ATD Blog

Tips in Facilitating Small Groups in Other Cultures

By William J. Rothwell

Friday, April 27, 2012

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Trainers who work internationally must often facilitate small groups. While that can pose language difficulties, there can also be real cultural issues when it comes to facilitation itself. What are some tips in facilitating small groups cross-culturally?

Tip 1: In Western culture, almost everyone sees the value of small group work. But that is not always so in other cultures. Some participants may feel “cheated” if too much time is spent in small groups. The assumption is sometimes that the facilitator is or should be the font of all knowledge and that the role of speaker is as “expert” rather than as “discussion leader.” Consequently, if you plan to do small group work, EXPLAIN WHY at the outset.

Tip 2: When facilitating small groups, be sure to give the directions but THEN visit each small group to make sure the participants are clear what to do. Sometimes people zone out when it comes to transitioning from hearing the presenter to engaging in the small group activity. It is not just a language issue. The same challenge can confront facilitators even in their own language!

Tip 3: Participation can vary cross-culturally. Not everyone is eager to speak in front of a group even to answer a simple question. Make it easy to participate. One way is to tell everyone at the beginning of the session that when you ask a question, you will take volunteers first—but if nobody answers, you will play “game show host” and thrust the mike under the mouth of a random person. That will usually encourage participation without needing to do anything more than that.

Tip 4: Do not assume that the noise level indicates the engagement level of a group. In the U.S., highly-engaged groups can be very noisy. That is also true in some other cultures. But not in all of them! (Singaporeans are very quiet even when VERY engaged.) So, avoid using noise level as a sign of engagement because it is a faulty measure. A better way to judge it is to give people a challenging time limit on a small group activity. If everybody is done before the time limit, they were not too engaged. But if everyone begs for more time, you know they ARE engaged.

About the Author

William J. Rothwell

William J. Rothwell, Ph.D., SPHR, SHRM-SCP, CPLP Fellow, is president of Rothwell and Associates, Inc., a full-service consulting company that specializes in succession planning. He is also a professor of learning and performance in the Workforce Education and Development program, Department of Learning and Performance Systems, at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park campus. In that capacity, he heads up a top-ranked graduate program in learning and performance and is the program coordinator for the fully online Master of Professional Studies in Organization Development and Change. He has authored, co-authored, edited, or co-edited 300 books, book chapters, and articles—including 64 books. Before arriving at Penn State in 1993, he had 20 years of work experience as a training director in government and in business. As a consultant, he has worked with over 50 multinational corporations--including Motorola, General Motors, Ford, and many others. In 2004, he earned the Graduate Faculty Teaching Award at Pennsylvania State University, a single award given to the best graduate faculty member on the 23 campuses of the Penn State system. His train-the-trainers programs have won global awards.

His recent books include Organization Development Interventions: Executing Effective Organizational Change (Routledge, 2021 in press), Virtual Coaching to Improve Group Relationships (Routledge, 2021), Adult Learning Basics, 2^nd ed. (Association for Talent Development Press, 2020), The Essential HR Guide for Small Business and Start Ups (Society for Human Resource Management, 2020); Increasing Learning and Development’s Impact Through Accreditation (Palgrave, 2020); Workforce Development: Guidelines for Community College Professionals, 2^nd ed. (Rowman-Littlefield, 2020); Human Performance Improvement: Building Practitioner Performance, 3^rd ed. (Routledge, 2018); Innovation Leadership (Routledge, 2018); Evaluating Organization Development: How to Ensure and Sustain the Successful Transformation (CRC Press, 2017); Marketing Organization Development Consulting: A How-To Guide for OD Consultants (CRC Press, 2017); and, Assessment and Diagnosis for Organization Development: Powerful Tools and Perspectives for the OD practitioner (CRC Press, 2017), Community College Leaders on Workforce Development (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), Organization Development in Practice (ODNetwork, 2016), Mastering the Instructional Design Process, 5^th ed. (Wiley, 2016), Practicing Organization Development, 4th ed. (Wiley, 2015), Effective Succession Planning, 5th ed. (AMACOM, 2015), The Competency Toolkit, 2 vols., 2nd ed. (HRD Press, 2015), Beyond Training and Development, 3rd ed. (HRD Press, 2015), The Leader’s Daily Role in Talent Management (McGraw-Hill, 2015), Organization Development Fundamentals (ATD, 2015), Creating Engaged Employees: It’s Worth the Investment (ATD Press, 2014), The Leader’s Daily Role in Talent Management (Institute for Training and Development [Malaysia], 2014), Optimizing Talent in the Federal Workforce (Management Concepts, 2014), Performance Consulting (Wiley, 2014), the ASTD Competency Study: The Training and Development Profession Redefined (ASTD, 2013), Becoming An Effective Mentoring Leader: Proven Strategies for Building Excellence in Your Organization (McGraw-Hill, 2013), Talent Management: A Step-by-Step Action-Oriented Approach Based on Best Practice (HRD Press, 2012), the edited three-volume Encyclopedia of Human Resource Management (Wiley, 2012), Lean But Agile: Rethink Workforce Planning and Gain a True Competitive Advantage (Amacom, 2012), Invaluable Knowledge: Securing Your Company’s Technical Expertise-Recruiting and Retaining Top Talent, Transferring Technical Knowledge, Engaging High Performers (Amacom, 2011), Competency-Based Training Basics (ASTD Press, 2010), Practicing Organization Development, 3^rd ed. (Pfeiffer, 2009), Basics of Adult Learning (ASTD, 2009), HR Transformation (Davies-Black, 2008), Working Longer (Amacom, 2008), and Cases in Government Succession Planning: Action-Oriented Strategies for Public-Sector Human Capital Management, Workforce Planning, Succession Planning, and Talent Management (HRD Press, 2008).

He can be reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at 814-863-2581. He is at 310B Keller Building, University Park, PA 16803. See his website at www.rothwellandassociates.com, his videos on YouTube, and his wiki site at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Rothwell.

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