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In this episode, I talk to Gustavo Razzetti, a speaker, author, change facilitator and the founder of Liberationist. He is an active blogger and has written over 400 articles on change, on leadership and team development.

We speak about organizational and behavioural change, about leadership and about meetings that are an integral part of a change process. We discuss the difference between meetings and workshops and how you stop having meetings on auto-pilot.  

Gustavo shares his concept of workshops being a tool for experimenting and practising new behaviours. And along these lines, he shares some of his favourite exercises that you can apply in regular meetings and which will help to foster communication across hierarchies.  

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Questions and Answers

[3:23] What do you mean when you call yourself a “change instigator” and to what extent is it different from a “change consultant”?

[4:34] How much will do you need from the organisation to really drive the change?

[5:53] What do you think is the biggest misconception of change?

[8:15] How do you help leaders to find comfort in this uncertainty? 

[10:16] What does it take for a leader to trust their team?

[20:48] What is the key difference between a meeting and a workshop according to you?

[23:39] If you could change one thing in the way how organizations meet, what would you change?

[24:53] What is according to you, the best strategy to get out of autopilot?

[26:28] How do you get everyone to speak? 

[29:58] How do you avoid auto-pilot in recurrent meetings that tend to follow the same structure every week?

[32:16] Do you believe in virtual meetings?

[36:48] Do you think this is related to the safe space? 

[38:11] What would be your advice to a new team leader to have meetings that matter?

[41:15] How important do you consider courage for a team lead or for team leaders to be good meeting facilitators?

[47:03] What makes workshops fail according to you?

[49:19] What is your favourite exercise?

[53:27] How do you build the pairs of two?

[55:30] Anything you would like to share that we haven't touched upon?

[56:09] Would you have this conversation with a team? 

[57:12] When did you start calling yourself a facilitator?

[1:00:32] What do you want the audience to remember?

Related links you may want to check out:

• Gustavo’s business page: https://liberationist.org/
• Gustavo’s ultimate guide to successful meetings
• Google study on remote teams
• Gustavo’s blog post on increasing mistake tolerance.
• Exercise: Who are you?
• Template for accountability exercise.
• Our sponsor SessionLab

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In this episode, I talk to Paulina Santos Alatorre, a psychologist, social worker, educator and conflict mediator. We talk on how we can foster positivity in workshops on painful topics and in vulnerable contexts - such as domestic violence, gender equality and with participants who face challenging life situations such as asylum seekers. 
 
Paulina was born in Mexico and has worked in Mexico, Uganda, Thailand but also in Europe. Her expertise is in mediation and conflict prevention. In the show, Paulina shares how she adjusts to different cultural and social environments and how she manages to keep positivity within the group. You will hear about different exercises on how to help participants communicate and connect within a challenging environment. 

Don’t miss the part when we speak about how we can use an outsider’s perspective to close and reflect on a workshop. 

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Questions and Answers

[1:45] What’s your story? 

[2:50] So what are the topics that you worked on? 

[3:48] To what extent would you adjust the framework of your workshop to the different cultures?

[5:42] What brings them into the workshop and then if they are not aware of their problem?

[7:16] What does dance trigger in participants?

[8:20] How do you then introduce the “real topic” – would you reflect on the activity?

[9:52] How do you maintain the safe space then when you switch the topics and is it possible to have a fun workshop on such a difficult theme?

[11:32] what kind of exercises would you use for that?

[14:29] How do you then make sure that everyone still participates?

[16:59] Would you have a workshop, a mixed workshop on domestic violence with men and women in the same room?

[19:22] And you mentioned exercises for learning better communication. Can you give us an example?

[21:16] How do you raise the awareness or this empathy actually for the points of view from other people?

[24:15] Would you use meditation in your workshops?

[27:21] How do you adjust to different cultural backgrounds, e.g. between Asia and Europe when addressing difficult topics?

[29:11] what is your favorite exercise?

[32:05] What did you learn from the children that you can apply to help adults?

[34:06] What did you learn from your workshops working with people at risk about the workshops working with leaders and managers.

[35:25] What is the difference in your way of starting a workshop when you work with on a leadership topic, for instance?

[36:49] From your experience, what makes workshops fail?

[37:38] what would be the moment that you realize, oh now I need the plan B

[38:31] How do you bring them back then into mentally into the room?

[48:18] What do you want a listener to remember from our conversation?

Related links you may want to check out:

Our sponsor Session Lab (affiliate link) 

Other shows we mentioned:

006 - What managers can learn from the clown - with Steph Kinsch

Connect to Paulina

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In episode 024 of the workshops work Podcast, I talk to Grazyna Frackiewicz, a stand-up comedian, improv teacher and facilitator about hacks to overcome uncertainty. She will share what she has learned from her career in sales and marketing and how she uses these skills to design a process that helps her to stay in the moment. 

Grazyna now runs the Living Improv Academy to help facilitators and team leaders to find confidence in uncertainty by applying methods of improvisation theatre. 

You will learn how to prepare in a way that you will eventually even feel addicted to uncertainty when hosting a workshop.

My favourite part of the show happens when Grazyna and I discuss her favourite exercise “count to 20” and what we can learn from it about communication, collaboration, uncertainty and strategy.

Don’t miss the part when Grazyna explains how she “thinks on her feet” when she merges her stand-up, improv and theatre acting skills.  

Don’t miss the next show: Subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.

Questions and Answers

[1:29] If you were a Hashtag, what would you be?

[2:41] So what's your story? How did you get from sales/ marketing to acting to facilitating?

[6:15] what did you learn from your life as a sales and marketing person?

[7:49] Would you consider facilitation and communication as a “soft skill”?

[12:08] Given your background in improv theatre and your connection to yourself, how do you deal with uncertainty?

[14:39] To what extent is it about the facilitator him or herself to get out of the way?

[18:50] How much planning do you put into your workshops and how much room do you leave for improvisation and uncertainty?

[26:45] How do you help groups to deal with this discomfort of listening to their bodies in front of colleagues?

[29:11] There is a large difference with respect to the script between stand-up, improv and traditional theatre acting. Which skill do you refer to when it comes to facilitation?

[29:51] What do you mean by “thinking or feeling on your feet”? 

[31:18] How much “acting” do you apply in a workshop?

[33:07] What makes a workshop fail?

[35:30] What would you recommend to a facilitator on how to deal with uncertainty?

[38:56] What’s your favourite exercise to learn giving up control and being in the moment?

[40:35] Is this an intuition that gets us to speak at the right moment?

[42:36] Do you see differences between the way teams perform in this exercise as opposed to a group of strangers?

[46:23] What shall the audience remember from our conversation?

 Related links you may want to check out:

• Grazyna’s business page: www.livingimprovacademy.com 
• TED talk by Kelly McGonigal on relabeling stress 
• HBR Article on the correlation between speaking time and perceived value of meetings
• Kurt Lewin’s 3-step change model (unfreeze – change – freeze)
• Our sponsor

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In this episode, I talk to May King Tsang, a social media FOMO ("fear of missing out") creator and live tweeter. May King joined a live event I organised a day before recording the interview so that I could have first-hand insights on how she works and how FOMO works. In the show, we talk about how May King created visibility for a small and intimate event on social media.  

In the show, May King shares the steps she took to create visibility: before, during and even after the event. She explains the key differences between the major platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook and how we can use the algorithms to our advantage.  

Don’t miss the part when May King explains why she doesn't directly refer to the event she creates FOMO for in her very first social media posts. And what she did to help me to increase my number of followers on Instagram by 6% and by 35% on Twitter without me even using my phone.  

Don’t miss the next show: Subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.

 
Questions and Answers 

[2:00] If you had to choose a hashtag for yourself, what would it be? 

[3:08] Can you tell us a little bit more about your story, making tea and making FOMO while making mistakes. 

[6:05] What was your approach of creating pre-FOMO for the mastermind even? 

[13:08] How can we protect us against being tagged without consent? 

[13:49] We just covered the pre-FOMO strategy. What was then happening at the event itself? 

[22:42] If we want to be more strategic, what would be the differences of the different approaches on the three different platforms being Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook? 

[26:54] What is the ideal frequency of posting across platforms? 

[29:32] Why was it important that you used my phone during the event to create FOMO? 

[33:17] What is usually the result that you would hope for that you would bring forth? 

[40:45] From your outside perspective, observing the events you create FOMO for: What makes a workshop or conference fail? 

[47:09] How do you create post-FOMO? How can we keep the buzz alive after the event? 

[52:09] What would you like a listener to remember from our interview? 

Related links you may want to check out: 

• Neal Schaffer on influencer marketing 
• Andrew and Pete 
• Jannet Murray 
• Our sponsor Session Lab (affiliate link)  

Connect to May King
on LinkedIn

Follow her @MayKingTEA

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In this episode, I talk to Daniel Stillman, a conversation designer and host of the podcast “The Conversation Factory”. We talk about the difference and similarities between facilitation, conversation design and coaching. And, we talk a lot about power dynamics and how you deal with them and take them into account when designing group conversations that shall solve a problem. In the show, Daniel and I discuss a lot about the circumstances that determine our choices of exercises – depending on the purpose of a workshop, group dynamics, and stakeholder groups.  
 
Don’t miss our arguments related to the “Fishbowl Conversation” that led us to explore how to evaluate which exercises were appropriate in specific situations. 

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Questions and Answers

[1:43] What’s your story? How did you turn from a BA in Physics into a conversation designer?

[5:48] How did the experience of power dynamics impact you and your style of working in designing conversations?

[10:43] Is there actually a line between being a conversation designer, a facilitator, moderator and a coach?

[25:24] So what's according to you the most effective way to make a decision with a large group?

[27:54] To what extent do you believe does the facilitator has a responsibility to protect the group from their decisions being highjacked by the p[roblem-owner?

[29:43] What is the key skill according to you, since you are also teaching facilitating managers, what is the key skill that they should learn first?

[30:46] Can you learn that? Can you teach that?

[33:24] According to you, what makes a workshop fail?

[37:48] So how much time do you usually spend on understanding the participants before him?

[40:53] I would be curious to hear how you define the experience in the context of a conversation.

[43:21] What’s your favourite exercise?

[46:49] If someone fell asleep after a minute, just woke up and doesn't have time to listen to the entire show again. What do you want them to remember?

Related links you may want to check out:

• Daniel’s conversation with Robert Bordone (Podcast,The Conversation Factory)
• Timothy Gallwey “The inner game of Tennis”
• Barry O’Reilly “Unlearn” 
• Conversation OS
• The Fishbowl Conversation (Exercise)
• Knowle’s principle of andragogy 
• Daniel’s book: "The 30 Second Elephant and the Paper Airplane Experiment: Origami for Design Thinking"
• Our sponsor Session Lab (affiliate link) 

Other shows we mentioned: 

Rein Sevenstern on How to create experiences for your audience

Connect to Daniel:
on

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In this episode, I talk to Max Brouwer, a change-agent, scrum master and facilitator who also runs a solo consulting business max.co. The core of our conversation is the method of “Liberating Structures” and we dig deep into different exercises (so-called “structures”) and how to effectively apply them in different contexts. We also talk about the role of managers as “facilitating leaders” and how to avoid the “leadership bias” when a senior manager joins a workshop. 

I was particularly curious to learn about Max’ experience of organizing Meet-up events that bring together groups of unrelated people to learn and experience “Liberating Structures”. Amongst others, I learned from Max a nice add-on to my favourite “premortem” exercise: After a brainstorm on how to fail a goal, he asks participants to highlight those items that they are already doing and challenges them on how to stop doing that. 

Don’t miss the part when Max shares how he dealt with the situation when a manager started co-facilitating the workshop and questioned the process. And don’t miss our heartful laughs throughout the show (which I decided not to delete just for the fun of it).

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Questions and Answers

[1:36] If you were a hashtag, what would you be?

[2:26] What is a change agent?

[3:43] Can you learn to be a change agent and how do you become one?

[6:23] What have you learned from being a consultant about facilitation?

[9:09] Must the CEO be present in the workshop? 

[11:10] Can you briefly explain the concept of “Liberating Structures”?

[14:49] Do you usually co-facilitate workshops with other practitioners of “Liberating Structures” (Liberating Structuralists??)

[20:05] Can you share the story about the manager who started co-facilitating? 

[25:33] Can managers become “facilitating leaders”? 

[28:03] Do you think we can create a “kitchen table” atmosphere at work?

[31:00] How do you adjust your string to different topics of a “Liberating Structures” Meet-up?

[34:08] Often I came across the method of ‘min specs’ – can you explain to me what this means?

[35:50] Which list is usually longer – the list of the dos or of the don’ts? 

[40:28] How you design a Meet-up workshop for which you most often don’t know the group of participants?

[45:53] What makes a workshop fail?

[47:08] What shall the audience remember from our conversation?

Links to books and exercises we discussed:

• Lean Coffee (Meeting format)
• Impromptu Networking (Exercise)
• Fishbowl conversation (Exercise)
• Wicked Questions (Exercise)
• Min specs (Exercise)
• Triz (Exercise)
• Worldcafé (Exercise)
• Our sponsor Session Lab 

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In this episode, I talk to Rein Sevenstern, a facilitator, coach and managing partner of Experiential Learning, a consulting firm that designs and facilitates experiences for people to leave their comfort zone in a safe environment, to unleash learning. 

Since Rein has lived and worked in many different countries, such as India, Malaysia, US, Belgium and the Netherlands, we talk about the impact of cultural differences on workshop preparation and facilitation. 

The core of our conversation is the question of how we can create experiences in various workshop contexts and how we can take participants out of their comfort zone while protecting the safe space. We also speak about ego and about trust and what it takes to transform groups of colleagues into teams. 

Don’t miss the part when Rein guides us through the beautiful workshop experience “The valuable object” that gave me goose bombs from just listening. 

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Questions and Answers

[1:31] If you were a hashtag, what would it be?

[3:58] What have you learned from the cultural differences while living and working aboard?

[5:32] Would you adjust your facilitation style to the different cultures where you conduct workshops?

[9:25] What would be your warm-up exercises depending on cultural differences? 

[13:47] What is “experiential learning”?

[18:40] What makes the difference between a group of colleagues and a team?

[21:40] How important is it for the team building that each person discloses their own agenda?

[25:16] Do you build a ritual around the exchange of the “valuable object”?

[31:23] How do you bridge the gap between taking participants out of their comfort zone while still creating the safe space in which they can connect?

[41:58] In our briefing you shared about a leadership program of yours where you bring team members to a developing country to collaborate with NGOs. Can you tell us more about that? 

[49:58] How do you assure the sustainability of the experience once managers come back to daily work? 

[52:57] What makes workshops fail? 

[54:30] What shall the listener remember from the show? 

Related links you may want to check out:

• Rein’s business page: https://experientiallearning.biz/
• The “trust equation” by David Maister 
• Our sponsor Session Lab (affiliate link) 

Connect to Rein on:

 LinkedIn 

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In this episode, I talk to Charles Burdett, a UX Designer and the founder of Workshop Tactics, a card deck with exercises for workshop facilitators. I reached out to Charles after I saw examples of his early alpha version on Instagram. And, I was lucky enough to get him to honestly share his experience of developing a physical product for workshop facilitators. 
 
In the show, we discuss the needs of newbie and professional facilitators in terms of tools that make workshops work, what we can learn from UX Design about workshop participants. And, we speak about the difference between workshop exercises, tactics and strategies, namely how wording can impact participants’ engagement in workshops. 

Don’t miss the part when we make up the workshop hierarchy of needs that could fail your session despite high-quality content, precise tactic preparation and world-class facilitation. 

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Questions and Answers

[1:53] You have a background in UX Design and developed Workshop Tactics. What’s your story behind this idea?

[7:44] What have you learned from UX for workshop facilitation?

[9:45] How does UX works when we think of workshop participants as users?

[11:34] You mentioned in a previous call how you knew an exercise similar to the “premortem” for design workshops. Could you run us through?

[15:15] What are the skills a facilitator needs to make workshops with internal and external stakeholders work?

[19:33] Can you briefly explain the concept of OKR?

[23:33] What are the prerequisites for a facilitator to be able to use your card deck?

[25:24] What would be your advice for someone who uses your card deck for the first time?

[28:20] Where do you think this ‘eye-rolling’ when speaking about workshops comes from?

[30:11] What do you understand by tactics when you speak about workshops?

[33:32] As a facilitator, what do you need to do before starting the tactical part?

[40:17] Do we need creative rooms to host workshops that work?

[44:05] What’s your favourite exercise?

[49:15] What do you want the audience to remember from our conversation?

Related links you may want to check out:

• Charles' business page: www.workshoptactics.com
• Radical Focus by Christina Wodtke
• Lean UX by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden
• Our sponsor Session Lab (affiliate link) 

Listeners of the workshops work podcast are prioritized for the beta testing! Sign up here!

Episodes mentioned in the show:

Alison Coward on Workshop Culture (Episode 013) 

Jeremy Akers on Mindset Management (Episode 007)

Connect to Charles:

LinkedIn 

Twitter or Instagram @workshoptactics

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This is my first solo show and I speak about the science behind workshop design and facilitation. Namely, I share how I use evidence from behavioural economics to come up with ideas that will help participants to experience meaningful progress during their working session. Before founding idayz I had a career in higher education – as a researcher, lecturer and strategic advisor. From all these roles I learned about human behaviour and how to best facilitate their collaboration. 
 
In the show, I share the rationale behind my workshop design and some of my favourite exercises and I answer my own questions: How can we help participants to open up and engage despite hierarchical differences? How can we use the energy of nay-sayers for creative ideation and is courage one of the most important skills of a successful facilitator? 

Don’t miss the part when I explain why I bring M&Ms to every meeting 

Questions and Answers

[1:59] What would I be if I was a hashtag?

[3:30] Why do I call myself a “behavioural economist” and what does that mean?

[6:33] What’s my story? How did I get from a career in higher education to become a facilitator? 

[10:59] Why did I call my business idayz?

[15:21] What have I learned from my previous roles in workshop design and facilitation?

[22:13] How do I use insights from behavioural economics to design workshops?

[29:22] What’s my favourite exercise and how do I use behavioural insights to design exercises?

[30:55] Why do I bring M&Ms to every meeting and workshop?

[32:54] What are the most powerful check-in exercises I use and why do they work from a behavioural perspective?

[41:45] Why do I brainstorm failures instead of successes?

[43:00] How do I help participants to cluster their ideas after ideation?

[45:41] Why do workshops fail?

[46:26] What shall my listener who missed the entire show remember? 

Related links you may want to check out:

• My business page: www.idayz.nl
• Daniel Kahnemann: “Thinking fast and slow”
• Cognitive Biases
• Vipassana silent meditation retreat
• Pat Flynn’s concept of “unfair advantage”
• Patrick Cowden
• Jean Marc Fandel
• My blog post on check-in exercises
• Teresa Amabile: The progress principle
• Dan Ariely’s Lego experiment
• Dixit board game
• Our sponsor Session Lab (affiliate link)  

Connect and follow me:

LinkedIn 

@myriamhadnes on Instagram or Twitter

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In this episode, I talk to Derek Bruce. He is a Leadership Development Director, and has worked in HR, Learning & Development and is also an expert keynote speaker and event moderator and host.

Derek and I speak about the importance of engaging the audience - whether it is in a workshop, meeting or at a conference. When our audience feels engaged, they will listen to us and interact, they will feel enabled to act upon the content we try to bring across.  

Besides engaging the audience, Derek and I touch on a million other topics: the skillset of managers to survive the “future of work”, the impact of preparation on our mindset and the workshop atmosphere, and: why you may want to ask your audience to take a selfie. 

Don’t miss the part when Derek shares his lessons learned from facilitating a workshop where half the participants were physically present and the other half joined via video call. Tune in to learn how to assure that the virtual participants are as engaged as if they sat in the same room…. 

Questions and Answers

[1:32] If you were a hashtag, what would it be?

[1:53] What is your story? Where does your energy and your skill to engage the audience come from? 

[2:56] What have you learned from your roles in HR and Learning & Development about facilitation? 

[4:34] Where do you see the challenges and benefits of being a corporate versus an external facilitator?

[8:02] What is your experience in collaborating with an external facilitator?

[8:52] How do you measure success?

[10:32] What does it take to engage an audience? 

[12:54] To what extent does seating matter and how do you set up the room?

[14:06] Do you use different approaches to engage the audience depending on whether it is a meeting, workshop or conference? 

[19:50] When you say that engagement starts within the first minute and you often use humour. What have you learned from improv or stand-up comedy about engagement? 

[22:59] Stand-up is scripted whereas improv is not. Would you script your first joke when coming on stage?

[24:41] So, does “humour” boil down to “authenticity”? 

[25:35] What makes for you a good facilitator? 

[28:26] Do facilitators of e.g. Design Sprints need different skills than facilitators who teach groups?  

[31:18] How did you connect the virtual and physical participants in the beginning? What were the exercises? 

[33:41] For anyone who hasn’t facilitated a partly virtual workshop – what would you advise? 

[35:40] What is your opinion on the statement that in the future of work, every manager must develop facilitation skills?

[38:22] What’s the difference between soft and emotional skills?

[40:40] Are these emotional skills then also the ingredients you need to engage the audience? 

[47:59] What’s your silver bullet exercise? 

Related links you may want to check out:

Our sponsor Session Lab (affiliate link) 

Other shows we mentioned:

Episode 016 with Tamar Broadbent: Why every facilitator should take improv classes” 

Episode 007 with Jeremy Akers: Mindset Management

 Connect to Derek:

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