Team meetings and retreats are part of many of our jobs. However, too many times meetings and retreats leave attendees needing clarification about the material presented, feeling drained of energy, or skeptical about any positive outcomes from the event. In most cases, good facilitation is what’s missing. And while good facilitation can and should look easy, there are skills and competencies at play “behind the scenes” that result in meaningful, solutions-focused retreats.
How Skilled Facilitation Can Boost Meetings and Retreats
Here are a few ways Clarus helps organizations ensure meetings are productive, engaging, and achieve meaningful results.
- Careful Planning and Communication: We work with clients to create clear goals and objectives for any engagement, meeting, or retreat. A shared understanding of goals and activities helps all participants understand and manage expectations.
- Creating a Productive Environment: We are experienced facilitators who are equipped to handle important and sometimes charged or difficult discussions. We know how to create an environment where all stakeholders feel comfortable participating, ensuring every voice is heard.
- Neutral, Third-Party Advantage. Organizations often struggle to provide their internal stakeholders the assurance of neutrality needed to support constructive, crucial conversations around complex initiatives. Being a neutral third party, external to the organization, we promote openness, honesty, and trust which translate to greater insight and understanding of key topics and issues.
- Focus on Strengths. We also approach all our projects from a strengths-based perspective avoiding the common pitfalls of solely focusing on weaknesses which can often create more division and entrenchment. Clarus facilitation engages individual participants and the entire organization in discovering their strengths and valuing the strengths of others with the goal of building on those strengths to create positive meeting and retreat outcomes.
To learn more about Clarus, our services, and how we can help your organization, please contact us now.
