The Fast Facilitator: 76 Facilitator Activities and Interventions Covering Essential Skills, Group Processes and Creative Techniques

When you take on responsibility for other people you need a framework to understand and address how they think, feel and behave. Facilitation provides that framework. It doesn't offer you proscriptive solutions; instead it uses, proven principles and practice to enable you to get the best out of each of the people with whom you are working. As a facilitator, you also need to be able to adapt your style and approach to the situation you are in. This requires good self-awareness and a solid understanding of your role and responsibilities. Once this is in place you can then start to facilitate teams, coach colleagues and train groups effectively. In Anthony Landale and Mica Douglas's The Fast Facilitator, the authors have established a format based around both the core skills that facilitators need to develop as well as the issues they will have to face at work. It is divided into three parts - Essential Facilitation, Groups and Team Facilitation and Creative Facilitation - offering material to suit all facilitators whatever their level of expertise. The manual will help you develop your own understanding of facilitation as well as providing interventions and activities that you can use with others. It includes: ¢ Theoretical insights and models to help you understand the dynamics of people management; ¢ Activities, exercises, games and practice sessions which managers or trainers can use with their groups to build skills around work issues; ¢ Coaching ideas and techniques for managers who may want extra guidance when working one-to-one with team members; and ¢ A wealth of techniques, reading sources, inspirational ideas and practical exercises for the facilitator's own self-development. The Fast Facilitator illustrates the competencies that practising facilitators need to develop and shows just how this distinctive approach can make a real difference to the way people operate and the outcomes that can be achieved in organizations.

The authors have a wide range of direct and associated roles which give them a unique perspective on the needs and requirements of today's facilitator. Anthony Landale is Editor of People Performance Magazine and The Gower Handbook of Training and Development. He runs professional facilitator training programmes and is a coach for Evenlode Training. Anthony is a qualified counsellor with a small private practice. Mica Douglas is a trainer and coach and currently manages a two-year post-graduate diploma in facilitation, accredited by IDHP. She also runs professional facilitation training for Evenlode Training, counselling courses up to Diploma level and has a small private therapy practice.