I recently had the honor of facilitating a board/staff retreat for the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition. After a day and a half, the organization’s leadership not only decided its annual goals and objectives, but they also built stronger relationships with each other that will fuel their work as they work to improve the bicycling environment and quality of life in Los Angeles County. 

 

Why have a facilitator? First, having an outside facilitator gives everyone else in the organization’s leadership the opportunity to participate in the decision making process. Second, a facilitator helps the group stay on track and make the key decisions it needs to make. Too often, a group can stray from it’s agreed upon agenda. While a group may have had a good discussion, if no key decisions were made, then the time could have been used more effectively.  While my role is to help the group reach a decision, at no point am I ever telling the group what decision to make. That’s the group’s role. My role is to help get them to that point.

 

By the end of the Bike Coalition retreat, everyone was excited to move forward. They worked hard during the entire retreat and at the end of the day, came to consensus on how they should move forward. I wish them the best and also look forward to writing more about more detailed aspects of facilitation in future blogs.