, says Michael Wilkinson, CMF, managing director of Leadership Strategies and one of the few certified master facilitators worldwide. "There is a key question to ask that will tell you whether you actually need a facilitator or just a meeting manager," he says. "When you’re thinking about sales meetings you want to ask the question, ‘do they need to own the solution?’ If you want your salespeople to own what’s being created, you need a facilitator."

Wilkinson, also author of The Secrets of Facilitation (Jossey-Bass, 2004) and The Secrets to Masterful Meetings (Leadership Strategies Publishing, 2005) explains that facilitators help people create their solutions, understand them, and own them. "The sales manager may know the direction of the meeting, but a facilitator can take it a step beyond," he says. "They can help the participants commit to the decision. Facilitators create processes to help people understand, create solutions, and build ownership to those solutions and they have hundreds of tools to help them accomplish this."

Wilkinson breaks facilitation into two halves. One half is the process design, which is everything that happens before the meeting begins. The second half consists of getting the session started, the facilitation cycle (which includes focusing the group, information gathering, and group dynamics) and closing the session. He offers a "Five P" approach to the process design: purpose, product, participants, probable issues, and process. "Purpose is the most important part," says Wilkinson. "Why are you bringing your team together for a meeting? Once we understand the purpose, what is the product to be created? That is, what do you want them to have in their hands, their heads, and their hearts? The third P is the participant – who needs to be involved? The fourth P is probable issues that need to be discussed (problems and solutions) and finally, the process. These five Ps are critical because if we get the Ps wrong, we are going to create the wrong process."

Wilkinson maintains that the most important piece of the second half is what happens in the opening. In this part, the facilitator must inform, excite, empower, and involve. "In those few minutes, the facilitator has to employ those four things for one very good reason –to give the group a vision of where this whole meeting is going and why they should be excited about it," he says. "During this time you set the stage for everything that follows. Start well and the group is ready to work with you to achieve the desired outcome. Start poorly, and you are fighting an uphill battle. "As a facilitator it’s your job to get them to transfer their power over to you," he continues. "They walk in with the power and you don’t have any. You need them to get comfortable with you. When that doesn’t happen, you’ll get all of the dysfunctional behavior in the world – people trying to change the process, people checking out, etc."

Once the group is comfortable, the facilitator works them through the facilitation cycle – focusing the group, using the power of the pen, and gathering information. You must do these three things with each of your agenda items, says Wikinson. When focusing the group, start with a checkpoint – review what you just did, preview what you’re about to do, and then give the big view – why is this meeting so important?

Once you’ve focused the group, introduce the process and then use what Wilkinson calls the "power of the pen." He describes this as a part of the meeting where the facilitator uses a flipchart or whiteboard to provide general directions and ask if the participants have questions. When writing, he says, be sure to write first and discuss second, write what they said and not what you heard (use their words), and avoid lulls by continuing to hold a conversation while writing.

Information gathering begins when you add the starting question. "The starting question is the number one secret to facilitating a good meeting," Wilkinson says. "With this question you get participants to visualize their answers." Here’s an example that he provides: "We’d like to spend time documenting our current sales process. Think about the last time you made a huge sale…what are some things you did even before the sale occurred?" "You have now drawn a picture for them," he explains. "They can now visualize the steps they went through to get this great sale."

It’s important to note that while in the facilitation cycle you will have to manage group dynamics to keep the meeting under control. Finally, in closing a session, it is important that everyone is clear on what was done, the benefits of what was done, the actions to take place once the meeting is over, and the method for ensuring that the actions are accomplished.