Six ways facilitation skills can improve cross-disciplinary team leadership

14 thoughts on “Six ways facilitation skills can improve cross-disciplinary team leadership”

1. Dear Manal, thank you for the reflection. I agree with you that leaders and perhaps all of those involved on cross-disciplinary projects would benefit from acquiring such skills. For that we need to continue writing about them and create training opportunities for anyone that aims to improve such skills. I also agree with the comment by previous comments that , depending on the size and goals of a project, a formal facilitator role that can help the role of the leader is needed. Finally, I would also add to your analysis the need to develop skills on conflict management, as many hours are spend by facilitators to overcome several types of conflicts. All the best to you and to your work
   Helena

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   • Thank you so much Helene for your comments. I agree with your thoughts and comments. Recently, I achieved an interdisciplinary project coaching program. From this experience, I believe that practicing is the best way to improve leadership skills in cross-disciplinary project. So, I think cross-disciplinary project simulation training is the best way to improve leadership skills. Thank you for raising a very important point “conflict management.” It is a strategic point should be considered in the cross disciplinary team.
     I would like to think of this point and work on it.

     Thank you,
     Best regards,
     Manal

     Reply

2. Thanks Dr Manal for this timely post. In my experience, research leadership is often based on subject expertise or level of research seniority rather than skills required to manage a diverse team. You have captured the essence of ‘facilitation’ as one of these skills. However, the process of developing these skills could be seen as ‘time consuming’ that ‘distracts from the core research’. What do you think? Do you think having a designated project manager makes up for these skills if research leaders do not (or cannot) have them?

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   • Many thanks Dr Basirat in your interest in reading the blog about “facilitation skills can improve leadership.”
     Despite being time consuming, obtaining facilitation skills in itself is an investment in one own’s skillset; the leaders are the ones who guide the teams innovation and creativity towards achieving the goals of the research. To address the challenges facing the cross disciplinary team, improving the facilitation skills is a must for a better results.
     Best regards,
     Manal

     Reply

3. Thank you, Manal Afara, for this valuable contribution. Your ideas are relevant to the present situation faced by many leaders. They are even more relevant to the likely future, I anticipate.

   Evidence has existed since at least the 1960s that conventional organisational structures and leadership styles were losing their effectiveness. Even then they were often unfit for their purpose. Since then, the need for alternatives has become even more apparent.

   In cross-disciplinary teams, traditional leadership styles are even less appropriate. There is reason to believe that the use of cross-disciplinary teams will increase. Without facilitation, the members of such teams often have difficulty communicating successfully with each other. The potential benefits of such teams then risk being lost.

   Each of your six suggestions accords with my own experience of helping teams, of many varieties, to improve their planning, problem solving and decision making. Even simple facilitation skills, easily learned, can make a substantial difference. My opinion is that many teams would benefit from your ideas. When the teams are cross-disciplinary, the usual difficulties that teams experience are further amplified. Each of your suggestions offers a path to improvement.

   You could write a lot more about each of your suggestions, I suspect. It is to be hoped that you do.

   Again, thank you. Warm regards — Bob Dick

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   • Hello Bob Dick,
     Many thanks for your valuable thoughts, inspiring!

     Leadership in a cross-disciplinary team is a competitive task and needs a full-time commitment. As cross-disciplinary is the innovative paradigm for addressing complex problems, hence the criteria for leading his team should be improved and developed according to the necessity of this innovative paradigm.

     In my opinion, leaders in the cross-disciplinary team have to learn more about the innovative tools and facilitation skills for a successful leadership, and how this will help leading the team for achieving his goal. Hoping, the six ways facilitating skills will be the spark.

     Working on elaborating with each of the six ways of facilitation skills, is a good idea to enrich the work on developing the leadership of a cross-disciplinary team.

     Thank you agin for your encouraging contribution, appreciated,
     Best Regards,
     Manal

     Reply

4. Thank you Dr manal for the important and useful article

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   • Thank you Maro for your comment and interest in the article. Great to know that the insight is useful to you.

     Regards,

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5. Thank you for such an interesting post: everything in your post resonates with my experience. My first thoughts, based on my UK experience of developing inter-agency strategies and projects, which in turn prompted and were informed by research, are as follows:

   – A collaborative arrangement across disciplines or agencies can be set up formally, but without willing partners, the ensuing work can be tokenistic and far from effective or efficient. Some people can feel threatened by joint working arrangements. A key ingredient is something I would call a ‘collaborative spirit’ which some people seem able to engender. This creates the spark for good things to happen and also to infiltrate into practice. I suspect that this collaborative spirit is growing as more people are becoming aware of the need to collaborate across disciplines to help address situations of complexity, and thus see the potential advantages of such joint working arrangements.

   – It is perhaps helpful to distinguish between facilitation as an ongoing broad skill where someone recognises the need to convene, deliberate and plan in different ways, and a variety of facilitation skills for a planned event, meeting or workshop. A variety of approaches drawn from complexity, systems thinking and problem structuring may consist of facilitative exercises (e.g. Soft Systems Methodology, Viable System Model, Critical Systems Heuristics) that could provide new insights to direct research and practice. These could contribute much to the facilitative skillset for the leadership of cross-disciplinary projects. Also of relevance here is the endeavour of the Systemic Design Association which convenes an annual international symposium about Relating Systems Thinking and Design (RSD).

   – Finally, something I would think about adding to or incorporating within your list. That would be ‘staying power to play the long game,’ despite (inevitably) encountering difficulties. Arranging for people to work together who may not have worked together before, are from different disciplines and indeed working cultures can be challenging. Everyone has to re-adjust their thinking, their language and ways of communicating, and that takes time, when some may be looking for (or under pressure to produce) quick wins. Facilitation skills could improve cross-disciplinary team leadership if there is a long-term commitment to this approach from the various partners, and people do not feel too setback by experiencing bumps along the way.

   Amidst a wave of interest in cross-boundary working, an interpretation of leadership skills would do well to make the link that you have between facilitation skills and the leadership of cross-disciplinary projects.

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   • Thank you so much for your comment and insightful contribution. Besides, I liked the terms you used: “collaborative spirit,” and “wave of interest.”

     I believe that practicing facilitation skills of leadership in a collaborative team, and emphasizing using the innovative tools towards addressing complex problems, will empower the cross-disciplinary team to sustain and achieve goals.

     The role of facilitator is vital in organizing the logistic of the meetings, but more efficient improving facilitation skills of the leaders of cross-disciplinary team to boost team morale and engagement and step out from the comfort zone.

     Pivots for the innovative cross-disciplinary team project are collaboration, integrating, framing and implementing. So, scoping framework of the complex problem from the beginning will trigger on system thinking and designing the strategic plan and boosting achieving the goal.

     Working with enhancing and consolidating the six ways facilitation skills for improving the leadership in a cross-disciplinary team will fostering the collaborative spirit of the cross-disciplinary team, which in turn will support long term game for achieving project goals.

     Many thanks for your comments!

     Reply

6. Thank you Dr. Manal for sharing this article. I find it very interesting and important for team-leaders. Indeed, the research process is getting more and more a process of good management to have good results. Time & Research management are two important factors to guarantee the success of any project, particularly when it is cross-disciplinary project/team. However, it is relatively difficult to lead researchers from different disciplines and various visions and research method, so you article will of course give some hints to overthrow the potential obstacles that will be found.
   Best regards
   Ahmed

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   • Many thanks for your comment!
     Happy to hear that the article is insightful and inspiring.

     Best regards,
     Manal

     Reply

7. Thank you, Dr. Manal, for highlighting the importance of facilitation skills for leading cross-disciplinary teams. In my experience, many people think of facilitators as necessary only for managing public participation or stakeholder meetings where the groups are large and the participants are expected to have especially diverse views on the topics under discussion. However, even relatively small teams of researchers from different disciplines can have very different views on everything from the definition of the problem and research questions to the appropriate methods of investigation or data analysis to the very nature of truth or knowledge to the ordering of steps of a project. For teams that must work closely together, harnessing and integrating differences through effective group processes is essential for leveraging the diverse contributions of all team members.

   I’m not sure I have additional specific skills to add, but your post made me think of a number of practical guides on facilitation techniques, skills, and processes. The references below come from different domains but could be a useful supplement to your post for some members of this community.

   1. “Section 2. Developing Facilitation Skills” (https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/leadership/group-facilitation/facilitation-skills/main)

   This comes from the “Community Tool Box”, a resource for community development organising, produced by the Center for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas. It is a section of Chapter 16. Group Facilitation and Problem-Solving in the Leadership and Management section of the toolkit.

   2. “Facilitating Political Discussions” [Facilitator Training Workshop Guide]
   https://tufts.app.box.com/v/idhe-facilit-polit-discuss

   This is a guide for training others to facilitate political discussions, produced by the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education at Tufts University. While it is focused on political issues, the fundamental principles and level of detail provided make it useful for any facilitation activity.

   3. “Tips on Facilitating Effective Group Discussions” (https://www.brown.edu/sheridan/teaching-learning-resources/teaching-resources/classroom-practices/learning-contexts/discussions/tips)

   This list of tips is presented by The Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning at Brown University. It is focused on group discussion in classrooms, but includes similar fundamental principles to the two above with some useful dos and don’ts lists.

   Thank you again for highlighting the unique value that facilitation skills bring to cross-disciplinary projects.

   Best wishes,
   Caryn

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   • Many thanks Caryn for your insightful comments and the links, which in turn will enhance and provide who are interested to learn more about improving the leadership skills in cross-disciplinary team project. I agree with you that integrating difference through effective cross-disciplinary groups with a skillful leadership are key for a successful cross-disciplinary team.

     Reply

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