
Session 3: Microskills for Facilitative Leaders
Lawrence Susskind, MIT professor and facilitation scholar, leads the third session of his Facilitative Leadership in the Public Sector workshop series. The session focuses on microskills, the small, teachable behaviors that make group facilitation work in practice: how a facilitator listens, paraphrases, asks questions, manages turn taking, and intervenes when discussions stall or turn adversarial. Susskind works through these techniques with participants, likely using exercises or role play drawn from public sector negotiation and meeting scenarios, building on the broader course's concern with how public officials and managers can run productive, consensus oriented meetings. The session is part of MIT OpenCourseWare's RES.11-004 course, Fall 2024, and assumes some familiarity with the facilitation concepts introduced in earlier sessions. It is a workshop style lecture aimed at anyone who runs meetings, mediates disputes, or manages groups in government or nonprofit settings, with Susskind's running commentary tying specific techniques back to general principles of facilitative leadership.