When I started working in community development I went to five to ten meetings per week. In community development I work with just about every committee and board that has an impact on the community as a whole. Some meetings were just gab sessions that I was dying to get out of. Others a steady stream of complaints about the state of the community. Others full of energy and ideas that circled and circled and circled until the next meeting. Others just about checking items off on an agenda.
I hate to be self absorbed, but I’m telling you my time is valuable. I bet yours is too! Time is a finite resource for everyone. The way you spend it counts. I’m sure you can agree that sitting in meetings for the sake of meeting is a huge waste of time and an intensive moral crusher.
I absolute knew there had to be method somewhere that would encourage group input in an efficient manner. That input had to be extracted in a way that brought the group to some kind of consensus. That consensus had to lead to a path forward. I felt that is was critical to the successful development of our community and the momentum of our community members’ energy.
I was very fortunate to attend a meeting one day led by a person with great facilitation skills. After the first meeting our group had great ideas, synergy, and momentum to take us into planning.
I nearly overwhelmed the meeting leader, not with questions about the content of the meeting, but the method used to get forty people with amazingly different opinions to find a path forward.
The method to stop the madness of wasted meetings was found in the art of facilitation. The ToP (Technology of Participation Method) Method of Facilitation was available in a course. I couldn’t sign up for the course fast enough.
After ToP Faciliation Methods I felt my meetings ran much better. I knew how to allow people the space to share their thoughts and ideas. I knew how to help the group wrangle the ideas into something that made sense, and finally the groups created clear ways to move forward. I honestly may have quit my community development work had I not found this method of conducting meetings.
I was so intrigued by the method that I started my certification process to teach the ToP Methods and lead strategic and action planning groups of all kinds using the method.
The course has recently been adapted to virtual delivery. This means that these methods are not shelved until we can meeting in-person but actively being taught online. When you learn these methods you can use them virtually or in person when that option is possible.
If you are ready to make a change in they way your meetings function than consider signing up for ToP Facilitation Methods Online. The next course starts December 15th.
