The “Course Topics” series from Manage Train Learn and Slide Topics is a collection of over 4000 slides that will help you master a wide range of management and personal development skills. The 202 PowerPoints in this series offer you a complete and in-depth study of each topic. This presentation is on "Group Energy".

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Group Energy
Facilitation Skills
MTL Course Topics
FACILITATION SKILLS
Group Energy

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Group Energy
Facilitation Skills
MTL Course Topics
The Course Topics series from Manage Train Learn is a large collection of topics that will help you as a learner
to quickly and easily master a range of skills in your everyday working life and life outside work. If you are a
trainer, they are perfect for adding to your classroom courses and online learning plans.
COURSE TOPICS FROM MTL
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either by attribution to Manage Train Learn or with the express written permission of Manage Train Learn.
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slides. As with all programmes on Slide
Topics, these slides are fully editable and
can be used in your own programmes,
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as your own.
Copyright Manage Train Learn 2020
onwards.
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Commons license.

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Group Energy
Facilitation Skills
MTL Course Topics
ARE YOU READY?
OK, LET’S START!

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Group Energy
Facilitation Skills
MTL Course Topics
THE ART OF NON-DOING
The skills of facilitation are not "doing" skills in the sense
that car maintenance skills do things to improve the
performance of cars, but "non-doing" skills in the sense that
it is our supportive presence, our absence of interference
and our gentle guidance that do things to improve the
performance of people.
Exchanging the traditional "doing" role for the facilitative
"non-doing" role may not come easy for some team leaders.
Such people may see themselves as responsible for getting
the group to perform in traditional ways. They may believe
in the laws of physics as applied to people - they push, they
force, they apply pressure, they struggle, they threaten. It is
hard for them to understand that they would be more
successful by standing back, letting go, going with the flow
and letting things happen.

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Group Energy
Facilitation Skills
MTL Course Topics
GOING WITH THINGS
Going with things is a facilitative skill that relies on tuning in
to where a group's energy is.
1. We go with things when we focus on what is happening
in the group now.
2. We go with things when we read the group's energy and
join with it.
3. We go with things when we make minimal efforts to do
things our way.
4. We go with things when we appreciate what is, not
what was or should be.
5. We go with things when we stand back and see things
as they are.
6. We go with things when we help people remove the
blocks to growth.
7. We go with things when we show people what they are
capable of.

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Group Energy
Facilitation Skills
MTL Course Topics
WAITING
One of the skills of the non-doing approach to group
leadership is waiting.
Waiting signifies a quiet calm confidence that something
valuable will emerge. Waiting allows you to observe what is
going on in the group. Waiting allows you to tune in to
where the group is and follow their lead. When you wait for
others, they eventually take the lead.
"It took the class four sessions to realise that, if they wanted
something to happen to them, it was they who had to
provide the content. After the fourth session, the group
became close to one another and their true selves
appeared. There were moments of insight that were
awesome in nature. We all felt elevated, freer, more
accepting of ourselves and others." (Dr Samuel Tannenbaum
on Carl Rogers' method of facilitation)

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Group Energy
Facilitation Skills
MTL Course Topics
ABSENCE
Amongst the options open to the facilitator in promoting
groupwork is his or her choice to leave the group alone. The
facilitator can do this by simply agreeing on what the group
are to do, announce where he or she is going and then
leaving them to get on with their task.
Not being present has a number of benefits. It removes any
feeling that the facilitator is watching the group and judging
them. It allows the group the freedom to be themselves. It
shows the facilitator's trust in them. It focuses all the
group's attention on each other.
Frequent absences are likely to reduce the impact of this
technique. By contrast, there will be occasions when the
facilitator will choose to take an active part in groupwork as
one of the participants. By making these choices, he or she
models personal freedom to the group.

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Group Energy
Facilitation Skills
MTL Course Topics
THE CANOEIST
Going "with" things is like a canoeist negotiating white
water rapids. He has to roll under this wave, block that one,
switch direction, rest for a while, suddenly be swept along,
then head for the bank, swerve, sway, lean and pray.
In the early stages of groupwork, the pace of the group may
be slow and sluggish as the group tries to work out how it
wants to work. The facilitator moves at the same pace. As
the group grows in confidence, so the pace increases. At its
height, the activity in the group may be like a torrent,
talkative, lively and bursting with things to do. The facilitator
moves at an equally energetic pace. Towards the end of
groupwork, the pace may slow again, but this time it is more
sedate and masterly.
Working in this way, the facilitator uses the energy of the
group to navigate the group's process.

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Group Energy
Facilitation Skills
MTL Course Topics
GROUP ENERGY
It is the intangible but very real energy of a group that tells
you what is happening in the group. This energy can be
moving in the directions of intellectual confluence,
emotional maturity and interdependent trust. Or it can be
moving in the opposite directions.
There are four types of group energy:
1. The physical - what the group are doing
2. The emotional - what the group are feeling
3. The intellectual - what the group are thinking
4. The spiritual - what the group are becoming.
Each of these energy sources can be read through sensing
them, intuitively noticing them and tracking them.

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Group Energy
Facilitation Skills
MTL Course Topics
PHYSICAL ENERGY
The physical energy of a group is the easiest to detect and
read. It is what you see the group doing in front of you that
indicates what the physical energy is like.
You can measure a group's physical energy on scales such as
these:
1. Is the group tired or energetic?
2. Are the group members physically close to one another
or do they keep their distance?
3. Are movements sluggish or animated?
4. Is there a lot of laughter, giggling and loud speaking or
are there frowns, whispers and asides?
5. Do people work quickly or slowly?
6. Are people's body language open and receptive or
closed and defensive?
7. Does the group seem to be happy together or not?

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Group Energy
Facilitation Skills
MTL Course Topics
EMOTIONAL ENERGY
The emotional energy of a group can be detected in the
non-verbal body language of the group, in their level of trust
and anxiety and in how much they appear to relish the task
of working with one another.
You can measure a group's emotional energy on scales such
as these:
1. Do people look frightened or relaxed?
2. Are there many forms of contact or only a few?
3. Do the group look to their own members for help or to
the facilitator?
4. Is the atmosphere friendly or hostile?
5. Do people carry on talking to one another after
groupwork is over or go off on their own?
6. Is the discussion in the group only about work or does it
include personal matters?
7. Is the group looking forward to the future?

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Group Energy
Facilitation Skills
MTL Course Topics
INTELLECTUAL ENERGY
The intellectual energy of a group can be read by measuring
the group's ability to handle the intellectual content on the
group's agenda.
You can measure a group's intellectual energy on scales such
as these:
1. Is the group bursting with ideas or stumped for anything
to say?
2. Do the group ask questions or is there silence?
3. Do the group stick with conventional ideas or do they
take risks?
4. Do discussions range across a wide area of the subject
matter or are they limited?
5. Do people understand new concepts quickly or do they
have to be explained?
6. Does the group have lots of ideas about what they
could do next or none?

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Group Energy
Facilitation Skills
MTL Course Topics
SPIRITUAL ENERGY
The spiritual energy of a group is the most difficult to read,
possibly because some people refuse to believe that group
spirit really exists.
A group's spiritual energy is the extent to which the group
has taken on a reality over and above the sum of the
individuals in it. When this happens, everyone in the group
is present in the moment, without pretence. Their
humanness emerges. There is a sense of belonging, of
merging into oneness, of being a group, of being part of
something bigger than themselves.
Conversely, the group's spiritual energy is low when people
prefer to retain their individual identities. They are in the
group but their thoughts are back at work or elsewhere.
They are not willing to risk themselves for the group and are
not bothered whether it continues or dies.

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Group Energy
Facilitation Skills
MTL Course Topics
ENERGY FLOW
Group energy can be sensed by whether, as a whole, the
group is prepared to ...
1. take responsibility for their thoughts and actions
2. be in control of achieving their personal aims
3. make use of the facilitator as a supportive resource
4. make meaningful contact with each other
5. be prepared to take the lead
6. look after themselves in the group
7. show intellectual curiosity about the issues being
discussed.
Symbolically, the group's energy flow can resemble a
trickling brook, or a stagnant pool, or a gushing waterfall, or
a shallow stream, or a mature river or a sedate estuary.

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Group Energy
Facilitation Skills
MTL Course Topics
THAT’S
IT!
WELL DONE!

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Group Energy
Facilitation Skills
MTL Course Topics
THANK YOU
This has been a Slide Topic from Manage Train Learn