The group that Daniel came to facilitate tends to be inherently skeptical about outside inputs. In fact, one of the group is a very smart person who’s extremely easily bored, and I really wasn’t sure how long he was going to stay with us. He stayed until almost the end, and as he left, he said to me, “I hadn’t planned to stay beyond the first day, but I got hooked, and I’m only going because I have something I really have to do!”
Daniel’s very clear, he’s very organized, and he spends a lot of time asking about the results you want to achieve, both in terms of what sort of product you need, and also the kind of process you’re going to be comfortable with. And he checks back regularly during the process to see whether it’s going the way you need it to be.
He doesn’t get upset or flurried by group dynamics – he just gets on with the facilitation. He knows the energy level is going to go up and down, he knows there will be times when people will be tense or bored and times when they’ll be energized and enthusiastic. And he has a good sense of how that’s going, and how to deal with it. So I can get on with thinking about what we’re getting out of the meeting, rather than worrying about what’s going on within it.
He quietly and very professionally leads you through the process, but he doesn’t in any way impose himself as a facilitator. Which means by the end of it, it’s your content.
We made changes to our strategic plan – so we had a very concrete technical result. There’s a better sense of cohesion among the people in the group, and we’ve managed to carry on that sense of cohesion in the months that have elapsed since.
If you want to get a result from a group of people that’s going to be difficult to pull together, Daniel will help to take the weight off your shoulders in getting it done. And from my perspective, he’s worth his weight in gold because of that.
We’re hoping to use him again for future projects!
– Dr. Anni McLeod, Senior Officer (Livestock Policy), Animal Production and Health Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
