Workshops can lose their way quickly. It's a facilitator's job to note this and react in the moment and adjust on the fly. Below are two concrete ways I lean on time and again to get back on track.
Principle #1 — It's all about levels: get everyone on the same level.
Get clarity about the level at which a topic is being discussed. Typically, there are three levels in a corporate setting.
- Culture — The principles that people follow to get work done
- People — The capabilities of individuals.
- Machine — The way the team/department/organisation is organised to deliver outcomes
Once you have level set the discussion. Then you should be precise on goals and definitions as they may have shifted.
Principle #2 — Precise aim
Attendees of a workshop want to feel useful. To do this, they need to know what the point of the workshop is so that they can aim their efforts at something meaningful. This is a moving target and a skilled facilitator will re-calibrate on the fly.
After losing my way during a workshop due to lively debates during the workshop. I paused and co-wrote the aim of the workshop with everyone in the room because we all noticed that there had been a shift. We used precise language and finessed it until it accurately captured a meaningful goal. It took 20 mins. But after that we were back on track.