Global Professionals, a Strategic Project for Creating Globally Competent Professionals
Minutes of the 3rd course of the GP lecture

Part1 [A Successful Facilitating Leader Can Change The World.]
Speaker: Masumi Tani Coaching & Facilitation Office 123 owner
Lecturer at Waseda Business School and Okayama University

Introduction:
To start with, I’ll ask two questions. Please work with the person next to you.

Activity 1: What do you mean by changing the world? (2 minute-discussion )
Some of Students’ answers:
1. To create a new culture and value, and make it someone’s habit.
2. To act when you realize it, and accumulate this kind of experience.
3. Not to wait for someone to change you, but for you to change.

Activity 2: What do you mean by the world? (2 minute-discussion )
Some of Students’ answers:
1. One thought of the world as tangible on earth, but the other thought of it as intangible,
their inner self.
2. I thought about it from a global perspective, but my partner talked based on their external and internal perspective.

【Important Reminder to Proceed to a Discussion】
■ These two activities show that if you look at a thing from a different perspective,
you will miss the point of the argument. In Activity 1, Whether you start out the premise
taking a global perspective or an individual perspective, or whether you think of the world
as the material world or the spiritual world keep the discussion on track.
■ As mentioned above, we often start a discussion on different premises. Therefore
it is important to share our thoughts and images first. What comes first in my mind is
that people come here with different ideas, thoughts and expectations and so I should take
a diversity of views as a given.

【What Is Facilitation?】
■ Facilitation= To make it easier for groups of people to do their work; a communication skill
to help teams manage the process of information exchange and solve problems.
■ Not only at meetings, but also whenever you’d like to motivate and generate feedback
from people around you, facilitation is crucial.
■ You can find it very difficult for meetings of large groups of people to finish on time, so
each of you should take control of your time.
→ Brainstorming ideas= Refine your purpose statements.

Activity 3: Share your ideas with teams about what you want to know in this seminar.
(5 minute-discussion)
Some of Students’ answers:
1. How to draw out the quiet participants at meetings.
2. How to direct heated discussions back to the original topic.
3. How to build consensus in meetings.
4. How to set up ground rules.
5. How agree on the agenda when there are disrupters, people who keep
going off the agenda.
6. How to shape and guide the process of working together to meet the goals
starting with small ideas of the group members.
7. How to summarize different opinions
8. What does facilitation mean?
9. How to break the ice?
10. How to draw out opinions from participants.
11. How to embrace diversity
12. How to communicate your core value to people whose values are different from
our own.
13. Tips for accepting different opinions.
14. How to prepare efficiently.

【Two Things That I Pay Careful Attention】1.=Expectations 2. Fear
1. Expectations= Our expectations differ greatly. You can’t sometimes expect anything,
and we always hide our true feelings.
2. Fear = Giving your opinions to others may take some risks. You are worried whether
conscious or unconscious.
→ As seen above, people come with some kinds of expectations and fears. Especially it is
important to eliminate fears and anxieties as soon as possible. For example, people do
not know each other, or there are newcomers in the group. = People don’t know what to
is expected of them, so it’s difficult to engage in discussion. Helping people get to
know each other as soon as possible is necessary.

【3 Main Factors to Consider Making a Great Meeting】
1. Ice Breakers
To get to know each other as soon as possible/ To greet first/ To get everyone to
introduce themselves as soon as possible.
2. Choose nicknames.
Just using nicknames can demonstrate empathy to other people and help you to
communicate well.
3. To build a meeting mindset.
An attitude and emotional outlook will affect a scene at the meeting.
→ Knowing each other can create a knowledge and a sharing of culture.
→ To become a good listener to let others talk, and ask questions = conversational skills

【How to Become a Better Listener?】
■ Good listener = Easy to talk to. Namely, those who can accept and embrace the
speaker’s opinions.

Activity 4: Work in pairs, A and B, and talk about your ambitions. (2-minute activity)
→ Feedback about the task tells you that if the reaction from the person who you are
talking to makes you feel good, you should do the same. It seems to be right in general,
but it doesn’t sometimes work well. While talking, paying attention to the other person,
you can respond to the speaker differently.

【How to Deal With People Who Have a Different Viewpoint.】
■ You don’t have to agree with them, but instead, try and understand them by writing their
opinions on the whiteboard. Visualizing their opinions will help participants share their
perspectives. What is important is to write down every opinion, whether you can agree
with it or not. Otherwise, speakers with a different viewpoint will lose their interest in
the topic, feeling ignored.

【When You Need to Lead the Discussion in the Certain Decision.】
■ If you’ve already reached final decision A, what you need to do is not to discuss group
decision making, but how to persuade others to accept it.
“ I’d like to go for A, and what do you say?”/ “ What’s causing the problem?” /
“ What worthy goal can we achieve if it works well?”
You can ask these questions and get some feedback from the participants.
→ While doing this, if you only get disagreeable feedback from a team, the mood of the
meeting will be gloomy. So you should generate favorable feedback from them at the
same time. There is another way round. If there is only a favorable one, it is just a facade. So you should bring out their negative opinions and their true feelings.

■ Without you moving into action, neither organized groups nor the world can change.
To accomplish your stated goal, you need to create a powerful action plan and contentment.
Fears prevent teams from carrying out a plan. To verbalize your concerns, you can pick
the brains of your team members.

Activity 5: Tips for making decisions by consensus. (a 10-minute activity)
Deciding the roles of a timekeeper, a facilitator, a note taker, doing the task, then summarizing the points of agreement, and finally sharing them with, other teams.
Some of Students’ Answers:
・ To reach a consensus in decision making, not only logically, but also emotionally.
・ It is important that you should go back to the early steps such as identifying the decision
to be made, the issue under discussion, criteria, and possible solutions and a final solution
(decision), so that you can reconfirm your consensus again.

【Summary】
■ If you develop facilitation skills, you can gain the trust of others and be highly appreciated.
■ Facilitation skills can be used not only to facilitate group decision-making, but to help the
group design process consistent with the core values.