An executive committee may emerge from a seminar or workshop with a clear roadmap… and yet change almost nothing. The decision is set out in writing. The priorities are laid out. The participants say they are on the same page. Then everyone goes their separate ways, each with their own managerial role, constraints and priorities. Old habits return. Compromises go unspoken, even though the stakes are clear.
When I support this kind of situation, I focus particularly on what happens after these kinds of workshops. My question is this: do you need facilitation within the organisation to produce a clear outcome, or group coaching to address the factors preventing the team from implementing its decisions?
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Short answer: facilitation or group coaching?
La facilitation in the workplace is suitable when your main objective is to produce a clear, collective outcome that benefits the team’s performance or the organisation’s overall effectiveness.
Group coaching is ideal when your main challenge is to address the factors preventing the group from making decisions, letting go of certain issues, and sticking to those decisions over the long term.
Facilitation helps an executive committee, a business unit or a project team to emerge from a group session with a decision, a priority or a practical action plan.
Group coaching proves useful when the group in question approves decisions without taking ownership of them, avoids conflict, or relies too heavily on a single leader to resolve disputes.
The risk is operational. Poorly chosen facilitation may sometimes result in an enjoyable workshop, but leaves the trade-offs that nobody wants to address untouched. Conversely, poorly structured group coaching can complicate a situation that simply required clear guidelines, decision-making criteria and a concise summary.
So the right question isn’t: which format should you choose? But rather: what level of problem do you need to tackle?
As long as the issue remains too broadly defined, there is a risk of choosing a format that is appealing but ill-suited to the task.
Facilitation in the workplace: when you need to reach a workable decision
Do you need a facilitation in the workplace when the main issue concerns the framework for collaborative work. The issue has been identified. Time is limited. The expected outcome must be clear. For example: prioritising between three options, developing a roadmap through collaborative planning, clarifying roles, or setting the parameters for a cross-functional decision.
Facilitation helps avoid a common scenario: a meeting that mainly generates comments. Everyone reacts to the topic. Constraints pile up. Risks are listed. But no one knows when the group needs to make a decision. In this case, my job is to break the process down into three stages: understanding, comparing and deciding. Because the worst-case scenario isn’t always the lack of a decision. It’s often the lack of criteria on which to base that decision. The methods used must therefore help the group to compare, prioritise and decide without the discussion becoming unfocused.
What facilitation actually involves in a business context
I don’t just prepare a workshop or a facilitation session. Collaborative processes are not enough on their own: they must be linked to a decision to be made or deliverables to be produced. I prepare a decision-making framework designed to facilitate clearer decision-making. Before the seminar or workshop, whether in person or online, I clarify three points: what needs to be produced, who needs to decide, and what principles should guide the outcomes of the group session. Collective intelligence cannot be imposed; it is built when everyone understands what is expected of them during the session.
Many facilitation sessions fail before they even begin. Not during them. If the brief is unclear, if the right people aren’t there, or if the deliverable hasn’t been specified, the session will end up trying to make up for a lack of focus.
During group discussions, I identify ideas, objections, decisions and issues to be explored further at a later stage. Innovative methods are only useful if they serve to create this clarity, rather than merely for the sake of novelty. For a facilitation tool is only valuable if it helps the group to make better decisions or to better articulate what remains open. But participants can talk at length, and it is not always clear whether we are still debating, making recommendations or deciding. The facilitator’s role is therefore to maintain the framework without making the decision on behalf of the group. Facilitation techniques serve this framework: they do not replace either arbitration or the responsibility of decision-makers.
Example: Executive Committee – prioritising strategic objectives
Let’s take the example of an executive committee that has to choose three priorities from ten projects linked to the corporate strategy. The challenges are shared, but the priorities have not yet been ranked. Sales wants to accelerate. Operations wants to stabilise. Finance wants to preserve margins. HR is warning about the managerial workload. Without a framework, the meeting becomes a list of constraints. Everyone defends their own turf. Senior management tries to rephrase things as best they can… and decisions are postponed.
Facilitation helps to establish common criteria: business impact, operational risk, capacity to deliver, urgency, and available resources. The output should not merely list three priorities; it must also identify what takes a back seat.
Without explicitly setting aside other priorities, a new priority often ends up being just another item on the to-do list. If the executive committee decides to «accelerate international expansion» but keeps all local projects running, the teams are not given a priority: they are simply faced with a further set of demands.
Example: Business Unit – aligning sales, operations and support
Another example: a business unit that wants to launch a new product or service. The sales teams are pushing to move quickly. Operations need more time. Customer service anticipates potential issues. Finance is asking for a more precise budget framework. Each department brings its own expertise to the table, but each also views the project through the lens of its own constraints. The risk is a classic one: each department ends up with its own version of the plan. The stakeholders then no longer see eye to eye on the project, even though they took part in the same workshop.
Facilitation within a company can help to clarify:
- what has been decided
- the remaining issues to be decided
- who does what
- what needs to be reported to the DG
- realistic deadlines
Facilitation may be sufficient provided three conditions are met: disagreements can be voiced, the decision-makers present have the authority to settle disputes, and the decisions will be implemented within an existing framework.
Group coaching: when decisions aren’t being put into practice
You need group coaching when collective leadership is no longer lacking in action plans, but keeps repeating the same disconnect between what it decides and what it does. When the same tension resurfaces under a different name. When the same decision is put off. When the same disagreement is dealt with outside the meeting. When it is always the same leader who ends up making the final decision.
One month, the issue at hand is called «prioritisation». The following quarter, it becomes «team workload». Then «budgetary trade-offs». In reality, the problem stems from a group that is unable to make joint sacrifices and keeps repeating the same deadlocks.
Group coaching does not address a mere impression: it examines group dynamics by looking at the visible discrepancies between what the group says and what it does. Feedback is therefore useful when it sheds light on observable behaviours: who avoids, who waits, who makes a decision, who finds a workaround.
Decisions approved, but not widely implemented
During the meeting, the decision is accepted. It’s a dream scenario; no one really objects. But afterwards, each member interprets it differently. One emphasises the risks. Another downplays the changes. A third reverts to the way they organised their previous projects. A fourth waits to see whether senior management keeps up the pressure.
The decision has been made. But it is not being presented as a collective decision.
Alignment of the façade
Many executive committees claim to be aligned. They approve the slides and announce the priorities. But alignment is tested elsewhere: in budgetary trade-offs, in the sacrifices made, and in the ability to stand by a decision that comes at a cost to one’s own area of responsibility. The gap between verbal agreement and genuine commitment is rarely apparent at the time of the vote. It becomes apparent afterwards.
DG, a must-visit destination
Another telling sign: everything ends up at senior management level. Cross-functional issues. Tensions between departments. Unpopular decisions. Decisions that should be prepared through peer-to-peer consultation. In the long term, senior management becomes the permanent regulator. This undermines governance and cohesion, as decisions are no longer adequately prepared at the appropriate level. Members of the Executive Committee take fewer risks amongst themselves.
Voltage derivatives
In a management team, a certain amount of tension is to be expected: growth versus profitability, short-term versus long-term, business unit autonomy versus group cohesion. The problem isn’t the tension itself. It’s avoiding it. When tension isn’t addressed, it manifests itself in other ways: delays, informal compromises, mixed messages, and «weak» decision-making.
A simple test to help you choose your format
Before deciding between facilitation in the workplace and group coaching, don’t start with the format. Start with the actual problem – or, more precisely, the issue that the group is struggling to address.
What should be left at the end of the working day?
If you are looking for a decision, an action plan, priorities, a roadmap or clarified roles, facilitation is probably the right approach. But the deliverable must be specific. A «shared vision» is not a specific deliverable. This «shared vision» must serve a decision, clear communication or explicit arbitration.
Do the same difficulties keep cropping up despite the meetings?
If the answer is yes, consider group coaching. The signs are clear:
- decisions revised following the meeting
- sensitive decisions omitted from the minutes
- objections raised only in bilateral discussions
- different messages depending on the business unit
- topics that change their name but amount to the same thing
Does senior management make up for the shortcomings of the team?
Does she have to keep rephrasing things? Make decisions on behalf of the group? Shoulder sensitive decisions alone? When this reliance becomes a recurring pattern, group coaching becomes more appropriate than one-off facilitation.
Does the requirement relate to an event or a process?
La facilitation in the workplace takes place within a defined timeframe. Group coaching is a long-term process, as it focuses on habits, values, working processes and ways of fostering accountability amongst peers. Team spirit is not enough if it does not translate into decisions and trade-offs.
When should you combine business facilitation with group coaching?
Some situations call for both. The facilitation in the workplace can help an executive committee choose three priorities. Group coaching can then address a more challenging question: what do we do with the seven topics we have decided to no longer prioritise? This is often where implementation comes into play. Performance then depends less on the quality of the plan than on the group’s ability to defend its own decisions during team meetings.
Group coaching helps the management team tackle the issues they tend to avoid: mediating between departments, accepting trade-offs, and standing by a decision that temporarily worsens the performance indicators within their own remit.
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To conclude,
Before choosing a format, consider what happens after the meetings. If the group comes away with clear decisions that are followed through on and supported, a facilitation in the workplace A one-off measure may suffice. If the decisions are subsequently reversed, circumvented or undermined, that is a different matter altogether.
Are you organising a management seminar, transformational seminars, Strategic executive committee meetings or support for the senior management team?
Before choosing a format, take a look at the last three team sessions. What did they achieve? What collaboration actually took place? Which issues kept cropping up despite the decisions made? These answers will help you make a more accurate assessment: one-off facilitation, long-term team coaching, or a combination of the two.
