WLD Guide to Facilitating_UMass Amherst 1 | Page 12

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 Facilitation tools like paired listening and go arounds give everyone a chance
to have their say. Use icebreakers and energizers to help people warm up,
and make sure you challenge any aggressive or dominating behavior so that
other people can feel safe.
 In all of these cases ask the group! Is anyone confused at the moment about
what we’re doing? Is this exercise working for you? If not we can easily move
on. Don’t be afraid to ask for a few minutes to reorganize your plans!
Working with a skeptical group
So what can you do when there are people in the group who are skeptical about the
subject of this particular workshop, or the way you’re facilitating? Firstly, check your
group’s expectations near the start of the workshop. Hopefully you’ll find that
you’ve prepared a workshop that’s relevant to this group. If your plan doesn’t meet
people’s expectations, at least you’ll know, and can either change things if possible,
or else suggest that people might want to
leave. It can help to explain at the start of
each activity what you are aiming to achieve
with it, and how it fits in with the overall aims
of the workshop. If you can’t (because, for
example, the exercise needs them to come to
it with an unprejudiced mind) explain this to
them and make it clear that the rationale will
become obvious.
 Acknowledge any skepticism – don’t just
ignore it and hope it’ll go away! You can be
explicit – I know some of you aren’t sure how
this workshop will help, but this is how I think
it might be useful…
 Trust your workshop preparation – you’ve
checked that it meets all the needs of a good
learning experience.