What Makes a Good Facilitator?

A good team building activity is much more than just a bunch of mindless activities that waste your participant’s time. (Read about what makes for good team building activities here).

An effective team building day can’t be run by inexperienced, fresh-out-of-college “trainers,” who have no knowledge of personal development, business or facilitation. A college student reading off a script is not what you should be expecting when you work with a professional company (although a surprising number of companies send you exactly this).

Your facilitator should be experienced enough to be able to run your program “off book”, with perhaps an outline of the schedule, and nothing more.  Why is this important?  As Patton said, because the best plan doesn’t survive the first clash of battle! You need a trainer who can adapt and improvise based on differing team dynamics, environmental challenges, questions or concerns that come up, and unique needs specific to your group or situation. Reading off a script is not only stilted and boring, but it shows a lack of experience and inability to adapt.

Ideally you also want a professional facilitator who can also work with your team on other topics, like communication, behavior styles, conflict resolution, productivity, sales, customer service, etc.   Why is this important?

First, because you may want to do a full-day (or multiple days) of training where you integrate both team-building and skill development sessions. You shouldn’t need to hire two companies to do this.

Second, even if your goal is just a fun day of silly team-building, your facilitator should be on the constant lookout for learning opportunities to share with your group. A team building activity is really a microcosm of business, and there are many times that challenges, confusion or success can become amazing learning opportunities!

Finally, some participants may have had negative experiences of poorly executed team building activities in the past. Because of this, it’s valuable to have a professional facilitator who can set the tone for the team building, provide context, and help overcome obstacles of perception. Getting everyone on-board with a clear goal of why they’re doing the team building in the first place can go a long way to making the day more effective.

If you want to give your team a fun and memorable team building experience that they’ll enjoy, while providing them will opportunities for collaboration, growth and learning, then we’d love to talk to you!

Our goal is to form long-term relationships with the companies we serve. We pride ourselves in our ability to adapt and customize any of our trainings and team bonding programs to make them as effective as possible. No two companies are exactly the same, so your team building activities shouldn’t be either!

Contact us today! You won’t get a hard sales pitch, we believe our work and testimonials should stand for themselves. We only want to work with you if we can add huge value to you and your team.