The business value a senior facilitator brings to organisations
The business value a senior facilitator brings to organisations
The role of a senior facilitator - what he / she does
A senior facilitator works with leadership across the company to design stakeholder engagements and facilitative approaches for projects that best meet desired organisational outcomes.
A senior facilitator develops, scopes, and leads strategy initiatives for clients or sponsors and their respective leadership teams, facilitating the process and stakeholder engagement throughout.
A senior facilitator supports and provides practice leadership with strategic facilitation services like: strategic planning facilitation, cross-team and team-building retreat facilitation, working group / leadership team facilitation to support organizational strategies, design sprint facilitation, ideation workshops and facilitation of focus groups and co-design workshops for gathering qualitative input from a variety of stakeholders.
Business value provided by a senior facilitator
Lead multiple complex, high-visibility strategic facilitation projects by engaging senior leadership and a wide range of stakeholders who span multiple central departments and business units.
Design and facilitate engaging and effective strategic planning processes, cross-team retreats and workshops, focus groups, and co-design workshops
Effectively manage stakeholders, difficult conversations, and team dynamics.
Provide coaching and advising to client teams and leaders on organizational strategy and stakeholder engagement.
Interpret insights and conclusions from qualitative / quantitative discovery research, synthesise findings, develop recommendations, and communicate results to senior level client teams.
Assist client teams in developing implementation and action plans based on strategies developed in projects.
Stay abreast of new methodologies and frameworks, and continue to develop the team’s playbook for strategic planning and facilitation. Provide thought leadership and innovation within projects and practice areas.
Coach and mentor organizational members.
Knowledge, skills, and abilities of a senior facilitator brings to organisations
Expert facilitation skills
Skilled at building trust, managing a room, guiding the conversation, creating safe spaces for constructive conversation, resolving conflict and mediating in group settings, navigating cross-cultural dynamics and a variety of stakeholders, remaining neutral, actively listening and reflecting back, guiding the group toward alignment and resolution.
Adaptability and mastery
Effective time management and creatively design engaging meeting agendas and planning process. Comfort with a wide variety of strategic planning, design thinking, and/or other innovation frameworks; skilled in creatively adapting approaches and agendas in the moment to achieve client goals.
Comfort with complexity and ambiguity
Able to navigate complex stakeholder landscapes, manage up and influence, see the big picture and recognise critical details, deal with ambiguity, managing changing dynamics with a growth mindset, apply unstructured, creative problem solving skills.
Excellent communication skills
Excellent attention to detail and skilled at distilling complex information in a clear and simple manner, outstanding interpersonal communication, creating high quality and visually engaging presentations, presenting to senior-level leadership.
Organizational astuteness, enterprise wide vision and comfort advising at leadership level.
PS) This post is hugely inspired by the beautiful job description Megan Miller developed when hiring a “Senior Facilitator. This is the best and most inspiring job description for that position I have never seen. Just apply here!