A good facilitator makes it look easy-breezy, which is part of the magic. If the facilitator has accomplished this feat, then she is good! When one goes and graduates from “facilitator training school,” as I have, the first lesson is that “it takes twice as long to prepare, as it does to deliver.” Fortunately, over time and with practice, the preparation time is cut down considerably.
Harvard research found that 70% of meetings keep employees from doing productive work. The same study also shows that cutting back meetings by 40% increases productivity by 70%, with a corresponding increase in employee satisfaction by 52%. WOW.
With all of those statistics, why so many meetings?
“The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.” “When people talk, listen completely. Most never listen.” Those two timely bits of sage advice could have been made within the last year, month, week, or even day. Any guesses?
The first quote, from William Hazlet, is attributed to his selected essays written between 1778 – 1830…
As a child, I remember hearing the words “because I said so,” in response to questions asked of my parents. Of course, the questions were often why I had to do something I didn’t want to do. Rather than explain, the fallback was “because I said so.” I found that irksome and made a pledge that my children would never hear that phrase . . . and, they rarely did!