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Good facilitation skills help all parties in negotiations, building ideas and having effective discussions. Improving these skills is what this educational series, “Strengthen Your Facilitation Skills: Enhancing Your Impact as an Association Professional” aims to help you do. Facilitation skills can elevate quiet voices, seek new beneficial outcomes or harness creativity that leads to better results.

Honing and applying focused facilitator skills will help you do all these things and more. Created by the Alliance Learning Collective*, this series will introduce you to the role and techniques of effective facilitation while arming you with opportunities to practice and hone these facilitation skills – including probing, bridging, synthesizing and reflective listening. What’s more is you’ll receive feedback on how you can improve.

Over the course of the three-session series, participants will:

• Gain an understanding of how to map out a facilitation process that helps a group work through common needs, such as brainstorming, problem-solving and consensus-building.
• Create follow-up assignments in between sessions that expose you to opportunities to practice your facilitation skills and techniques in real-life settings, and
• Share your experiences with peers to develop a richer learning experience.

These skills will help facilitate your long-term growth, grow your value to the organization, and further the objectives of your team.

Registration: $289 for this three-part series

CAE Hours: 1.5 CAE Hour per session, for a total of 4.5 CAE Hours for the full program

Learning Objectives for Each 90-minute Module

 Module 1 – Sept. 28, 2023 (1:30-3 p.m. Eastern; 10:30 a.m. to noon, Pacific)

• Understand the roles a facilitator performs.
• Navigate the dynamics of peer relationships and staff-volunteer/leader relationships when in a facilitator role.
• Hone key skills in the facilitation skill set.

 Module 2 – October 12, 2023 (1:30-3 p.m. Eastern; 10:30 a.m. to noon, Pacific)

• Discover the basics of process design – taking a goal, need or outcome desired by a group, and designing a discussion to help them achieve it.
• Learn specific techniques/activities for facilitating different processes with groups, such as brainstorming, consensus-building and problem-solving

 Module 3 - October 26, 2023 (1:30-3 p.m. Eastern; 10:30 a.m. to noon, Pacific)

• Become more comfortable managing group dynamics and creating a productive environment for group cohesion.
• Sharpen your reflective listening skills.
• Learn how to handle unanticipated situations as a facilitator, and how you can better prepare.
• Set a path for your continued growth as a facilitator.

 In preparation for this course, participants will be asked to:

• Complete a survey that will help the series facilitator better understand individual experiences with facilitation and interest in particular areas for improvement.
• To gain the greatest benefits from this series, participants should consider where they might have opportunities between sessions to practice facilitation skills in real-life settings/situations and to gain more experiences they can share with their peers when the sessions reconvene.

About the Facilitator: James S. DeLizia, CAE

James S. DeLizia, CAE is principal of DeLizia Consulting Services, a management consulting firm specializing in facilitation, design and consultation in the areas of leadership and organizational development, governance, and all forms of group process, including planning, consensus-building and critical and creative thinking.  Jim has been providing consultative services to non-profit professional, trade and philanthropic organizations as well as public entities for over 25 years, and started his career as an association staff member.  In addition to numerous US-based clients, his work has extended to supporting the development of associations internationally, including Eastern Europe.

Jim has been an active leader in his professional societies, the American Society of Association Executives and the California Society of Association Executives, where he has served on the board of directors, authored best-selling publications and is a frequent presenter on facilitation, leadership, strategic planning and governance.

 Jim has a master’s degree in English Literature from the University of Maryland.  He is a certified focus group facilitator, has been trained in negotiation techniques through the Harvard Negotiation Project, and a Certified Association Executive (CAE) designee since 1990.

 *About the Alliance Learning Collective (ALC)

 The ALC is a collaboration between six Societies of Associations Executives to bring high quality educational opportunities to association professionals across the U.S. They are members of the Association Societies Alliance.

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