The Key to Facilitation is Trust

Word count: 330 - Estimated read time: 3 minutes

When I go into a company, the first thing people want to know is ‘What are you doing here?’ and ‘Why are you asking me questions?’ What they quickly realize is that I am there to help improve their work experience. I am there to help them create a work environment where they can be happy, healthy, and productive. They learn that I am on their side, that they will be heard, and that they will be taken seriously. They also learn that I am there to provide these same things to everyone else.

Facilitation is about trust. It’s about creating a safe place where people can share their concerns, their ideas, and their hopes. Trust doesn’t come easy, and it must be earned. For someone to share their concerns, they must believe that the facilitator:

1. Can help them

2. Won’t embarrass them

3. Will keep in confidence anything said in confidence

4. Will not use what they learn about them against them

5. Will give them advice that is about them, not about the facilitator (or anyone else)

In a group facilitation, it is also important for the individuals in the group to have trust in the process; especially since they will most likely be encountering individuals in the group who, through experience, they have learned to distrust.

There are several ways a facilitator can help a group overcome experiential distrust. First, focus on processes—how things get done, how products and paperwork flow, etc. Second, encourage people to speak from their own experiences within these processes—focus on the what, not on the who. Third, make sure everyone participates, especially the most reluctant—if a safe environment has been created, this won’t be hard to do.

Finally, the facilitator should share stories that help group members recognize that many of their issues also exist in other organizations, and that most of these issues have been happening in companies for as long as there have been employee/employer relationships.

Originally written on March 31, 2009