5 helpful tips to build trust and community in a facilitated session

When working with teams in a facilitated session, intentionally building trust and community are imperative to success. Facilitation is all about hearing from the collective wisdom in the room, and in order to collect that wisdom, your participants have to feel like they have value and that their contributions will help the overall purpose. These 5 tips will help you gain more trust and build community among the participants in your session in order to gain more engagement, more productivity, and ultimately, yield more successful results.

PLAY (this one is my favorite!)

Play is the fastest way to build community. Play creates a sense of belonging and provides an opportunity to learn by doing, not to mention that laughter is usually a byproduct of play. We all know how much fun it is to laugh and there are some serious benefits. Laughter reduces stress, sends endorphins through your body, increases happiness, and we often want to connect while laughing because it makes us share a common experience (we are more likely to laugh with others than alone). Check out this Ted Talk from Dr. Sophie Scott about The Science of Laughter. Dr. Stuart Brown, author of Play and founder of The National Institute of Play says that when we play, we experience a "diminished consciousness of self." Play allows us to fully be in the moment in a time when we have so much on our calendars, and it can often be a conduit for breaking down silos and building connections with colleagues.

Think about building in different opportunities for your participants to "play" in your sessions. That can mean anything from a fun and quick team building game, a fun introduction to build empathy and connection, or simply just putting some fidgets or play doh on the table to inspire some creativity and playfulness.

The activity below, Spaghetti tower, was used in a session to help this particular group think about being innovative and explore the necessity of different roles and responsibilities when generating new ideas. We also explored how sometimes, groups just need to try something and see if it works, and build on that idea together. Sometimes, when a task seems daunting, just putting something together can help frame our brains to explore possibilities.

Pair and Share

One of the easiest ways to foster community by building relationships is to facilitate a "pair and share" conversation. This is an opportunity for two participants to connect on a topic, and often, helps create safety for those who may not feel safe enough to share in a bigger group. Try providing a great question for two participants to talk about, like "Why is this work so important to you?" or "What keeps you coming back each day?" Time each participant (2 minutes to share), and have the other person just listen. We so often listen to respond when we hear someone else speak, and by just authentically listening to the other person, this pair and share activity gives us an opportunity to truly just listen to understand and develop empathy and common understanding. After the two minutes of sharing are up for one partner, you can either have the other partner reflect back what they heard and saw (it's amazing when you listen to someone and also pay attention to how that person uses their body to provide more intel), or the next partner can start their two minutes.

Small Group Brainstorming

I love to use small group conversations and brainstorming to help leverage all the wisdom within participants. Not only do small groups allow for all voices to be heard, but it is an incredible opportunity to build connections and trust. Each group inevitably has extroverts and introverts (and ambiverts), and small group brainstorming gives introverts a chance to participate without the entire group listening. Brainstorming is one of my favorite ways to inspire creativity and innovation in others, and small groups can be used for problem solving as well as brainstorming. Often, when brainstorming, it is best to give participants a few minutes on their own to generate ideas. It is necessary when brainstorming to encourage all ideas, especially out-of-the-box ideas. Brainstorming is better done quickly so that judgemental voice in our head doesn't have time to overrule ideas, so I often find success encouraging groups to first take 2 minutes to brainstorm ideas (one per sticky note), and then have groups get together and start to see what commonalities they discover and see where they can build on each other's ideas. I recently took an incredible virtual course on Design Thinking with IDEO, and they have some fantastic rules for brainstorming. It is important to prime people for brainstorming (think stretching muscles before a workout), so a quick game like ONE WORD STORY (participants get into a circle and each person adds one word at a time around the circle to build an improvised story).

Establish Ground Rules or Agreements

Before a team starts to work together, it is helpful to establish agreements or rules that you can use to develop a common language as you are working together. These should be established at the beginning of a session, and repeated each time you are together. These should be built as a team, and discussed as each item is added to the list. A few of my favorites include:

1) Fail Forward: Failure is perceived as a negative often times in the workplace. In my sessions, especially when we are brainstorming and innovating plans, I like to embrace failure and encourage it, so that we can learn and grow from failure and create something that will drive success.

2) Brave space: Often, facilitators like to create a safe space, so that what is said in the room stays in the room. However, we cannot guarantee as facilitators that the space will indeed be safe, so I like to embrace brave spaces. I like to encourage participants to challenge themselves to be brave and share, despite the outcome. When one person is brave, it inspires others to do so as well.

3) Assume Positive Intent: As humans, we like to create stories to help things make sense. We are incredible storytellers. When someone says something that doesn't land right or creates a negative feeling, we don't often assume the positive. If all participants agree at the beginning of a workshop to assume positive intent, it helps reframe some potential conflict and negative thoughts and storytelling.

4) Yes, and...: This is my absolute favorite ground rule to bring in to groups. It is relevant for any type of facilitated session, and truly sets the positive environment. This is a rule from improvisation. I use it with groups to help encourage them to add on to each other's ideas instead of negating ideas right away. It is so easy to find all the ways something doesn't work, but if you can build on to an idea, even if it is is out of left field, groups can begin to truly appreciate the value that each person brings to the table.

There are so many other rules you can add into a session. Some of my other favorites include: ELMO (Enough let's move on), You Do You (take breaks, snacks, fidgets etc.), Step Up and Step Back, and many more.

Close With an Umph

Whenever I close a session, I like to provide an opportunity for my participants to think about all the great work they accomplished and, if the case calls for it, frame their brains for the next session. I love having a group share a word or phrase that they are either still thinking about, excited about for the next time, or proud that they accomplished. These can either be out loud, or written down on sticky notes. This is a fantastic chance to recap, and to end on a positive with the full group all together. This also helps solidify the unique culture developing within that particular group, and provides yet another opportunity to hear diverse thoughts.