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Great facilitators aren't always subject matter experts. In fact, they may know very little about the workshop's topic. A successful facilitator acts in service of others and knows when to lead from the back, as well as from the front.

Jay Melone believes that being a great facilitator requires a unique mindset. He stresses that to be a good facilitator, you must practice curiosity, patience and leave your concerns about being the expert behind. After meeting Jay earlier this year, I couldn't wait to talk to him about his approach to facilitating, both as an expert in the field and as a "shy extrovert".

Jay is the Founder and Principal Facilitator at New Haircut, an innovation strategy firm. He shared many thoughtful insights into a facilitator's role and how you can effectively lead a group, even if you're not comfortable being the centre of attention. I hope this episode inspires you to step outside of your comfort zone and facilitate with confidence.

Find out about:

• Why being curious makes a great facilitator
• The difference between an expert and a facilitator
• Why people are now willing to prepare for workshops ahead of time
• How to leverage your personality type as a facilitator
• How to design an agenda for measurable workshop success
• Why Jay encourages everyone to step out of their comfort zones
• How to trust your workshop’s design
• Why you don’t need to be an expert to support a team 

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

Questions and Answers

[01:28] – When did you start calling yourself a facilitator?

[02:27] – What makes a good facilitator

[06:15] – To what extent is a facilitator a mix between a journalist and an engineer?

[09:40] – What is your experience placing yourself as a facilitator? Do you facilitate from the centre of the conversation or from the side? 

[20:01] – What did you learn about being a participant in an 1,800 person workshop?

[21:36] – Do you think it's easier or more difficult for an introvert, or shy facilitator, to guide groups online versus on-site?

[28:42] – What would you advise aspiring facilitators who think they’re too shy to be a good facilitator? 

[34:56] – What makes a workshop fail?

[36:06] – How do you know when your workshop is failing due to a design problem or an external problem caused by the group?

[44:01] – What is your favourite exercise?

[48:35] – How do you trust yourself to lead your team?

[52:51] – What is the main takeaway from our conversation?

Links

• Jay’s website
• ‘How to Be Yourself’ by Dr. Ellen Hendriksen

Connect to Jay Melone

• Jay's LinkedIn

Support the show

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You can now find the podcast on Substack, where your host Dr. Myriam Hadnes is building a club for you to find fellow listeners and peers: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/

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To achieve great workshop collaboration, participants must find a way to work together. In times of change, positivity is often the magic ingredient that makes workshops work. However, being positive doesn’t mean you neglect relevant problems. Positivity is about embracing uncertainty and stating things as they are so that you can work out a feasible solution.

Lisette van de Sandt is one of the most positive people I have ever had the pleasure to meet (virtually or otherwise). She is a spirited optimist that believes positivity is contagious. She helps organisations and facilitators work together using positivity to help people “be positive about what works today, and optimistic about what you could do better tomorrow.”

In these uncertain times, we could all do with more positive thinking in our lives, so I asked Lisette to join me in this episode of workshops work. This has been one of my favourite conversations because Lisette shares what it means to be positive. She helps us practice positive thinking more often in both our personal and professional lives.

Find out about:

• Why positivity should be viewed as a mindset
• The difference between positivity and optimism
• How to build your positive thinking skills and resilience
• How to alter your positivity through positive thinking
• How connecting informally can help build your team’s resilience through positivity
• Why you should start group conversations by focusing on small wins
• Why workshops must focus on solving the real problem to be successful

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

Questions and Answers

[01:20] – When did you start calling yourself a facilitator?

[02:29] - What do you think distinguishes a good workshop from a bad workshop?

[05:33] - What are you doing to be mindful about positivity and mindset across the group? And, how can you lift it without neglecting the troubles and emotions that people are going through?

[09:36] – Do you think check-ins and asking how people are doing needs more time in a workshop session?

[11:24] - How can an unexperienced manager create and build resilience as a team together in this time?

[13:53] - Are there tricks to boost positivity within a group without forcing it?

[18:47] - What is the difference between positivity and optimism?

[21:23] – How can we nurture this positivity or even resilience? What is the difference between resilience and positivity?

[27:34] - How do you bring positivity into a conversation without sugar-coating or just ignoring the negative side?

[36:59] - What is the story with these positive experiments?

[40:39] - How do you measure positivity, happiness, or satisfaction?

[41:42] – What makes a workshop fail?

[43:42] – What is the main take away from our conversation?

Links

• Lisette's Business page
• Forbes – ‘The 3-to-1 Positivity Ratio and 10 Ways it Advances Your Career’
• ‘Make the 3-to-1 Ratio of Positivity Work for You’

Connect to Lisette van de Sandt 

Support the show

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You can now find the podcast on Substack, where your host Dr. Myriam Hadnes is building a club for you to find fellow listeners and peers: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/

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Since March 2020, almost 100 facilitators have collaborated to bring to life a bold vision: A 24 hours long, global facilitation festival. 

In this bonus episode, Michelle Howard, collaborator and facilitator at the NeverDoneBefore facilitation festival (and guest on episode 043 of the podcast) interviews Myriam Hadnes who initiated the project and invited all podcast guests to host workshops in a way that they have never done before. 

In this episode, you will hear about 

• What facilitation means to me (Myriam Hadnes) and why it is so close to my heart to bring the community together.
• How the festival idea came to life.
• My biggest learnings from the process.
• What participants can expect
• How can we use the different time zones, participants will be joining from as bridges, uniting us instead of challenges we need to overcome.

Curious about the NeverDoneBefore Facilitation Festival and Community?
Click here to find out more

Questions & Answers:

[01:54]   What drives your enthusiasm for facilitation in general and NDB in particular? 

[04: 15] What have you learned about supporting collaboration?

[06:59] How does NeverDoneBefore fit into this picture you draw about the facilitation community?

[10:42]  Can you tell us about this very collaborative and very new process of how NDB is organised? 

[16:33] What can the audience expect to experience and what might people take away?

What do people need to know about the platforms and what if they feel nervous about not being good or skilled enough?

[24:28] What is the mindset that people shall bring to the event?

[26:32] What do you hope people will take away from the festival?

[33:34] What are the options to join and how can people sign up?

 
Links:

The NeverDoneBefore Facilitation Festival
The NDB festival agenda
Podcast episode 043 with Michelle Howard

Support the show

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You can now find the podcast on Substack, where your host Dr. Myriam Hadnes is building a club for you to find fellow listeners and peers: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/

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As the facilitator, it’s up to you to act as the group’s vehicle and guide them from one place to the next. You do this by providing the context that enables the group to work better together by building trust, communication, and collaboration.

Of course, helping groups work better together online is an entirely different story in many ways. I wanted to learn more about how facilitators can help groups work better together, which is why I reached out to Robert Skrobe and invited him to join me on workshops work.

Robert trains people to use design sprints effectively, and he shares what he has learned from hosting a series of global virtual design sprints. Professionals from across the globe come together to collaborate with the same goal to showcase their work in the best possible light.

I really enjoyed learning more about the Global Virtual Design Sprint, and Robert shared a lot of tips to help participants align and work more effectively together. I hope this episode brings you clarity and inspiration to help your groups communicate and collaborate better online.

Find out about:

• What the Global Virtual Design Sprint is and why it’s so useful
• Why workshops fail when participants leave without learning anything new
• How online and offline moments leads to meaningful collaboration
• How to make sure that participants align on a certain way of working together
• How to bring participants together with help from a sketching exercise

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

Questions and Answers

[03:41] When did you start calling yourself a facilitator?

[05:14] What have you learned from this project of organising the community of the disabled children for the work you're doing today?

[06:29] What was the moment you decided to fully engage in that project and scale it the way that you did?

[09:58] What do you think creates the opportunity to connect in a meaningful way online?

[12:18] How do you facilitate connection amongst teams who have never met offline?

[15:29] How do you encourage engagement on slack?

[20:20] What do you think most people get wrong about the concept of a design sprint?

[22:13] What are your biggest learnings in terms of the hybrid process?

[29:37] What makes a design sprint fail?

[38:28] What do you think is the context that really facilitates the team to make the best use of these four days they spend together?

[40:14] To what extent are the personalities of participants in each group relevant?

[44:22] What does your code of conduct consist of at its core?

[53:44] What would you like listeners to take away as the one nugget from our conversation?

Links

• Dallas Design Sprints
• Design Sprint
• GVDS
• Mural.co
• Loom screen recording
• Snap camera

Connect to Robert Skrobe

• Robert’s company’s LinkedIn profile
• Robert’s Facebook

Support the show

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You can now find the podcast on Substack, where your host Dr. Myriam Hadnes is building a club for you to find fellow listeners and peers: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/

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Online meetings have risen in popularity since the COVID-19 outbreak, but they must cover more than ticking boxes from the agenda list. Creating stronger bonds and giving people that human connection they’ve lost from in-person meetings is so important. After all, we’re all in this together. The more we can be there for each other, the better.

Kevon Cheung is the Co-Founder and CEO of Toasty.ai, a new video conferencing tool that simplifies the process of meeting facilitation so that participants can express and collaborate freely. I was so happy to have him join me in this episode of workshops work because I wanted to know how Toasty works and how it combines facilitation exercises with a shared Google drive, amongst other things.

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did. I hope it helps you see how you can bring the human element back into your meetings, conferences, and workshops.

In this episode, find out about:

• How and why Kevon launched Toasty.ai
• How to change the dynamics of an online meeting
• What Toasty is and how facilitators can use it to create engaging meetings
• Why participants need to open up and how to make people feel comfortable to do so
• How to stop participants from getting distracted
• Why you must have a plan but also the freedom to adjust according to the flow of the session
• How to stimulate a group’s creativity using fun exercises

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

A huge thank you must go to SessionLab, the sponsor of Workshops Work. Claim your free two months of SessionLab Pro now – this deal is exclusive to Workshops Work listeners!

Questions and Answers

[01:45] Would you call yourself a facilitator 

[05:08] What is the hashtag you would give yourself?

[07:30] How did you come up with the idea of putting a new video conferencing tool out there?

[09:34] What changes the dynamic of a meeting?

[11:33] What have you learned from your conversations with facilitators?

[14:53] How do you minimise the awkward feeling of when the first participants join the call?

[16:10] How did you change your own team meetings since learning about the art of facilitation?

[20:40] What has been the most surprising thing that happened in one of these calls?

[23:44] What would you recommend to someone who still hosts these boring meetings where they talk a lot, and feel frustrated at the end?

[26:09] Why do you think it takes longer in the virtual space than in the physical?

[27:31] How can you decide whether you're overdoing it and then it feels awkward, or whether you’re reluctant because of habit?

[29:54] What are the biggest challenges when translating solutions to problems to the software?

[32:50] Why did it take so long to have more competitors to platforms like Zoom?

[35:13] What are the prerequisites for these platforms to stay or leave?

[38:06] What makes a workshop fail?

[42:43] After all of your experience with online meetings, what did you learn about offline meetings?

[44:55] Is there anything you would like to share that we haven’t touched upon?

[47:32] What is the main takeaway you would like listeners to take from our conversation?

Links

Support the show

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You can now find the podcast on Substack, where your host Dr. Myriam Hadnes is building a club for you to find fellow listeners and peers: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/

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Sticky notes, tennis balls, and other objects can be used to create engaging and productive online meetings and workshops. How do I know this to be true?

Well, Jacinta Cubis, an incredible facilitator, mentor, author, and speaker, shared many fascinating insights like this to help get “your workshops humming” on this week’s episode of workshops work. She reveals how you can facilitate difficult conversations, so they’re less like scratching a blackboard and more like skiing down a smooth slope. 

Jacinta has an amazing gift to draw out people’s best thinking. Hearing how she uses analogue prompts to facilitate conversations online and have better meetings was genuinely fascinating. I’ve come away from this conversation with so many ideas to blend face-to-face and online facilitation techniques, and I know you will have many new ideas of your own after listening to my wonderful interview with Jacinta!

Find out about:

• How and why Jacinta decided to write her e-book, “Hum”
• Why many online meetings are bad replicates of bad offline meetings – and how to avoid this from happening!
• How to use analogue prompts to communicate better with an online group
• How to avoid wasting time in breakout groups
• How to use your time more efficiently by nominating time keepers
• Tips for getting participants to use both parts of their brains
• Why poor facilitation is one of the biggest reasons why workshops fail

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

A huge thank you must go to SessionLab, the sponsor of Workshops Work. Claim your free two months of SessionLab Pro now – this deal is exclusive to Workshops Work listeners!

Questions and Answers

[01:17] When did you start calling yourself a facilitator?

[05:47] Where does the name, “Hum,” come from and what triggered you to write this book?

[10:35] What made your “bad meetings,” bad? And, how do you combine humming with having difficult conversations?

[19:13] What can we do as facilitators and participators to structure, facilitate, and avoid difficult meetings?

[25:45] How can we do this in a gentle way?

[35:47] How can facilitators use a timer or keep discussions timed efficiently?

[40:14] What is the difference between guiding through a difficult conversation online and offline?

[43:11] What can you do when you feel like the energy of the online meeting isn’t quite right?

[46:07] What’s your favourite exercise?

[49:08] What is the one thing you would like listeners to take away from this episode?

Links

• Jacinta’s website
• Read Jacinta’s e-book “Hum”

Connect to Jacinta Cubis

• Jacinta’s LinkedIn
• Jacinta’s Facebook
• Jacinta’s Instagram

Support the show

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You can now find the podcast on Substack, where your host Dr. Myriam Hadnes is building a club for you to find fellow listeners and peers: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/

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Are you still searching for your message? The terminology we use as facilitators may seem confusing for some of our clients. We must discover and use the right language that our audience understands, and this starts by considering the big picture of a brand.

I’m so excited for you to listen to this episode of workshops work because I’m joined by the incredible Ingrid Lill, a top brand strategist who helps coaches and consultants turn “confusing lingo into a clear message” that their client can understand.

Together, we talk about creative ways that you can better understand your clients and vice versa. We also discuss how you can use a “thinking pen” to help visualize a brand’s story and find your message.

Find out about:

• What a brand strategist does and how they facilitate
• Why you need to put yourself in your client’s shoes
• How to gain a better understanding of your clients
• How to use the “thinking pen” to find your message
• Why you should avoid using technical language in your messaging
• A fun exercise to help you better understand your clients

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

A huge thank you must go to SessionLab, the sponsor of Workshops Work. Claim your free two months of SessionLab Pro now – this deal is exclusive to Workshops Work listeners!

Questions and Answers

[01:34] When did you start calling yourself a facilitator?

[02:24] What does a brand strategist do?

[08:31] What is it that we don’t understand in our approach to better understanding our clients?

[10:23[ Why do you draw the brand message instead of discussing it?

[16:11] What did you learn from your time as a graphic facilitator about hearing what really matters to your clients? 

[17:55] How can we speak better to our clients, potential leads, and the sponsors of our workshops?

[18:54] How can we find out what we should be communicating with clients?

[21:48] Do you think that it’s different gaining a connection with your clients in-person vs. a video conference? 

[23:59] What do we get wrong about user-centricity?

[26:39] How can we really differentiate ourselves?

[28:15] What makes a workshop fail?

[31:39] What is the difference in communication between those who signed up and paid themselves and those who were signed up by someone else?

[32:37] How can we get better at putting ourselves into the shoes of our client?

[37:54] When you put yourself into the shoes of these facilitators who might listen to the podcast, what is the one piece of advice that you would like to give them?

[39:44] What is the key takeaway from our conversation?

Links

• Ingrid’s website
• Drawing classes

Connect to Ingrid

• LinkedIn

Support the show

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You can now find the podcast on Substack, where your host Dr. Myriam Hadnes is building a club for you to find fellow listeners and peers: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/

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Creativity is the string that weaves through most (if not all) facets of life. As a facilitator, you design workshops that bring people together around a specific theme. If you think about it, workshops are a lot like parties, and every party needs good music. In many ways, facilitators are similar to DJs because they both create an experience for a group of people in hopes that it moves them from the mental place they were before to the new and refreshed place they are now.

I wanted to explore the analogy of designing workshops like a mixtape further, so I invited Howard Gray onto workshops work. Howard’s work focuses on “amplifying creative people and businesses to increase discovery, access, connection, and opportunity.” 

Howard and I talked about what facilitators can learn from DJs about workshop design to create even better workshops that participants will remember for a lifetime.

Find out about:

• What you can learn about workshop design and facilitation from a DJ
• How to design a workshop like a mixtape
• Why you should pre-plan your workshops but be open to adjusting quickly when necessary
• Why you need to focus on the experience you create for participants
• What makes a great mixtape and how you can translate that to a fantastic workshop design
• How the movie storyboarding exercise works
• How to get better at “reading the room”

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

Questions and Answers

[01:26] When did you start calling yourself a facilitator?

[03:26] If you had to put a hashtag on your own forehead, what would it be?

[04:32] What did you learn from your DJ career about workshop design or facilitation?

[08:56] To what extent does a DJ adjust their set to fit the room?

[11:10] What would make a workshop fail?

[13:28] What is your strategy to prepare for this diversity that you will face?

[15:36] Do you research the groups you’re facing?

[18:12] What do you think is more important, the facilitation, or the design aspect?

[24:31] What makes a good mixtape and how can you translate that to a good workshop design?

[29:46] With the shift from offline meetings to online meetings, did you adjust the design of the sequence with more contrast or less contrast?

[32:52] How can we expect someone to make the mental shift just by putting a different URL in the browser?

[35:55] What is your favourite exercise?

[40:35] How would the world of facilitation look if more facilitators would master the craft of a DJ?

[44:28] When you say, “reading the room,” do you think it’s based on intuition or is it something facilitators can learn to do?

[50:03] What do you hope listeners will take away from our conversation?

Links:

• How to DJ properly by Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton

Connect to Howard:

• Howard’s website
• Howard’s LinkedIn
• Howard’s Twitter

Support the show

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You can now find the podcast on Substack, where your host Dr. Myriam Hadnes is building a club for you to find fellow listeners and peers: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/

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How can you, as a facilitator, create new and exciting possibilities for your workshop participants?

The answer lies in provoking your audience to listen to each other and feel heard. Provocation is a strategic tactic to make workshop participants feel uncomfortable – but in a good way. It drives them out of their comfort zones and allows them to break free from their shells so they can take action and evoke new thoughts and ideas that may have been left uncovered.

We know that provocation can have many positive benefits, but how can facilitators use provocation to amplify their workshop? You’ll discover the answer on this episode of workshops work, where I’m joined by Diana Ying Liu and Kandis O’Brien from The SIX, an innovation and strategy consultancy that helps “leaders and their teams get their groove on.”

We deep dive into how you can provoke compelling conversations in your workshop sessions, why you need to have the right executive sponsor in the room, and so much more!

Find out about:

• How Diana and Kandis define the role of a facilitator vs a consultant
• How to use provocation to create friction and encourage people to step outside of their comfort zones
• The different levels of provocation
• Exercises to help people ‘loosen up’
• How to make people feel comfortable and safe enough to share
• The importance of understanding the culture of the organisation and the problem statement of the session
• The advantages of having pre-interviews before the workshop

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

A huge thank you must go to SessionLab, the sponsor of Workshops Work. Claim your free two months of SessionLab Pro now – this deal is exclusive to Workshops Work listeners!

Questions and Answers

[01:13] Diana, when did you start calling yourself a facilitator?

[03:50] Do you bring in your own facilitators to your sessions?

[10:16] How do you use provocation as a tool to create friction?

[14:04] How do you define the right degree of provocation that is relevant and absurd at the same time?

[18:15] How would you react when/if the leadership disregards a team member’s idea?

[39:14] What makes a workshop fail from the perspective of a consultant vs a facilitator?

[46:09] Do the pre-interviews create a level of trust or do you still need another layer of trust creation at the start of the workshop to play around with provocation?

[53:16] What would be your golden nugget about provocation from our discussion?

Links

• The SIX website
• Follow The SIX on Instagram

Connect to Diana Ying Liu and Kandis O’Brien:

• Diana’s LinkedIn
• Kandis’ LinkedIn

Support the show

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You can now find the podcast on Substack, where your host Dr. Myriam Hadnes is building a club for you to find fellow listeners and peers: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/

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Whether you’re hosting a physical or virtual meeting, the last thing you want to do is put the audience to sleep! If you want to keep people engaged during meetings, you’ve got to unleash your inner creative genius.

Melissa Dinwiddie is a Creativity Instigator who teaches people how to turn their creative taps on so they can live a life full of colour and intrigue. I couldn’t wait to talk to Melissa about all things creative.

In this episode, I take full advantage of having such a creative guest on and ask her all the questions I know you want to hear the answers to. We cover everything from how to lead non-boring virtual meetings to defeating the comparison gremlin! I hope you enjoy this colourful interview as much as I did!

Find out about:

• Why online meetings can be boring and what to do about it!
• How to be a good leader
• How to avoid falling into the “comparison trap”
• A useful mirroring exercise for leadership and listening
• How to keep people engaged
• The ‘golden formula’ to everything good

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

A huge thank you must go to SessionLab, the sponsor of Workshops Work. Claim your free two months of SessionLab Pro now – this deal is exclusive to Workshops Work listeners!

Questions and Answers

[01:23] Will you share when you started to call yourself a facilitator?

[04:16] How do you define creativity and what does it mean to be stuck on the creativity path?

[12:27] Do you think it’s a matter of age and maturity, or is it a matter of the craft?

[16:11] What do you tell your clients when they fall into the comparison trap and self-sabotage their creativity?

[23:14] Do you think there are more gremlins when working online in this working from home environment?

[26:34] Why do most of online meetings suck?

[29:05] What is your favourite exercise?

[32:13] Who determines whether it is right or wrong?

[34:18] What makes a bad workshop?

[34:43] How can you keep people engaged without making it stressful?

[35:47] Can you give an example of a time when you de-brief with the group about what they have learned?

[39:54] with the upcoming Zoom option of building circles, is it really about the circle or it the magic that happens when you’re sitting in a circle?

[41:51] What does a full day online workshop look like?

[44:15] To what extent have you received feedback that it’s awkward to see each other working on a virtual meeting?

[47:22] What is the definition of a creative facilitator?

[48:14] If you could give one piece of advice for getting unstuck and start having non-boring online meetings, what would it be?

[51:06] What is the key takeaway from our conversation?

Links

• Melissa’s website
• The Creative Sandbox Way by Melissa Dinwiddie
• The Creative Sandbox Way Podcast
• Playing Big by Tara Mohr

Connect to Melissa

• Facebook
• @a

Support the show

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You can now find the podcast on Substack, where your host Dr. Myriam Hadnes is building a club for you to find fellow listeners and peers: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/