Learning Day- Credibility and Impact

Learning Days are an excellent opportunity for all facilitators (new, experienced and occasional) to meet, review and share good practice. These days are open to all AoF members and also offered as a Taster Day for those who are new to AoF and wish to work and learn in a collaborative environment. Do share details with those you know and feel free to come along if you want to find out more about the Association of Facilitators.

Our next Learning/Taster Day will be held on 14th Match 2023 at Highfield Park, Hook, 10am-4pm. Cost are £80 members, £100 non-members. Places are limited so please book early to secure a place. Lunch and refreshments are provided.

AM:Credibility as an External Facilitator
PM: Impact as an Internal Facilitator

Our morning session, led by Jenni Field, will help us explore how we establish credibility as a facilitator, when working with client organisations. As a facilitator/consultant leading bespoke, time-limited engagements, we rely heavily on creating a solid foundation of rapport and truth-telling to enable us to have impact. We need competence (and bravery) to use our authority with awareness, and to create the balance between credibility and humility that will help us ‘get out of the way’ and support the group process. All work groups have established patterns, positive or negative, and our early contact points are a series of ‘litmus tests’ that create the relational ground we will work on.

Jenni, an accredited facilitator with AoF, has been researching the topic of credibility in leadership for her second book, due to be published next year. In this session, she will help us apply this learning to facilitation. Her research has showed that communication is one of the eight traits needed for someone to be credible, and the golden thread between them all. As a leader working facilitatively, credibility is the foundation of followership because of its close links to trust. In this session, Jenni will share the eight traits needed for someone to be seen as credible and she will share her latest research that explores how leaders view these traits. The research is segmented to explore whether there is a difference in how different genders, ages or global location rank these traits in order or importance.

Our afternoon session, led by Montse Ayats, will help us dive more deeply into overcoming barriers and building bridges between people and departments, from the perspective of an employee working as a facilitator/change agent within an organisation. We will explore together: What are our expectations and needs around relationships as an employee and as a leader? How can internal facilitation transform communication? How do we engage teams when personal relationships appear to take second place? Leaders are under pressure to focus on setting objectives, obtaining revenues and performing according to development plans, but under the surface they can feel and be ‘stuck’. The covid crisis may have raised workplace issues, but has also offered organisations a chance to review ways of working, and, for us as facilitators to examine how to best use our skills from within an organisation.

In this session, we will share best practices, resources, and tools that rebuild meaningful connections between colleagues and work groups; each aimed at gaining commitment and building a more rewarding and productive atmosphere and allowing teams to flourish. Montse is an accredited facilitator with AoF, a native Spanish-speaker, currently based in Switzerland, with experience of working for multi-national organisations.

Both sessions are open to members and guests. Learning across both the sessions is applicable and relevant to internal and external facilitators, and to those curious about their own practice of facilitation.