Creative Facilitation: Inspiration and Provocation for More Creative Meetings and Workshops

by Johnnie Moore, Viv McWaters

Meetings don't have to suck. They can be fun, engaging and productive.Viv and Johnnie offer dozens of tips and insights to help you do a better job of facilitating. They explain how to get out of the traps that lead meetings to be boring and soul-sucking. This is a concise and colourful guide to get meetings that really work for human beings, working with emotions to generate more powerful results.

74 pages, Paperback

Published February 27, 2021

About the author

Johnnie Moore author of Defying ISIS, is a humanitarian who has been called one of the "world's most influential young leaders" and "a modern day Dietrich Bonhoeffer." He has appeared on dozens of leading television, radio, print and online outlets. He is also a widely read opinion columnist whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, Fox News, Relevant Magazine and CNN. He serves on the boards of World Help, the National Association of Evangelicals, the Dream Center LA, the U.S. Lausanne Committee, and the World Evangelical Alliance. He is a Senior Fellow at the Liberty University Center for Apologetics and Cultural Engagement, a Senior Contributing Editor to The Christian Post, the co-Founder of The Cradle Fund, the consulting executive director of the Persecution Intervention Fund, the executive director of the Nazarene Fund, and a contributor to Fox News and The Blaze. He is President of The KAIROS Company.

Reviews

[Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like Johnnie Moore's 'Unhurried' and in a workplace where everything seems to be go-go-go for no real reason some of the learning from that book resonates with me a couple of years after reading. I bought 'Creative Facilitation' at the same time based on recommendations but sadly I couldn't read it on my Kindle due to how the book is formatted. I 'could' have read it on my phone at any time, but you know, never got round to it.

Which is a shame, because it only takes an hour or so to read, and I'm facilitating a workshop next week that I want to do well so I thought I would give it a whirl. The first thing to note is that this is not a 'how to facilitate' book. There is no 'true path' in here. Instead we've about 50 or 60 pages with some tips, some musings, some reflection points to facilitate better. If you are new to facilitation then I suspect there will be something on every page to get something out of. If you are somewhat experienced, then there will be little new here. There is no method (not that you need one if you're experienced) and much of the things to consider you're probably already doing. Indeed, today I ran a quick game with colleagues in respect of 'setting up for success' in facilitation and this book is really about that. It asks you to consider your environment, your people, the outcome and of course yourself.

I don't think there is anything earth shattering I am taking away here, but there are a couple of reminders for myself in here that I am aware of. First, it's not about you as a facilitator (but you matter), your role is to facilitate the way to an outcome but it's not your job to do all the work (and I can tell you I learnt that lesson the hard way often getting exhausted facilitating and being guided by an observer that I should let the room do the work). Also, set your environment up well. You don't need tables for people to camp out on. In recent years this is what I have learnt well - the physical meeting environment is a terrible environment for creative facilitation.

I think I am an excellent facilitator compared to virtually everyone I have ever worked with but I also know that I am a long way off true mastery. Even though I haven't got tons out of this short book (and my 3 out of 5 is really because it can be read in an hour) I know that when I am in the room, and I am dancing between holding space, guiding and shaping and letting go I know there will be little nuggets I read this week that make the event better.