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The Skilled Facilitator
Book

The Skilled Facilitator

A Comprehensive Resource for Consultants, Facilitators, Managers, Trainers, and Coaches

Jossey-Bass, 2002
First Edition: 2002 more...


Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Applicable
  • Well Structured
  • Concrete Examples

Recommendation

Organizational psychologist Roger Schwarz understands people. He knows how they think, why they act as they do and how to encourage them to engage more productively as a group. He uses these insights to direct you through a series of meaningful, detailed steps you can utilize to run more effective and productive meetings. Schwarz illustrates these steps with numerous charts and highlights most lessons with a generous number of realistic dialogues. To help you become a better facilitator, he explains how to establish meeting ground rules and handle challenging participants. He also shares tips on how to set up the room, how to start and conclude each meeting, and how to engage participants in evaluating a meeting. Most important, he encourages you to look honestly at your thoughts and actions to improve your facilitation techniques. The book is sometimes repetitive and perhaps overly rich in psychological jargon, but getAbstract finds that it contains valuable wisdom that will help any facilitator become more effective.

Take-Aways

  • Facilitators take responsibility for the way a group functions, but not for its decisions.
  • Traditionally, facilitators try to stay neutral; they don’t state their opinions.
  • To govern group interactions, set ground rules that everyone promises to follow.

About the Author

Roger Schwarz is an organizational psychologist and the head of Roger Schwarz & Associates, which helps firms use facilitative skills to improve their business practices.


Comment on this summary or Start Discussion

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    D. B. 1 decade ago
    Also see Michael Wilkinson, David Sibbet, Ingrid Bens and the International Assication of Facilitators.

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