Young professionals bring the knowledge and insights needed for any organization to succeed. By 2025, half of the global workforce will be under 40. Young professionals who can make it easier for organizations to create, understand, and accept team-generated solutions – or facilitate – will provide the most value. Being a valued facilitator requires a team, so being able to build a facilitation team should be the first step in empowering a young professional's career.
The Playbook
The standard playbook for building a specialty, including a facilitation team, within any organization looks something like this:
Define the scope
Define the scope of your facilitation practice by identifying the types of facilitation services you and your team can provide.
Identify facilitators
Identify individuals within your firm who have the necessary skills and experience to serve as facilitators. Look for people with effective communication, leadership, and problem-solving skills who can manage groups effectively. Remember, facilitators make it easy for groups to develop solutions that are created, understood, and accepted by all.
Develop an approach
There are several approaches for facilitating groups in a business environment. One key is to align one of the proven traditional approaches with the different perspectives of young professionals. Remember, most decision makers will be over 40, while most middle management will increasingly be under 40.
Establish tools and resources
Establish tools and resources for facilitating sessions, such as templates for agendas and facilitator guides. Training programs are essential to build a rising pool of facilitators who are young professionals.
Cultivate user relationships
Whether inside the organization or as a consulting team to other organizations, offer consultation and advice on achieving team goals through facilitation by young professionals. Provide thought leadership through short videos, white papers, webinars, and other content that demonstrates why you and your team's facilitation skills make a difference.
Moving Forward
Young professionals bring the knowledge and insights needed for any business to succeed. Young professionals who can make it easier for organizations to create, understand, and accept team-generated solutions – or facilitate – will provide the most value. Being a valued facilitator requires a team, so being able to build a facilitation team should be the first step in empowering a young professional's career.
This article describes what to do to build a facilitation team. A subsequent article dives into how to do it and the powerful lessons learned from building facilitation teams.
Communicating with FINESSE is the community of technical professionals dedicated to being highly effective communicators and facilitators. Learn more about our publications, webinars, and workshops. Join the community for free.
JD Solomon's newest book, Facilitating with FINESSE, will be released May 31, 2023. The book can be purchased on Amazon.