To be a well-rounded facilitator capable of engaging in a variety of topics and handling complex engagements, you need some fundamental skills:
Be an active listener. As facilitator, try to be objective unless you’re invited to provide a perspective. You are there to understand and capture participants’ views, feedback, and insights.
- Pro tip: Good listening is active, not passive; every word from a participant is an opportunity to help improve your client’s position.
Be sure to listen and reflect key points and ideas back to the participant. Restate or paraphrase these points to make sure you understood them correctly. And then capture—through writing or visualization—the participants’ key points.
Ask questions. Great questions reveal new insights and expand innovative thinking. Quick answers do not always yield great insights. As a facilitator, you need to dig deeper and sometimes ask questions that may be challenging and have no easy answers.
To accomplish this, when participants seem hesitant or uncertain, ask why. Dig deeper: Use techniques such as the Five Whys to find the root cause of issues and uncover insights or Opposite Thinking to find new ideas and perspectives.
The Five Whys method involves successively asking “Why” on a key comment. Here’s an example:
- “Our client refused to pay for the product.” Ask why.
- “The shipment of the product came in much later than expected.” Ask why.
- “The configuration of the product took longer than expected.” Ask why.
- “The client’s requirements were extensive.” Ask why.
- “Their system was custom and our product didn’t line up easily. We had to create custom workarounds to make it work. We didn’t know the extent of the customization.” Ask “Why didn’t you know their system?”
The Opposite Thinking method involves reframing a problem, solution, or comment either inversely or opposite its original intent. Here’s an example:
- “Our budget is very limited, and we can’t do much within our requirements.”
- Opposite thinking: “Imagine if you had unlimited resources. How would you tackle this problem?” This type of thinking may spur a direction they did not think of because they were focused on the limitations and nothing else. This may not yield the right solution, but it will yield a direction not previously considered.
Read the room. Constantly assess facial expressions, body language, and group dynamics in the room (i.e. groups/cliques, different departments, senior leadership vs. others) and adjust your facilitation accordingly. In a virtual environment, take note of the level of participation from all participants.
Energize the room when you see fatigue set in. Speak assertively and positively and encourage people to cheer on others. Incorporate fun activities like “squiggle birds,” a simple activity where everyone quickly sketches a simple squiggle then adds three things to make it look like a bird (a beak, legs, and an eye).

Make sure the conversation isn’t dominated by one or two people. These folks may skew the conversation. Use techniques that all can participate in (e.g. have everyone write down their ideas without sharing). Remind participants of the power and benefits of diverse perspectives.
Echo and amplify. When part of the group is gathered and others are virtual, remember that much of what’s said in a conference room isn’t heard by distributed (remote) participants. Be mindful of this by echoing and amplifying key points said in the room. Restate questions asked, highlight decisions made, and paraphrase insightful comments so all participants have the same information.
Reflect and summarize. Like echo and amplify, reflect and summarize helps everyone focus on key points or wrap up an activity. When long discussions occur, you’ll want to summarize what was just heard. This shows you understood what was just discussed.