Practice, Practice, Practice

Growing up we are all told "practice makes perfect". This saying is told to us numerous times throughout our childhoods, yet not a lot of us listen. Just recently, I had the epiphany that this saying is very true in facilitation.

During small group discussions I overheard a student say "why do we need to write scripts? I'm just going to wing it". When I heard this statement it gave me a chuckle, because that just will not fly when facilitating. Being prepared is a way of keeping the participants engaged.
Last semester a group facilitated there whole activity, while reading off a sheet of paper. As a participant this was beyond distracting, and I spent more time staring at their paper than actually listening to the directions. Besides that being distracting, their lack of preparation showed whenever they would slip up on what they were reading. These distractions made a very promising activity, very mediocre.

Another problem that occurs in groups that don't practice, is that the leaders speak over each other. Without practicing as a group, the leaders don't know when to say their parts and therefore they speak out of turn. Also when they don't practice it becomes a distraction because each leader is adding onto each other. This may not seem distracting, but as a participant it is so hard to figure out directions when you have multiple leaders adding things in.
Hearing the student say that they were just going to "wing it", really made me think about how important practice is. Being prepared to facilitate is a huge component of leading a successful activity or event. Something that has made my facilitations so successful in the past is the amount of times I go over and rehearse my scripts. Going forward, I think that practice will always be a big part of leading a group.