In today's rapidly changing work environment, meetings have become crucial platforms for organizational communication and decision-making. However, inefficient meetings and failure to reach consensus often led to frustration. How can we create efficient, valuable meetings that help participants achieve goals together? In April 2025, LITEON+hosted Unicorn University course, where Eric Tseng, an IBM Distinguished Award winner and professional facilitator, provided solutions through facilitative listening techniques.
Listening, though seemingly simple, is often overlooked by most meeting facilitators. Through facilitative listening techniques, group discussion dynamics can be more effectively stimulated, ensuring every participant's voice is heard, helping teams find common groundand achieve goals. This not only increases engagement but also reduces common meeting conflicts and divisions.
The speaker emphasized that facilitative listening allows meeting participants to hear each other's perspectives while promoting progression from divergent to convergent thinking, making decisions more inclusive.
A simple and practical "1 to 2 to 4 to All Method" allows participants to share ideas in an organized and effective manner:
1. Silent Reflection: First, each member reflects quietly, thinking about responses to questions.
2. Pairs: Then, pairs exchange ideas, noting commonalities and differences.
3. Groups of Four: Two pairs combine to form groups of four, discussing and deepening perspectives.
4. Whole Group: Finally, each group of four selects their most important or outstanding idea to share with everyone, reaching final consensus.
This method not only improves discussion quality but also avoids the inefficiency of one-way communication, sparking creativity throughout the group.
Three important meeting phases and corresponding facilitation methods:
1. Divergence Phase: In the early stages, facilitators should encourage participation using techniques like brief restatement, mirroring, encouraging speaking, and sequencing speakers to collect diverse viewpoints and build shared understanding.
2. Groan Zone: When facing differing viewpoints, facilitators can balance opposing perspectives, track issues, connect themes, and show empathy to help find common theoretical ground.
3. Convergence Phase: During convergence, facilitators need to summarize, find common points among viewpoints, and propose inclusive solutions to build team consensus.
The speaker emphasized that time allocation for different phases depends on the topic - sometimes more divergence is needed for innovation, other times more time is needed for decision-making.
When further convergence is needed towardthe end of the meeting, Eric suggests using the "5 Fingers Method":
Five levels expressed through fingers:
5: Full support
4: Different views but generally agree
3: Reserved, needs deeper understanding
2: Less supportive, prefer other proposals
1: Completely disagree
Participants quickly express their level ofagreement through finger counts, with follow-up questions for those showing 3 or 2, such as "Why didn't you give it a 2 or 1? What do you find good about it?"
This approach accommodates more perspectives and helps adjust proposals until all members feel supportive.
1. Advance Preparation: Important decisions should be discussed beforehand and approved during meetings.
2. Ask the Right Questions: Avoid asking "why?" which can feel challenging or questioning. Instead, use focused questions like "What possibilities or improvements do you see?"
3. Clear Role Assignment: Team roles and responsibilities (R&R) must be clear to avoid redundant discussions or confusion.
A meeting facilitator's task isn't to control discussion outcomes but to create a safe and inclusive environment where every member's insight and creativity can be explored. Through facilitative listening techniques and appropriate adjustments during the divergence, groan zone, and convergence phases, meetings can not only become more efficient but also inspire team enthusiasm for achieving common goals.
Whether for future new project development, strategic planning, or problem-solving, even with clear role assignments, mastering facilitative listening techniques can make every meeting valuable.
