Whether you run board meetings, community groups, a family, a staff meeting or you teach, you are a group leader. But whether or not you are a good one is an open question. Joan Haley, who has led groups and given presentations most of her professional life and studied educational theory and training, shares a proven process for effectively leading groups and provides many concrete techniques to facilitate learning. She shares the Group Process Formula® which is a conceptual framework she developed to work with groups of any kind. The Formula is a failsafe structure ensuring leaders enjoy their groups and maximizes the learning of each participant. Just as important, she reveals how a leader effectively facilitates learning so that participants feel the group is a safe place to work through their own process of self-discovery, and utilizes the power of the group as a whole to bolster that learning. Haley provides information to make sure participants walk away with newfound skills, attitudes and behaviors to use in their lives.

Praise for Facilitating Group Learning "In this engaging and accessible book, George Lakey draws on a lifetime's experience to provide a highly practical resource to anyone seeking to understand and respond to the complexities of group work. The book will be invaluable to anyone trying to effect social change through groups while striving to stay simultaneously sane and employed." Stephen D. Brookfield, Distinguished University Professor, University of St. Thomas "I've been working with forms of direct education for many decades, and I found new ideas and inspirations in every chapter. For anyone involved in teaching, training, sharing skills, or leading groups, this book is an invaluable resource!" Starhawk, author, The Earth Path, Dreaming the Dark, and Webs of Power "George Lakey has inspired our union to engage in education in a way that challenges us to redefine social justice and equality in new and exciting ways. This book helps us to continue our journey to touch the souls of union members." Denis Lemelin, national president, Canadian Union of Postal Workers "Facilitating Group Learning will ease the way of all who venture into the white waters of facilitation. George clarifies the most basic, complex, and nagging challenges of facilitation, while honoring the realities of individual and social power dynamics and providing real-life examples from the path of continued growth and mastery. A rare gift!" Niyonu D. Spann, founding president, TRV Consulting and Beyond Diversity 101 "This book is a must-read for people who teach adults of any age, no matter what the subject, and care about doing it in ways that yield deep and abiding learning. Wonderfully well-written and rich with psychological and spiritual insights as well as practical strategies, it represents the fruits of a lifetime of transformational teaching and learning by one of the foremost adult educators of our time." Parker J. Palmer, author, The Courage to Teach, Let Your Life Speak, and The Heart of Higher Education

Group Leadership Skills provides a road map and a practical toolkit for users to lead all types of groups effectively. Drawing on extensive teaching and clinical experience, authors Mei-whei Chen and Christopher Rybak give readers numerous skills, techniques, insights, and case illustrations demonstrating how to tap into the heart of group therapy: the interpersonal processes. The text covers group processes from beginning to end, including setting up a group, running the first session, facilitating the opening and closing of each session, working with tension and conflict, and using advanced skills and intervention techniques to facilitate member change. The Second Edition expands on group leadership skills to include methods of running mandate groups, semi-structured groups, basic level unstructured groups, and advanced level here-and-now focused groups, as well as using psychodrama techniques to heal unresolved grief and loss.

Clarifying the fine art of workshop design and facilitation, this book - aimed particularly at social workers - is the ultimate guide to setting up and running a workshop. The authors' model takes account of experiential learning and individual learning styles. Numerous examples and exercises are provided.

The Secrets of Facilitation delivers a clear vision of facilitation excellence and reveals the specific techniques effective facilitators use to produce consistent, repeatable results with groups. Author Michael Wilkinson has trained thousands of managers, mediators, analysts, and consultants around the world to apply the power of SMART (Structured Meeting And Relating Techniques) facilitation to achieve amazing results with teams and task forces. He shows how anyone can use these proven group techniques in conflict resolution, consulting, managing, presenting, teaching, planning, selling, and other professional as well as personal situations.

When it was published in 1994, Roger Schwarz's The SkilledFacilitator earned widespread critical acclaim and became alandmark in the field. The book is a classic work for consultants,facilitators, managers, leaders, trainers, and coaches--anyonewhose role is to facilitate and guide groups toward realizing theircreative and problem-solving potential. This thoroughly revisededition provides the essential materials for anyone that workswithin the field of facilitation and includes simple but effectiveground rules for group interaction. Filled with illustrativeexamples, the book contains proven techniques for starting meetingson the right foot and ending them positively and decisively. Thisimportant resource also offers practical methods for handlingemotions when they arise in a group and offers a diagnosticapproach for identifying and solving problems that can underminethe group process.

"The best book on collaboration ever written!" —Diane Flannery, founding CEO, Juma Ventures And now this classic book is even better—much better. Completely revised and updated, the second edition is loaded with new tools and techniques. Two powerful new chapters on agenda design A full section devoted to reaching closure More than twice as many tools for handling difficult dynamics 70 brand-new pages and over 100 pages significantly improved

The past half-century has witnessed a dramatic increase in the scale and complexity of scientific research. The growing scale of science has been accompanied by a shift toward collaborative research, referred to as "team science." Scientific research is increasingly conducted by small teams and larger groups rather than individual investigators, but the challenges of collaboration can slow these teams' progress in achieving their scientific goals. How does a team-based approach work, and how can universities and research institutions support teams? Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science synthesizes and integrates the available research to provide guidance on assembling the science team; leadership, education and professional development for science teams and groups. It also examines institutional and organizational structures and policies to support science teams and identifies areas where further research is needed to help science teams and groups achieve their scientific and translational goals. This report offers major public policy recommendations for science research agencies and policymakers, as well as recommendations for individual scientists, disciplinary associations, and research universities. Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science will be of interest to university research administrators, team science leaders, science faculty, and graduate and postdoctoral students.

With its effective outcomes, relative speed and reduced costs, the group format is becoming increasingly popular for work with children in counselling and educational settings. Drawing from their extensive experience of running children's groups and training group leaders, Kathryn and David Geldard describe the entire process of running groups from the initial planning to post-group evaluation.Topics covered include the benefits and disadvantages of running groups and the types of group available, as well as the planning, designing, implementation and evaluation of group programmes. Filled with lots of ideas, activities, games and work-sheets for use in group programmes, as well as examples of complete programmes for particular problems such as domestic violence and low self-esteem, this highly accessible and practical book will be an invaluable resource for anyone wishing to run groups for children.

From Ingrid Bens, the author of the best-selling book Facilitating with Ease!, comes the next-step resource for project leaders, managers, community leaders, teachers, and other facilitators who want to hone their skills in order to deal with complex situations. Advanced Facilitation Strategies is a field guide that offers practical strategies and techniques for working with challenging everyday situations. These proven strategies and techniques are based on experience gleaned from hundreds of facilitated activities in organizations of all sizes and in all sectors. Both novice and seasoned facilitators who have had firsthand experience designing and leading meetings will benefit from this reality-based playbook. Advanced Facilitation Strategies is filled with the information facilitators need to Become better at diagnosing facilitation assignments and creating effective process designs Broaden their repertoire of tools to make impromptu design changes whenever they are needed Learn to be more resilient and confident when dealing with dysfunctional situations and difficult people.