Facilitating with Ease! Core Skills for Facilitators, Team Leaders and Members, Managers, Consultants, and Trainers, 3rd Edition

Chapter Six

Effective Decision Making

Helping groups make high-quality decisions is one of the most important functions of a facilitator. It’s also one of the most difficult! There are a number of things that make decision making such a challenge:

• people may be trying to make a decision without having done their homework or being in possession of all of the important facts
• the key stakeholders or decision-makers may not be present
• individuals in the group may have a solution or position in mind that they spend their time advocating without being open to further input
• a few people may dominate while others hold their ideas back
• there may be real confusion about the purpose of the decision-making conversation or whether the group is empowered ...