I was speaking with a colleague the other day and the subject of meetings came up. Why is it that years after facilitator training came on the scene, books on how to run effective meetings, workbooks, and numerous blogs and articles have been written, there are still poorly run meetings in pretty much every arena? A couple of decades ago another consultant and I were asked to do facilitator training. At the time there were no books on the shelf, and there were no certified “master facilitators”, but our client thought that’s exactly what we were: master facilitators. And theywantedmeetings in their organization to be more effective. Howto Put an End to Poorly RunMeetings We looked at each other with that squintyeyed bewilderment and discussed the fact that we weren’t sure exactly what we did to make meetings so effective. It was natural for us. Then we realized that the combination of our management and leadership experience, our training at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland, and our desire to develop people all played a part in why we made running meetings look so easy and why we were so effective. It wasn’t rocket science – or was it? Two decades later, after teaching hundreds of people facilitation training, it reminds me of the old sand dollar poem, “to that one I made By Janet Kendall White
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