When should you use an external facilitator

Facilitation is all about helping a group do efficient and meaningful work, guiding them through a process that enables them to unleash their potential and accomplish their desired outcome in record time, thus making the best of teamwork while avoiding its potential pitfalls.

When you want to transform a meeting into a highly productive work session, you need someone to facilitate that session. Internal team members can step in to facilitate during many team meetings and situations. These individuals are often called "in-house" facilitators and they are highly valuable team members! But there are some times when it can be more strategic to bring in a professional external facilitator. So how do you decide whether to go internal or external for your next work session's facilitator?

These are some variables to consider:

1. IMPORTANCE: Is the topic and the outcome highly important for the future of the organization or team? If it's a standard, recurring team meeting, you can definitely handle doing it in-house. If this is a once a year company wide strategy retreat, it probably warrants external facilitation.

2. COMPLEXITY: Sometimes the agenda is quite straightforward and you know exactly how you want to structure the conversation so it can be done in-house. Other times, you have a complex agenda, timing or topics to include and could benefit from an external facilitator who will bring specific know-how on tools, exercises and dynamics to design and optimize your workshop to ensure you achieve your desired outcomes for the session.

3. PARTICIPATION: Sometimes, you can have someone internal play the facilitator role but sometimes you need every single member of the team to fully participate and engage in the discussions and therefore need someone external to play that facilitator role which includes ensuring every participant is actively engaged in the conversations and decisions and managing any conflict or tensions during discussions. 

4. PERSPECTIVE: Sometimes, insiders have the necessary context and information. On the other hand, an external facilitator will bring an outsider, unbiased, neutral perspective. Consider if you really need internal expertise for this session or if that could bias the thinking and the conversation. At times, dealing with team dynamics can be very difficult for internal facilitators, especially if they have existing relationships with the people in the room, so consider what dynamics are at play in your group.

You should also consider additional value you unlock when using a professional external facilitator like:

- BROAD EXPERIENCE: A professional facilitator will normally have lots more experience across a wider variety of sectors and situations than an internal facilitator. This richer experience will mean the facilitator can typically spot issues, see connections and ‘connect the dots’ better than an internal staff member and will also be able to offer ideas, experiences, and perspectives from other sectors and cases to help enrich the conversation.

- ACTION-ORIENTATION: An external facilitator ensures you get value from your workshops by driving the conversation to the necessary outcomes and by providing you with actionable documentation of those outcomes such as a summary of the discussion and outcomes of each session and the agreed next steps. This way, no decisions get lost and you can implement agreements immediately.

If you're considering having someone take on the facilitator role for your work session, you're already well on your way to transforming it from a meeting to a productive workhop. Now you know what to consider in order to decide where to go in-house or external with the facilitation. If you decide to go external, Atrevidea can help! Feel free to reach out so we can discuss how to make your workshop a resounding success.As your workshop facilitator, I will:

• Keep things focused, on point, and productive

• Foster constructive conversation

• Create an energetic, engaging environment that encourages participation

• Bring diverse groups together and foster alignment

• Guide your team to a collaborative decision and actionable plan