Guest article by Dee Scarano.

The job landscape is changing fast. It’s becoming harder than ever to stand out in the crowd and, if you're lucky, find a career you love. We’re all questioning which skills will give us the edge and what we should learn to get the future we want. I learned about workshop facilitation mostly by accident, and it turned out to be the one skill that gave me the interesting, lucrative, impactful career I have today. I’m going to tell you how that happened and how it can work for you!

When I was a UX designer 7 years ago I tried to expand my skill-set in any way I could. I tried some UI design (user interface design), learned about project management, and even did a little coding. When I ran a simple workshop to help my team solve a tricky problem, I noticed other people started asking me to work with their teams too. Managers asked for help with project kick-offs, colleagues wanted frameworks for making decisions together, and senior leaders called me in to facilitate high-level strategy meetings. I didn’t realise it at the time but I had stumbled on a valuable and highly sought-after skill that would change the path of my career.

Now I’ve facilitated workshops for 50+ companies around the world across a huge variety of industries: tech, media, farming, art, music, automotive, telecommunications, manufacturing, and many more. I’ve seen first-hand that all types of organizations share the same difficulties when it comes to solving problems: Sharing knowledge, getting aligned, finding focus, and making decisions. It turns out that facilitation is the surprisingly simple solution to these serious business challenges… keep reading to find out why! ‍

Facilitation = Collaborative problem solving

When I worked as a designer and I had a problem to solve I felt daunted by the feeling of not knowing all the answers. But once I had learned a few basic workshop methods I started to feel like I had a secret weapon. I didn’t need to know all the answers! I could bring other people together to find the solution with me.

One of the first workshops I ever ran was when I had the task of turning weeks of customer research into a clear list of new features that our team should start building. It seemed impossible to narrow down all that information into a clear direction. So instead I brought the team together to decide with me, and in an hour we had determined exactly what to start working on. It seemed too good to be true.

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Now that I’ve been running workshops for years I’ve seen the same kinds of simple challenges slow teams down everyday. Being able to facilitate group workshops is more than just another tool in your toolkit, it’s a secret skill that can make you the superhero problem-solver everyone wants to have on their team.

Why facilitation is the skill of the future

Businesses all around the world share the same challenges with collaboration and decision-making. Think about the companies you’ve worked for and check if you’ve experienced any of these:

• Heavy processes and delays between meetings
• Political differences and misalignments
• Difficulty making decisions and taking action
• Team members losing motivation when they don’t feel involved
• Overlooked blindspots because someone wasn’t included early enough 

“Critical thinking and problem-solving top the list of skills employers believe will grow in prominence in the next five years”

Source: World Economic Forum

Today, innovation and problem-solving are top of mind for every company. I work with at least 10 different organizations every year that  hire me to help with the same fundamental challenges. They all want their teams to work together more effectively, be more innovative, and make decisions more confidently.