What the group leader does#
The group leader manages the social side of the group. They organise the group sessions and facilitate them, making sure that no one is too dominant and that everyone gets a chance to contribute. If you are unfamiliar with the kinds of things that you see on the session schedules and want extra training so you can be comfortable in your role, please tell us.
Each session requires some preparation, possibly taking up to an hour or two of your time, especially if you and the engineer decide to change the schedule. The preparation for each session is detailed in the session schedules. You may want to take some time to run through the games for yourself before the appropriate sessions. During the session, you then run the rows that are marked for the group leader on the schedule.
Group leaders usually handle the following but it’s possible to delegate them:
Dates and communications. The hardest thing about the whole programme is getting the group together in the same place at the same time. The group leader finds the dates and makes sure everyone knows where and when the sessions are. It’s far better to choose all four dates before starting. The ideal spacing is 2 weeks apart, but you can do what works for your group.
Bringing things to the sessions. The session schedules say what to bring. They may include the things you need to play the games or carry out practical activities. The local facilities you have available will vary, so you will have to think about whether during sessions you will use projection for a laptop, need flipchart and pens, and so on, and plan accordingly. Some groups choose to arrange hot drinks.
Being the liaison to the building’s management. This means keeping them informed about what’s happening and making sure they can act on the programme results, but also getting any information or keys you need from them that will help you understand what’s right for the building.
Facilitation tips
As the group leader, remember that you do have have to be an expert in anything! Your role is to help the group through the process, not to impart content or technicalities. The engineer can help with some of the technicalities, but if they don’t know the answer, they can go back to the HeatHack team for further information. If a question comes up that neither of you can answer in the session, please note it down. In some cases, the answer will have to wait for professional intervention, and that’s OK - the point of these sessions is to help groups along their journey.
Think group, trust the group. Consider always what is the best way forward for the group? Often if you open a question to the group, someone will have an answer or a way forward.
Try to keep to time. People (including you) have given up their time for this important work and we need to honour their time. You could make it clear at the start of a session that it will run from x-x and ask everyone to help you get through all of the activities in time. This also gives you a reason to use if you have to cut a conversation short. If you do need to extend for and reason, you should discuss with the group and gain agreement for how long the session will run. Another technique here is to ask if 2 or more group members might want to take that specific item away to discuss at another time and to bring back the conclusions they reach to the next session. Listening. Not only to what is being said, but how it is being said, how others are reacting to it, body language.
Try to remain neutral in discussions. If you have something non-neutral you need to add, make it clear that you are stepping out of your facilitation role, and then clearly step back into this. The group members need to all feel that they have an equal voice, and your neutrality is a key part of creating space for everyone.
Mix people up. In pairs and subgroups, make sure they aren’t the same every time.
If anything gets contentious between group members here are some options to try:
ask if others have any input to the topic;
try to summarise or clarify the two points of view;
say we’ve got two interesting viewpoints here, but it doesn’t seem like we can reconcile them, so please let’s move on and we can check in later to see if views may have changed; or simply, I don’t think we are going to reach agreement here.
agree to take the topic offline to a separate session if that might help
If someone is dominating the group discussion, cut it short and move to an activity where people can individually note down their points (perhaps on post its) and add them to an overall list (maybe on a flip chart page) Try to summarise this. If the dominant behaviour continues, consider a discussion with that person before or after a session to ask for their help in letting others contribute.