How often have you left a meeting, workshop, or event feeling either like it was a total waste of time, or that what was covered could have been done in five minutes, instead of two hours? There really is nothing that gets me more upset than when I feel like my time was wasted.

Why does that bother me so much? I think it’s fair to say that for most of us, time always seems to be in short supply. I used to joke that I needed one of those necklaces that Hermione Granger, from the Harry Potter series, has. She uses it to take two classes that are happening simultaneously; she attends one class, then turns back time so she can go attend the other class. I relate all too well to this. So much to do, so little time.

As a transformational facilitator, time is your most valuable resource. When you have a group of people in front of you, whether they are your colleagues, staff, volunteers, or students, every minute needs to count. I like to think of each of the meetings, workshops, or events that I run as a smooth piece of music that flows rhythmically from one movement to the next. Each measure is important, the meter is important, the tempo is important. And it is of utmost importance that participants are part of the orchestra, because above all, their time (and their rhythm!) is important.

So here are a few suggestions for how a transformative facilitator can begin making better use of every moment that you have together with participants. I am sure you can think of even more ideas! Please feel free to share them, so we can all learn together!

• Start on time: I know this sounds obvious, but it is very easy to fall into the bad habit of waiting for “just one more person” before you start. Don’t do it. Set the precedent that you will start on time. State it in your event reminder. Encourage people to arrive early to get settled in. When you start late, you are sending the message to the people who WERE on time that their time is not precious, or is less important than accommodating late-comers. Instead, encourage participants to welcome new people in as they arrive, and catch them up on what they missed.
• End on time: Better yet, end a few minutes early and “give back” a few minutes of everyone’s day to them. That extra few minutes of space can feel like a fresh breeze or little crack of light, especially if you are working with highly-stressed and over-scheduled participants. Plus, it allows people to feel at ease to take their time packing up and chatting with each other before they leave. Try it, you’ll be amazed at the positive environment it creates.
• Use your time together for things that require being together. Announcements, updates, information sharing – these are all better left in print, either as handouts or via email prior to the engagement. Once those items have been shared outside of the gathering time, when you are all together you can ask if there are any questions or comments, but if the sharing itself does not require everyone being in the room together, then rethink whether you should spend your precious time together rattling off statistics or reviewing important dates. Instead, focus on activities that require interaction: conversations, brainstorming, reactions, questions, feedback, etc. Remember, your goal as a transformative facilitator is to keep your own voice to a minimum and encourage the voices of participants to take center stage. As you plan your agenda, ask yourself how you can cut yourself out of the agenda, and where you can expand the time for participant voices to fill the room.
• Leave enough time: This is a big one for me. I often open up a topic for conversation, and then don’t leave enough time for participants to grapple deeply with it. I do this because I hold a fear that people will run out of ideas and get bored or go off-topic. The more I facilitate, the more I have learned to let people get beyond their first idea by scheduling longer times for conversations, so they can move from just answering a prompt to actual authentic dialog. One way I address my fear of the “early finishers” is by preparing additional topics or questions that I can share with participants who finish their conversations earlier than others. I have also learned to ask people how many more minutes they need (show of fingers), to help my orchestra set the pace.
• Be present and attentive, and encourage others to do the same: Express your gratitude for the time people are entrusting to you. Spend a few minutes at the beginning of the session creating agreements about how you will use your time together: Will you allow people to use their cell phones, or do you ask people to turn them off and put them away? Do you want people to be mindful of their “air time,” (meaning, if they’ve already shared, encouraging them to step back and allow other voices to be heard)? Will you offer breaks at a set time, or are people free to come and go as they need? Naming that time is valuable, that you value theirs, and that you expect everyone in the room to value each other’s in these ways can help people focus so that everyone gets the most out of being present together.

What other ways can you think of to honor time and its worth? My task for you (and me!) in the coming days is to think about time, notice how people use time, (especially facilitated time), and create an action step for yourself about what you will do to improve your use of time, so we can each feel, as Maxine Waters so brilliantly put it, that we are “reclaiming” our time.