First Time Facilitator transcript with Steve Sims

Here's the episode transcript with Steve Smith from Episode 55.

Don't want to read it? Click here to listen to the First Time Facilitator conversation with Steve insteadE

Leanne Hughes: It is an absolute delight to welcome to the First-Time Facilitator podcast, the Wizard of Oz himself, Steve Sims Sims. Steve Sims, it's so cool having you on the show.

Steve Sims: It's a pleasure to be here.

Leanne Hughes: Thanks. But I guess you're a bit different to other guests that we've had on this podcast. So your main gig isn't facilitating workshops but when I thought about having you as a guest it was because you facilitate these once-in-a-lifetime experiences for your client so I'm really keen to dive into that.

I was watching your speaker's reel and someone in the audience puts up their hand and they ask you the question, you know: What drives you? What keeps you going? And you showed a really great story. I think that would be a really great beginning- if our listeners haven't heard of you. Can you tell us what happened when you were 11 years old with your mother walking down Bond Street?

Steve Sims: Oh yeah. You know you get those moments in life which you think are just going to be uneventful and an impactful and it's the smallest thing that can really just change your life. I was walking down a place called Bond Street and like every city in the planet they've all got that one Street where all the posh stores are.

And you've got Madison Avenue, Fifth Avenue, Bond Street, Barham Street. So there's all these different places around the planet where you wear your Gucci, Prada and all the other brands are on. Me and my mom walking down and I'm just a young kid and I'm holding onto my mom's hand and we're walking down the street and she stops and turns around on the corner of the curb and looks across the road into a Gucci store and in the window was a handbag.

Now, of course me being an idiot, you know I'm a little kid I'm thinking, “Huh, we're going to cross the road now!” and there was no traffic so I stepped off the curb to cross the road and she yanked me back and I was like, “What? Aren't we going across there?” and of course like you know I'm a little kid I don't really care by looking at handbags but I just thought that was what we were doing. So as we were so poised and staring at it and she literally pulled me aside she went, “No, no, no. I'm just looking. We don't go in there that's not for us.” and we walked off again.

Now, it was obvious she liked what was in the window. I don't remember the handbag, I do remember the store, I remember the exact window she was looking in but I just remember the kind of embarrassment / intimidation / fear who she had about walking into what it in all purpose is a bloody shop.

And it bothered her and I suddenly realized that she had been brought up on “them and us” scenario and basis and I just felt how bad that actually was and how sad that was and it was a daftest thing but one of the most impactful moments in my life.

Leanne Hughes:  Hmm. So this whole “them versus us”. When did it really start? That's a great story from when you’re 11. Was at the moment that really changed your mindset like when did you start thinking that you could bring together at them and ask that you actually had, you could cross the line that you could be part of us. When did that sort of happen and play out in your career?

Steve Sims: Uh, it is kind of weird. It's like saying, “Hey, when did you realize that you had two arms? Or “When did you realize that you were left-handed or right-handed?” You don't, you just are. And as I grew up, I was ignorant and I think one of the advantages I had was that I was uneducated and ignorant to affluence.

So you know I live now in Los Angeles and we roll down Beverly Hills and every second car is a 2 to 5 hundred thousand dollar vehicle. It’s Rolls Royces, Lamborghinis, you know. It's constant and even without being in Beverly Hills, everyone's Instagram profile can easily show a 20 grand watch or scene on an aircraft or you know there's- we're bombarded now with people that are apparently more well-off than us. As an East London boy, I never had that.

So I also never woke up with the fear of it. So when I started doing- when I wanted to be more affluent, when I started doing door work and wanting to hang around with more affluent people and get him into parties and things like that, I didn't have a fear of talking to them because as far as I was concerned they were just the same as us, there was no difference in it and so I was very lucky. It’s like the kid that walks up and touches a hot plate. You know it's a hot plate but they're oblivious to it and they'll only going to find out once they touch the plate that it's hot.

With me, I was walking up to the front door of these parties, in these clubs, and these red-carpet events and just walking through the door because I had an air of an intimidation may be the ones are a little bit better. As a big ugly lad, I've done a lot of door work in my younger years.

You get these people when they walk towards a club there's a line-up on the left or there's a front door with the two doorman. Now, if you've noticed you get these people just walk straight through into the club, don't they? 

Leanne Hughes: Uhmm.

Steve Sims: You’ve noticed that. When I stood on the door, as people walk to me, there'll be a natural selection. There will be people that go, “Oh, I have to go and stand in the line.” and then there be other people that go, “I'm not standing in that line. I'm going through the front door.” There's a natural Darwin selection then they do themselves as to where that's supposed to be.

Now, of course you get some idiots to walk up the front door and you can see they're not going to be spending a lot of money and you have to tell them to get in the line. But nine times out of ten you walk up the front door and you go, “Hi guys. How are you?” and you just walk straight you go, “Have a good time.” and you look apart and you're respectful.

You get to walk straight in and I noticed that. So as I grew up, I never had the intelligence or probably the overbearing saturation of what affluence was supposed to do to you i.e. intimidate you, scare you and make you desire it. I never had.

Leanne Hughes: That’s so refreshing. I'm just reflecting back on a moment in an airport. So I kind of did the same thing. I swore through this premium way line and I probably wasn't meant to be there but and I just walked through and they just let me in and that was the first time I recognized.

You're right, we do have these limitations and assumptions just from the way that we've been brought up in the way I guess society dictates things and to play by the rules sometimes but yeah I think I wasn't waiting. It was a huge line, I was tired and jet-lagged so I was taking every opportunity I could.

Can you let our listeners know like what is it about that era of confidence that you see when you were the doorman? Was it you know, they were dressed a certain way or was it just didn't hesitate that they look like they belonged in that front door, what was it?

Steve Sims: They weren't fearful, they were confident. And I think nowadays and sadly is getting worse. We're losing confidence because we're losing the ability to approach each other. I heard a horrible fact the other day.

There's some people spend more time talking to AI like Siri, Alexa than they actually do with their best friends. And I thought that was terrible because on average, most days people are talking into a phone or telling the Alexa to turn the heating on or put the music on, get your speak to your best mate maybe once a month and that's quite scary that that's what's happened.

So I noticed, if you were confident you just walked up into it, “Hey, how are you doing.  All right if I go in?” Nine times that's it. I know me personally, I'll be like, “Sure, go in. Have a good night.” But it's the tongue that- it's the people that come up and they're like, “Hey, ah, yeah. Hi, I was wondering-” and you go, “Yeah. There's the line.” and you move on.

Leanne Hughes: That's cool. That's a really cool skill for all of us to get through those doors are both literally and metaphorically. You spoke about- so that's interesting about technology and how most of us are talking to sort of AI and BOTS and a lot more and I've heard you know were the most connected species has ever been on the planet but at the same time we're also the most loneliest so it's a really interesting mix.

Steve Sims: Yeah. 

Leanne Hughes: So there is a value I guess in making this kind of approaches. Can you talk about I guess the first kind of big wish that you made that you gave to a client? Someone that came to you requested it. What was the first one that you made happen and then you thought, “Well, there's something in this.”?

Steve Sims: Yeah and it wasn't very big. Anyone that doesn't know me, I've got people married in the Vatican. I've sent people down on the Titanic. I put people on stage with our favourite rock band. But the first one that really mattered that sent me off in a trajectory couldn't be much smaller.

I was working in a nightclub in Hong Kong and I realized that as they say, “You are the five people that you hang around with.” I noticed the most of people that I hang around with are poor. So I thought if I start hanging around with more rich people, I will become rich. 

So I started trying to communicate a lot more with affluent people and it was pretty rocky in the early stage. But as the doorman, I started to tell people where the best club was, what night was the best party night. So I started to build up a value in them knowing me.

And one night these guys came in and I've known him for a couple of months by then and they came into the club and they went, “Are you going down to the yacht party tonight?” Because I was really trying to network. I wasn't very good at it. I didn't talk to a lot of people but I was always showing up at these things and I said to the guys, “You know, what your party's that?” and they told me where it was and “I don't know. I don't know.” and I lamb into the club and you know that was it. 

So I stood at the front door and I thought myself you know I'd spoke to my fellow, “Wait a minute. Look after the door a minute. I'm just going to try something.” and I went down to the yacht. Now they'd already told me where it was going to be.

As I walked up to the yacht, this is like about maybe two and a half hours before it opened up to the party and there's a girl there with a flipchart just by the deck as you go up onto the yacht. And I walked up to run away, “Hey. How are you doing?” I said, “You, you’re in for busy night?

Anyway my four guests are coming over this evening. I know you open up at like 9:30, I just wanted to know would you prefer they go here at like 9 o'clock or like 10:30 you know what would be better for you to avoid the ball neck?” and she just come on look to me a bit blank and then looks down at the flipchart and starts flicking through the flipchart. 

Now the dump thing was I hadn't even given her the client’s name. She was just doing this because it was a knee-jerk reaction. If you notice and we talked about metaphorically. If you know it's the most people's knee-jerk reaction now is to actually hold that phone with both hands.

If you watch people go in and they order a cup of coffee, they order the coffee and then the next thing they do is they get that phone out and they hold the phone and they start looking through the phone. Have you ever noticed how holding the phone with both hands is the exact same position that a boxer has when they've got their guard up?

Leanne Hughes: Hmm. 

Steve Sims: Okay. So most people now are walking around with their guard up. Now this girl was using the flip chart to come like gather her kind of mentality work out- what's going on? What’s this guy? Who is he? What’s he asking me? She was flicking through that flipchart.

I swear she's got of a phone then if she was back in the ‘90s they didn't have them but if she'd have had it should have probably done something with the phone. But then I turned around and again and I pushed a little bit further and I said, “Well, I don't want to get in your way because I know it's going to be a busy night for you.

I just want to know, do you want them here at this time or this time?” and then she turned around she went, “Ah, 10 o'clock.” I said, “Thank you so much. I appreciate it.” and then I went with empathy. “I know you're going to have a crazy night tonight and let's be blunt. People are going to turn up, they're going to party and they're not going to say thank you. So I want to say thank you.

You got four people coming in here, here's 400 bucks. Tomorrow when it's all over you can grab a bottle of wine, nice food and just be thankful it's over. And she was like, “Thank you so much.” and I was like, “Have a good evening. I wish you would be the best.” and I went to walk away and then she stopped me and she went, “Hang on a minute, what are the guests names?” and I gave them to her and she wrote them down on the front of her list.

Leanne Hughes: Oh, wow. 

Steve Sims: So then I went back to the nightclub. Now bearing in mind what you're not aware of is I only used to make about 800 to a thousand dollars a week and I'm just giving away 40 percent of that to this girl for four people that I didn't even know was still at the club, it was a gamble.

So I went back to the club, the guys were still in there I walked up and said, “Boys, I've just pulled some strings for you and you're going to the yacht hide tonight.” “Oh, fantastic.” “You're welcome. It's 500 bucks each.” 

Leanne Hughes: Hahaha.

Steve Sims: And they literally just paid up within a heartbeat and I went back out to the door and I realized I just made 1,600 bucks and I had solved the problem of embarrassment. You see these guys were successful, they were good-looking, they could afford, they could afford to buy the yacht but they didn't know how to communicate, how to ask and then more importantly how do we call from being denied entrance and so with me, I was the solution.

I didn't ever say who the guy’s names were. Now, the funny thing is that girl because I've shown that I've respected her time, I paid her for her time. She let me know every party that was going on that she had any kind of involvement with. So I now started building up a network of access and from the door I had a network of after on people that liked to party. 

So I started putting two and two together when I stayed game people into other people's events then I started putting on my own events and then people were like, “Oh, yeah. That was a great event but can you give me a hotel? I don't know if you do travel. I'm like, “Yeah.” So I started doing travel and then before you knew it and the real thing people started going will it. “I want to do this but I want to meet so-and-so” or “I want to go backstage. Do you do that kind of thing?” I became the fixer, I became the guy that could. There was no word for it, I just got stuff done and I got it done but just charging them and I realized how easy people were to actually pay for things.

Leanne Hughes: That's unreal and I definitely need you in my life. But I want to go back to is that question that you asked the lady on the yacht. So you didn't rock up there and say, “Hey. I've got this four guests, can we go on the yacht tonight?” You asked what time and you gave her two options: 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. Do you think it's all about the language of the ask because you basically weren't asking for yes or no you were asking for a yes and what time. It was already in the question. Do you think that helped?

Steve Sims: 100%. I learned at a very early age. See, I'm a great believer in liability. You know if I'm going to have a fight with a guy I look at the guy and I go is he bigger is he leaner, is he faster than me therefore I can get hurt I'm not going to be in that fight. So I look at liability. If I'm driving an old car I'm not going to drive it fast because it could probably break or go wrong. So I'm a great believer in keeping liability low. 

Now, when I ask a question, if I ask a question that gives you the ability to say yes or no, I'm increasing my liability of getting out so I don't want especially when you consider that “no” can be said to anyone in any country and understood as a refusal. Even if it's not in the same language, you can say no in Thailand, Germany, Russia and they will know that it's a negative and in some refusal. And nine times out of ten, bear in mind it's also the shortest word in history in our language. So if I go up to you and I go, “Hey, can I get four guys on your yacht tonight?” What's the chances I'm going to get a no rather than a yes?

Leanne Hughes: 100%.

Steve Sims: Bingo. So what I did was I lose that liability. I remove it by only giving you the ability to answer with an answer that I will accept. So I go up there and I go, “Hey, what time?” I go up to people now and I don't ask them, “Hey. I want to shut your museum down, can I do that?” “Hey, I want to send my clients backstage to meet Taylor Swift, can we do that?” I don't do that. What I do is what needs to happen in order for my clients to be backstage with Taylor Swift?

What are the steps required in order for me to get you to close your museum down on Wednesday afternoon for dinner party at the feet of Michelangelo's David? I ask a question there is only going to provide me- because if I say something like that, “Hey, what are the steps required for me to have your museum closed down on Wednesday?” If the guy or girl lips looks at me and goes “no” They’re looking like a mole one because they didn't actually speak in a manner that makes any sense to anyone.

Leanne Hughes: This is so funny. So recently, so I'm a fan of Dr. Jordan Peterson and he's in Australia at the moment on tour and I've completely failed. I mean now what I've just picked up from you is- so I reached out to his agent and kind of the ask words you know. I'll fly anywhere in Australia like how can I get an interview with Jordan Peterson, 30 minutes and you know what the answer would was it was a no. But now I'm just thinking of that and maybe those ways of reframing but also possibly not even going through the agent.

Steve Sims: Well, there's another. Okay, so let's take you another step. When you’re given a “no”, nine times out of 10 is because you asked the wrong question or you asked the wrong person.

Leanne Hughes: Yep. Yes. 

Steve Sims: And again, look at the liability. You go- what’s an agent's job? Now, I live in Hollywood, okay. Agents are one millimetre above bottom-feeders you know. An agent's job is to do whatever they can to earn money off of talented people. That's the job of an agent. Now, a manager is there to look after the duty or the talent and the assistant is to make sure the talent is happy all the time but the actual talent agent themselves is there to basically contract and make money from the event.

If you walk up to him and you tell him or ask him for something which benefits him in no manner whatsoever then your liability and your chances of getting a no are huge. So in that situation for a start you were asking the wrong person, it may have been better if you asked a better question but I think by asking that person you were more than likely asking the wrong person already.

Leanne Hughes: Hmm. Yeah. I think you're right. I think it was deemed to a failure to start off with.

Steve Sims: Yeah. 

Leanne Hughes: Hey. I can hear through, just through your voice you're very dynamic and I like, I mean I can imagine when you're in front of a stage or in front of a workshop everyone in that room is really paying attention to what you're saying cuz you tell stories really effectively. But I want to talk about your upcoming event the Speakeasy workshop which I saw. So what you're essentially doing is it's a two-day workshop, people fly into LA. What do they do in that workshop and what happens at the end of it?

Steve Sims: So we tried- so I'm the speaker. I've spoken at God countless events including Pentagon, Harvard and even jails. So I've done a lot of speaking, a lot of different entrepreneurial events and sometimes these aggravate me because you get speakers come up there they do a presentation which they've been doing since 1973 and there's no engagement with the crowd. There’s no connection, they're just running through the slideshow that running through that very polished presentation and then they go offstage and you're left with, “Well, what actionable advice did I get there?” I know the guy's brilliant, I know the girl launched a company now she's a billionaire and I know they sold it and I know they love to travel around Italy but how the bloody hell does that help me? So what I decided to do was to re-engineer a workshop and we launched something and it was the greatest growth comes from the greatest accidents. I decided last year, early part of last year to do an event and I didn't know where I was going to do it.

So I just put it out to my community. “I'm going to do an event. It's two thousand bucks for two days and it's in San Diego who wants to go?” and I had people going, “Who's speaking?” I'm not telling you. “Who's going?” I'm not telling you. “Where is it?” San Diego. You know I was as vague as that and I said there, “You know, I want people that are willing to take his shot. I want people to look at me, know who I am, know what I do and gamble on it.” You know gamble on me and I said, “You know, if that don't work, I'll give you your money back.” 

Now, one of the reasons I was doing it that way was because one, I didn't know how many people would want to go. So we've got about 40 people going. So I thought, “Okay, I now know what kind of property I've got. But then I thought of myself, “What speakers do I get in? I've got loads of friends, I've got some very interesting friends in my Rolodex. “Who do I have walk in?” and then that's when it came to me. I'm going to reverse engineer it. So then everyone that paid for a ticket, we reached out to him we went, “Okay.

What do you do? Who are you? What’s your problem?” And I asked them what they helped that hurdle the hiccup was now, today that they would like solved in order to give them a productive rest of the year and going on. And so we suddenly started getting these, “Well I want to do viral videos.” “I want to launch a podcast.” “Oh, I don't know how to get a good accounting platform.” “How do I get people to book me more speaking gigs.” We had all of these different questions and then I went out to my people when I went these are the problems that I need you to speak at my event and solve.

And so now what I did was I had speak of agents literary agents about how to write a book, video people and I'm not about top shelf people in there talking about how to do a video,  how to get the best audio you know. How did not spend a fortune on doing again Podcast studio put together. The difference between an omnidirectional mic and a dynamic mic. So we had people come along. They literally would give a presentation on who they are, what they do and how they do it and then go, “Right.

These would the questions I would ask let's get these solved now. What are you using?” and because the group was only about 40 strong, they could literally reach out go, “So who's doing this? How are you doing it? Let me solve that.” So by the time they leave the room, you haven't heard from a brilliant speaker, you've got your problem solved. Now, here's a funny little quirk to this. Are you still there?

Leanne Hughes: Yeah. I'm all is.

Steve Sims: Here's a funny little quirk that happened. So I wanted to get it videoed and recorded so I could share it on my Speakeasy Facebook page. The video guy let me down he didn't turn up. So then without realizing it the community suddenly started turning around going, “This is brilliant we never knew where it was going to be, we didn't know who was going to turn up and what happens here stays here because no one else will ever get it that wasn't in this room.”

So actually someone turned around and said, “This is like a Speakeasy you know. If you don't know the password to get in you're not getting in.” and we’re like, everyone knows I like whisky so I was like you know, “That's brilliant.” So we did a Speakeasy San Diego. The original one was a quarter, a speakeasy it was quarter of a verse mastermind but then we called it- we didn't know what the bloody hell to call it and then we did them we did three other Speakeasys’ last year including New York and then we've got one in LA which we are and it's next week. But we didn't, we- again didn't even tell anyone where it was until I think it was yesterday because we wanted to know how many people are coming, what's your problems watch your questions and it's really reverse-engineered or what a normal speaker workshop/ event should be and it's been gentlemen a great community as well so how many a great deal of fun with it.

Leanne Hughes: That's so cool and what's the event that culminates the hold sort of two days? There's a pretty cool party that everyone's off to I believe.

Steve Sims: So one of the things that I actually- you've been doing your homework.

Leanne Hughes: Well, he's my favourite artist. I love the guy so much.

Steve Sims: Alright. So one of the things that I like to do is I want to shake you up and get you into somebody else's sandpit. So what we're doing is we're doing two days of a Speakeasy where we're going to get your problem solved, introduce you to different perspectives, different growth, more family members which is what you'll gain within the entrepreneurial guests at the event and then after that we'll all get dressed up and we're going to serve Elton John's Oscar party with basically or the A-list of Hollywood.

So we did that last year in New York where we did two days in Soho, had a bunch of really cool cats come in and solve problems and then that evening we went to Sir Elton John's gala at Cipriani in Midtown. So it was the chance for you to learn all this information and then be sat next to the guy that owns the New York Jets or who owns the Rockefeller Plaza you know millionaires and billionaires so that you can see that just like you. You're having a conversation now with people that are one table have the financial economy of a small country and you're on that table with them and it's been a real eye-opener for a lot of people to actually come back from there and go, “You have no idea who I was talking in the toilet with him and then I was having this conversation about with so-and-so and Ralph Lauren was there and I was talking about is his new linen.” And it's just it's incredible to have people just be able to realize the rich people are poor people with a lot of money; things don't change, just that the bank account.

 Leanne Hughes: Yeah that's a really interesting perspective. It's also probably the coolest workshop that I've ever heard of and this would be like episode 55, I believe. I think you've just won the coolest workshop ever. And that's definitely a party I wouldn't want to get too pissed at because I want to remember every moment. So I love as well-

Steve Sims: Yeah. 

Leanne Hughes: Yeah with your approach. But the speakeasy how I guess a lot of the time when we run workshops we want to make sure it's perfect before we even you know put it out there to advertise so we'll spend a lot of time creating all the content and everything else and then like you said you might get people that actually want something a little bit different. They want to be involved with your community but they're after something else so it's a really interesting approach. I've got to ask you- 

Steve Sims: I'll go interrupt there for a second. Tell me one thing that's perfect.

Leanne Hughes: Oh.

Steve Sims: You see. I'm a great believer that perfection is a blue unicorn with three testicles; it doesn't exist. So what I do is I have a saying that I drill through my kids and it's basically my mantra and I say, “Get going then get good.” and every day that I pull something out someone would go, “That's brilliant.” I'd be like, “Yeah. It's really, really, really good and I'm really happy with it but I bet you in two months’ time I'll find a way to be able to make you better.” So why do I want to wait chasing that unicorn that let’s be blunt, doesn't exist!

Leanne Hughes: Yeah and there's something really key in momentum isn’t then by putting it out they’re getting in the feedback.

Steve Sims: Oh, yeah.  

Leanne Hughes: Yeah. It is sometimes I guess when your own as well working on your own business it can be tough because you think you're at your own worst critic sometimes as well.

Steve Sims: Yeah. Absolutely. So yeah, and you're the old paralysis by analysis. You'll sit there for years, you're doing a 400 page PowerPoint on how this could be brilliant and then all of a sudden you'll just keep second guessing yourself and getting in the way of yourself and someone else will just do it and then do it and fail and do it and get better and fail and progress and succeed. So what you're thinking about it someone else is getting all the education and actually building up a platform that you can't even compete with. 

Leanne Hughes: Yeah. Actually, that's a really good point and how I got this interview with you a bit of background. So I heard you on Travis Chappell's Build Your Network a few months ago and I was like, “I need to get Steve Sims on my show.” but I let it sort of simmer and was waiting for the right time. Then I was out for a drink in Brisbane and I met this guy called Jus, who interviewed you on his podcast a marketing podcast and I said, “Oh, you got Steve Sims. I want to interview Steve Sims.” and he's like, “Well, let's just shoot a video now and send it to him over Facebook Messenger.” and I'm like, “No, it's too dark.” and all these excuses. Anyway, we did it and voila! I have an interview with you despise seizing that opportunity and it wasn't perfect, it wasn't a perfect video but it worked.

Steve Sims: Yeah. Yeah and Jus is a great guy by the way. It’s just one of these things that what would you have done that could have been better than what you did. 

Leanne Hughes: Yeah. Well, I probably wouldn't have got around to it to be honest. There's so many other things on my-

Steve Sims: No, you wouldn’t of.

Leanne Hughes: No.

Steve Sims: You wouldn’t of. You've just sat that guy with, “Well my hair is not lie and hang on a minute, how do I do this? Oh, we got to get the lighting right.” I released a podcast and literally I was at an event and someone said to me with the people, “You know Steve Sims, you should do a podcast and I was like, “Yeah, that sounds fun. Yeah, that sounds cool.” So I just went online and I just posted online: “Shall I do a podcast?” and I got a bunch of people going, “Yeah. You should do a podcast.” I was like, “All right.” I got a microphone and I found a place in the corner of my garage that didn't have too much echo and I started calling up my buddies and started doing a podcast and I got to about the 18th episode and the first six were revolted they were all- but the daffy was had I not started, I'd have never been in able to be in a position to realize how bad they were and as they weren't even released then I was able to just remove them. In fact, I think it was like the 12th episode became the first one. I've got a better microphone, I learned the difference between dynamic and omnidirectional mics. You know I learned all of these things and now I have a podcast that I still do in my garage with a nice microphone and I just do it and I've got better and better and trust me the ones I'm doing now I quite like. By this time next year, I'll probably look back at those and go, “Oh, my God that’s rough.”

Leanne Hughes: Yeah and that podcast is the art of making things happen. So you sort of really talk about taking action which is what we've kind of just been exploring over the last few minutes. 

Steve Sims: Yep. 

Leanne Hughes: A lot of these skills as well- So you talked about you know effectively communicating, how to ask questions. You cover that in your online course, The Distillery. What else what other content do you cover if listeners want to sort of learn a bit more about these kind of key skills?

Steve Sims: Well, we try to put in there simple steps but also it's me doing the course, there’s no one else. So the whole premise behind it, the whole underlying theme is if an ugly bricklayer from London can be doing this with the Pope and Elon Musk, you're already out of excuses. So then I walk you through how to build up confidence, how would it look for impact, how to provide value, how to be irresistible in any conversation. So it's all about how to position yourself to get what you want while giving given the person what they want and that's what's in the course. It’s a 16 chapter course and we're also throwing off the regular videos in there. 

So it's the kind of content that's constantly going to be growing. Whenever we do cool videos, we add another couple of videos. It started off literally as 16 videos and I think now there's maybe 24 in there and every month were adding more. So it wants to become a resource library, there's got to become your friend and when you join the distillery you also get access into the private speakeasy Facebook page and in there you get to mingle and communicate with different members. They post up what they like, they post up what they're frightened of. It’s a very open-naked environment where you could talk about things that bother you.

Leanne Hughes: Awesome. And we'll link to that in the show notes. Just on the on the topic of confidence, what is your advice for any of our listeners who are first-time facilitators, first-time presenters that are getting the confidence now just to step up in front of a room what advice would you give them?

Steve Sims: Are you about our speakers?

Leanne Hughes: Yeah. 

Steve Sims: Right. Okay. So stop being a speaker and I mean that. I did a speech, I was the opening keynote for a big mortgage convention about two weeks ago and I would speak into their heads of this mortgage cooperation a couple of seconds before I went up on stage and they pay me well to be up on stage and I went up on stage and I went, “Hey, good morning. How I-” cause it was in the morning I was the opening keynote. I usually don't do morning speeches but I did and I said, “Hey, good morning. How are ya? I hate giving speeches.” and you saw the front line of the people that paid me to be up there go, “Oh, my God.” and I just I looked at the audience and I said, “I don't want to stand up here and tell you about how brilliant I am. I'd love to have a conversation with two and a half thousand people about how what I've done and do can make you brilliant. Now, if you don't want me to do that tell me and I'll run through a 90-minute speech and I'll tell you what the stories that make you giggling, you can clap loud two minutes like demented sea lions when I walk off. But I would love to make you better, smart or productive or more impactful. What do you think?” and that was within the first few seconds and of course they would start clapping. I got a standing ovation at the beginning of a speech.

Leanne Hughes: What? That’s amazing.

Steve Sims: It was brilliant. But the people that are paid me went from holding their hands and abs ticking like, “All right.” So the whole point is I don't believe speakers should give speeches. I think speakers should have conversations with thousands of people or hundreds of people but they should have conversations and in a conversation there are things that are a primitive from primeval to make that conversation work and that the first one is engagement and the second one is value. If you can engage someone in a conversation by entertaining, telling them jokes, you know whatever, wearing a funny hat, whatever it takes and then you can feed them with value that benefits them then you'll be on a stage every day your life for as long as you want to be.

Leanne Hughes: Hmm. That's wonderful advice and I've got to say I've had to move myself away from the microphone because I've been laughing a lot through this conversation. So I'm sure that humour has really served you well in your career as well and really opened the doors as well. I can tell you know you're very easy to talk to, very open and very funny which I think people love. So if our listeners want to communicate, find out more about you and you've got a ton of stories about I mean you've mentioned just very quickly the poet behind mask Elton John and there's plenty of other podcasts where you can hear about those stories. I just wanted to focus really on the confident side of things with you and the cool workshops you're running. So where can people find you?

Steve Sims: Well, I've got a website it's Steve Simsdsims.com. If you sign up for the newsletter you'll actually get one of my favourite videos called the chunk test and you'll also get a PDF which would be the cheat sheet from the book The Art of Making Things Happen: Bluefishing. So there'd be a couple of freebies that you'll get. But then you're getting notified of where my speakeasies are. You're getting notified of my new videos that I post up where I just throw rants about things that bother me or make me smile or make me happy or annoy me or tips and tricks. See I love failing, so I'll try different things and then I'll do a video going, “Hey, I just tried these three microphones. These two are shit. This one was brilliant and this is why.” and I will just do reviews on just the randomness kind of stuff I can. 

Leanne Hughes: Awesome. I do follow you on Instagram so I love it. I love an occasion rant from right- instead of the perfect shot gym model. It's good having you, it’s a bit of a contrast. 

Steve Sims: Did you see my Tai Lopez and Grant Cardone rant on the beach then?

Leanne Hughes: I haven't seen that one. No. After.

Steve Sims: Yeah. I was- I actually did a speech. It’s funny because in December I had a bunch of speeches in June and September and November of this year but I had nothing for the first part of the year. So in December my wife said to me she said, “Ah, people are bored of you already.” and then all of a sudden I got two gigs in January, three in February, two in March. So it took off. So at the beginning of January, I was actually in Mexico speaking to a high-level workshop down there. So I did a bunch of my little rants literally from the beach and if you don't like the rant you'll certainly love the backdrop and that's on my Instagram Steve Sims D Sims. 

Leanne Hughes: Awesome. We’ll linked that as well. Steve Sims, it's been an absolute honour or just having you on the podcast and hearing all about the incredible workshops, the work you do, the people you hang out with and hearing a bit of your story as well. Thank you so much for your time.

Steve Sims: Thank you. I appreciate it. 

Leanne Hughes: Cheers! 

Steve Sims: Thank you. 

[END OF AUDIO] 41:39

Episode transcript with Julian Treasure

Listen to this episode from First Time Facilitator on Spotify. In today's episode, I talk to Julian Treasure. Julian is a sought-after and top-rated international sound and communication expert. He is a gripping speaker with 5 TED talks online which have been viewed around 40 million times.

Here's a transcript of my First Time Facilitator conversation with Julian Treasure.

Leanne: I would like to welcome to the First-Time Facilitator Podcast, a guest who was spoken on the TED stage five times. But look! This is his first appearance on this show. So thank you for joining us today, Julian Treasure. 

Julian: Well, thank you Leanne. It's my pleasure to be here. 

Leanne: It's great to hear your voice. I feel like I know you because I've watched all your videos. Your voice definitely resonates with me and I think it's what makes your speech is so powerful. I always like finding out from our guest what kind of career pivots led them to the role that they're in. So you're now a world expert in communication, in listening and speaking. How did you get to this stage in your career? 

Julian: I think probably I'd say there were two pivots. I started out in advertising sales. Well, actually media buying originally in the early ‘80s and advertising sales in computer magazines. And I launched my own company in ‘88 and that went for 15 years it became very successful. It was a contract publishing company in the UK producing customer magazines for brands such as Microsoft, Orange, Apple, Lexus, Toyota and so forth. So global magazines for their customers which is a huge industry now. It wasn't when we started but it is now the biggest part of magazine publishing actually. So it's “branded content”, that's the word for this kind of thing now. High-value content produced by brands or produced on behalf of brands to engage their customers without they're just going over and over again on their basic sales message. I sold that business in 2002- 2003 and that was the first pivot. 

All the way through that I've been a musician all my life and all the way through that I was playing gigs in the evenings and listening to the world. Musicians listen to the world in a slightly different way. To know musicians I think that's not to say they're better. But if you're a musician, you have to listen in a multitrack way. If you're playing in a band or an orchestra, you can't be a good musician if you're not listening to everybody else at the same time. You need to respond to everybody. So you develop this kind of multitrack very sensitive listening and I was going around listening to the world like I was thinking the world doesn't sound very good and then they occurred to me that most of the noise around us is made by organizations and by brands indeed. 

So with my experience of dealing with brands and helping them to serve customers better, to engage customers. It wasn't a huge step to think, “Hmmm. I wonder if there's a business here helping brands to ask and answer the question, ‘How does my brand sounds?’” So I started researching that and found that there was basically very little of that going on and I formed the company called the Sound Agency with precisely that message. The idea was good sound is good business and that was a theory then and it's now a well-proven thing. There are now hundreds of audio branding companies around the world operating in pretty much every market you can think of and it's become almost the rigor to think about your brand in all five senses not just one. 

When we started, it was almost all a marketing money was spent on the eyes, very little on the ears.  So the sound agency has helped, brands all over the world to become conscious about the sound they're making and that has been a good thing. We've improved the sound and lots of shopping malls and airports and so forth. Lots of it by removing mindless music actually. People always think, “Oh, you do background music?” No. Actually we do a lot of removing that because very often that's inappropriately chosen or badly played in bad quality or just an irritating noise and I speak there is a musician. 

Now, the second pivot I think was along mat journey of helping brands to become conscious that the sound they make affects people. It occurred to me that, “Well, hang on. This isn't just about brands, it's about people.” and so my TED Talks which started with the one about how sound affects us moved into how sound is being created by individuals and consumed by individuals. So we have responsibility for the sound we make as people and the sound we consume as people and that is about speaking and listening primarily. 

So I did a TED talk about the health effects of sound and then one about conscious listening which probably to me is still the most important one and then followed through with one on how sound in different spaces is badly designed, how architects designed for the eyes not for the ears and that affects us in places like schools and hospitals and offices and hotels and all sorts of different environments. 

And then, finally the TED talk that went completely ballistic is the one about how to speak powerfully. So it's called How to speak so that people want to listen and that one's now in the top ten of all time and I can't believe it. But the interesting thing is that TED talk has got something like six times as many views as the one on listening. 

Leanne: Yes. I actually had written down a stat and I was going to say is that the problem with our society right now. For the batch that start right there is that more people are interested in the one about speaking.

Julian: Yes. I mean, this is the old adage. You have two ears and one mouth.

Leanne: Yes. [laughs]

Julian: You should be listening twice as much as you speak but most of us have that round the wrong way. We're very focused and I should say not just individuals but also organizations. We're massively focused on outbound communication. So speaking overrides listening almost every time. We like sending. That's true of what I call a personal broadcasting using the tools that we've now got on social media to be tweeting. You know tweeting- “I'm on a train.” Who cares, really?

Leanne: Yes. [laughs]

Julian: But we have this fantasy that there are thousands of people out there hanging on our every thought and movement which is of course not true but we like the idea of broadcasting. It makes us feel more important. And speaking I think, I mean speaking is incredibly important and it forms the core of my book How to be heard and that indeed the whole book's title is for people who struggle to be heard in life which is an awful lot of people. 

Nevertheless, you can't be a good speaker if you don't learn first to be a good listener. So that is also in the book and really at the core of my work is this theory that speaking and listening are in a circular relationship. That's true for organizations which are terrible at listening generally and put all their effort into broadcasting their message and it's true for each of us as an individual as well.

Leanne: Actually, I really-- that whole thing about how to be a good speaker is it's important to be a good listener where I really sort of seen this play out actually it was on the weekend. I was at a conference and I was watching the emcee the master of ceremony and after every speech he just come on and to say thanks for the speech and then move on and he didn't really acknowledge what the previous person had spoken about and I feel like that was a really lost opportunity because I just don't have a sense that he was listening to their content. It was more about, “Thanks for that. Now we're going to move on.” and I think the real value that great emcees have- Have you done some emcee work as well?

Julian: Yes. I have over the years done some of that.

Leanne: Yeah.

Julian: And you always want to reflect off what somebody said to give it continuity and sew the whole thing together otherwise it becomes just lumps of content and unfortunately, I mean that's a kind of listening or a kind of communication which you would call faux listening or I call it “speech writing” where you're not really listening to that person at all. You're preparing your next brilliant piece of dialogue and it's all about what you're going to say, not what somebody else is going to say. So that might be the kind of person who would in conversation be doing a lot of “Anyway!” and overriding the whole thing you were just saying and moving on to what they want to talk about which is a disconnect. It is also, it's demeaning to the other person. It leaves them feeling not appreciated.

Leanne:  A hundred percent. I also want to go back to “Look there! I've done it.” But I'm going back to one of your earlier points about being a drummer in a band and how it really, you really tuned into all the different sounds. And I was listening to your Ted speech about listening and how you said listening in mixer mode is so you're actually paying attention to everything that's going around you. So I woke up this morning and I was tuning into the birds, my dog was outside I was hearing him breathing, I was breathing and you're like, it's really interesting because you can go through life without acknowledging any of those sounds just the ones that drew your attention at the time, the beep of a phone or whatever. Today that you felt very present. Well, I did. I did this morning. It's a really cool, cool tool.

Julian: Yeah. Well, listening is a skill, that's the whole thing. So you can improve any skill and we take it for granted. We teach reading and writing frantically in schools. It's a scandal of a child leaves school unable to read or write. We do not teach speaking and listening or if we speak teach-speaking tool, it's minimal. We certainly don't teach listening skills which is tragic because it's our primal form of communication. It's so much more powerful than reading and writing to be direct, to be there with your voice in the world. 

You can convey so much more emotion. It's a much more influential form of communication if you're going to lead people or in the case of this conversation train people. It really behoves you to take on that you're playing an instrument here. We're all playing this amazing instrument- the voice and you need to train that and just at the same time, we're doing a thing which is called listening. It's not a passive activity, it's not like hearing. You don't have to do anything to hear stuff, you hear everything. Listening by contrast is a skill. It's a two-stage skill. You select stuff to pay attention to and then you make it mean something. 

So my definition of listening is making meaning from sound and that colours your whole perception of existence. I mean as you said, you paid attention to some things this morning that you had never really paid attention to before or generally didn't and we can do that anytime. We can change the searchlight of our listening, focus on different things. So that would give us a different reality because we're then associated with different things going on around us and they affect us in different ways and of course we are able to direct the meaning making. 

We can challenge the meanings that we associate with various sounds. So it is a conscious process, it's a skill that can be improved by practice and that exercise I gave in that TED talk is a good way of starting that process of improving listening. And the better we make our listening, the more we understand other people and the more powerfully we can speak to them. 

Leanne:  Yeah and actually that's the reason why side of this podcast is there's a lot of podcasts out there that really focus on public speaking and giving great keynotes and being a great presenter. But I believe that facilitation, it's really harnessing what's going on in the room which is then listening, linking that back to stuff that's been spoken about to the content. You've got to be really flexible but it's actually really exhausting too because you have to pay attention and doing that extra listening. At the end of a day it's quite tiring. 

Julian: I think it is, you're right and it's worth it because what you get is a much better result at the end of the day. For everybody, it's more satisfying. It does get better with practice I would say. I mean, in the book and I didn't have time to do this in the TED talk, actually. But in the book I distinguish three different kinds of listening and the one we're talking about is really important. I call it “created listening” and that is around the concept that you always speak into a listening. 

So if you've got a room full of people, all of those people have got unique listenings. Every one of us has a unique listening. Your listening is different from mine because we listen through a set of filters and those filters are different for each individual. That's the culture you're brought into, the language you speak, the values, attitudes, beliefs that you create along the way from parents and teachers and role models and friends and so forth. The emotions and intentions and expectations with which we go into any conversation or situation, all of these things affect the way that we listen at this moment in this situation. 

So you have a room full of people with that going on. The important question to ask yourself is, “What's the listening I'm speaking into?” and just by asking that question, you will become more and more practiced at spotting it and it becomes an automatic process eventually. So whether I walk on stage and I'm speaking to a thousand people or I'm in a one-to-one or talking to a small group, the question is always “What's the listening?” That's the first question- “What's the listening?” and as soon as you spot it or you get a feeling for it, you can start to speak in a way that's more appropriate. The listening might be if it's after lunch and you've had a good lunch and everybody's had a good morning. The listening will be a bit sleepy because everybody's blood will be in their gat and they'll be feeling that little after lunch feeling. So you have to perhaps up your game a little bit there and be more dynamic. I often get to speak in that spot they think, “Oh, he's a good speaker. He'll wake them up off the loads.”

Leanne:  Yeah, what the top crowds want.

Julian: Yeah. So I always get that. Or it might be early in the morning and they don't know what to expect and they've come here and they're not they're a little bit confused and trepidatious and you might want to be very reassuring at that point in calm and helpful and interactive. So speaking into the right listening is really important and makes your speaking much more appropriate. So the question to ask always: “What's the listening I was speaking into?”

Leanne:  Excellent question. When you said, “What do you spot? or how do you feel?” I think that's- So you’re looking at sort of body language or if you said a joke that everyone sort of laughed at and there's a connection point which now you then can everyone's feeling more relaxed. Is it that sort of stuff? It's just the dynamics of what’s going on. 

Julian: It maybe.

Leanne:  Yes. A responses.

Julian: I think- you know I've always said- I said in the book again, I'm not quite sure how this works, I mean. Because there are so many factors involved and it may be little body language signals that you pick up sort of unconsciously. You know consciously you can spot certain things if everybody's leaving back and supporting their heads and eyelids are drooping you that's pretty clear. If by contrast people are leaning forward and looking bright and alert and you've got some smiles then that's all good. So you can certainly see some obvious things but I'm sure there's a lot more going on at a micro level and with the whole science and micro facial expressions and things like that. 

We spot an awful lot maybe pheromones I don't know. A whole panoply of sensory input which is going in and probably at subconscious level giving us a feeling for the listening we're speaking into. The important thing it's not to get hooked up in what's the process it's to ask question because just by asking the question, you're training your consciousness in that way, you become sensitized to it. Doesn’t matter how it works you will be good at it I promise and it makes life an awful lot easier. 

You can, as you suggested, you can test the water with a joke or with something and see how it goes down you may be there's a little litmus test or a listening ohmmeter phrase that you can use the same way every day and see how it goes down and give you some sort of calibration. I don't do that I just ask the question. So whatever works really for anybody as long as you get in there and ask the question at beginning of every important conversation, it will really help to speak more powerfully into that listening.

Leanne:  That's wonderful. What you've talked about in terms of paying attention and you're not too sure whether it is the body language or the pheromones or something going on but I really like that. Earlier this year, I was asked to travel to Indonesia for my day job. I'd helped write a program for our leaders over there but it was being delivered in Bahasa Indonesian which I don't speak and so I was just questioning I said, “Well, what's the value of me going over there?” I'm going to observe this facilitator running a Leadership Program in another language surely I can't critique the course that way. And the guy that runs the operation over there said, “Oh, you'll figure it out.” and so I sat there for a couple of days in the course and he was absolutely right. So I knew when we need to switch the content, put an activity in. I didn't know a word of Indonesian but it was just really interesting how I could pick up on all the energy in the room and what we needed to fix without even understanding the words.

Julian: Yeah. I think much of this is universal. Of course some of it is cultural and we have to be culturally sensitive anytime we're speaking. I've given business presentations in cultures where it's perfectly okay to be doing your email around the table while somebody's talking.

Leanne: Oh, I had that. 

Julian: Yeah. Well I don't like it and in the UK that would be considered extremely rude. But there are places I've been in the world where it's the norm and if that's their norm, there's no point you know thumping the table and saying, “Excuse me! Are you listening to me?” and getting all self-righteous because it would just offend and you wouldn't end up with the outcome that you want. So obviously one can try to be as engaging as possible but there are cultural differences which require some sensitivity. Nevertheless, a lot of it is universal. I think a lot of human body language is universal and I think we can pretty much spot when somebody's engaged or not engaged in any culture in the world.

Leanne:  Yeah, I agree. Now, we're talking about listening but I'd like to transition and talk about using your voice and speaking as well and particularly talk about the case of credibility. So a lot of first time facilitators struggle with a bit of confidence because I may not believe that they're the right person to be stepping up in training or facilitating a topic. They may be a subject-matter expert but credibility can be shown in many other ways. And in your speech you mentioned that we vote for politicians that have lower voices because it gives us a sense of authority. What then can we do as facilitators to own our voice more? If we don't have a strong voice, can we change that? Or are we doomed to just sort of have a voice that doesn't convey that kind of authority that we’re really after?

Julian: Yes. Again, I think consciousness is vitally important. So in the talk about talking, I speak about having a vocal toolbox. We all have this vocal toolbox and it's really important to become conscious that that's there and there are things you can rummage around in and deploy consciously which will change the way that you received and changed the power of your speaking. First of all is what you say and there's a huge amount in my book about designing great content. I mean, that is really important. 

I talked to Chris Anderson, the curator of TED for the book and I asked Chris, I've known him for a long time and he's seen thousands of TED talks now. So the question I asked him was, “Which do you think is more important, great content or great delivery?” and he said, “Well, they're both equally important, really. But if I had to choose one it would be the content. I'd rather see somebody delivering earth-shattering content in an amateurish way than see somebody delivering banal nonsense in a highly slick and professional way because the latter one that's just actually annoying.”

Leanne:  Yup.

Julian: I think that's really important. So get your content right is the first secret to engaging people making sure your content is for the right listening and it's going to engage them. There's a big idea. You know the flow of it, you know there's a story, there's an arc you're taking them through in the day and it's just not just an endless repetition or an endless procession of fact after fact or thing after thing. Content is vital. Then, you've got how you say it and the voices I said earlier is this amazing instrument. Mine is slightly compromised at the moment you probably hear I have a slight cold right now here in Oakley which is a long way North from where you're speaking.

Leanne:  Yup.

Julian: So it's winter here and I have a slight cold. While I work around that, I have to become conscious of my voice all the time. I do vocal warm up exercises before important conversations to give my voice the best chants and I'm conscious of the vocal toolbox. And that includes all sorts of things starts with things that you might not guess perhaps which are things like stance. You know standing in the right way is really important. Getting your vocal cords relaxed and vertical is a key. Many people will stress their vocal cords. 

If I leave my head forward you can hear my voice change or if I push my head back you can hear my voice change. That's because I'm compressing or expanding my vocal cords and they can't work so well in that situation. It's amazing how many of us will do a phone call leaning forward and that changes your voice like that, so stance is important. There's a kind of neutral position I would say which is a very good base. I'm not saying stay there all the time but feet roughly shoulder width apart, slightly narrower for females and everything vertically stacked above. 

I always imagine there's a string in the top of my head that I'm suspended from and that gets your shoulders back and down and you feel nice and relaxed and I imagine roots from my feet going into the ground. So I feel rooted and yet supported and relaxed and it's all vertical and it all looks good. Hands loose by the sides that is a fantastic position to speak from. No jiggling, no physical tics of walking around and around on the spot or leading to one side than the other. These things are distracting. If you do them all day, they'll drive people nuts like a dripping tap. So that's- you can video yourself and spot any of those little things. 

Stance very important; breath crucial. If you're going to be a good talker, learn to breathe. There are lots of breathing exercises. You can do them in yoga or you can simply Google breathing exercises and take on breathing because your voice is just breath. Breath is the fuel for the voice and without being able to breathe it's very difficult. Most of us breathe like a bird, little tiny breaths to the top of our lungs. We don't take many big deep breaths in the day and it's really important to do that. 

Then we've got some of the more fine and really important aspects of voice like for example register. There are four registers of the human voice and the one we would want to use in speaking as modal which can move from the head to the neck or throat down into the chest. I strongly advise anybody who speaks for a living to practice chest voice. You can do that with visualizations, again, you'll find lots of stuff online or go work with a vocal coach. 

You can just google voice coach or speaking coach or drama coach or singing coach. Find somebody near you and work. Go and check out some- find somebody you have good chemistry with and then do a set of sessions to learn how to use your diaphragm, how to breathe, how to speak from the chest. This is a much bigger resonator. 

So if I take my voice up to my throat which is where most people speak from all the time it's a much lighter feeling and as soon as I move down into my chest the voice has added depth. It's where I habitually speak from these days, not everybody does many people don't actually. There’s a lot of people strangled.

Leanne:  Yeah, I’m very jealous.

Julian: Just practice. It's practice- practice-practice. You simply need to be breathing and using the diaphragm. It's a physical thing like learning how to swim or how to ride a bike. So this can all be learned and as you learn it, you give your voice extra authority because you're right. Yes we do prefer in terms of tambour and pitch, we prefer deeper voices, we prefer voices which are described in the way you would describe a hot chocolate, smooth, dark, rich, warm, sweet, all of those words are good for voices. 

So you can work at these things, again, with a vocal coach or simply on your own. Recording yourself is a very good idea. We don't like doing that very much because we all listen to our own voice largely through bone conduction. So it comes through the bones of the skull not much of it comes out of your mouth and round the corner into your ears. So when you hear your voice recorded you go, “That's not me. I'm much deeper than that.”

Leanne:  Yes, yes. [laughs]

Julian: But you're not. Actually, what's going out into the world is what you hear on the recording. So it's very important to record yourself and practice speaking in ways that you feel give you extra extra authority that usually means a bit of depth and that's where practicing the chest voice is really really important. And then then we've got two other incredibly important things about the voice. There is pace and there is prosody or prosody as I like to say it. Pace is something that a lot of people aren't conscious of when they're speaking. 

If you're doing a whole day facilitating something with a group of people, if you maintain the same even pace throughout the entire day they will start to glaze over because we get habituated to sounds and that the habitual cadences of somebody's voice speaking the same way over and over again, saying the same thing over and over again becomes a little bit boring. It's a slightly tedious and we start to glaze over and so really becoming conscious of habitual cadences and of pace is crucial. 

You can go really really fast and get people suddenly, “Oh, hello. There's something really exciting.” or you can slow right down to make a point and to the point where you also need to get to be friends with silence. There's nothing wrong with bit of silence. People don't like it in radio and equally on podcast. 

If I’m silent for 10 seconds then people would start thinking, “Oh, I lost it. What happened? Did it stop?” So dead air on radio is kind of anathema. But if you're in front of people they can see that you haven't disappeared and I've played with this. You can be silent for the longest time really up to ten seconds right comfortably.

Leanne:  Wow.

Julian: And people would just sit there smiling at you and going, “Well, something's going to happen in a minute.” It gives you- if you do this it positions you as a master. You know you are in control. You're comfortable with just being with the other people. You don't have to fill every second with babble and arms and ears. The moment you become comfortable with silence, it gets rid of all that stuff and it's a very very powerful friend to have. So that's pace. Varying the pace is crucial and the other varying that we do in speaking generally is prosody which is the up and down, the sing song of speech. It's how we communicate emotion, how we emphasize certain words and it's also how we break our talking up into discrete chunks. Typically we go down at the end of a sentence, like that. Now, your country has been partly responsible for creating an intonation.

Leanne: I was going to say with you the other way. Yeah.

Julian: Yeah. Which is called high rising terminal, where everything said is a question, even if it isn't a question. Now, that is something to avoid I would say in training particularly, in facilitating, in public speaking because there's a hidden question in that uplift at the end which is kind of, “Is that okay with you?” So it's a kind of questioning intonation and in fact it was originally called Australian questioning intonation or it's otherwise known as high rising terminal. It's in America as well very much on the West Coast and it's really flowed from the American content machine in Hollywood to affect many people particularly younger people around the world who speak like this a lot?

Leanne: Yes, yes.

Julian: So I would tend to avoid that one if you're going to be a professional speaker and remember that it's clear. When you finish a sentence, you go down and that's confident and it shows everybody it's the end. There's no question there, there's no it goes down, “Is that okay with you now. Can I go onto this?”

Leanne: Yeah. You sort of seeking permission, aren’t you?

Julian: Yeah, it's a little bit querulous and it is a little bit less powerful. It's also repetitive and I would avoid repetitive things. And the other, I'm assuming we're talking globally here but I mean, I will say another Australian habit I come across a great deal is “look” at the beginning of every sentence. So, “What's your name?” “Look, I'm John.” Well, that is, it's a verbal tic and if you put a verbal tic- The other big one that is much more common around the world is the word “so” which should mean this then that is a logical sequence this-so-that. Nevertheless, “You get a lot of what you do for a living.” “So I work for-” No, that didn't follow from my question, actually. 

And I say in training people on my conversational little acronym the tool RASA Receive, Appreciate, Summarize, Ask which is a wonderful way to flow conversation. The summarizing is “so”. And I want to reclaim the power of the word “so” from this abuse it's getting all around the world. Because if you have a “so” person in the meeting, “So what we've all agreed is this, now we can move on to that.” or it's a great  way of closing doors along the corridor of your facilitation or conversation, “So we've got that. Now we can move on to the next thing.” 

If you summarize each time, it's good for people's memory and it gets everybody to a nice state where they say, “Yup, that’s finished. Now, it's fresh approach, move on to that. So it's a very powerful little word. And then were going back briefly to prosody, using it, again, culturally-sensitively is important but using it is the most important thing of all. If you have again a voice that's rather monotonous and doesn't go up and down very much and I speak like this for the whole day. It's going to get extremely tedious for people and they really will switch off because they'll get- Monotonous comes from mono tone- one note. 

So it's really important with any kind of conversation and particularly if you're standing in front of a group of people, it's very important to use prosody in order to get your points across. So you've got these wonderful tools. You can go loud, you can go soft and whisper, you can go fast and gobble or you can slow right down to the point where you just go silent.

Leanne: Very effective. So it's really about contrast isn't it? 

Julian: It is. 

Leanne: To get that attention.

Julian: Yeah.

Leanne: I'm on the concept of pace. This is one that's really sort of hits home for me because I talk very quickly. I’m very mindful of it though when I do facilitate especially in other countries because the Australian accents difficult for one thing and then my pace is another thing. What kind of tools or strategies can you use or is it just being mindful and aware that it's okay to talk fast when I want to emphasize a point but to just to change the pace, to change the pitch, to think of everything to make the communication more effective or are there particular tools to kind of slow down your brain so that it doesn't come out of your mouth as quickly?

Julian: Sometimes pace is about nerves and the more you speak the less nervous you will be. It's like any activity. Also, breathing is very important. I would say to interrupters which is a particular habit that can be very destructive in conversation. A great tool for interruptus is simply to take a deep breath every time they're about to speak because that takes a second or two and you might just realize the other person is still speaking while you're taking that deep breath and that is incredibly important on stage as well taking deep breaths. That gives you a chance to slow down again and reset and recalibrate. 

Consciousness is the key to everything. Becoming conscious of what you're doing, how you're standing, the gestures you're using, the pace at which you're speaking, asking the question all the time, “How's my listening? What's the listening?” Because if you're really going fast and people are sort of starting to lean back and, “Whoa! What's going on here?” You can feel that in the room. It's a lovely exercise to deliberately slow yourself down really to what you feel is a grinding low gear and just get the feeling that actually works. 

A lot of this is about practice I mean, like when I'm training people in speaking, we do a lot of range extension with volume, with prosody, with pitch and with pace as well to get people to realize they can go way further than they think. You know our natural range tends to be a tiny little band in the spectrum and going from really really really slow to incredibly fast and really really babbling. There's a huge spectrum there and the natural pace that you tend to move in will be a very small part of that. 

So it's great to expand it to practice, expanding your spectrum so you can start to use more variety in the speaking. Record yourself, video yourself, have people video you when you're actually performing or in front of people, record those sessions. You can get a little zoom digital recorder or something like that for next to nothing and just set it up next to you. Nobody will see it and press record before you start and then you can listen back afterwards. That kind of feedback is absolutely crucial in helping you improve what you're doing and becoming more and more conscious of the tools that you're using and how you're using them. 

Leanne: And that was probably the biggest lesson for me when I started the podcast was having to listen back to the first few interviews and thinking, “What the hell?” So I think I'm still guilty of talking from my throat and I know that not only because of the sound of my voice but at the end of a big day of meetings, my voice will just be in a world of pain especially if I've not been as listening as much as I should have. 

Just to finish off, I want to- your speech the one with 31 million views, you do that vocal warm-up exercise in front of all those people in the TED Conference and that's something that video I show it in a lot of the workshops that I run with presentation skills. I even use some of those vocal tools to warm-up myself in the morning and also the people who are good in the room.

Julian: Very good. 

Leanne: And it's just super fun especially the first one where you sort of just sigh. That's actually very relaxing that first move. That video was published a few years ago. Have you got any other kind of are vocal warm-ups in your toolkit now? Was it just remain the same? 

Julian: No, I've stayed the same actually. I use exactly those ones before I go onstage and speak anywhere. So I use them before this conversation, I use them every conversation. I find that those do it for me. That's not to say that they are the pinnacle of vocal warm-ups. There are lots of famous voice coaches who've worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company and people like Cicely Berry and so forth. You have books full of vocal warm-ups. It depends what you want to do really. 

If you're an actor and you're going to be reading Shakespeare, you need different things. There are specific tools for doing stuff with your lips and your tongue and your mouth and your embouchure and so forth which she has which that’s a different world altogether. You know actors have to be able to whisper onstage, you can hear them right at the back of the theatre. What we don't need to get quite to that level. So I find- I kind of culled those out of looking at what everybody used and I find those fast, easy to remember, fun to do and very effective in readying all the bits of the equipment that I need. So now I haven't changed it over the years. I've stayed with those ones for those very reasons really. 

Leanne: Awesome. Well, isn't that cool that we both use the same warm-up routine for this podcast.

Julian:  Absolutely. Yes, indeed. There you go and that's how it works. And in relation to speaking from the throat I mean, I would say the same to you, Leanne as I would say to anybody which is find a vocal coach and just work on that because if your throat gets stressed, I mean, I can't shout very loudly. I'm not allowed shouter. There some people can shout enormously loudly from their chest. If I go to a rugby match and I probably can't speak very much the next day. So I have the same thing-

Leanne: Especially if you’re an England supporter. Haha.

Julian:  Yeah. Haha. Yes. Well, we won't talk about rugby right now. But if I'm speaking, I can speak all day quite comfortably because I've found a way of keeping my vocal chords quite relaxed when I'm on stage. So I can certainly do that without feeling stressed and if that is happening to you, to anybody listening to this then a vocal coach can really help with that because it's really about that diaphragm and that breathing and getting it into the chest and letting your vocal cords kind of float on top of it. 

Obviously all the sound really comes from there but they can be much more relaxed than they perhaps are at the moment so I do recommend that. There are some wonderful people out there working and they know that science of this extremely well.

Leanne:  Will look into that for the next year. I actually used to play the tuba when I was younger so my breathing was excellent but it sounds much more shallower now. So I would definitely work on that in the new year. Julian, it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you. Your TED speech, it's in the top 10 of TED as you mentioned but for me, it's my favourite TED speech. It's one-

Julian: Thank you.

Leanne: I think I joke to your friend, your assistant that out of the 31 million views, I think I've read it about 29 million times of those.

Julian: Hahaha. Fantastic.

Leanne: It's been so helpful and practical. So thank you so much for all the work that you do.

Julian: My pleasure.

Leanne: If people want to connect with you or find out more about your book in your online courses and watch all your videos, where should we send them?

Julian: Juliantreasure.com would be a good place and that has links to all of that and the book is called How to be heard and it contains everything we've just talked about and awful lot more I tried to pour everything I've learned for years and years about speaking and listening into it. So it's full of exercises and pretty practical. I'm very proud of it actually, so I do recommend it to anybody.

Leanne: Congratulations and thanks again. It's been great having you on the show.

Julian:  Thanks, Leanne. My pleasure. 

Episode transcript with Dave Jackson

Listen to this episode from First Time Facilitator on Spotify. In this episode, I chat to 2018 Podcast Hall of Fame inductee, Dave Jackson. He's been podcasting since April 2005, and has been the host of nearly a dozen different podcasts over the last decade.

Here's a transcript of the First Time Facilitator interview with Dave Jackson.

Prefer listening? Click here to listen to my conversation with Dave Jackson.

Leanne: Dave Jackson, you're a podcasting legend and it's an absolute delight to have a conversation with you today. Thanks for joining us on the First Time Facilitator Podcast.

Dave: Oh, thanks for having me. It's an honour to be here.

Leanne: It's great to have you here. Look! As everyone knows or maybe you don't know but Dave is a podcasting Hall-of-Famer. He started podcasting way back in 2005, I believe.

Dave: Yeah.

Leanne: But you had a bit of a life before then, didn't you? There was a life before podcasting where you worked in various different roles that led you here. I was wondering if you could talk about your career pivots that led you to go down the path of podcasting and what you're doing now.

Dave: Yes. Kind of funny, my original degree was an Electronic Engineering and I thought I wanted to go out and fix stuff. So I actually was a Copier Technician which is not a great job because everybody you run into is upset because their copier doesn't work and I did that for about two years and the manager at the time was a really- he was like probably 6’4”, just a big guy and just kind of intimidating or for whatever reason I would just go up and talk to him and you know water-cooler talk nothing too crazy.

And after about two years, he said, “Hey,  I have a position for you that I'm going to invent.” and I'm like, “Okay.” and he goes, “You seem to like to talk.” and he goes, “We have our customers, we have this great equipment, we have a great sales staff but our customers are breaking it because they don't know how to run it.” and he said, “We want you to go out, set up the equipment, use your technical side and then we want you to teach them how to run the equipment and then more importantly, show them how to not run the equipment so they don't break it.” and so, that made customer like, I don't know, a service call that was inspired because the customer didn't know what they were doing it.

Those like took a huge nosedive and they're like, “Whoa, you seem to be pretty good at that.” and then they asked me, “Do you know anything about computers?” and that then began probably 25 years of me teaching a lot of Microsoft Office and QuickBooks as well as things like time management and customer service and you name it. And over the years, what's interesting is in the corporate world, they will hire salespeople that for whatever reason can't sell and so when sales takes a nosedive they look at the training department and we are just like a giant bullseye and so I've had it happened three times where they go, “You know, you're one of our best trainers but we just don't have the business.” and I'm thinking, “How about hiring new sales guys?” But instead they let the training staff go.

So that happened like the third time and I was like, plus I actually saw where I was going to get replaced by a phone. I had a student once in a class and I was teaching Microsoft Excel and they said, “Have you ever used these two features together?” and I said, “You know, that's a good question.” I did the teacher thing, I said, “Hey, let's write that on the board and we'll talk about that on break.” and as I wrote it on the board, he asked his phone and got an answer and I remember thinking, “I'm going to get replaced by a phone.” It's just a matter of time and sure enough it took about two years but sure enough once again called into the office, “You're one of our best trainers but we got to let you go.” and I was like, “Hmm. I'm really tired.” and in between there actually I went back and got a teaching degree and because I was one of the hurdles. Once you get laid off and you go to get a job in teaching they go, “Your degrees in Electronic Engineering.” So I was like, “All right.”

So I went back to school and got that degree. So I kept jumping through hoops and I'm like the whole goal of this is not to lose your job and I'm like, I'm tired of hearing, “You're great but we're going to let you go.” and so the last time I had been let go, I had been a customer for a podcast media hosting company called Libsyn and I knew what was then the Vice President and I called him up and said, “I've got bad news and good news.” and he's like, “What's the bad news?” and I'm like, “I just lost my job.” and he's like, “Okay. I'll bite. What's the good news?” and I said, “I'm available to work for you, buddy.” and long and behold two weeks later, I now work from home. I make more money than I did when I worked in the corporate world and where I used to have to take a vacation day or whatever to go to these different events. I now get paid to go to those. So it's really quite the dream job for me and I just love it.

Leanne: Yeah. You got to fly to places like Australia and speak at conferences there.

Dave: That's it. It's a lot of fun. I'm going to Washington DC in a couple days to speak in an event there and all sorts of- I've been to San Diego. That's the first time out of the country was Australia but- and what that does is that puts me knee-deep in front of my target audience. So it's always flattering when somebody comes up and says, “Hey, I listen to your show. I love it. “Oh, Michael. Thank you so much.” But then I always ask, “What would you like to hear or is there something I'm doing that you wish I didn't do?”

I'm always looking for some sort of constructive feedback because that's my audience and I can- you have every form of communication. They're not just like written word. I've got body language, I've got tone of voice. I'm like, I can really read my client, they're my potential customer and so I always love to talk to them and find out what they're struggling with. Anything there that I can use to make better content because that's who I'm trying to reach through my podcast.

Leanne: Yeah. Absolutely. And I think you kind of undersell yourself. You're a bit of a celebrity in the podcasting world. You mentioned recently was that you went to Ohio and you had people drive in just to meet with you and talk to you so it's probably really nice as well. It’s been a motivation for your podcast when you get people coming up to you and saying great things about your show and how they heard of you.

Dave: It's fun. Actually, I was in San Diego once and I was walking down the hall and this woman looked up and said, “Oh, wow.” and I turned behind me, there was nobody behind me and I'm like, “What?” and she goes, “You're Dave Jackson.” I'm like, “I am.” and she's like, “Oh, my God.” and so she had like a total fanboy moment and it was like, “Yeah. It's just me. It's not a big deal.” but it is it's very flattering.

Leanne: It is and I love that story of the two years of water-cooler chat and how it actually wound up. You got your career pivot and your next opportunity just through a conversation with a guy over two years. Isn't that fascinating? It just shows the power of being able to communicate.

Dave: Yeah and where it was is, I worked in the city called Canton, Ohio and if you're into American football you recognize that because that's where the NFL has their Hall of Fame. So that City is just bonkers for American football. So I would just come in on Monday and go, “Did you see the game last night?” and that would just set that guy off for ten minutes and I'm not really that much of a sports guy but it was just enough to listen and I would crack a few jokes and he just for whatever reason seemed to like me so that was-

I really didn't do much to develop that relationship besides the fact that everybody's like, “Well, his name is Craig.” They’re like, “Well, that's Craig, man. Like, you know he could fire you.” and I'm like, “Yeah. I know that.” But I'm not and it wasn't like overtly trying to suck up to the guys just like, “What's up Craig?” He's just a guy and so yeah and what was really nice is when I got let go of that particular situation. I'd been there ten years and what happened is they moved me into a position and then I was using a piece of software and then the company decided they weren't going to use the software and they're like, “Oh, what are we going to do with Dave?” And he was really nice, he actually brought me into his office and I had actually been offered another job from another company said, “I heard you got a job offer?” I'm like, “Yeah, yeah. But I love it here.” and he goes, “You might want to look into that.” and I went, “Oh, really?” and he goes, “You know what? It's really nice outside this would be a great time to take your vacation.” and I went, “Really?” and he goes, “I'm trying to do everything I can.”

So he was very polite of kind of saying, “Hey, you know how you kind of like, you kind of ran out of things to do here. You're probably going to get let go.” So he was really nice to kind of let me know the writing on the wall. So those relationships can really come in handy.

Leanne: Yeah, they can and like you said, it's not kind of going in with any sort of expectation. It's just curiosity asking questions and paying someone out about their team, I think it's great.

Dave: Yeah.

Leanne: So you got the school of podcasting now and in the past you were teaching technical skills related to Microsoft Office and fun systems like that. I like that you brought up the concept of “edutainment” so mixing education with entertainment and that's something that I see that you do extremely well which is why I wanted you on the show. How did you, I guess did you coin that phrase or what is it about entertainment that really helps people retain knowledge?

Dave: I think what inspired me is- I don't know if I coined it. I used it a lot and then I saw it on the internet. I'm like, “Okay. Maybe I didn't invent that phrase but-” I have a niece who was just like spooky smart were you kind of like, “Shouldn't you be playing with Barbies?” and she's over there,   whatever splitting atoms or something for fun.

She was insanely smart and I remember it's right when computers first like computer learning you'd pop in a DVD and I think was something like Roger Rabbit teaches reading or whatever and she's just in there laughing and having a good old time and I walk in I go, “What you're doing? And she's like, “Oh, I'm playing with Roger.”  And I see she's I don't know at the time she was like probably kindergarten and she was doing like math tables and I'm like, “Wait a minute. I don't even know half this stuff when I was her age.” and it just dawned in I'm like, “You know, if you make this fun, people don't mind learning it. Doesn't seem so much like school.”

And I had a teacher in college that would just come in, it was a really boring class. It was tech report writing so you had to write like directions so that a monkey could do whatever job you're trying to explain and he would literally come in and just blow off the first 10 minutes and kind of make wisecracks and make fun of people or whatever and it would just really loosened up the class and then he's like, “All right. Well, let's do some of this boring stuff.” and we would and I just was like, “I love this guy style.” and again he made it fun. So I've always tried to do that. So I remember when I was teaching like Excel, if I was just trying to teach a basic kind of equation, “Let's add these three things together.”, I would always look at my audience and if I had people that were like in their ‘40s that would be great because they remembered The Three Stooges which was this old comedy, black-and-white TV thing that people, a lot of those people that were in their ‘40s watched them when they were little kids and I would say, “Okay, let's say your first customer is Larry and they don't see anything yet and then I would say and your second customer is Curly.

Well, that was a clue that we're talking the Three Stooges now and that would just get them kind of like, “Okay.” and then it would just play on something they already knew and got everybody thinking about it and somebody would start making a Three Stooges noise and all of a sudden we're learning how to make a spreadsheet but we're having fun at it. So anything I could do to add some sort of humour or make it fun or just not boring number crunching.

It made it a little more fun and by the end they're like, “I can't wait to take part two or part three.” and what was always really flattering is when I would hear somebody say, “Well, how many teachers do you have at this particular business?” I'd say, “Oh, we have like four or five and then they’re like, “Can I request that you teach the class?” I'm like, “Yes, you can.” So that was always for me just like, “Okay. I must have done something right because they're  requesting me.” and I just always just to me it was like the eight hours went a lot faster because some of this stuff was just ridiculously dry and I'm like, “Oh, this is so boring. I got to find a way to spice it up a bit.”

Leanne: It does take time and energy on your part, on the trainer's behalf to do that and I think a lot of people do have the intention of delivering something that's really engaging and fun but then they're so busy and caught up with life that they don't take that time investment to really think of examples like The Three Stooges or do just little tweaks like that can really make a great training environment. So congratulations on having students that wanted you back for more.

Dave: Well, just one other thing I would do is I would just ask, “Introduce yourself and tell me what you do at your job.” and that way if they said, “I run the library at my company.” So now when I'm coming up with an example, I can say, “Hey. Well, if we're doing this and now you're doing something in your library and you need to any untighten to what they're doing, that always seem to then connect with the your students in this case or your audience because you kind of know who you're talking to.”

Leanne: Yeah and that's exactly right and personalizing it to who they are. So I guess you wouldn't really use a Three Stooges analogy around people a bit younger than me nowadays.

Dave: Right.

Leanne: But the people in your room were 40 years old, they grew up with. It's an instant connection and it makes people laugh already because it was a funny show.

Dave: Right.

Leanne: So preparation, I'm wondering and I know you're talking in Washington this weekend and I saw on your Facebook profile that you're practicing this speech about 20 to 30 times. Is that something that you usually do or is it just for a big steaks presentations?

Dave: It's just something I do every time and I think the reason for that is number one, you can make your slides, you can make your PowerPoint slides and I do my best not to create death by PowerPoints. Instead I have images that will inspire me so in my head, I have the bullet points. I try not to have the bullet points on the screen I want them in my head and so I'll start with the slides and then from there it's like, “Okay. I know what's in my head. Do those words actually come out of my mouth or have I made a bullet points that are tongue twisters, I didn't even realize it and does it flow?” and by doing this over and over and over, I don't know if it somehow triggers my subconscious or what but inevitably about three days before the event I'll have an “aha” moment where I'm like, “Oh, you know what? That would be a better explanation.” or “This would tie in nicely here.” or “This would be a transition or something of that nature.”

And I've just found by, it's not a nervous thing because what's hilarious is no matter how many times I rehearse it about two minutes like the minute they put a microphone on me, all the blood will rush out of my hands and they become just giant like I have ten ice cubes for four fingers and that's just normal. That's what I'm and I know that now and before I might go, “Oh, what's wrong? I'm really, really nervous.” and I'm like, “Nope, I’m okay. It's time to talk because my hands have left the building and I just- when that starts, the minute I start that's when the nerves go away and I'm ready to start and I launch into it and I know what's going to happen and I've also realised that no matter how many times I rehearse it, somewhere in my presentation I will call an audible. I will do something that was unplanned.

So when in Australia, we were doing a thing and I was talking about how it took Jerry Seinfeld 17 years to become an overnight sensation and I was watching my presentation and I decided to go old man preacher guy and I was like, “Everybody say 14, and the crowd went, “14” and then later, when I said, “It was 17 years.” I go, “Everybody say ‘years’.” everybody's like, “Years.” Just something to do with interactive. That was absolutely not planned it was just something I'm like, “All right. This is going pretty good. What can I do here to make it a little more interactive?” It was about halfway through the presentation. I got to do something to keep people awake and so I just did that off the top of my head that was not planned and that used to kind of bug me but I just know whatever's going to happen that I'm going to have a plan and somewhere in there I'm going to try something and the good news is about 90% of the time it works.

Leanne: Yeah. I love that interactive part and I think Tyson uploaded that video on Facebook. I might be able to share a copy of that on the show notes.

Dave: Yeah.

Leanne: But what it really did was really emphasize the point that to be an overnight sensation it takes a lot of time, a lot of work, a lot of consistency and commitment. So I think by getting that audience interaction, you really made that point stick. I thought you absolutely killed it away up our podcast. You were one of I think the second last speakers on the second day which is never an easy shift to pull but for some reason and it definitely was a really raised the energy levels and I kind of felt sorry for Pat Flynn who was after you. I just thinking, “Geez, you're a hard act to follow.” Everyone was in hysteric.

Dave: Well, here's the thing, there is a competitive side to me and I always want to make whoever follows me. There's a- this is even before my time but back in the ‘60s, there was Woodstock and there was a band called The Who and they would smash all their equipment and they really did it in this instance and the reason because that is somehow they had to flip a coin or whatever but Jimi Hendrix had to follow them and they were mad that they were not going on last so they said, “You know what? We're just going to make it. So we're almost impossible to follow.”

So I love Pat Flynn and I knew Pat Flynn was going to do great. There was nothing I could do to upstage Pat Flynn but I wanted to make him sweat a little bit and the other thing that dawned on me literally like 10 seconds before I started to speak was, “Hey, you know what? None of these people have ever seen me speak because the majority of them were from Australia.” That really, really got me excited because I was like, “Okay. I've got to do something here.” and all I did is I remember forget what the point was but I actually jumped up in the air. I said something like people have to jump in the pool or something like that and I remember I jumped and I looked up and oh, I can't remember her name but she kind of like actually in her chair kind of jumped like, “Oh. There's movement here.” and I was like, “Okay. This is fun. And so to me I was like, “Now we're in my element and I've got their attention. Now I've just got to make sure I don't lose it.”

Leanne: Yeah, I know. I was actually remember looking across close sitting at the back and I was looking around and people were just crying with laughter and I even think, “Who is this guy? He’s so funny.” And you brought up the Woodstock and Jimi Hendrix and I know that you're a bit musical as well.

Dave: Right.

Leanne: and you've been part of a band. How’s that sort of helped you as well with the stage presence and getting over that minute before the nerves and accepting that's just a normal part of the way that you perform?

Dave: Yeah, a little bit. Especially the bigger the crowd, the bigger your movements have to be. I've played in front of thousands of people. We played a big outdoor festival and it's not enough to just stand there and look at your sneakers in fact that drives me crazy when I go to see a live band and they're standing, there staring at their shoes and just playing. I like to look at my audience and make as much eye contact as I can and constantly move and in fact if anything I think sometimes I look more like a- I don't know a tiger at the zoo that's just pacing back and forth but that's just to me. I’m energetic, I'm ready to make a great first impression and so I just don't want to stand there in and talk. So I'm trying to do something to just keep you going and avoid you looking at your phone.

So any kind of big movement, I've done a couple of different presentations where I'm whaling my arms or I'm getting loud and then I'm getting soft and anything to just break the dynamics whether that's one minute I'm making a point I'm talking really, really fast and then the next minute I'm making my point and I'm accenting my words. So whether it's loud, soft, fast, slow, standing still, making a point, a great thing I learned from Chris Rock who's a comedian, is Chris Rock will walk to the left of the stage and he'll say his point and then I'm going to walk over here to the right side of the stage and make my point and then when he walked through the middle, he'll say the punch line and I was like, “Oh, that's kind of a cool technique.” If you watch him do that, he does it all the time and so anytime I'm trying to really make a point, I'm really like this is the one you need to remember if I was an old preacher guy, I'd be pounding the podium. I'll just do in my head I'm like, “Let's do the Chris Rock.” and I'll walk it off to the side, I'll walk to the right side but when it's time to make the main point, I will stop and look everybody straight in the eye and make that main point.

Leanne: It really is about contrast and I noticed that you do that with your voice not only on the stage but as part of school of podcasting?

Dave: Yeah.

Leanne: I do notice that you change the tempo, the volume which makes it really easy to listen to and I like that you're also inspired by Chris Rock who is a comedian. Just on the topic of humour, are you naturally- have you always been this funny or have you had to work at this because it just seems that you come out with crazy funny things like every moment of the day?

Dave: I don't know. I think the biggest one, my mom was hilarious. My mom was the queen of puns growing up and we were always trying to make each other laugh and I always like to go right to the line like, “Is this offensive or not?” I'm always asking myself like, “Is this offensive or not?” I remember once where we were talking about what makes a good podcast and I said, “It might be what makes a good presentation.” I said, “You know what? Podcasting is like porn. You know it when you see it or a good podcast is like porn, you know it when you see it but you can't define it.” So you might say that about a presentation, right?

A great presentation in the middle of you're like, “This is awesome.” But if you were to explain to somebody what is it. It's like, “Well, it's kind of this and that.” But you just know it when you see it. But the fact that I used the word “porn”, I was like, “Ooh. Am I going to offend somebody or like that?” So I'd like to push it right to the edge that just because I think by doing that, it kind of shows that I'm comfortable that I'm going to say this kind of word in front of you and I think hopefully that endears me to the audience that, “Okay, Dave's kind of let his guard down. I'm going to let my guard down.” and again if their guards down, well then we can be a little funny with each other and that funny then leads to, “Hey, we're actually learning stuff and we didn't even realise it because we're too busy laughing.”

Leanne: Yeah. It's like when you meet some people in the corporate world and everyone's dressed or formally and then if they come out and say something that's not politically correct which I love that kind of humour.

Dave: Right.

Leanne: I just- it really disarms both of you and you can actually have a really good conversation because you know we're all human. I want to talk about the comfort zone and I know that on the recent episode you spoke about we our podcast and it was a big thing for you coming to Australia first time out the country in quite some time. Just want to share a bit about why it's worth kind of busting through the comfort zone? We have a lot of listeners that are first-time presenters and they want to get more confident at getting in front of a room but it's a little bury that needs to push through to get there. Is it worth pushing through?

Dave: Oh, absolutely. I mean, there are so many things that I look back down and go. I was scared to do something and number one, it's never as bad as you think it's going to be. When I heard I was going to be on a plane for 17 hours. I pictured children on fire screaming and somebody behind me kicking my kidneys through the chair and just all sorts of just mayhem and it was absolutely not that at all.

So I think a lot of times we think about the worst case scenario and it really ever is the worst case scenario. In fact, for me it was like every time I turned around it was like, “Oh, right. That was actually pretty cool.” When I heard that the rounds me the guy that did the whole event and organised it. We had seating, we had assigned seating. I'm like, “But I want to sit with my friends.” and I'm going to end up sitting at a table with nobody and if you scrape me all the way down and peel back the layers, I'm actually a little shy. And so the fact that I had to meet brand new people, it turned out to be great. I met all sorts of great people but there was a part of me that was like, “Oh, this could be really awkward. I'm kind of shy.” and so anything that you think is out of your comfort zone, I said this in my presentation. I said, “I was either going to end up with a great time or if things weren't horrible, I was going to end up with a great story.” and actually, in my case I ended up with both.

I had a great time and I met all these great people and I got to do all these new things and so I ended up with a great time and a great story and so just you can't- whether it's a presentation, you can practice all you want in the basement but you don't know if it's any good until you do it in front of people and that's the part of course that makes us want to wet our pants. But I love- there's a presentation that there was this old country guy, George Jones. He was like this country legend in the States and there was another country guy named Vince Gill, who's very, very popular, very, very talented. Well, these two people were friends and so Vince Gill is trying to sing at George Jones's funeral which right there is like, “That's a tough act.” and then he's singing a song that's super-duper sad.

So poor Vince gets through about I don't know, half a verse before he literally just breaks down and cannot sing and it's a duet so his partner is still singing the harmony but Vince is just over there trying to sing. And I think sometimes if we somewhat crash and burn on stage during our presentation, maybe the slide isn't working right or we lost our place or whatever reason something in our head is going, “Oh, this isn't going well.” and we think the audience is going to hate us. It's the direct opposite. Your audience wants you to succeed.

So in this YouTube video if you find it, you actually see where another country guy Garth Brooks stands up like, “Hey, we're here for you buddy. I know you're having a hard time but doggone it, we're here for you.” and the entire audience stood up and I was like that is like one of the coolest things I've ever seen and sure enough he eventually kind of got it together and continued to sing.

And so that's when I was like, there are many times when we're doing a presentation and things don't go well. This year I was inducted into the Academy of podcasters Hall of Fame, you would mention that and you want to talk about practice. I must have practiced this speech 70 times. I had it in my phone, I had it almost memorized and I'm going to say the fourth or fifth sentence out of my mouth, my mouth just decided to leave and I forget what I said but it wasn't right and I went to say something like “chose” and instead I said “choosen” and I just laughed. I just laughed and I said, “Okay. We're making up words tonight.” and I heard my audience laugh and I went, “You know what? You idiot! You're standing in front of a whole audience full of your friends. What are you worried about? Just shut up and be you.” and I knew that I was kind of like when that first mistake happens because in my brain and I'm like, “Okay. There it is. There's the mistake. You can kiss perfect out the window and let's continue on.” because there's always going to be something that you go, “Hmm. All right. I didn't mean to say that or that didn't go right or my mouth didn't work or whatever.”

So at that point, it allowed me to kind of chill out and then just have this great presentation. So don't freak out when if you do something wrong. Nobody ever knows it if we go back to me being a musician. Nobody ever knows when you mess up playing a song unless you make a face and stomp your foot or some like that. So get out of your comfort zone, get out there and try it and the more you do it, the better you'll be.

Leanne: Yeah. I do think we put some unrealistic expectations on us to be perfect. But I think you- I guess fudging your words on stage, I can see everyone sort of relaxing, you're relaxing and they're just getting on with it. I think it's actually quite healthy to make errors and like you said nothing it's gosh if you're not crying in front of Garth Brooks which I don't think any of us will be in that situation in the future.

Dave: Yeah.

Leanne: Yeah. What's the worst that can really happen. So you talked about having humour is a really important skill preparing is obviously something very important to you. What other kind of skills makes a really good trainer or facilitator or presenter?

Dave: I think it all goes back to kind of knowing who your audience is because when you're teaching something, you're trying to get them into a spot that they've never been. Whether it's some sort of new step by step thing or a new concept or whatever. So if you can kind of know who your audience is and know where they're at. Well, then you know where they're at, you know where you want them to be. It's up to you to find out how to bridge that gap.

And so if I'm in front of people, we'll just use the example of podcasting. If I'm trying to explain what podcasting is to somebody and they look up and they're 60 years old, I'm like, “Okay, that person understands a radio. They grew up with radio. I'm going to use radio.” and I will then say, “Okay. Well, you know how you have a radio to tune into a station and they'll say, “Yes.” I'm like, “Okay. Well, your radio in the new world is like your phone. You have this app.” and I'll just go through the whole thing and I'm just, “Okay. Do you understand this?” “Yes.” “This ties to that.” and so just for me, I love analogies and so anything I can do to help them kind of start where they're at, get to where they're at and then ask them questions in some cases.

Even if it's in a presentation, you can just say, “Are you with me with that and does everybody understand it?” or you might even say, “What would happen if I did this now?” and somebody should say, “Well, Dave, you'd catch on fire.” Like, “Exactly, you got it right. Moving on.” and just do a quick quiz to make sure they're with you and then keep on going and then what happens if you go, “Hey. What would happen if this happened?” In your head you're thinking they're going to say, “Dave, you'd catch on fire.” and nobody says anything this is a fun one. It takes a lot of courage. Don't say anything because that awkward pause is going to make somebody go, “Oh, he's actually looking for us to answer.” and then you might even if nobody answers then you just go, “Well, will I catch on fire?” Making it a yes-or-no question which is even easier and then if somebody says, “Yes.” and you're like, “Correct. Okay, moving on.”

But that's some of those things, it takes a little courage to do to have that awkward pause or to ask them a question or what if they don't interact here and there's only one way to find out and I think we all have that one presentation on occasion then you're like, “Oh, wow. That did not go one or two.” But most of the time if you know who your audience is you've practiced it you're going to be fine.

Leanne: Yeah. I love the- you mentioned the awkward pause. Sometimes it just feels like an eternity up there. It's like time to stand still and your praying someone just speaks up but it is a good tactic and if we can become more comfortable using that pause and we're in the right direction I think it definitely challenges and someone in that room will get really awkward with it and just say something. So you do a lot of learning. You’ve got your teaching degree. Was there any sort of particular book, resource, advice or podcast that really sort of stepped up your game or has just been your experience all that time on your feet in front of rooms which really helped you?

Dave: I think some of it goes back to- I'd like to reverse engineer. Like for me, I was- I make content now all the time and so I kind of sat back and said, “Well, what do I like and why do I like it?” and whether it's the news or if it's a TV show or a movie or whatever. I'm like, “Okay. That was really good.” and then I go. “Why? Why was that really good?” and so for me, most of the stuff I consume either makes me laugh, cry, think, groan, educate, or entertain. Something in there that's going to do that. So I do that and I try to always do one of those things and say, “Okay, in this slide, what am I doing?” or I'll come up with a main point for my entire presentation.

I remember once I spoke at podcast movement and my main point, my one sentence summary was every podcast can benefit from editing. That was it. If somebody said what's your presentation about, that was it and then every slide reinforced that point. So whether it was the fact that magazines have an editor and books have an editors. So why don't podcasts have an editor? But every slide was like reinforcing that main point. I think sometimes that if I get stuck on how am I going to do this, how am I going to attack this particular subject, I look back and go, “Okay. What's the one sentence, what's the one thing that I can boil this whole presentation down to?” That's actually called, there's a book called it's from the score conference Ken Davis, I want to say the Secrets of Dynamic Communication. It's all about speaking online. It's a great book and he talks about that having one sentence and then having all the slides reinforce that main point.

Well, if your presentation has multiple points that's fine but use that same thing and say, “Okay. The next five slides are going to reinforce this point.” and then I'm going to move on to this point. Okay, what's the one sentence and just kind of boil it down. Because sometimes especially if you've ever been in the situation where you thought you had 30 minutes to speak and then you show up and they go, “Oh, yeah and remember you have 20 minutes.” and you're thinking, “Oh, wow. I got to cut 10 minutes out.” You go back to that one sentence, “Okay. What's the main thing I'm trying to get across here.” and then you can sometimes that will help you figure out what slides to cut.

Leanne: That one sentence is very powerful and it sounds like the way that you create a presentation is similar the way that you need to sort of reform an argument. So what is the point I want to get across and then backing that up and you also were a participant in the great debate at the podcasting conference this year and your slide, I believe, didn't win unfortunately but it was very entertaining.

Dave: No. Well. And what's fun about that is I've studied a little bit of Improv, not a lot. But there's always that thing. Because I was completely off the top of our head. We kind of had a little clue but not really. I met with my other team members and we kind of, “Here's some points we're going to hit.” but I didn't know who was going to hit. I was going last so I had no idea what was going to be left and that's a case where you really think, “Oh, I can't just make something up.” I'm here to tell you, your brain will find something to come out of your mouth. I worked with a guy who teaches Improv and he just kept throwing me these weird ideas and I would think, “I have no idea what to say.” and somehow my brain would come up with something. So yeah, your brain is pretty powerful and as long as you remember to breathe, that's another fun one.

Because sometimes when we get a little nervous then we start taking shallow breaths, we're robbing our brain of something that it actually needs right now which is oxygen and that'll help keep you calm and kind of help you get through it. But yeah, don't be- that was fun because they said, “Here's what we're going to do.” and I'm like, “Oh.” Again, getting out of my comfort zone I'm like, “So I'm going to do something. I'm okay. I'm going to argue a point in front of people, I'm not sure what I'm going to say. I'm not sure what my other teammates are going to say. Okay.” and yeah, we did lose but I had a lot of fun.

Leanne: Awe, it was awesome. It was so much fun. It was like a bit of a roast, actually.

Dave: Yeah.

Leanne: A lot of people having a go at each other. Dave, fantastic points. So you spoke about Improv, you spoke about your time. Just having water-cooler conversations and how that opened up an opportunity for you. How getting out of your comfort zone is super important and just some incredible stories or things that have gone well and haven't gone some well. As well as you've thrown in some great analogies too. If people want to connect with you, see more of your stuff, see where you're at, listen to your podcast, where can they find you?

Dave: My main website is schoolofpodcasting.com and all my contact information, everything you need is over there at schoolofpodcasting.com.

Leanne: Cool and we'll link to all of that in the show notes and Dave I just love the excuse to give you a call and chat to you again. I really appreciate all the insights that you've given me and our audience today and it was great catching up with you again, post speakers retreat and podcasting conference and all the best.

Dave: Thank you very much. It was a great talking to you.

[END OF AUDIO] 34:34

Episode transcript with Dr Irena Yashin-Shaw

Listen to this episode from First Time Facilitator on Spotify. Today's guest is on a mission to liberate innovation, creativity and leadership within organisations. On this episode, you'll hear how Dr Irena Yashin-Shaw transitioned from a high school teacher to become Australia's leading expert on creativity and innovation.

This is an episode transcript with my guest, Dr Irena-Yashin-Shaw. Listen to the First Time Facilitator conversation here.

Leanne: We are very lucky to have today's guest on the First Time Facilitator Podcast. I would like to welcome Dr. Irena Yashin-Shaw to the show. Dr. Irena thanks so much for joining us.

Dr. Irena Yashin-Shaw: My absolute pleasure, Leanne. Thank you very much for having me.

Leanne: No problem at all. It was an absolute delight meeting you at Jane Anderson's workshop a couple of months ago. I've been sort of following your work for some time and then you were in the room, it was a bit crazy and that's how this interview all happened. I'd like to start just by talking about your career history. I love asking all the facilitators on the show how they wound up in the roles that they're in. You are not only a facilitator; you are one of Australia's leading experts in innovation, creativity, and leadership. How did to you get to this stage?

Irena: Well, it's been a bit of a journey, an interesting journey, Leanne. I started out as a teacher, in fact, I was a high school teacher. My whole life has been devoted in one form or another to education and the nurturing and the releasing of human potential. I was a teacher for a number of years and that prompted me to go into a master's degree in education, at which point I discovered I absolutely loved educational psychology and really delving into theory and research and how that could be translated into practice. I then went on to do a PhD in creative problem-solving. Specifically looking at how people gain expertise in solving open-ended kinds of ill-defined problems.

Then after that, I went on to the education faculty at Griffith University and was also continuing some research. Worked on a number of different research projects and then at about 12 years ago, decided that it was time to step out and start my own practice, but still in education because I now work with adults and do various forms of education through workshops, through keynote presenting and speaking, through mentoring programs. Essentially, I'm still an educator and I have been my whole career. That is me through and through. That is my mission in life, my purpose for being on this planet.

It's been a privilege and an interesting journey to just go through those various incarnations of being an educator in those different contexts.

Leanne: That's right. I love that your mission is so loud and clear. You started as a high school teacher, I'm wondering what were the differences that you found between teaching high school students and then working with adults in corporate life? Are there any similarities? I know sometimes it feels like I've got some 15-year-olds in the room, but what did you notice, what was a bit different?

Irena: Now look, working with adults is very different to working with students and there's a whole degree of-- There's a whole lot of research around the difference between pedagogy and andragogy and how adults need to learn things in a context in which the information is as quickly applicable as possible. Now that also works for students, but it is somewhat different because adults, absolutely, need to have a really good reason why they are learning something new and what the benefits of those will be to them and to their workplace and how they can apply that learning immediately so that it becomes embedded, and they need to have a very hands-on approach.

They need to see the immediate benefits offered in order for them to invest the time and effort into learning new things. There is a big difference. I loved my time as a teacher. I enjoyed my time in the classroom and now I enjoy my time in the training room with adults. It's just a different incarnation.

Leanne: It is a different incarnation. I agree with you, the immediate benefit I think especially adults, we're very time poor so when we're called out to go to a workshop or some sort of training course, we want to see that immediate benefit.

Irena: Absolutely.

Leanne: I know that both as a facilitator and as a participant who it's time poor, how do we then teach big things? You talked about creativity, and you did your PhD on solving complex problems, how do you teach that in a way where people walk out feeling that they've got an immediate benefit when it's such a complex topic that you're teaching?

Irena: Well look, it depends on how deeply people want to take a dive into those areas and how much of it they want to transfer immediately into their professional practice. I've done workshops which might be, say, a half-day workshop, where we do identify the concepts.

It's more a consciousness-raising situation because we can't teach deep complex problem-solving in a couple of hours. For that, we need people to be prepared to go on a journey. The best way, of course, is to start with seeing the relevance for that information for them. For example, with my solution center change program, which is built around learning the skills of understanding one's own creative problem-solving preference then developing our creativity and then looking at how we can collaborate with others, that's a wonderful introduction for people to then be ready to take some of the tools that I introduce them to in that experience.

Then move on to begin to applying them in the workplace and actually solving problems. You don't learn about this stuff by hearing about it. The way you learn about this is to become confident in using the tools. I've got a whole suite of tools when I'm working with adults and we're training around innovation and creativity and intrapreneurialism. I've got a variety of processes and frameworks and methodologies that people can see themselves in and then they use those frameworks and strategies and tools in order to support their activity where they actually solve real problems and get real outcomes that are measurable and quantifiable.

Then they develop their confidence in them and then they can reuse them again without the scaffold of my mentoring because they've acquired the skills to know how they can then adapt to that complex information for new situations.

Leanne: That's a question I often ask the facilitators on the show is it's all well and good to deliver an incredibly engaging workshop where you've got great participation but haven't you bed lining after that? I think you just spoken to that in terms of you give them the confidence in that workshop to apply all the tools and methods. Your job is really making something complex very simple for them.

Irena: Yes. Well with many of my programs now, even with my one-day workshops, I ask people to come with issues already identified that they want to solve during the course of the day. Now that's a bigger ask, actually solving something in a day, but in the mentoring programs, we're able to take a few months. Learning needs to be contextualized. For adults, if it's decontextualized, if it's not immediately relevant, it just slips off people's already very busy minds and it doesn't get embedded and it doesn't get transferred.

One of the ways that I address that is by asking people to do some pre-work before they come into their first experience with me already having got their mind in the right space, already having done the background reading, already having thought through what are the key issues that they want to solve. That way we've really hit the ground running when we're working together.

Leanne: [unintelligible 00:42:57] some of the workshops that you're running are really based on this concept of intrapreneurialism which is-- We've all heard about entrepreneurs. There's a guy in London called Chris Ducker who's talking about youpreneurs, can you explain what intrapreneurs are for our listeners and why they're so important for organizations into the future?

Irena: Look, it's a term that still I'm finding not many people are familiar with. If I'll say intrapreneur, people go, "Oh, you actually do mean entrepreneur." "No. No, I don't. I mean an intrapreneur." The intrapreneur is someone who thinks and acts like an entrepreneur while working inside a large organization or a business or a government agency, whatever the case may be. It's someone who has that kind of entrepreneurial mindset is looking for opportunities to solve high-value problems and bring that value into their workplace but it's not their own business.

They are doing it in the context of the existing organization that they are already working within, but they are finding new ways of doing things or new ways of adding value, new ways of delighting customers, new ways of increasing revenue, but they're doing it unbidden. They're doing it because they've got that kind of drive to want to go above and beyond what the basic role description might be of their jobs. These are the people who I just say they are the future of the organization because these are the people who bring enormous value to whatever contexts that they're working in.

I use the metaphor of a helium balloon or a hot air balloon where despite the pull of gravity, it still manages to get lift off and soar into the wild and widely yonder. Intrapreneurs are a bit like that so despite the pull of gravity that might keep them shackled whether it's bureaucratic procedures or entrenched practices or business as usual thinking within the context, they've got that drive and that entrepreneurial spirit that means that they will find ways of getting around obstacles, of rising above those things that keep others shackled in order to do differently and create new values.

Leanne: I love the phrase. I think it's brilliant, and I've worked where I currently work in a big corporate company, big global organization. I worked for the Western Australian State Government, so I'm very aware of the gravity that you talk about. I'd like to find out, and I feel like sometimes I have a bit of a helium balloon in an organizations but from time to time, the gravity can bog you down a bit, how do you encourage these people that have this intrapreneurial drive to keep going when there are barriers which could be real or perceived? Things like delegations of authority, clunky systems, processes which make it really hard to be creative.

I'm saying perceived because I think they are but how do you keep people motivated that have that drive?

Irena: Well, when I work with them, the first thing I do is give them a pathway. If people feel like they're making progress, then they will stay motivated. It's demotivating when people putting a lot of effort into something and they genuinely see absolutely no progress, or they get stuck in busy work that looks like there's a lot happening there but it's actually not delivering any outcomes. I think you probably know what I mean by that. You don't really see worth.

Leanne: I do.

Irena: Always so busy, we're so busy but what's actually happening in terms of value? Are we actually creating value through all of that busyness? One of the things that I encourage people to do is to take time out to give themselves some dedicated headspace to think. Now that sounds like a real luxury when you go, "Oh, really you're going to take half an hour just to think. That's a bit of a luxury, isn't it?" I say well actually that's the most important work that you can possibly do. Because unless we've got that headspace to think, then nothing else happens. That's also the time when we replenish our motivation, we can see through the barriers, we can actually look at what the possibilities and options are et cetera.

I do encourage people to do that on a regular basis and in a dedicated way and not just leave it to chance. That's one thing that people can do to keep themselves fresh and motivated. The other thing that I find really valuable with some people who work with me within organizations is to start little communities of practice so that they can actually hang out with other people who are like them in the entrepreneurial spirit and wanting to drive intrapreneurial initiatives. When I work within an organization, I'll often help them to start up either something that we refer to as a community of practice where they get together and learn from each other and encourage each other or I say, do some out loud learning.

Learning out loud where they might go off and have lunch together but deliberately talk about what it is that they're doing and that way they're actually encouraging each other as well. If people can show the benefit and the value of what it is that they're wanting to do, then those perceived bureaucratic barriers aren't always as impenetrable as people think. Because who's going to be crazy enough to say to an intrapreneur who comes along and says, "I've got this fantastic idea that if we implement is going to save this business $100,000 over the next year."

Can you seriously imagine anyone in their right mind going, "Well, actually we don't really want to know about that. Get back to work and keep going."? Something that people aren't particularly good at, and it's one of the things that I do, I've started to focus on increasingly in my programs, is people being able to articulate very clearly the value of what it is that they're proposing. If they can be really clear about the benefits and lead with the benefits-driven case and advocate for their ideas in a way that foregrounds the benefits, not just for them but for their team, for their organization, for the world if necessary.

If they can articulate those really clearly, then there is so much more likelihood that the resistance will be less, and their ideas will be taken up and supported through the organization.

Leanne: In the example that you just gave about, "Hey, I've got an initiative and it's going to save us $100,000 this year," not many people even get to the stage where they put a quantity.

Irena: Correct.

Leanne: It's just like, "Oh, this is a great idea," but then they don't translate to benefit.

Irena: That's absolutely true, Leanne. It's one of the things that I've in some ways been a little bit surprised about. People and sometimes in corporations or government departments or even large businesses who don't work in the finance area, they aren't used to taking that extra step of quantifying the return on investment. One of the things that I get them to do in my Human Helium Program, towards the end as they bring in their projects to fruition, is to literally do the maths on what they've done. What benefit has your project or initiative brought back to the organization, how much time has it saved frustration, how has it streamlined processes?

Then we literally do the math, and we put dollar signs on it and go, "Okay, well if it saves this much time, and you've done one out of 50 forms that you've digitized, what does that add up to in terms of dollars? Now let's multiply that across the organization, let's multiply that across a year." People are invariably absolutely staggered when they see the dollar sign at the end that what they thought was a relatively humble initiative, brings back to the organization in terms of lost productivity and gains in efficiencies and effectiveness to the business. You're right, people aren't used to taking that additional step and so it's actually become a really important part of the work that I do with intrapreneur.

Leanne: It sounds like a lot of-- You're talking at the beginning of facilitators and how they need to ensure that the audience understands how relevant the training is. This is another example of not styles but a bit of persuasion, a bit of marketing efforts that go behind both being a facilitator and being an intrapreneur and demonstrating value through the way you communicate. Just on the topic of communication, when I did meet you at that workshop with Jane Anderson, you put up your hand and spoke about the photographer that was in the room and how great her work was, but you spoke in this way that everyone just turned, and you were very compelling.

You've got this incredible voice and presence, how did you develop that?

Irena: Thank you so much for saying that. Such kind words, Leanne. You're too kind.

Leanne: Very well deserved.

Irena: Look, it's been a journey and it's been something that I've been interested in my whole life. Quite apart from my work as an educator, I've been fascinated by the whole area of psychology and, in particular, personal psychology and personal empowerment and what is it that gives people that sense of agency and self-efficacy and self-determination and a belief in themselves and that sense of confidence that they can make a difference and change the world if they want to. Part of the reason I think I embarked on that was because, as you might have heard me share that day when we met, I'm extremely tiny. I am at the extreme end of the bell curve in terms of my height.

I'm a really diminutive, very, very petite woman. I think early in my life, I came to realize that when you're really tiny, you can be in danger of being overlooked or given the wrong kind of attention. Not that people were deliberately doing it, but you just don't have that huge physical presence that someone who's 6 foot 4 and built like a house automatically has because of their physical stature. I realized that because of my tiny stature, I was going to have to really work on myself to make sure that I had the impact on the world that I wanted to create.

I embarked on, not that I knew it at the time but, a whole lot of development activities that were designed around creating that sense of confidence and that capacity to impact and influence in the world. Back in my school days, I was a debater, I was in all of the school musicals. Then when I left and went into the workforce, even while I was a teacher, I joined Toastmasters, I went off and did Speech and Drama qualifications, I learned some theater techniques for presenting oneself, I did improv, I worked on my voice, I worked on my speech skills, worked on my presentation skills but having fun along the way because it was my hobby.

I was doing all of these purely because I was interested in it and I got a lot of satisfaction and enjoyment out of it. It's only now that I look back that I realize that I think inadvertently it was probably my way of saying I'm going to make sure that I never get overlooked in this world and that I'm going to develop the skills that I need to ensure that I have this very powerful sense of empowerment and presence in the world to probably or to counteract my very small stature. It has been a bit of a journey, yes.

Leanne: I like hearing that it's been a bit of a journey in that I guess that reassures me because when you hear someone like you speak, you think, "Wow, how do they do that? Is it just a natural thing that they've got? If so, I've got no chance," but to hear that you've actually really invested a lot of time, a lot effort, a lot of energy, a lot of dollars to get where you are, I think it shows that it's a skill that can be taught.

Irena: Absolutely, it can be. Absolutely. I actually believe anything can be taught. I think all it takes is a determination to want it enough. I talk these days a lot about growth mindset. If you're not good at something, you can get good at it if you have enough desire and will and determination and preparedness to put the time and effort into developing it. Now that said, of course, I'm never going to be a marathon runner or a sprinter or a basketball player obviously. We have to be sensible about how we're approaching this.

I don't believe people when they say things like are I'm just not creative, or I don't have it in me to be able to do something like that or that's beyond my reach because it's not within my skill set. I think well if you want it bad enough, you can make it your skill set. If you want it bad enough, you will pursue it in a way that you become quite single-minded about it. I'm a great believer that we can all be entrepreneurial, we can all be creative, we can all be innovative, we've all got leadership skills within us that can be developed and liberated and used in whatever way we want to if we have the will.

Leanne: Yes, I agree with you. I really like that approach and I think that's why we are both in this learning and development industry because we both really believe that.

Irena: Absolutely.

Leanne: I liked that you also mentioned that phrase. I hear an awful lot that phrase, "I'm not creative," and I don't really know if I figured out a response to that. I do challenge people when they say that, and I use questions to find out things that they've done in the past which-- I think a lot of people think creativity is all about being theatrical or being musical or being an artist. I try to dismiss that. What is your response when people say to you that they're not creative?

Irena: Well, I absolutely agree with you that there is this myth around the notion of what is creativity. When people say, "I'm not creative," what they really mean or what they in their head are saying is I can't paint, I don't play a musical instrument, I'm not a composer, I'm not going to write the next Harry Potter series that's going to take the world by storm. They've got this notion that creativity is exclusively belonging to the world of artistry of some way. Whereas, in fact, having spent seven years researching creative problem solving, I can say quite unequivocally that we are all capable of creativity.

In relation to the question that you ask me, what would I say to someone who says they're not creative, I'll say well have you recently had to solve a problem way you didn't actually know what the answer was when you started, did it require you to do some poking and prodding and experimentation and lateral thinking in order to solve that problem? Invariably, people say yes because they don't think of creativity as being an everyday activity. Most of the time, most people have to deal with problems in the workplace which are not strictly step by step by step by step.

They've got to think around them, they've got to bring some more information into the problem space, or they've got to maybe make some associations, some leaps of thought in order to get the best outcome and that is creativity. That is creative thinking. That is creative problem-solving. Whenever we come up against an unfamiliar situation and we've got to come up with a good response to it, we are in fact being creative. I'm on this mission to dispel this association of creativity and artistry. Of course, artistry is the manifestation of creativity but it's just one kind. People in the workplace, they might come up with a really clever way of dealing with a difficult colleague. That is, in fact, a creative response.

They might come up with an out of the box way of solving a problem for a customer, that is a creative response. When you begin to help people to see how in fact they are using creativity on a day by day basis, then it's like the curtains go up, the veil lifts and they can see that they are in fact are very creative. I had someone in one of my workshops a while ago who said I'm not creative and then we happened to be chatting during the course of the workshop. He was telling me about how he had built this generator in his backyard to light his shed and his kids' playhouse and the back garden. He built it out of bits and pieces that he had lying around in his shed.

I said, "Are you seriously telling me-- You just said to me like half an hour ago I'm not creative and now you're telling me about how you've built this Jolly generator that actually works just out of spare parts in your shed." He went, "Oh, you mean that's creativity?" I said, "Yes, you didn't have a map, you didn't have a plan, you didn't have a set of instructions, you kind of figured it out as you went along. You made decisions on a minute by minute basis about what would be a good next step, and you picked up another part and go, yes, this will fit in here and all sorts of really interesting things."

I said that's creativity. It's about being able to put ideas and even physical things together in ways that didn't exist before and to come up with new solutions. People often have a real aha moment when we talk about things like that.

Leanne: Look, I love that you are there out busting the myth and I'm here to support you through every conversation and hopefully our listeners can also-- When I hear people say that they've got a great response so thanks so much for sharing that and that story, man, that guy is super creative.

Irena: Absolutely. It actually drives me nuts when people who are, genuinely, actually are really creative and just don't see it. It's like kind of one of those things, like the nails on the chalkboard. That's why I'm on a mission, I am on a quest, I'm just determined to help people appreciate their creativity and value it for themselves.

Leanne: I agree, and I think it's also on those myths that's tied up with the whole to be a leader, you need to be a manager as well. There's a few myths just floating around with people nowadays. It's good that we've got people like you on the warpath.

Irena: Warpath, I love it, [crosstalk] that one. Sorry, keep going.

Leanne: Quite violent. Just when you were talking about creativity, I could tell that the pace in your voice is really, you spoke about a passion, lot of energy. I think it's one thing that you also have that comes across clear in your video, it's true is your energy. Delivering workshops I believe you need a lot of energy to do it and at the end of the day, it can be pretty exhausting. Two- day workshop, three days, you're off to India next week, how do you get the energy to last the day, the half day, the five days and with all the travel and everything else how do you cope with that?

Irena: That's a good question because I have to confess to you sometimes I am exhausted. Genuinely exhausted. I don't know what it is, Leanne. Even if I'm exhausted, when I step into that space where I'm delivering training, I'm delivering a keynote, when I step into that environment, that context because I'm doing what I know I'm meant to be doing, this is my passion, this is what gives me energy, then it sustains me. I must confess to you that sometimes I do that and then I'll fall in the [unintelligible 00:30:16] probably not what you were expecting to hear. Then I just have to rest for a little bit, recharge my batteries.

I'm an introvert, so it's really important for me, especially when we're in busy stretches, that I do get my alone time where I can sit and reflect and write in my journal and in my- I have a Moleskin where I put all of my new ideas and my thoughts. I develop my IP and my content and my models, the things that will then feed into my next book, et cetera. That then replenishes my spirit. As long as I can have times like that where I can recharge, then I keep my batteries going that point as well.

Leanne: No, I think that point just demonstrates that you are human because I feel the same. You're providing a lot of energy for the people in the room and at the end of the day, it's like, "Wow, I just had no time for myself." Often at breaks, people are up talking to our us, and sometimes I feel like it's a holiday just getting back to my desk and my email.

Irena: Yes. I don't think I'd ever go that far. Email is never under that banner, but I know what you mean. I know what you mean. Just sort of you have that moment of solitude. I think it's important that everyone finds what their own personal stride is around that. For some people, it might be that they come and sit at their desk and they do some quiet work. For others, it might be that they go for a long walk and then they're alone with their thoughts for a while. Other people meditate at lunchtime so that they can recharge their batteries that way. I often find that I'm very creative first thing in the morning, so I try to make sure that I have that space in the morning.

I always have my notebook next to me. If I read something, it'll often spark some thinking and then I can do my drawings or my models in my notebook, that replenishes me. I think it's really important for people to find what works for them and it's not the same for everyone. It's definitely not a one size fits all. People need to find how they recharge their batteries and then make sure that they do that on a regular basis so that they can keep their mojo going.

Leanne: I agree, and I like that you also document your ideas by writing things down. I've got my notes on my iPhone that I just refer to all the time. There's so many random notes in there that I think I need a place where I store them all.

Irena: It's a good idea. I actually have a series of different notebooks, so I don't mix my pure thought leadership stuff with mundane operational stuff. It depends on what kind of thinking I'm documenting, as to which notebook I'll write in.

Leanne: Nice. You must have a really big handbag.

[laughter]

Leanne: Something else you need to invest in.

Irena: I do, as a matter of fact, and it's very heavy.

Leanne: Excellent. We got lots of listeners from different areas, they could be engineers, accountants, a lot of HR people that listen to the show because they have been asked to deliver workshops. What would be your advice for someone that's starting out their facilitation career?

Irena: There's a very big difference between knowing something yourself and being able to do it inside your head, and explaining it to other people so that they, not only get it but want it. Number one thing, this is a general rule for anyone starting in a new field, do lots of it. Like just literally do lots and lots and lots and lots of it. Facilitate as much as possible and then build into every cycle opportunity for reflection so that you can figure out what did and didn't work so that you engage in that constant cycle of action learning. That way, you don't go into the next opportunity for facilitation without doing something better, without having learned something from the previous experience.

That means people build their skills incrementally over a period of time, and they'll find that they become better simply because they're practicing it, and they also practicing mindfulness in the way that they're asking themselves constantly, what did and didn't work. That's one aspect. Something else that is very useful for subject matter experts stepping into teaching or facilitation or training role is to come to the experience looking at whatever it is that they are presenting through the eyes of the learner, not through the eyes of the expert. People who are experts have got very advanced and what from the psychology literature is often referred to as highly chunked schemers.

In other words, the schemers, their mental models are extremely sophisticated because they've been built up over time. That's what allows them to make decisions quickly and be able to see patterns quickly and be able to manipulate larger chunks of information, et cetera, effortlessly within their minds. Now, novices and people who they are teaching, don't have the benefit of that experience.

Experts can sometimes forget that. It becomes really difficult to break things down into its constituent parts and uncouple those concepts that have melded into one overarching abstract way of knowing and being able to articulate it so that someone who doesn't have that level of sophistication in their understanding can get their head around it quickly. One of the best ways of doing that is saying, "Okay, what does this look like from the perspective of my learner, not from the perspective of me, who's the expert?" That's something else that they can do. Then I'm a great believer in facilitators just getting people to do stuff, do stuff.

As much as possible, get people actively involved in something, whether it's building something, whether it's that they've got to reproduce something, whether they've got to roleplay something, whether they've got to answer questions, whether they going to then take on board a piece of information and then teach it to someone else as if they were the expert, how would they use the words to then explain it to their colleague? There's lots of activities that can be done in pairs and in small groups that facilitate all of that understanding.

When people actually have the opportunity to articulate their learning, then it's much more likely to stick, it's much more likely to become clearer for them as well as learners and the facilitator's job actually becomes easier. I would say that's the other thing. Make sure that people get to do things as well.

Leanne: I'm definitely a firm believer in doing things. You're right, it does make it easier for the facilitator but there's also that they need to feel comfortable, letting go and let the group make the concepts their own as well.

Irena: Yes, that's a really good point actually. One of the mistakes that novice facilitators can make is thinking that they need to control everything in the room. They've got to control it all, otherwise, oh, what if it goes off the rails? What if someone asks a question, and we don't know how to deal with it? Or what if things don't work out the way they're supposed to? Am I going to look like I've let people down, that my expertise is lacking? All of those sorts of questions are fairly typical for people who are newly emerging in a field. The best thing to do under those circumstances is to just relax, let go, relinquish control and let everyone be part of the learning process.

If something happens, and the facilitator genuinely has no idea what just happened, just admit it. What's the worst that's going to happen? I don't know the answer to that. Let's find out together. I don't know what will happen if you mix those two things together now, provided you're not mixing nitroglycerin with something else. I think learners really appreciate seeing their teachers and their trainers and instructors go through a learning process as well. It would be a very arrogant trainer or instructor or teacher who would go, "Well, no, look, I really know everything." If that's the case, I think that this person has got no business being in that role because we never stop learning.

The most important characteristic of anyone who's a dedicated educator is that they recognize that they've got so much more education to acquire and that they've got so much more learning that is going to be part of their future. That's what I always look for in people.

Leanne: That's incredible advice to end on. Irena, we've spoken about so much just inside the 40 minutes we've had together: intrapreneurship, the I'm not creative statement we hear a lot, your experience pivoting from a teacher into adult education and our creativity, energy levels, all of it. If people want to get in contact with you and find out more about what you do, where can they find you?

Irena: I'm Dr. Irena Yashin-Shaw. If you Google something that looks vaguely like that, you'll say me. My website is www.D-R-I-R-E-N-A-Y-A-S-H-I-N-S-H-A-W.com, or they can email me on irena@drirenayashinshaw.com, or they can put in anything into Google that looks vaguely like that and they'll find me. I think I'm the only one around so you’re not going to get mixed up with 10 Irena Yashin-Shaws. Leanne, just before we do close off, do you mind if I just give a little bit of a plug for the Australian Intrapreneurs Summit that I'm hosting next year?

Leanne: Absolutely, go for it. It is in Brisbane, yes, please tell everyone about it.

Irena: Thank you. I'm just so excited about this event. We have got people speaking from lots of different sectors. Intrapreneurialism is alive and well in all sectors, not just within the business sector or the large corporate sector from which we have got speakers but also within education, within not for profit, within the indigenous community, within academia. We've got absolutely amazing speakers who will be bringing a different perspective about and to intrapreneurialism during the summit. If they go to my website, if anyone is interested in it, if you go to my website and go to events, you will find that there's information about the summit there, or you can just go www.australianintrapreneurssummit.com.au but that's quite a mouthful.

You've got to make sure you spell intrapreneurs summit properly. I would love to extend an invitation to the people who are part of your network and listening to this podcast. It's at the Brisbane Convention Center on the 14th of March 2019 and it's going to be an absolutely spectacular event. It is the first of its kind, so it is the inaugural intrapreneurs' summit in Australia. Hopefully, there will be many more. I look forward to maybe meeting some of the people in your network at that event, please come and say hello.

Leanne: 100% yes. That was a beautiful plug and we definitely need intrapreneurs in every industry. Well done you and congratulations on being so brave and starting your first conference. That's incredible and I'd love to be there. I’ve already sent it off to some friends and colleagues as well, but I will promote that and have a link to your website as well as the conference website on the show notes after this episode. Thank you so much. 

Irena: Thank you, Leanne. I really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you and congratulations on the fantastic work that you are doing with this as well.

Leanne: Thank you so much.

First Time Facilitator podcast transcript

Listen to this episode from First Time Facilitator on Spotify. Sarah McVanel is a recognition expert, author, an experienced and dynamic speaker and coach. She helps leaders leverage the exponential power of recognition to retain top talent and sustain healthy bottom-lines.

This is an episode transcript of my conversation with Sarah McVanel on Episode 39 of the First Time Facilitator podcast.

Leanne: I would like to welcome to the First Time Facilitator podcast, joining us all the way in Canada, Sarah McVanel. Sarah, welcome to the show.

Sarah: Thanks, Leanne. It’s awesome to be here.

Leanne: It's awesome to have you on the show and even better is that Sarah was recommended by a listener of the podcast, Amanada, who saw Sarah at a workshop. Obviously, was very inspired and got on the email straightaway and connected us both, so credit to you.

Sarah: Oh, thank you and what a huge credit and booster confidence that is too. So I'm hugely grateful.

Leanne: A lot of people ask me how I find guests for the show and I think my favourite guests are the ones that have been recommended by people that walked out of workshops thinking that person was just dynamic and incredible. So it is an extremely amazing credit to you. Now, let us start by finding out how you've actually got into the field of facilitation of organizational development what led you down the path to where you are now?

Sarah: Well, it's such a beautiful cousin to add all education and that actually started when I was in my undergrad. I went to a university that really believed and hugely supporting our undergrads and so by the time I was a senior level undergrad, there are a few teachers assistant positions open for the really huge first year Psychology courses of my undergrad in Psych that I was able to become a teacher assistant and then I just consumed every opportunity possible to learn how to be a really great educator of people in the university system.

But so much of that's transferable to working with motivated adults and professionals. And so my second job which was only a couple years after grad school was working as an educator in a Mental Health Hospital and then the facilitation offered opportunities just opened right up. Whether be challenging conversations and helping people to have those conversations so kind of more one-on-one type of facilitation that would border on mediation not even realizing what it was at the time.

Right through to very large program realignment and having to try to help a whole bunch of people get used to a lot of change and then start to set the course. So just a couple of years out of school and like I think a lot of facilitators, listeners, who are on the line is there's no one straight way to becoming a facilitator and so we're all mutts and I think we can be proud of that because that's how we bring our genius and our authentic greatness to whatever group were working with is it's a combination of all of our unique experiences.

Leanne: Yeah, I think so and I think it's right we'd bring all different types of facilitators onto the show just to demonstrate that there is no one career path into this field and I think a lot of people resonate with that and there's also no one way of saying, “Oh, look! Sarah is amazing and I've got to be exactly like Sarah because she's so wonderful.” It's like what can you bring your experience to really demonstrate that. So in that first time, I mean you got experience very young in your career, how did you feel being up in front of a room and possibly talking to people that were maybe double your age or had a lot more life experience than you. How did that feel?

Sarah: Yeah. Well, you know the irony is, I trained to become a therapist and so in comparison to trying to help people through divorce and loss and all of these things that I was completely unqualified to do. Facilitation actually didn't seem that overwhelming good really and I'm sure you talk about this all the time in your show that the beauty of facilitation is you get to hold the space that the people in the room are the exact people who need to be there. That they're the ones with the great ideas with the best path forward and that your truly best gift as a facilitator is to help bring that out.

So I think my confidence built partly through experience and just some trial and error getting some great mentorship by people who had more experience than I did and taking some courses and practicing different facilitation methods. And I think for those listeners who were earlier in their journey, when you start to notice crossover that, “Huh. That thing I learned in that course is similar from the way this person's doing it and then I also think my mentor was talking about that.” and that's what I really liked when I went to that breakout session at that conference last year. That's where you start to get your facilitator legs underneath you because you're seeing synergies and you're seeing what works for you and you begin to start to trust your authentic voice as a facilitator.

Leanne: Yeah. It’s really true about the linking is really important and not forgetting that as soon as you're out of a workshop you took that hat off. It’s like it's always with you. I know sometimes when I'm shopping or I hear a song, I think, “Oh, that relates to blah blah blah.” or something that happened in my life and I think that's a really great example of explaining the grow model and leadership.

Sarah: Right. Yes.

Leanne: It’s always with us.

Sarah: Yeah, I love that. And on the other neat thing I think for your listener to understand is as you're building, you're cultivating this career as a facilitator, it will then open other doors for you that you may or may not even realize. So for example, 50% of my income now in my business comes from speaking which by the way four years ago I was working in a corporate job so who knew that I was even going to be working for myself. So that was surprising and then defined myself as I'm working for myself realizing that actually it's doing a lot of keynote speaking that is the next version of my career. Well, everything that I work so hard to master and cultivate as a facilitator now shows up in my speaking skills as well. So I don't think there's anything lost on people really building the skill set.

Leanne: I've had a few listeners ride in and they've either recently left their corporate jobs to start their own consultancy or they're really looking at how they transition that. Do you want to quickly talk through this? I mean there's so many places we can go from what you just said.

Sarah: I know.

Leanne: I'd love to just focus us on that part for the moment and then we'll move on. You said four years ago, you're working in corporate and before we even got onto recorded this we were talking about the word “side hustle”. So can you just share with us what was your journey transitioning from a corporate career into just killing it with your own business now?

Sarah: I love that- killing it. Wahoo. Standing for each other’s word, I love it. I think I did a lot of work that didn't really have a terminology and the side hustle and the gig economy, we talk a lot about it now but we weren't talking about it five, ten years ago. When people started to ask me,  “Hey, would you be able to come and facilitate this strategic planning or our group is going through a difficult challenging time and we need an outside person to help us think through and make decisions?”

So many different types of facilitation that people in my network were asking me to do and I would ask my employer is that okay if I take a vacation day and I would go and do and it would be great because whatever I learned there and whatever I practiced there, it made me actually better the work in the workplace. So that was I guess the first version of my entrepreneurship journey was actually while I was still working and I know that you have that same situation where you're working full time and then you have your side hustle.

That's such a great risk-free, confidence-building, risk-reduction way to start your entrepreneurship journey and to really also see what is your genius. Because when I went out into the workplace and it was actually precipitated by a very serious mental health crisis of one of my kids and my son doing incredibly well now. So this is all a very good story, so in case any listeners are you know, “Oh, my gosh.” It's all good everybody, it's good. It’s good because I took all the skills and my passion that I had in my corporate life and I found a way to be able to monetize them.

So I definitely worked very hard in that five months’ notice that I had given to try to figure out how do I connect in with people and let them know that this is what I'm doing now and that I will be available as of January 2015 for hire and you know what, the amazing thing is because facilitation is such an adaptable flexible agile skill set and because people grasp what that's about. Even if they don't use the word, “I need a quote facilitator.” They can describe it and you're like, “Yes. I have something in that bag of tricks that can help this client.”

So I was able to start earning money right away and then I started to get wise to the idea that-- and this is from mentorship, this wasn't just my own idea. But really listening to people who were crushing in the biz and they said, “You really need to focus on one core area of expertise because people pay more and respect specialists more than generalists and a lot of us as facilitators are generalists.” and that's really really good as you're growing your career.

However, we're going to notice there are things that we're better at than others that we like more than others and it's okay that you can like lots of things or that you can be really good at lots of things but what do you really love? If you could only focus on one thing for the rest of your days, if it's governance facilitation, if it's strategic planning, if it's imploding teams, if it's working with executive teams. What is that sweet spot that you absolutely love and really cultivating and harvesting that? That really was the next phase of my entrepreneurship journey was really respecting that my area of expertise is recognition.

And when I can help leadership teams, when I can help groups of middle managers, when I can even help frontline staff, whether it be in a keynote right through to a half-day facilitated workshop or facilitated planning session to really tap in and leverage that, that I know they're going to break the results because this is what I saw in my corporate career as an organizational development expert. So that's just in terms of a journey. It's a lot of trial and error but of course that's exactly what we experienced as facilitators, right? You have to quote, trust the process.

So men does it, you do your words come back to bite you when it's like, “Oh, my gosh. In my own life, I have to quote, trust the process too.” and to your point, it's been hugely not only beneficial of having a much happier, healthier family life but also my lifestyles better, financially I'm bringing in as much money if not more than in my corporate job which in Canada, if you make a certain amount in the public sector, it has been reported in the paper. So it was a pretty decent income and the great thing is I get to do what I love every single day and if the client isn't the right fit, I don't have to get working with them if I don't want to.

Leanne: Yes. [laughs]

Sarah: And I love most of my clients. Don't get me wrong but occasionally there's like, “That's not a good fit it.”

Leanne: Yes.

Sarah: Okay, but were not to be. Yeah.

Leanne: My head's going in so many directions but what I wanted to focus on, I guess. I want to talk about your recognition stuff in a moment but you said something really interesting and I was googling this a lot earlier this year. So I was asked to facilitate an internal global strategy day and I'm thinking, “Oh, this is interesting.” because I work for the company and they usually go external and I was googling articles about should you bring in an external versus an internal, most pros and cons of both. Because you've worked in both, you've been an internal man, you've been in external. What is the value that an external person can bring? What’s the value of the external person?

Sarah: Yeah. So of course, like so much of what we talked about in facilitation, really understand what the core objectives are. So if the objective is from an external facilitator side, neutrality, not worried that people won't speak up and say something, people feeling this individual isn't connected at all to the outcome that they feel completely disconnected to that, that people perhaps respect in your culture external people more. That is the reality, sometimes, we value externals such as just take a look at your hiring practices. If you hire and people get promotions based on hiring from outside versus hiring from within that is probably your indication that you also need an external facilitator.

Whereas, the flipside is that if you have a culture where we really value our internal people, we work very hard in succession planning and fostering and building your talent to have an external person that can do an internal individuals job would almost feel like I don't want to say slap in the face that's a violent analogy but it could feel like a disconnect and it frankly it's not recognizing and valuing your own talent and either way what I would say is so let's say you really feel for this particular engagement an external facilitator you want to either try it or it is the way to go and you've got your reasons.

I would still respect your internal people by going to them and say, “Hey, I know you could do an amazing job. Leanne, you are a rock star, you're so good, you've done this for us before. I want to just give you a heads up. We are going to go and we're going to ask an external facilitator to bid on this project. Please know that is not a slight on your abilities. Their motivation for that is A, B and C and most people will say, “Great! How can I help then?” and then actually what the nice thing that can happen and this is where I've seen external facilitators really get huge value is your internal people can learn from them and of course your external person can learn from your internal people.

But why you want to pay the money is that you can also have that as a learning growth experience for your internal people as well and then maybe it comes back in house the next year or maybe it's always external but your internal person can be part of that process. They can help you recruit the right person, they can help that proposals, and they can give you a sense as to what they think. If they were looking for somebody, what do they think of this group or this objective would best suit what type of facilitator.

Leanne: Yeah. That’s really great.

Sarah: Does that help?

Leanne: Yeah, absolutely. You’ve connecting both- I think what you said, it all does every single sort of question about facilitation really comes down to that “What is the outcome?” when you're deciding anything, right? So that's really great.

Sarah: Yeah.

Leanne: So let's talk about recognition. So why did that really pop out for you as an area of focus. Why recognition over leadership, over strategy? I’d love to hear.

Sarah: Yeah. I actually goosebumps when you ask that question and that's how much I love my topic and anyone out there who's trying to find their area of expertise, do the goosebumps test. When somebody asks you juicy question and you just get so too sort of electrified by your topic and it's like, “Oh yeah, you’re right. That's right, I get to talk about that all the time.” That's probably your area of genius. So why do I know because when we would work with and when I say “we”, as I climb the corporate ladder often this would be not just me but the people who reported to me as well. We worked as a team and so if we were trying to help some teams that were really struggling, great great people, super professional, talented, but for whatever reason it could be a huge change, it could be compassion fatigue, it could be dynamics within the group, and you know the drill, right? There's all kinds of reasons why teams start to go south. We just held the space that each one of them and collectively there was greatness there but the best most effective, fastest strategy we knew how to use was to help them through recognition. Teach them to recognize themselves because oftentimes they weren't and they were feeling very depleted as well as to be able to notice the greatness within each other and the greatness within their team the greatness from the organization.

And when my co-author that I used to work with, another facilitation guru that I actually had the privilege to speak at a conference with next year or next week in Colorado and I'm so excited to be facilitating with her again next week. She and I just decided that the world needed to be having more of a conversation about recognition. That we undervalue it, we dismiss it, we think that it's all this too easy stuff that you know how to do in kindergarten isn't as important as all things that are go on a job posting. But we had seen how this was a game changer and that will people were able to recognize themselves and each other then it could be a total turnaround in the team and then whatever we did after that just made it better but exponentially better at first from the recognition work.

So we validated that, we went to a Canadian engagement survey company called Metrics At Work and were just waiting I'm sure for a nosy blonde to poke around at their quarter of a million engagement survey data points to try to validate what we had been seeing as facilitators and what they did was they separated out the twenty least satisfied teams with the twenty most satisfied teams and what they found was that in actual fact there was a huge statistically significant difference of things that as a facilitator, it's pretty hard to impact like trust in the organization, satisfaction with management, continuous improvement in innovation cultures over engagement and intention to stay.

So in other words what we found was the best easiest way to get at all kinds of other things that I did not have easy strategies than my facilitator toolkit, I could use recognition and get huge results and so that's when I had to really hold myself accountable to stand tall in my expertise and in my passion and pick one thing. The easy choice was recognition. So that was kind of how the facilitation experience that I've had and working with so many teams helped me tremendously and being able to figure out what that core area of expertise I could hang my hat on as a professional.

Leanne: Yeah. It's because it's really interesting. You're the first recognition expert that I've met so it kind of, it was very brave because I don't know it in Australia what it's like in Canada but it's not really seen as a thing. A lot of people like you said go down the traditional paths of leadership and team-building.

Sarah: Yeah.

Leanne: And recognition is something that's really separate and really interesting and I love that you've called your business greatness magnified. How did you come to picking that name? I think that's another hard choice for people is not only the topic but what they actually call their side hustle or their business.

Sarah: So our brand, my co-authors and a co-author and I, the work we would do, would we would help people “FROG” each other which stands for “Forever Recognize Others’ Greatness and so greatness had to be in my business name somewhere. So that's where greatness magnified because I'm also a professional coach and as I say a speaker. So it was- I try very hard to magnify or help people magnify their own greatness. No matter what the how of the delivery method is that's the ultimate one of the ultimate results. So that was how we, how I came to name it.

But if anyone is looking for a hack on how to do that, here's my suggestion: brainstorm lists and send it out to people you trust. Send it out to your mother, your brother, your sister, your past colleagues, your current friends, and your ex-boyfriend that you still have coffee with once a year. All these people and then have them tell you does it pass certain tests like, “Does this exemplify me as a person?” “Is this catchy?” “Do you know what I mean by that?” So one of my- the surprising sub benefits of having this name is that people will say, “Sarah, you are a greatness magnified.” or “Sarah, you really magnify people’s greatness.” In other words, they turn it into a verb or an adjective and that's like a scout sticky title I think, or people will look at my business card and go, “Oh, I really like that name.”

But that takes though really again standing tall as a facilitator and as a business owner, as a professional and saying, “Who am I and what is my core area? Your point around a lot of people say, “I do planning.” or “I do leadership.” I think we have to get braver to be able to earn what we deserve because of all the education, the experience, your passion, your depth of knowledge in all the investments that you make every single day to be the professional that you are. I really firmly believe that is worth getting paid for; and people naturally pay for experts over generalists and I know this is not all about money and put it this way. I know a lot of the people that listen to your podcast are they have families or they want to have a family.

Even if you're at the end of your career and you're getting into facilitation, you probably want to spend time with your grandkids, you probably also want to do fitness, you want to pursue your hobbies or get back to hobbies. If you have one core area of expertise then you don't have to be up on the literature a hundred different places and this is where I think frankly, we have it a little easier when we’re specialist. Whether you are specialist within your organization or specialist on your own, writing your own side hustle, your own full-time business is when you stand tall in that area of expertise because how you do it, your amazingness as a facilitator, that goes with you no matter what your area of expertise is, right?

Sometimes we get focused on the “how”, I do it this way.” and then we brand ourselves and we attach it to somebody else's methodology. But then, they're the expert and you have to go along for the ride and you'll never be able to charge what you're worth until they let's say, get so famous and they charge so much that it's kind of like, “Okay. Well, you can't afford me now. Hire Sarah or hire Leanne.” But that's one of the mistakes I see a lot of facilitators making when they first launch their side hustle or their full-time business, at least in my version it's a mistake is giving away your power to somebody else's brand and instead like, “What do you love?” and you may love their methodology, you may love it but it can-  you can probably still carve out a niche for yourself even when you love what they do and who they are all about and what their model is.

Leanne: Oh, my gosh. This is so powerful and I hope everyone's listening to this bright and early on a Monday or Tuesday morning and getting completely motivated because I certainly am.

Sarah: Good.

Leanne: Yeah. I'm still trying to figure out what my niche is. I really like- the other week, I was running a session on creative thinking and I just could not read enough about it. I love talking about ideas. So I'm thinking that's kind of where I might go down and help people become, will believe that they are more creative and a lot of people just say that they're not but I also love the strengths finder tool and I was like, “Maybe I need to focus on that.” So it's actually really interesting what you're saying right now with- it's very timely for me and really into figure out and to test my ideas with my friends and say, “Does this actually reflect who I am?”

Sarah: Yeah.

Leanne: Because sometimes it’s really difficult we think we know ourselves but it's really difficult to judge that, isn't it?

Sarah: It is, for sure and getting feedback from people that you trust and you value I think is a great strategy and also combining the things that you love. So where does creativity meet strengths methodology. And the other, the flip side around it is what have we still not solved in the world of everything we know? And we're doing around strengths and there's many inventories and tools out there. We've been talking about it a lot for 10, 15 years now, which is great. I'm so thrilled that we are.

And creativity, we've known how important that is for so long and yet adults are walking around then saying, “I'm not an artist tonight. I don't know how to dance.” But I'm sure when there were four there pictures with 18 fingers and they're really clumsy dance moves. They just thought they were the bomb. So there is still room, Leanne, for there to be a version of helping people get back to their artistic strength and really using us their superpower or that creative strength is your capital for growing as a business. How can you fill a void that's still not met? What business objectives or what personal objectives does that solve by bringing strengths and creativity together? Because as I say, the “how you do that”, whether it's a strength finder tool, you can use other people's tools. 

One of the questions you had prepared for me and which by the way, you did an amazing prep for this podcast was around you've got lots of tools and how do you set, use that in your business. I get to pick and choose from my toolbox just like you do, just like everybody on this podcast. So it's not that you don't use other people's tools and benefit. If you can serve your client best by using a tool that's out there in the market. I'm not saying everybody go out and create new tools, that's, oh, my gosh, that sounds exhausting.

Leanne: Hahaha. Yeah. [laughs]

Sarah: But how can you help the client see that what you're bringing to the table such as the looking at strengths and creativity in your own unique beautiful way, Leanne, is solving a business scene that still isn't solved despite everything thing we know about strengths and everything we know about creativity it's where people aren't using it or like be a disruptor. Like strengths is out and this is in or I don't know. I'm not sure what it is, but, yeah.

Leanne: Thank you. I feel like this is my own sort of personal coaching call.

Sarah: That’s good.

Leanne: We are thinking of you and other listeners. We are thinking of you and hopefully these questions, they're really great prompting questions. We are what business objective is it solving if you actually decide to do what you do. Are you actually meeting a pain point or are you just inventing something that may not wash when it's actually put to market. So that's really good criteria.

Sarah: And what a beautiful opportunity to practice while you're working in an organization because we cannot and I just I hope everyone walks away from this podcast really hearing them when I say that no organization has enough bank even Google to have people around who are fulfilling an important function. So thinking about what problem do I truly solve and what is the root problem that I'm solving is essential if you're an internal facilitator or you're an external facilitator trying to convince a client to invest in you.

Because I used to think of it like every day I had to prove that I was worth it. Not from a fear-based scarcity mentality like I may lose my job but more like my job is to fulfil a value proposition every single day for my employer to keep me around and keep my team around and that wasn't always easy working in the not-for-profit sector.  It was really easy to for some another department to argue what we need those resources not them but I would have my clients and our clients for the team defend why they couldn't live without us or and why that those vacancies needed to be fulfilled or why I needed to have reserved the education dollars to keep the people in the department up on their game and always learning new facilitation coaching and other related tools and strategies.

So we all need to be very conscious of what problem am I solving for my client, whether they're internal or external and the better we are doing that, the better we serve our clients. And frankly, the more were being intrapreneurs, if you're internal in the organization as well as entrepreneurs, if you're external to the organization. We all need to be intrapreneurs and frankly this is not just true facilitators, this is HR people, this is your operations people, these are your purchasing people, and this is anybody who does not bring in money because they're working with the customer. Everybody needs to be thinking about, “How do I serve my internal clients’ best?” and that's how you keep a job and that's how you just keep getting better. It’s up your game, right?

Leanne: Oh, high five. That was really interesting you talked about how is- and my team  adding value and it was recognized within your business that your team was that they couldn't be poached for other roles and that all leads back to what you're talking about in terms of recognition and that was the recognition from within others in your organizations and you did share, you spoke about FROG briefly and I'd love for you to share that model with listeners who want to sure about what FROG actually means, what it stands for, how you can use it?

Sarah: Yeah. So FROG stands Forever Recognize Others Greatness and of course it starts with recognizing yourself. So forever recognize our own greatness blog. But when we recognize our own greatness then we're just that much better able to naturally authentically notice it all around us and so it's interesting when my co-author Brenda and I wrote the book, we actually- we were going to write all about team and organizational recognition and we realized that we're missing part of the story and that's why we started with self-recognition and when we think of self-recognition as facilitators, think about the effectiveness you have when you show up confidently,  prepared and knowing what your strengths are as facilitator as opposed to let's say feeling like this group's going to reject you, worried what they're going to say, thinking that you don't have enough skills, not sure you haven't perhaps dug deep enough with your client to truly know what they most want and need.

You show up with more greatness and better able to serve them in the most resourceful way when you recognize your own greatness and then you naturally- because you're not so caught up in your own stuff and the noise going on your own head and shutting down the imposter syndrome or letting it take over, whatever is going on in your brain. Then, you're able to notice the greatness and all your participants and ask better questions and probe a little deeper and push a little farther and read the room to know, “I think I better go there.” and your co-facilitator going, “Oh.” And you’re sure enough your gut instinct was right, “Oh, yeah. She went there and that was perfect, that was exactly what needed to happen. So knowing who you are like being able to frog yourself as a facilitator for recognize our greatness and then forever recognize other's greatness allows you to really stand tall and be the most resourceful facilitator for your clients.

Leanne: Are there any sort of other skills that you think are really key for facilitators that who want to get better or be the best. What else do they need?

Sarah: So for in the example that you provided or in your own life with passion around strengths and with creativity. You're naturally I'm sure drawn towards compelling creativity and so people will probably describe your workshops as a very creative, very resourceful, very strength based place and somebody else they may describe that facilitator and the environment that they have as supple and strategic and it's okay and you may actually be able to deliver on the same objective or perhaps this is where you decide who's the right facilitator for the client based on who they need.

But I honestly believe outside of the basics of facilitation, how do you lead a group, how do you set up the environment so that the facilitation learning or the decision makes- flawless consulting book is my Bible of making sure you're contracting well and knowing what your focus is and what you're there to do and how to best serve your clients. Once you have the basics down and that's not that hard to get. I bet most of your listeners have it in speed and could probably teach it to other people. After that, I honestly think it's listening to your own inner gut about where you shine and you love and being a facilitator isn't quite the right fit.

You can get some of that opportunity through your side hustle or maybe you decide that's when you decide to look for somewhere else or that's when you decide to approach your boss or somebody else and say, “I'd love to do more of this but I don't think this is what the department most needs or this division- what serves the division best. Is there- let's take a look at another area.” and I think that's actually it's being unselfish by being able to be very curious about your greatness as a facilitator and to really cultivate and nurture and develop that skill sets.

Leanne: Yeah, because I know when we sort of look to market to hire facilitators, I think in terms of their skill, they're all relatively the same. But it's really about what we want that person because yet they have worked, they have it some kind of presence which is quite a commanding presence which will be suitable for this audience compared to that person which will inspire that enthusiasm. So you're right. Like the facilitators, that the skills of this facilitator are the same but it's really about what is a personality that person brings and makes those people feel. I did have a question there about all your accreditation. I was looking at your, stalking your LinkedIn profile.

Sarah: I love it.

Leanne: Wow. You’ve had got a ton of experience and you've also got a ton of accreditations and so I thought, I'd ask you a bit of an interesting question, might be quite tricky to answer. But you've got MBTI Six Sigma all these different certifications. Is there one that you found that's been the most useful either for you personally or for your business?

Sarah: I think different things at different times. I would say anything I invested in core facilitation basics and in Canada, in Ontario where I learned a lot of that was through the Institute for Cultural Affairs, ICA which is for any of the Canadian listeners out there, it's on Queen Street East in Toronto, I highly recommend their work and part of why I love it is because they the same facilitation tools and techniques they teach us how to use in corporate. They bring two huts in Africa or small rural villages in India. They know this stuff works everywhere around the world and philanthropically all the money they make from training us corporate people, they allow, it allows them to go and do some pretty amazing facilitation work around the world.

So that's I guess, that was essential in my early days of facilitation and then when I invested interestingly enough as a coach to become trained as a coach, I learned how to listen way better more deeply, more authentically, I ask better questions, I just was a more curious facilitator, that's just such an incredible journey and talk about having to really get through your own stuff. You cannot have a whole bunch of banging baggage hanging around with you as a coach. You can’t hide behind things quite as easily as you can in facilitation or training and things like that because it's one on one and it can be pretty vulnerable stuff.

So I would say those were two really fundamental and then probably from a confidence building early on in my facilitation days, having the tools so Myers-Briggs and personality dimensions and Mcquaig and Human Synergistics all their various tools. I will just say though that I hardly ever use them now, partly because I'm just so much more confident in being able to find the right tools and fit for my client.

So although I think it's really good to have a very big juicy toolkit as a facilitator. We also have to balance that with being careful that we're not trying every client as being Lucian and we can get overly reliant and comfortable shall I say when using some tools because it's just easier and you know them and probably very unpopular thing. But I think that it goes along with my earlier comment around being very connected to what you uniquely, your greatness.

Leanne: Yeah, I agree. I think sometimes that tool can possibly be a crutch as a facilitator if you haven't got that confidence yet but I guess if it does help you to get that confidence then just sort of balance out where the right time is to use it. So thanks. That's really interesting insight. For all those first-time facilitators listening, do you have any advice that you could give to them? Advice that you've personally received or advice that you think, “Oh, gosh. If I heard this early in my career this would have really helped me.”

Sarah: Oh, gosh. Where to start? I would say, probably the thing I wish that somebody had told me was, do you know you're- by being a facilitator and the type of expertise that you have you already are an entrepreneur. Because I was always telling myself that if- you have to wait until it's they quote right time to go out and do it on your own or to really hustle for the business.

I probably could have done a lot more work in my side hustle but I just when every, somebody would come to me then that I would do the work. So I would say, if you are able to contract and your clients are asking for you and you're getting repeat business as an internal individual then there is clearly monetizable value outside.

Leanne: Yeah.

Sarah: So that I mean I say that and it seems kind of ironic because what I do for a living is I help organizations and leaders retain their top talent through recognition. So it seems kind of contrary but the great thing is you have options by being a facilitator and that this toolkit and the diversity that you have, it means you have options. So you work for an amazing employer who values you and loves what you do and you're able to keep growing, you love working in a team, amazing. Stay! If you are not being treated as the valued commodity that you are, if you don't love what you do, if you work in a toxic environment, if your team is great but all the clients you serve just feel like they're just not a good ethical fit or a good values fit then please know that you have a monetizable business within you already. Otherwise, you wouldn't still be employed, right? and people wouldn't be asking for you.

So that's I guess what I wish somebody had told me was that all of these skills and it's not that the market is saturated because that is what I assumed. This was my biggest inner critic message. Well, there's lots of those quote consultants out there and consultants almost had like I hate to say it, I had a dirty word in my head was because I painted everybody with the same brush which totally was not fair and I wish I could undo that sort of thinking.

But what I realized is that when you truly solve clients problems and they- leaders, staff, frontline staff, customers or just organizations as a whole are dealing with tremendous challenges to be able to stand in business, to be able to keep their jobs, to be able to keep working, to be able to keep doing the work that they- or the adding the value that they're trying to add in the world.

You could be the person that helps them stand in business or that helps them double their growth and that helps them would make it a better place to work whatever those goals are. So yeah, whatever your genius is, whatever value you are already offering, there is a monetizable business in there and just believe that you may not know what that is yet but it's there.

Leanne: Amazing. Sarah, I feel like this has really been a personal coaching call.

Sarah: Haha. Yey! I feel like a lot less talking and we’re coaching. Sounds like you’ve got some value which I’m glad.

Leanne: I definitely did and I know that our listeners will tune. I'm sure they're very excited about asking themselves these questions after listening to this and really figuring out brainstorming what it is and sharing that out with family and friends and trusted advisers. So we spoke about so many topics on side hustles in particular, recognition and how it's important to really find your own style. If people want to continue their conversation with you, where can they find you?

Sarah: Of course they're welcome to go to my website greatnessmagnified or as you say stalk me on LinkedIn, that's really hilarious. I love it. But you know what I'll give you for the show notes a link into my calendar if people want to have a 15 minute chat, if something in this conversation really resonated for them and they want to maybe begin to process some of these things that they've been thinking about around, “Hmm. Could I have a business here and what transferable skills do I have as a facilitator?” and or “How could I build this in as my genius in my current job so that I have options.” Because who knows what's going to happen the economy and a few years from now. I'm happy to spend 15 minutes with any of the rock star listeners that you have to help them to really stand tall in their greatness and recognize their own greatness.

Leanne: That's an amazing offers. Thank you so much and yet like Sarah said, we will link to her calendar in the show notes of this episode. Sarah, thank you so much for your time and I can understand why Amanada recommended you so highly. Just know that you can motivate just through the power of audio is an incredible skill as well.

Sarah: Thank you.

Leanne: So well done to you and thanks so much for your insight. We could have spoken for hours.

Sarah: Well, maybe we'll have a part two conversation and I'd love it based on you know if the listeners have something that they'd like to hear more about how facilitation intersects with a speaking career or more on any of the other things that we talked about then I'd be- if you're interest in having me back, Leanne.

Leanne: Of course, I’d love-

Sarah: I just love to have a part two!

Leanne: Oh, amazing. Let’s do it. Let’s see that out.

Sarah: Okay. Sounds good.

Leanne: Thanks, Sarah.

Episode 34: First Time Facilitator podcast transcript

In today's episode, I talk to Toon Verlinden. Toon is an international presentation coach and expert in scientific communication. He is a freelance science and travel journalist and a Biochemical Engineer by profession.

This is the transcript of my conversation with Toon Verlinden.

Alternatively, you can listen to the First Time Facilitator episode with Toon.

Leanne: Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for joining us and thanks for your time this morning.

Toon: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Leanne: I always like to start with our facilitators and asking them a bit about their background and what was it and how they got inspired to enter the world of facilitating and in your case helping people present and deliver better presentations.

Toon: Yeah. So what happened, I graduated as an engineer, Biochemical Engineer and as a journalist and later on I went into research on water purification and I was asked to talk at World Water Day. That's an annual day about water and water purification. I was there and I was talking and before me there were two or three other researchers and after me there were two or three other researchers and it was all quite dull and a quite boring that day.

But after my presentation, someone wrote me an email and he said, “Hey, that was an awesome presentation we should talk about that because presentation academics are quite bad most of the times and quite boring most of the times and we should stick our heads together and think of ways on how to make that better.” and that and we started doing that by putting up a blog with some tips and tricks and not long after that there the first questions came in. “Hey, do you do workshops as well because we are have researchers and you are, it's correct, the presentations are not always that good.” I had conferences or stuff and so we started to do workshops and that took off quite good and it was 2012 and now five, six years later we give workshops all over the place and that's how it all worked out and that's quite nice.

Leanne: It is really nice. I mean who would have thought that one presentation would have really changed the trajectory of your career.

Toon: That’s the thing.

Leanne:  I do have to ask. What did you do in that presentation and how much time did you really dedicate to making it so good?

Toon: Well, it was a presentation of let's say five minutes more or less and it was about a water purification project I was running in Ghana by the time. The thing was they asked me, “Hey, can you give a presentation on World Water Day? I said, “Yeah, cool!” and then they said, “Yeah, you have five minutes.” and I go, “Ah, okay. Yeah. But I want to talk about 13 things and then I had a list of things I want to talk about.” and then I heard that there are also researchers coming in front of you and after you so I thought, “Yeah, I really need to cut down.” So I get out most of the things I wanted to say and really focus on one or two main key messages and they stuck, they really stuck.

And there's always this thing about people wanting to say everything, they are afraid that people will think that they don't know their subject or so. So I started my presentation by saying “Hey, I'm just going to give you just enough relevant information so you can get on board but not more than that. So there is more to this story but I'm only going to give you one or two key points.”  And by doing that in my introduction, people knew, “Ah, okay. There's a lot of more to the story than he will be saying.” And that enable me to make it shorter and more focused and I think the focus was really important in making it stick with people. Yeah, I think that's the most important thing.

Leanne: Yeah.

Toon: The really the focus that you have to take. Yeah.

Leanne: You're absolutely right. I think what’s really great that you frame that upfront so you set the right expectation especially among sort of academics.

Toon: Yeah.

Leanne: I can imagine, information is power. But the other thing, I think it is a lot harder and I know that Mark Twain talked about it with writing in terms of, it's actually a lot harder to present something with impact that's a lot shorter.

Toon: True.

Leanne: It's easy to film a 30-minute presentation or to write a thousand words when you really have to get, convey and convince people in a short period of time, it's quite tricky.

Toon: It is. It is, especially in academics because people say “Yeah, if it isn't difficult, it isn't Science.” or “Hey, you're not showing us all the data, so you didn't do all the experiments.” And so people get afraid and they will want to cram in everything that they've done. But then they lose their audience of course because then they draw on and give information-information-information and then you lose your audience and that's really a problem in a lot of academic presentations.

Leanne: Yeah.

Toon: And they don't dare to focus and I had problems with that myself and therefore I did that framing in advance like, “Hey I'm going to give you like just enough relevant information and nothing more.” And I think that was a key concept that struck my now colleague, Hans, to contact me and say, “Hey, that was really interesting what you did there. Frame it in advance and saying you're only going to give just enough relevant information. I can't to do something with that framing thing, with that concept.” And from there on we started talking.

Leanne: Yeah, it's kind of like when you go to the movies and the trailers.

Toon: True.

Leanne: Like you were giving a bit of a movie trailer and then people like, “Oh, this is interesting and this is the hooks.” and they want to see the movie.

Toon: Yeah, that's true.

Leanne: Yeah, that’s great. So that's, I didn't know that's how you met your co-author Hans, that's through the presentation.

Toon: Yeah.

Leanne: Fantastic. You started this company, The Floor Is Yours back in 2012 and I love the whole philosophy around it; Life is too short for boring presentations.

Toon: Yeah.

Leanne: I want to give you a virtual high-five. I love that!

Toon: Yeah.

Leanne: So why do you think there are so many boring presentations around the world? I mean you saw this in one conference. Why is it still happening?

Toon: I think there are a lot of reasons. But one of the main reasons as I said before, is that especially with the people I'm training like academics engineers, people who have to bring across complex information, they are afraid most of the times. There are a lot of the PhD students I'm training, they have seen quite a lot of that presentation that talks stuff like that and they know it can be done differently. But they don't really dare to because there's always like a promoter or a boss looking over their shoulder and saying, “No. You have to do it like I have done it. You can't do it differently.” and I think a lot of it is coming from that people are a little bit afraid of doing it differently. Also, people are a little bit afraid of putting up a show when they are presenting because it's science, it's academics. It doesn't have to be fun, it has to be correct and I think they are afraid of doing its difference.

Leanne: Yeah. I hate that too.  I think it's possibly from the role models that you're given.

Toon: Yeah.

Leanne: At the same time because I've sat through university lecturers and you just think, “Oh gosh, if you only made it a bit more interesting.”

Toon: It’s true.

Leanne: You'd probably get more people interested and engage and really excited about this topic. It’s going back to high school and some of our favourite subjects but because of the teacher that taught it in a way related to us.

Toon: Yeah.

Leanne: So you talked about attention and you had five minutes at this conference. But I like on your website, you talk about 20 seconds that period of time.

Toon: Yeah.    

Leanne: And you say that, “If you can't explain it in 20 seconds, you don't understand it well enough.” Can you share that what that message means for our listeners?

Toon: First off, the thing is, if people start to present a new topic, a new complex topic, they start off and they go all different directions and they want to cram everything into that little teaser. But the thing that happens then is you're talking to someone, for example, and after 10 minutes, the person in front of you gets like a glaze in front of his eyes and you noticed like then that person is not really interested. So the 20 seconds is really a good way to see if people are interested in what you are saying. Now, next to that if you are a facilitator, I need to do the 20 seconds, how do they apply is if you are talking in a workshop, try to get everything out as quick as possible in the beginning like a little teaser, like, “This is what you're going to do.” and I try to focus on like a problem-solution advantage structure.

So I say, “Hey, why don't you start with sketching. Look guys, this is a problem you are having. This is the solution I will be bringing to you and this is the advantage, this is the reason why this is useful to you.” and if you get that out quite quick in the beginning in let's say 20 seconds or so, you have framed quite good, what you're going to talk about, why it is important that people will listen and what they will get out of it and I think that's very useful because a lot of people start a presentation by saying, “Hey, I'm that person from that company and that faculty and that's my boss or my promoter.” I don't know but the sad fact is that in the beginning not everybody's or almost nobody's interested in who you are exactly. They're more on what can you do for me. So if you can get that in 20 seconds like problem-solution advantage structure wise, then that's a very good to have handy at the beginning of workshop.

Leanne: Is that's something that you came up with yourself? I've never heard of that. I like it.

Toon: I piece it together from- so if you notice that a lot of people start with the solution. If you look at movies for example or other stories that we like, they tend to go for a problem-solution advantage structure. Let's say, you take a movie like Lord of the Rings. Everything is good in middle-earth and then there's suddenly a big bad wizard Sauron coming up and that's a problem and then they need to come up with a solution, “Ah, we find a ring and we need to cast it in the mountain and a volcano where was it came.” That's solution and then the advantage is everything is better again.

Leanne: Yeah.

Toon: So every story follows, every story that we like or that we read follow that problem-solution advantage structure. But what people tend to do is especially academics is they say, “Hey, I researched this.” But I'm not sure why you research that or what's the use of you researching it? So it's much better to get a problem in advance and that's also for facilitators quite good you say, “Hey, I feel your problem and I'm going to give you the solution and that's why you need to listen to me.”

Leanne: Yeah.

Toon: And that's quite handy if you put that as much in front as possible. I didn't piece it together all of myself, I need to give credit to- you had him on the podcast, Sean D’Souza?

Leanne: Do you listen to Sean D'Souza?

Toon: Yeah. I listen to his Brain Audit.

Leanne: Oh, my gosh. That is so funny.

Toon: Yeah. I listen it all the way through.

Leanne: That book is great but did you listen to it on or the audible version, there's a piano that plays all the way through?

Toon: I listen to all at the ad, the audible version. Yeah and I really liked it and there are some really good concepts in there as well. I think he also focuses on, “Hey, what's the problem of the person you are talking to and how are you going to solve that?” and you can use that perfectly in presentations as well. Then there was a book as well called Houston, We Have a Narrative and that was from an Astrophysics guy, I think, that started working in Hollywood later on and he uses that structure a little bit as well. He connects it to like, “Hey, we have Hollywood movies. How are they- how do they tackle that problem and how can we use that into in our presentations?” and I think if you smash those two together you get that structure a little bit and that really really works because if people need to think about, “Hey which problem am I going to solve for my audience? If you need to think about that in advance, that's already very good step to take and to start with.

Leanne: It is, it's great. I love that you've heard of Sean D’Souza. That’s fantastic.

Toon: Yeah. I did. Yeah.

Leanne: I think he’s coming to Brisbane next month for a conference I’m at, I'm emceeing. We have podcasts. So looking forward to talking out with him. I'll let him know that another podcast guest from Belgium. Hey, I think he was there recently running a workshop and they went to the Tintin Museum a lot.

Toon: Yeah. I heard.

Leanne: Yeah, small world.

Toon: So yeah, I like what you are saying and how it’s bringing it to the people and I think it's yeah, you can use his advice in a lot of different topics. It's like how do you craft a landing page but you can use that advice as the same in presentations a little bit you need to alter it of course but it's yeah, it's a useful advice.

Leanne: Yeah. So I heard the problem-solution framework before. There's a book I can't remember the exact title of it but it's about Steve Jobs in the way that he speaks and so if you watch his the release of the iPhone and what he was doing the whole time was just talking about a problem, really setting the problem aren't making it really real and then talking about how the Iphone just fixed everything and why that was important.

Toon: Yeah.

Leanne: So yeah, that's really great. It’s about getting that that mix of- so it hooks people in. So like that.

Toon: Yeah, true.

Leanne: So that's in terms of what you're actually saying as a facilitator. I also like that you also focus on slide design for dummies. What can we do with our slides to make them more I guess compelling with our audience? 

Toon: Yeah. There are two problems that lead to full slides. The first problem is when people ask us to give a presentation; what do we do? Well, we open a PowerPoint and there's PowerPoint and PowerPoint asks, “click to add your title” and so you do and then the first bullet point is already there and it says, “click to add text” and so, “Okay, PowerPoint. I click to add text.” and that's what you start to do. So you fill up bullet point after bullet point and then after a while you need to cut stuff out, you need to rearrange stuff and you get a presentation as a little bit unstructured and most of the times it's full of text.

So one of the things I advise, try to start with like a blank slide not with like these pre-set bullet points or so just blank slide and start to draw your own square sensor. And then the second thing people need to know is that if you are presenting, you are important; not your PowerPoint. Because a lot of people want their PowerPoints to be let's say use as handouts as well so they can hand it out your PowerPoint. But if people can understand your PowerPoints perfectly by reading it and then they don't need you. If it is a perfect handout, your PowerPoint, they don't need you to tell it as well. So you need to try to avoid that, you need to see, “Hey, is there stuff on that PowerPoint that I'm just going to say as well? Like it is on the PowerPoint, “Do I read my PowerPoint from top to bottom?” That's what happens quite a lot. People start to read top to bottom while they are presenting.

But the thing is people, the audience can read faster than you can speak so they have read the entire slide before you are half way and they will zone out. So it's better to get less text on your slides. We may, most of the times we say, “Yeah. Try to aim for a maximum of 20 words per slide.” and that's already quite a lot. There's presentation advice, it says, “three words” or “no words” or “three lines and three words”.

But if you say to academics or engineers for that matter like, “Hey, you can only use three words on a slide.” They’ll say, “You're crazy.” So try to aim for maximum 20 words per slide and I think it's a good idea to brainstorm in advance and start with white slides like blank slides where you start sketching on and don't open up your PowerPoints the moment they ask you to give a presentation because then you will just start feeling bullet points and that doesn't work that well.

Leanne: Good advice. So if you've got a slide there and you're just talking over at the slide redundant or you've got to change what you're saying to beef it up and create up a story or something to illustrate the point better.

Toon: Yeah. It's also- the another reason why people fill their slides too much is because they want their slides to act as like a teleprompter. They need the text themselves but there's like a notes function in PowerPoint that you can use to get a lot of text out of your slides and put it in the notes, so you can use the notes and you don't have to put it on the slides. So my advice is create two presentations.

To the engineers in your company for example, let them take your presentation, let them make a copy of it, rename it to hand out and not presentation and then take their presentation and start cutting in it and then you have two versions like the slides that are have less text. They can use that as a presentation and then their original slides, they can use that as a handout probably. So that's something they can do.

Leanne: Genius. Something's so simple but that'll help the debate if they say, “Oh, well, people need this.” It's like, “Well, just create two versions. Just call this one down.” and then practice before you get in the room.

Toon: Yeah.

Leanne: So you don't need- it's like a crutch, I understand.

Toon: And handouts isn't the same as a presentation. A handout can also be like a Word document that you've written out with like the main important things and if people say, “Hey, can I see a presentation?” Just say, “Hey, here's the handout.” and it's not necessarily the slides.

Leanne: Nice. So you're all about doing things a bit differently in the way that you present on helping others do the same thing.

Toon: Yeah.

Leanne: What is the, I don’t know, the coolest, the craziest, the biggest X Factor thing you've done in a presentation. If you really sort of gone out there or do you keep it?

Toon: That's quite okay. Now, I try to attract the attention in the beginning of a workshop like a standard thing. I do quite a lot is if I need to give a pitch workshop, I also researched as academics need to pitch to management, to funding agencies to each other. I come up on stage with a bottle of wine and a glass and I just come up and I fill my glass with wine and people go like, “Hey, well, what he's doing? It's nine o'clock in the morning, he's drinking wine.” and then I say, “Hey, imagine you're at a networking event.” and then I go on from there networking event pitching stuff like that and that really attracts the attention.

Now, one of the things I did not, that long ago was, I opened with a real story, a true story of a guy that attached some helium balloons to his lawn chair and then left off. He flew like two kilometres up in the air. I used that story as a beginning in the workshop but that day I took myself my lawn chair with me with some helium balloons, I put it on a table and I sat in the lawn chair and it really attracts the attention and that worked. And it's not that if I tell that to people they say, “Yeah. But show- the content is important. It's not how it looks but the content needs to be important. It's more important.”

But then I say, “Yeah. But just by attracting attention in the beginning, people are hooked and then you can come with your content.” and it doesn't have to be you in a lawn chair with helium balloons. It can be as simple as like opening a bottle of wine for example. There once was someone, after our workshop, he went to a conference and he was doing research on what purification and more specifically on extracting this too from people out of the water to reuse it. The phosphates in the stool.

Leanne: Wow.

Toon: And he opened his presentation big with only slide and he opened with one word “Shit” and it was nine o'clock in the morning on a conference, everybody went like, “What's happening? Everybody awakes and that really worked and it didn't get like negative feedback off from that slide. You only got positive feedback from that slide. So it's a little bit daring to do things differently. So those are some examples of what I’ve did.

Leanne: That's so cool.

Toon: And that really works. 

Leanne: Well, it works because we're talking about it today. It's something that was very memorable, that guy's first slide.

Toon: Yeah.

Leanne: Where did you get your ideas on- how did you get your ideas with the helium balloon and the bottle of wine? Was it just you and your mate Hans are talking about it or writing things down and seeing where the connections are?

Toon: I think as a facilitator, it's always important to think like, “When does my audience need to do this?” So with a bottle of wine is, “When does my audience need to pitch?” Probably at the networking event. “What do you have in your hand?” Ah, a bottle of wine. I’ll add another bottle of wine, a glass of wine probably. So okay we’ll do that.

Leanne: In Australia, we’ll probably have a bottle of wine. The Australian version of that kind of beer outside.

Toon: Yeah. But that's very important. Just think, “Hey, my audience. How does it work? How does it go? Why are people distracted when they need to listen to speaker?” Ah, probably because he doesn't grab their attention. “How should he grab their attention?” Now, another thing like the guy with the helium balloons, it's always good to have like always- I write them down.

If I come across a story that's like quite interesting, I write it down like, “Hey, that's a good story. Maybe I can use it later.” and most of the times it's like, “Yeah. A funny story.” That I hear in a podcast for example or did I get on the internet and I write it down and I think it's good to have that backlog of interesting stories somewhere so you can grab one out if it suits you.

Leanne: One of my earlier guest on the podcast was a guy called Matthew Dicks and he's written a book called Storytelling.

Toon: Okay.

Leanne: He's one there's a something in the U.S. called the Moth where it's a big storytelling competition and he's won about 30 or so.

Toon: Wow.

Leanne: I’ve been reading his book and he says the same thing and he calls it “homework for life”.

Toon: Yeah.

Leanne: And he says that, “At the end of every day, just think of one thing that was memorable and just write it down, just a sentence to capture it.”

Toon: Yeah.

Leanne: And so, I've been starting to do that and then you think about those everyday moments and there's always some kind of lesson or link that you can, one day link it back to.

Toon: Yeah.

Leanne: I think it's handy that you don't have to create it from scratch. It's like looking through your database and going, “Oh, that one will work.”

Toon: That's very useful. Yeah. Because you don't have to start every presentation with a story but it's very useful to start a presentation with the story. Also, if you give a workshop, I do it as well. The uses that a lot of people are talking and talking and smart phones are up and computers laptops are open and then when you start with a story, the first sentence people stop talking. The second sentence, laptops closed. Third sentence, smartphones go away. Fourth sentence, everybody’s listening to you. And that's why a story is such a good way to start a workshop or presentation and that's why it's indeed useful to write them down if you come across them like, “Hey, this could be of interest to me later on.” and that's useful to write it down.

Leanne: It's great that you're using your journalism skills as well for telling stories.

Toon: Yeah, for telling stories and it's also like copywriting and what to focus on and what not to focus on. That’s also very useful to have like a little bit of feeling with that. I use the journalism skills indeed. Yeah.

Leanne: Good one. So we spoke about it's important to gain attention in terms of your slide design. Start with a blank template and telling stories is really key as well. So are there any other skills that you think are really important in terms of facilitating workshops? Something that you do differently between compared to speaking? What do you do differently when you actually facilitate and engage in a two-way learning process?

Toon: I think as a facilitator, you need to be very honest with yourself and with your audience and what I mean by that is, I really think that bad presentations are a problem in this world especially with academics. One, it's boring to sit and listen to a bad presentation. But two, it's also let's say, you are researching climate sciences, you're researching climate change for example then it's important that you can talk about that to the audience. So I really think bad presentations are a problem and I think as a facilitator that comes across. If you really care about your subject then that really really works. Other things I do- the question was what I do differently if I give a workshop instead of giving a presentation, is that the question?

Leanne: Yeah.

Toon: Yeah. The key techniques remain the same. What I tend to do in a workshop as well is I try to divide the entire workshop in three blocks. We divided our workshop, our presentation workshop for example, in story, show and slides. So first, we say, “Hey, you have a complex idea.” How can we make a good story from that that people understand, then we go show. How can we make it appealing to look at and appealing to listen to and then we go slides. How can we make good slides and that three-part structure is very powerful. But I use it in presentations as well as in workshops because people tend to be able to structure three things quite well in their head. If you will add like, “Hey, I'm going to talk in this workshop, I'm going to talk about these ten different blocks.” Then people are lost by number four and if you go, “Hey, these are the three things that's what we are going to talk about.” that really works.

Leanne: Yeah and I know that Sean D’Souza uses three parts in his podcast too.

Toon: Yeah, true.

Leanne: And the whole rule of threes and speeches, so I like that too.

Toon: That works.

Leanne: The listeners on our show are technical experts could be engineers, accountants, people working in HR. What would your advice be to people that are starting their careers in facilitation or transitioning from being the subject matter expert or the academic into creating engagement presentations. What would you say to them starting out?

Toon: The most important thing someone told us in the beginning when we started was try to find your niche. Because we were starting out and we thought, “Hey, we don't like bad presentations.” But yeah, a lot of people don't like bad presentations and then we thought, “Hey, we should focus on scientists maybe.” and then that's when it really took off when we said, “Hey, we are specially focusing on scientists and engineers.” and that was really important. Because if you run out on the street and yell, “Hey, I need someone for presentation techniques.” and a lot of people will come. But if you say, “Hey, I need someone to be able to tell that to scientists and engineers and people who need to deliver complex information.” then that's a different story. So I think for people who want to start with this like don't go too broad with your audience. It may also makes it more easier to focus your workshops towards your audience and people will know or companies will know that you are an expert especially to their audience and that will really work for you as it’s working your advantage.

Leanne: That's amazing advice and I really liked how you've both carved out your niche in that area.

Toon: Yeah. 

Leanne: The title of your book certainly attracted my attention when I did see it on Amazon and that's how I heard about you both.

Toon: Ah, wonderful. 

Leanne: Yeah. So times up. Where can people find you guys online or if they want to get in touch with you and asking more questions. Where should we send them?

Toon: Well, the place to go to is thefloorisyours.eu, E U from European Union and that's a blog where people can find free advice on how to talk to companies, how to talk to media, how to give presentations. So that's the go-to place and from there on there's an About page with our Twitter handles. There's the link to our book as well if you want to buy it and we are working on eBook by the way, that will be out in a couple of weeks.

Leanne: Oh, amazing. 

Toon: Maybe interesting for people in Australia because then you don't have to have all the delivery constraints and stuff like that. But thefloorisyours.eu is the place to go to and then you will find all the information.

Leanne: Fantastic. Can you share what your eBook is about or is it a top secret?

Toon: Well, so yeah. No, it’s the eBook version of the Life is too Short for Bad Presentations book. Now, it's only available like hardcopy but then we can send it all over the world and we want to have it as much as impact as possible. So it's about presentation techniques and it's divided as I said in three blocks, that's the best way to do it. First, we are going to look at story then that show and that slides, the same as in the workshop. But the useful thing about the book is that you can put a lot of more info in there than you can put in your workshop. You can't flood people in your workshop with too much information and then the book is like good for us to put everything in. That’s what it is.

Leanne: It’s like in the Encyclopaedia.

Toon: Yeah.

Leanne: That's amazing. Gosh, you must be both be so busy. Congratulations on everything that you've built in the last sort of six years.

Toon: Thank you.

Leanne: It's really exciting and I do recommend our listeners, check out the show notes for this episode where we'll have all the links to your website as well as the e-book by the time this episode's launched. It may be out or even a day or two away. So Toon, thank you so much for your time and really interesting story. I'd love to hear more in future about the process writing a book in and doing everything you both have done. You’ve accomplished a lot.

Toon: Yeah.

Leanne: So thanks for sharing your tips with our audience.

Toon: My pleasure. Yeah, no problem.

[END OF AUDIO] 29:06

First Time Facilitator podcast transcript

Listen to this episode from First Time Facilitator on Spotify. On today's show, I chat to Steph Clarke. Steph is originally from the UK and is now based in Melbourne, Australia. She runs her own business, using her experience in learning, leadership development and executive coaching to develop courses to help organisations develop and professionals become more confident, productive and effective leaders.

This is the transcript of my conversation with Steph Clarke. Alternatively, you can listen to my First Time Facilitator conversation with Steph.

Leanne: Steph welcome to the show.

Steph: Thank you and hi.

Leanne: Hi, now Steph you've started your life as an accountant and I love in your biography that you say that you realized you enjoy developing others more than deciphering technical accounting standards, and I think a lot of our facilitators, you're the first accountant that's made the pivot on the show, but I'm sure not the first accountant in the world that's done it.

Steph: I know a few.

Leanne: I actually know a few too. It seems that accountants turn into L&D people later on in their careers. How did you manage that pivot and what really drove you to L&D?

Steph: I can't really think about what the exact moment was that I thought actually L&D is for me, but I remember going on training courses when I was a young accountant and feeling like actually I wanted to be at the front of the room, developing content and delivering the stuff rather than sitting there having it taught to me and maybe that's a slight on some of the people who are delivering incredibly dry accounting topics and thinking, "Maybe I could be a bit more creative with some of this."

Not that I feel like necessarily-- Actually, okay, I think sometimes that I could do a better job, but sometimes just thinking surely this could come to life a lot more than it currently is and be done in a different way and liking the idea of that challenge.

Leanne: Yes, that's exactly what drove me as well I think. You can't see Steph because you're listening in, but you're your eyes have just lit up talking about that passion that you have for being in front of the room. I thought it was something that you've been comfortable with being at the front?

Steph: Well, I remember the first few times I did it and despite me thinking like, "Yes that's what I want to do," just being terrified but I think a lot of that was less about being at the front of the room but it was the pretty bit more of the judgment of the people there and thinking, "This is what I really want to do, this matters and actually feeling like I wanted to do a good job," not that I didn't feel like I wanted to do a good job when I was doing the accounting stuff because I did, but it was more around wanting to prove that I was good enough to do this and almost justify that being my next career choice which is a bit scary.

Leanne: It's like that impostor syndrome that comes through and funny accounting it's a job where you're behind a computer and it's quiet, no one really sees it whereas facilitating is very public so everyone can have an opinion on it. Is that what you found when you made that transition as well?

Steph: A little bit and I think there's really so feeling like because I went into it when I was quite junior relatively speaking that I didn't have enough technical knowledge to justify teaching, but I think there's there's definitely old adage of those who can't teach so I have rode that way everything for a few years of my accounting training life. I think actually one of the things I noticed within even six months of doing the training because first couple of years, this is context, I did both so I did training and I did accounting and just switch between the two at different times of the year. What I found was I was much better and I understood the concepts much more deeply after I'd done the training.

Once I'd been thinking about putting in to different perspectives and doing it in different ways and explaining it to others, I understood it so much better than I did when I was just doing it and having it explained to me once or twice and then having to get on with it.

Leanne: When you were sitting in that room and you were looking at the facilities at the front and going, "Gosh this is dry what are they doing?" What then did you think that would be a good strategy for you to get engagement and how did you start getting the skills to engage your audiences?

Steph: At first I didn't, at first I sucked because I just did what everyone else did because that was the script and I just needed to get over the initial fears and then I thought, "Hang on, if I want to do this a bit differently and if I want to not have people looking like they'd rather be anywhere else in the room rather than in the room I need to mix it up." I think initially and I still use this technique is very much around a bit of self-discovery so actually giving different topics for people to research in the same way as they would when they're at work because someone's not always stood at the front of the room in the audit room or in the office telling you what to do.

Actually giving people little projects to research using the resources that they're going to have to use every day to research the technical topics anyway and letting them then teach back. It practices some multiple different skills, gets a bit of peer learning in there, gets a bit of social learning in there, gets a bit of discovery and people then own it a bit more because they've actually done the research rather than being quite passive. Just trying to make learning a bit more active rather than passive.

Leanne: Yes, hear, hear. All the time I think we see a lot of talking and people are lecturing and then it's just listening and I think who actually does learn that way and like you said, when I just sit there in our cubicles learning by people talking at us it's all about getting involved and having that conversation, I 100% agree. I want to move on to your attraction towards leadership and that's something a skill that you love to teach now. What was it about leadership that attracted you that's all these topics going around communication, presentation skills, why leadership?

Steph: I think leadership jumped out because I see it and this isn't necessarily relative just in my industry, but I just see it done badly so often and when I talk to people, when I have conversations with friends, with family, the thing that always sucks out of their work is their leadership or lack thereof sometimes depending on the the context. I think because there's so many problems to solve, I find I quite like it because it's quite meaty. There's always going to be work because clearly [laughs] it's quite future-proof as a career I think.

I like that it is a bit broad, but you can go quite deep into different areas of it. For me, the areas that I quite like to focus on are two, one is emerging leaders so those who have made that transition particularly from technical competencies such as accounting because yes, that's my path as well. Those who've made that transition from technical roles through to leadership or management roles and a bit like, "Oh what do I do and who are these weird people that I now need to lead and where do I even start? I've got this other work to do I don't have time for them," and just trying to navigate that to build the sustainable leadership.

Then secondly teams, actually working with teams at different levels not necessarily just new leaders that can be quite senior executive teams and leadership teams to help them be more effective. Actually building back some of the habits that they might need to help them to be be more effective as a team. Just to some of those to get a bit unstuck because some of those teams they've been operating together a while or they've had new people in and they're a bit like, "Oh we need to start again but we're not really sure how because it's been a long time since we've had to do that."

Leanne: Like you said the very broad groups, with the emerging leaders that you focus on, what do you think is the biggest struggle for someone that's stepping into a leadership role?

Steph: It is a few things and I think a largely it comes down to having even an idea of your identity as a leader, what do you actually want to be known for? Who do you want to be as a leader? What do you want your team to say about you, think about you in three months, six months, twelve months time when they're not your team anymore? I think a lot of people are promoted into those ranks not because of their leadership skills, but because of their technical skills so that is what they identify with. It's what they've been rewarded for, it's what they've been recognized for, it's what they think and know that they are good at and they are which is great, but those things are not going to make you a great leader.

It's being able to help them identify what they want to be as a leader and for a lot of people, again depending on industry that's quite an alien concept because it's quite fluffy, it's ambiguous, it's a bit airy-fairy whatever. They've not really thought about themselves in that way and I suppose a lot of them or not a lot of them but a number of them don't necessarily even want to be a leader.

A leader of others necessary or a manager of others. They want to just do the work that they are good at and get on with it. Helping them see how they can bring their strengths from their technical areas into leading others and whether that's being a technical expert and being a technical leader, but still having some of those qualities of great leadership as well.

Leanne: I think about leadership all the time, it's something that I work with at my organization and everything that you've said there is I think echoed in a lot of organizations right now so you're right. You'll never be out of a job. It's funny with leadership I think with all leaders and I've had conversations with my mates around the barbecue as well in all different industries and there is that common denominator of, "My leader doesn't this or this I can't delegate, they don't speak well." I think a leader these days there's a lot of different hats to wear.

They've got to champion diversity initiatives, they've got a champion safety, environment standards. It can seem really tough I guess it's a bit maybe but it might seem we are asking too much for a leader or we are trying to create a type of a unicorn perhaps. What do you think about that? Do you think there's a lot of crazy expectations on leaders or what should someone do?

Steph: There really is, and I think it's not even just expectations, but the wash of initiatives that we throw at leaders or throw organizations. Yes, from really senior to the more junior leaders and managers is just not fair because we are not setting them up right or well or fairly to really succeed because they are trying to do everything, you just do nothing. I think there is a fundamental issue in, I don't want to say workload necessarily, but that's what it all comes down to because it's so broad.

Not always, we are trying it and we are expecting the same thing from everyone. [unintelligible 00:09:56 baseline of what we do need to expect around things like safety particularly if you're in the extractions in the industry or things like that. Clearly there's a baseline, that's not a leadership thing that's an everyone thing, but when we come to the leaders, we do need to think about maybe differentiating slightly more and thinking about what strengths and what are people going to be great at bringing to the organization and fostering or championing in the organization maybe expecting less of everyone to do everything.

Leanne: Yes and that's what the whole strengths based approach really is all about, not everyone needs to be a champion diversity, not everyone needs to be all about the environment, not everyone needs to deliver inspirational speeches at morning teas.

Steph: Absolutely yes.

Leanne: Share that around. Now you're talking about an emerging leaders and you said that one critical thing is to know yourself and what your legacy is or how people perceive you in three, six months. That leads me back into the model that you developed your framework, do you want to explain that to our listeners and how you developed that I think it's really great.

Steph: Thanks yes so my trifecta or Venn diagram for leadership is know your stuff know yourself, know your team because when I think about all the challenges and all the different skills and behaviors you need as a leader it really does boil down to those three things and by team of course you can make that broader and think about your stakeholders, your organization, your customers et cetera because there is no others.

Maybe in time that will evolve to know others rather than know your team, but if we start with know your team I think particularly for emerging leaders that's a good starting point and then you can take those behaviors and thinking a bit broader. I think the way I came up with it was really just synthesizing most of the different challenges I hear and also the strengths I hear from people as well. When people are great what is it they're great at and it's usually something that helps with all three of those if not two, to three of those areas.

When I think about a lot of the skills and behaviors for things like delegation, things like communication, again you're good at those because you know yourself you know your staff, you know your team.

Leanne: When you would talk about synthesizing the ideas, did you just sit down with a stack of post-it notes and start drawing them out and categorizing them what was your process?

Steph: It was literally a shower idea.

Leanne: I'd say that.

Steph: I'm sorry. There was no process. It had been festering away in my brain and literally saying to me one day and I don't know if I was actually in the shower, but I was doing something really inane like washing up or in the shower or something when those moments come to you and that was. I went and scribbled it down and thought, "I could work with that." What I tend to do then is leave it for a bit in front of me on my desk or something on a post-it note or a scrap of paper and then just keep going back to it and just testing, does that fit within that and does this fit within that? Will with this work if I was using it in this situation and then just testing it on some courses and testing it on LinkedIn and in my newsletter and stuff like that in some posts just to see how it landed if people came back were like, "That is why don't-- I was going to say something a bit rude - and that is terrible." What rating this podcast is sorry.

Leanne: We've had a few people say explicit words on it. I think when talking about those situations they've been in workshops so don't need to censor it. The reason I ask that is I think as facilitators we tend to use a lot of of course leadership theory and models off from reviewed articles and a lot of stuff but it is nice to have our own IP and think about what's our own opinion is on certain things and how we see the links. I think that's a value that we can bring as facilitators so I guess the tip there for first-time facilitators is to have more frequent showers.

Steph: I think so, yes.

Leanne: Also, I think what you said is that you had this model, you let it sit there, you kept reflecting on it and coming back to it from time to time and then testing it which is key.

Steph: Yes, and also just refining it and being open because I think it's really tempting and I definitely fell into this with this model and a couple of others that I've worked on use more in specific courses and things as you get really attached to it you're like, "I've had this idea and I might never have it again and this is going to be it." Then you have to be okay with with refining it or taking feedback or it not working anymore or it becoming a bit outdated. Yes, it's absolutely great to have your own IP and really working on that and I spend a bit of time thinking about letting the ego go and knowing that that IP might not be great forever.

Once you might have that Eureka moment in the shower and think, "Yes, this is the best thing since something by Covey," you need to take a step back and think and be okay when it doesn't work.

Leanne: That's hard sometimes when you're all so attached. I was talking to a really great leader at my business and he said, "When you put an idea at the table, you've got to be prepared to step back and let the criticism come in and let the feedback flow and just don't be attached to it." I thought that was really great advice. You mentioned Covey there and growing up for me his book Seven Habits was one of my favorite books growing up and still is. Are there any books that have really impacted you professionally I guess both in your facilitation sense but as the way that you I guess live and run your life.

Steph: I like how you say growing up like you're like a 10 year old reading Seven Habits [unintelligible 00:15:05]. [laughs]

Leanne: Well his son Sean Covey he had Seven habits of highly effective teens so I did [crosstalk] Yes, actually very. I didn't read the Stephens version until I was a bit older, but yes Sean's version same same but just the language is written in a really- [crosstalk]

Steph: Yes, nice overachieving I love it Leanne.

Leanne: It was a Christmas present [unintelligible 00:15:33]

Steph: The books and actually there's one I've read really recently and I keep waxing lyrical about it on LinkedIn and on some blog pop ask was have done is The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker. I think as a facilitator it's quite a new book, I think it actually came out early this year but as a facilitator it's really changed the way I think about why we get people together and not just change the way I think, but really put some language for me around some of the uneasiness I have sometimes when some groups come together and some of the language around why I don't feel that something's are useful or helpful.

She just really helped to go and this is why I'm like, "Ah this is why." It's always just been like a bit of a weird feeling and I've not been able to really articulate, for example, it's a bad structure now I realized so it's a bit of an example. When you've got a team together and there's people in the room that shouldn't be in the room for the conversations they're having, and you know that it's not quite working but you don't really know why, but you do know why because it's those one or two or three people. What this book really does is it almost gives you the confidence to go back to whoever the stake holder is and say, "Let's go through the list and actually talk about why each person is there and actually have them articulate. Yes well we've had to invite that person because of some legacy thing or we invited this person, we have to invite that person."

Whatever that usually political reason is and then just being able to challenge them and say, " If this is what we're trying to achieve and actually having a really clear purpose on what is it, why are we bringing this particular group together, is having these one or two or three people there. Is that going to help us get closer to or further from our goal, our objective, our mission? Using that then as the catalyst to uninvite some of those people which can be controversial and a bit challenging, but using that purpose of why we gather and how we're bringing and why we're bringing people together to then challenge who's there, why we're there, where we meet as well.

I think as a facilitator we just rock up at the office or at the conference venue or whatever it is and sometimes as facilitators we're maybe coming in for a session as part of a bigger event, so we don't have the luxury of saying, "Have you thought about why you're in this place," and they're like, "No we just booked it, we use every year." We can't always have that level of control, but when we do it was a great reminder to think about what does this symbolize? What does this represent? Is this the best environment for us to have this particular conversation.

For example if we want to talk about the future of the company is sitting in the company's mahogany panel boardroom with pictures of all the old presidents and chair people and all the rest is that really getting us in the mindset of the future of this company? Maybe not.

Leanne: Maybe not, no. That's really interesting because I've actually looked at participant lists and gone I'm actually physically scratching my head and I do ask the question but it wasn't in the way where it referred back to the purpose or saying is it bringing us closer to the purpose and to continue iterating that, I wasn't too sure how to challenge it or if it even was my place as a facilitator because I'm trying to serve you if you think that's the best move maybe that's the best move, but I think if we're there to drive the best outcomes we need to start taking accountability and ownership of who is in the room and what's the environment like.

Steph: Yes, and I think it's a great point you raised Leanne because as a facilitator as any subject matter expert whether it's of your the skill as a facilitator or the subject matter of the content you're there to have an opinion, you are there to be the expert so if you are the facilitator that is exactly the kind of thing that we should be having an opinion on challenging our clients or our organizations other internal or external clients on because we're there to help them get the outcome not just to walk them through a process or walking through a conversation. That's part of it, but there is a much, much bigger environment and ecosystem that we are part of them that we can control to get that outcome.

Leanne: That's how we start adding more value as facilitators.

Steph: Absolutely.

Leanne: Talking about conference locations and venues, have you presented at any X Factor or participated in any great conference locations?

Steph: I was think about this because you had this on I think it was, I can't remember if it was Facebook or LinkedIn or Instagram one of the social media.

Leanne: It was Instagram.

Steph: You had some bland picture and I was really racking my brain I think unfortunately having delivered a lot of accounting training, the locations aren't always super imaginative so a lot of hotels have very boring walls and windowless rooms and things like that. I've been to some really cool locations. I've been around the world to deliver different training when I was basically [unintelligible 00:20:35] I've been to Singapore to, a couple of times in Singapore, Shanghai so not just places beginning there, Hong Kong all around Australia, quite a few places in Europe so Germany, the Netherlands, US.

I've been really lucky to travel a lot with my facilitation, but most of those in fairly uninspiring offices and locations unfortunately.

Leanne: I should just get rid of any windowless room. It should just be [crosstalk]

Steph: I know, a few nice country clubs and golf clubs in the UK because that was often our conference venue were in those locations, you drove out to the country and because they are usually bit bigger as well but sadly nothing super loud. We've had some cool places where there was footballers or some kind of celebrity staying in the same place, some of the participants got really excited and just following let's try and find if they could get spotted and selfies with whichever footballer was there.

Leanne: That sounds like you didn't need to do any kind of energizer if you've got celebrities- [crosstalk]

Steph: Exactly, yes.

Leanne: We've had great experiences because you've worked for this global company. Now you're also a side hustle, some people don't like the word side hustle but you've got a side project that's happening and I've got to say that I love your branding. In your email signature you've got these really cool, your icon of red glasses. Can you talk us through how you started branding yourself and figure out your brand story and all that for facilitators that are trying to make that transition from corporate to running their own show.

Leanne: Yes, and I think for me it was a bit of a turmoil in trying to pin down what my area was going to be because as a bit of someone who's bit of a jack-of-all-trades and likes to have fingers in. The thing for me for about three or four months just know you feel a bit sick just thinking about niching or niching if you're American, niching because it was just a lot of it. That idea of cutting off different options and when I realized that actually no I'm not cutting off different options, I'm actually just specializing or focusing on one or two for now and in a year, two years, three years whenever I can always transition because I'll have a client base and I'll have all these different contacts.

If I want to then focus a bit more on presentation skills which is another thing I really love to teach but didn't want to necessarily do right now, well then it's quite an easy transition because it's, "We've seen Steph present, she does leadership stuff or she's a great presenter. Great yes, she would be great if you get her to do some presentation." Actually thinking about the evolution of a life-cycle of the business rather than just what I'm doing for the next three, six nine, twelve months. That was the first hurdle was to get over my innate fear of boredom and a lack of variety which was a bit of a problem.

Psychologist please apply within and then thinking about the other brand and what I wanted to building a website and all those kind of things. At first for starter we are just writing some blogs and just thinking about getting a voice and building the brand voice and the brand opinion and what topics I wanted to talk about and which ones flowed a bit easier than others and where I wanted to put a bit of a stamp and then from there, I thought we need some kind of logo and looking at different things. Then the big decision was do I brand without going into the back end of the business too much but do I brand ? Do I actually start a business and incorporation or do I go more sole trader and with my own name?

Looking at both the pros and cons of both and really thinking for this point in what I'm doing I want to be Steph Clarke and that's the brand to be rather than necessarily at the moment a business or a company name. That was the other thing to determine as well and obviously there's questions around, do you want to go and hire people immediately and have people working for you or franchise, in which case maybe go down the business and having a brand name otherwise if it's going to be you flying solo for a while maybe that's your name.

Then the glasses happened again I don't know if it was quite a shower idea and I think it was even my boyfriend, I'm sure he would take credit for it anyway, when I was thinking about what is it that makes me me and I think I had my glass on the time and so a bit of a slightly statement piece and I was looking at different icons because I really love iconography and rather than more detailed images.

Yes, I think at a similar time we went, "Oh, what about my glasses?" Then got a little icon of one just in the icon catalog and then made it red and I was like, "Yes, this could work." What I did, as I went then went onto Fiverr and just asked someone to sent a photo of my glasses and I was like make this into an icon in this color red and there we were.

Leanne: So clever, so clever. I like that you really thought about your life cycle of your business because I know in Australia a lot of people don't think of it until I have to get registered and I'm like, "I'm I still a trader? I'm I a business, what am I?" They wait for the governance to apply before actually proactively thinking where is this business going in the future. It's interesting you talked about specializing as well and just starting somewhere, getting clients and then expanding. I think that's a really nice approach. What are you up to now? What kind of projects and courses and workshops?

Steph: I have just this weekend hit submit on my first Udemy course it's going to be very exciting. I'm going to be using that really as a bit of a supplement to other things so it's my delegate or die course which I run. I have run classroom versions for and now it's going to [unintelligible 00:26:19].

Leanne: Cool name.

Steph: Thanks. Funny I recorded it all and I did like a promo video and all the rest and delegate or dialect, I just thought, "I hope they don't throw that away," because you have to submit it to be reviewed first. I thought if they come back and don't like that title I didn't want them to get a D because I'm going to start everything all over again and that would make me want to die, probably.

Leanne: You could just delegate that to someone else.

Steph: Exactly, delegate that yes, exactly. Luckily I looked on Udemy and there's another one that's called diplomatic or die or something like that so I was like, "Okay cool it's obviously okay so this is good." Anyway, that's one of the things that's going to be launched in the next, hopefully next week or so provided their review gets uploaded and submitted okay. That's very exciting and then outside of that I'm working on something called the New Leader 12 Week Success Planner which is going to be a combination of course of coaching and some other resources too some of which are still in in the pipeline so I can't talk too much about them at the moment in case it will fall through, but you've got some quite exciting things to actually help our new leaders take that first 12 weeks and think about what habits.

It's all based around the habit of leadership and the habits that you can be building in a sustainable way to actually help you as a new leader. When I say new leader it doesn't have to be someone who's day one, it could be you've been a leader or a manager for a little while and you're just like, "I've never really honed these skills and I need to actually think about refreshing or learning a bit more about my leadership style and skills et cetera." It's really helping them in quite a guided way to become better leaders and build the sustainable habits they need to lead.

There's content for that and there's going to be some mixture of online stuffs and coaching packages with me to actually help guide through that 12-week process and some classroom based sessions too. There's going to be a half-day version in November in Melbourne and looking at hopefully one in Brisbane as well but working on some dates for that by hopefully end of October.

Leanne: Wow, you must be so busy.

Steph: Yes, it's stuff that gives me this especially doing it on the side as well as I work four days in my main hustle and then the rest of the weekend well whilst I have one full day. Also I'm delivering for clients in some of that time as well so it really is evenings, weekends, [unintelligible 00:28:46] in between the two, but it's fun and it's creative. I think the creative side there's some bits that suck my soul as well when I'm filling in a spreadsheet with my expenses for that week or whatever with my general ledger mainly because that reminds me of accounting probably, but when something goes wrong in my website and I'm just like, "Oh God why is this so terrible?"

At the same time the creative freedom and I think just the possibility of where this could go and where the clients I can help and the people I can work with yeah it's really exciting.

Leanne: I hear you, I'm on a nine-day fortnight as well and that one day it's just so precious and you can't afford to be tired or sleeping, you've really got to ramp it up but then also use those after hours and it's amazing how much time you do find in a week and what you can get done. I think it's not tiring because like you say you get to be creative and making your own decisions and it's it's really fun. I really love-

Steph: I was just going to say actually that's just the point you made there around it's amazing how much time you do have an evening actually that's what started my business. It was just a bit of boredom because I exercise in the mornings, in the evenings I was making dinner and then just sitting and festering and I felt like my brain was disappearing. This was probably a year after moving to Australia, so yes there is a lot of other stuff going on, you're getting settled and yet doing it. Going out and doing stuff and then after that I was like, "Okay, what I'm I going to do know? [laughs] What's next in my career?" Just thinking about that and that's really where this whole thing emerged from was I think again my boyfriend's going, "Well, why don't you start your own business?" I was like, "Yes, okay, I'll try that." [laughs]

Leanne: [unintelligible 00:30:29] your boyfriend but you started in business and got your branding organized too?

Steph: Yes, let's not give them too much credit.

Leanne: What I love about your online 12-week program for habits is that we often find that when clients approach the internal or external, it's just to around a workshop. They don't really think about the embedding strategies. Something like a 12-week program because it takes, I don't know what the theory that you've read says, but I'm of the mind about 30 days to create a habit consistently every day. That's how I developed my habit of exercising in the morning and then when you make it that habit, if you don't do it, you just feel terrible because it's so ingrained. I think that course is going to be so useful for anyone transitioning, so well done on putting that together. That's great. If people want to connect with you, talk to you, find out all your stuff. What's one place that we can send them where they can do that?

Steph: Yes, LinkedIn is probably my most visited social media site. LinkedIn is where I'm probably most active at the moment. Get on there and contact me there. I'm Steph-Clarke and I'm sure you put the link in the show notes. I've recently joined Twitter which I did it while I was on sick leave, which I think was probably a massive mistake because it's just the vortex but I think someone described to me two months is one long shot, said, "Okay, go away." [laughs] I'm also on Twitter and Instagram which is Steph_Clark__ because someone had the one underscore already and on Facebook too, just Steph Clarke leadership, is where you can find me.

Leanne: Perfect, all on everywhere.

Steph: All the socials but LinkedIn is definitely where I'm most active.

Leanne: Yes, your posts and videos are very active. Also if you want to look at great how branding is, Instagram is really cool too. Steph we'll link to all those in our show notes, but also it's been wonderful having you on a nice, bright and early on a Monday morning. Great way to start our way week.

I think so.

We've covered so many topics, from leadership to your career pivot, through to skills with facilitator just in space of 30 minutes. I'm sure our audience appreciates that a lot and all the best with everything. I can't wait to see how all your programs go and where you position your business in the future. It's really exciting.

Steph: Thanks Leanne and I'm looking forward because I'm sure we'll be collaborating at some point in the future.

Leanne: I am sure we will.

Steph: Mainly because I love coming to Brisbane, so just any excuse of that. [laughs]

Leanne: Hell yes. For those based overseas, Brisbane's very sunny and Melbourne's renowned for being quite chilly in winter.

Steph: It's all relative, so when your from the UK, I'm like, "This is cool," because Melbourne's not like that.

Leanne: Thanks again Steph.

First Time Facilitator podcast transcript (Episode 31)

Listen to this episode from First Time Facilitator on Spotify. When you're asked to deliver another workshop, do you find you're having to recreate content, or dig around different folders, trying to find that one slide or activity that worked really well all those years ago? This happens to me.

This is the transcript of my conversation with Sally Foley-Lewis. Click to listen to my First Time Facilitator conversation with Sally.

Leanne: I'd like to welcome this week's guest who is a dynamic and interactive presenter, MC, and much-sought-after facilitator and executive coach. Her clients rave about her because she leaves the audience equipped to take immediate positive action. Welcome to the First Time Facilitator Podcast, Sally Foley-Lewis. It's great to have you on the show.

Sally: Oh, Leanne. I'm so delighted to spend a little bit of time with you and chatting our favourite topic; facilitation.

Leanne: We could talk, I mean there's so much to talk about in terms of facilitation. But I saw you earlier this year as an emcee at the Institute for Learning Professionals Conference held in Brisbane. So you open up that conference and you really made us all laugh, you look completely natural on stage, you were talking about al l the different types of people that attend conferences which was just yeah I found that really funny. The stage looks like a bit of a happy place for you has it always been that way?

Sally: As a child, if I'm in front of an audience or if an audiences and imprisoned and have just watch me, I'm always happy. That's just something that I have found incredibly easy to do and I know that doesn't come naturally for other people. Trust me, I'm not good at everything but being in front of a crowd is yeah, it is, it's my happy place.

Leanne: Oh, wow. You're very very lucky. How long have you been in this game of running workshops facilitating emceeing?

Sally: Well, don't let my youthful looks deceive you, dear Leanne. Hahaha. Look, at least 20 years. My first job at a university was working as a Recreation Officer in a Psychiatric Hospital in Brisbane and so I was in front of the, my audience back then with patients and so we would do cooking classes or we'd do some training around some skills for cleaning or crafts or anything like that. So my first job at a university, I already had an audience as such. Yeah, so it's over 20 years.

Leanne: Wow. So in terms of what you need back then 20 years ago and the skills that you've honed now, what's really changed? I mean like the audience obviously has changed. You no longer working with patients. What have you done to really hone your craft in terms of your development?

Sally: I am a big believer of lifelong learning. So I have got books, I'm surrounded by books that I read. When courses come up that I think are going to really take my skills to a haul other level then I will jump on them. Advance facilitation programs, professional speaking courses, training courses. Also programs that probably a little bit left of centre but expand my thinking. And in the last sort of 10 to 15 years, I'm even looking at going in, I mean, I've been spending a lot of time going and seeing other speakers speak and other facilitators facilitate secondly for the content but firstly for the process. The reason why I do that is because I want to sit there and watch the audience and what's the facilitator interaction and probably in the last five years, I've been really more attuned to going, “That was great. That was awesome. This is what I've learned.” But also, “This is what I didn't like.” Now, why didn't I like that?, Why did that not resonate with me?” Because there's value in both sides of that coin and I think any opportunity presents a learning opportunity and heightening that level of observation and ability to say and well, stop and say to yourself, “Why didn't I like it?” or “Why did I like it?” is really important.

Leanne: Yeah, it's a really powerful question. Now that I've been in some workshops and I've thought the facilitators been incredible and killed it and I've really resonated the person and then I talked to the person next to me and that didn't hit the mark. It's pretty fascinating why some facilitators stick and why others don't. Why do you think people are more interested in some facilitator styles over others?

Sally: Well, I think it comes down to why have people presented? Why do people shop in the first place? So, who's your audience and what do they want? And also, is the message being delivered in a way that resonates? I think that's where it comes down to you as the facilitator is having multiple formats of your message ready to go so that it can hit everyone in the room in the right way and I also believe that you will have a very clear bell curve of audience. You'll have people who will be, “No, thank you. Never again.” You'll have people in the room who go, “Yep, pretty good.” and don't take that personally, that's actually take it as it is, that's pretty good. And then, there'll be other people in the room that will become your own personal stalkers because they love you so much. So I think, the good facilitators understand that and also the good facilitators know that of the end that didn't like you, there is some value in trying to work out why but don't stay there because that's just soul-destroying.

Leanne: And I think, yeah, you've had 20 years experienced of this and I think that call of “don't taking it personally” is actually really useful for our first-time facilitators who was just starting their journey. How did you develop your resilience? Was it just a case of, “Okay, I'll take the feedback but I'm going to move on and be constructive with it.” or did you have any sort of other kind of coping mechanism to deal with the feedback from the No group in that bell curve?

Sally: There's been multiple little things along the way and that's been willing to listen. Thanks the person for the feedback but then also remember to ask yourself, “Is that true?, “Is this true of that person?” and “Is this true of me and what I need to be doing to get better?” And then also, I know this sounds really bizarre but after I have facilitated or delivered some training whatever. I come home and I have a shower. It’s a little ritual where I wash away the day because if I if I had someone who gave me some feedback that didn't resonate or didn't make sense or they just didn't like me then I washed that away. But also, in the shower it gives me time to actually step back and relax and say, “Okay, what do I need to take out of this?” So that's one thing. The other big lesson for me is that I have got the biggest expectations of myself. I'm self-competitive and what that means is I'm always going to be my worst critic and sometimes I need to calm that little bunny right down and actually noticed that there are 19 very goods and only one good. So which one do you focus on?

Leanne: Oh, yes.

Sally: Yeah and that's something that's really important and you know what? The goods are good. Don't devalue good, it's good and that's a positive word and I think we sometimes and put good into a not good enough category in our own heads when we're doing that mind chatter. Good is good and be okay with that and focus on the 19 very goods that you've got.

Leanne: Yeah. Isn't it funny how we do just go back to that one feedback form and really dwell on it when you've got overwhelming evidence that it actually went really well.

Sally: Exactly.

Leanne: Good tip. I'm the shower thing. Yeah. I love doing that too, actually. I didn't really think of it as a strategy but it's something that I when I reflect on the work that I've done at the end of the day, yeah, there’s nothing better than just having a hot shower, letting it go and then focus and resetting the next day. I think that's great!

Sally: Absolutely.

Leanne: So you spoke about as in terms of your facilitation you've created information you deliver it in multiple formats. So you have that in your back pocket so you can relate these stories or whatever mediums to present. Are there any other sort of other tips or skills that you think facilitators really need?

Sally: Yeah. I think that in the room, what I have seen a lot of is that a facilitators feel the need to be seen as the expert. While they are hired on that premise, I think there's a lot of facilitators who could do was remembering that people in the room have got experiences and they actually combined with your experience, create a really wonderful depth and richness to the room and so instead of just being the talking head in the front of the room, maybe it's a case of asking a question first and saying, “Who's had experience of this?”, “What's your insights around this?”, “What do you hope to get out of this?” and really listen to what's been said because that can then help you determine how deep you go on some things and it also helps you determine whether you need to actually deliver information as knowledge transfer or actually get into an exercise or an activity to truly immerse the group into something. I think that's something that some facilitators get caught up in whether its nerves or an expectation to be seen as something X Y Zed. I'm not sure but that's one of the things I think a lot of facilitators could do to just take that deep breath and ask first.

Leanne: I think there's a real fine line between facilitating and training and I also think for some reason, if you're at the front of the room, you're expected you're the authority figure so you're expected to know it all. I think that's where we cover coming from so I really like the idea of just letting go and using questions more to find out what your audience actually does know and where can you fill that gap.

Sally: Yeah.

Leanne: Now, you mentioned that you read a lot of books but you've also written a few books yourself. Now one of the books is called The Productive Leader and I really wanted to talk about, you talked about productivity and using systems to make work easier and I know as a facilitator especially working for a big company, we've got some content and then were asked to deliver a workshop or something entirely new or we might be asked to change a half-day workshop into a full day or cut it down to an hour. So we're constantly having to go through all the resources we've created and make all these changes and we save them somewhere. Is there a better way of doing that?

Sally: Look, I think there's just one layer and this actually creates work to start with but saves you a lot of time later and that is as you save, where's your cataloguing of your IP. What I think happens is that we create all these programs and all these resources and we've got files everywhere and we've even probably got them cross-reference to. It was somewhere they're sitting in a training folder or a facilitation folder and then somewhere else they're sitting into the actual topic folder and I think what we're not doing is creating a really clear catalogue and I've got a very, look, I'm big for simple. To me, it's very difficult to make things simple but that's where I'm always striving for which means an Excel spreadsheet that has a cross-referencing of the file name and the activity, the resources and also what it will help to, what topic it's supposed to hit on whether it's interpersonal communications, time management, leadership, delegation feedback, whatever it is and it can be more than one. So that way, when I go into the Excel spreadsheet and I do a find, say I've got to do a Lunch and Learn on feedback. If I do find feedback, there I go I've got about six or seven activities: Bang! Pick and choose.

Leanne: Oh, my gosh. That sounds incredible. Yeah, so easy.

Sally: I'm not going to lie to you, the set-up is big. It does take a bit of work to set it up but it is so worth it when you imagine in 12 months’ time you're going and looking for something and all you have to do is do a find search in an Excel spreadsheet. So that's one of the little hacks I think is really valuable and time-saving.

Leanne: Yeah. I mean, I'm even thinking now get so many people at work coming up to me and going, “Oh, do you have a good energizer or something they can get people moving or an activity that's great for engineers, or?” and so if we had just a shared Excel document where all that was. I really like that.

Sally: Yes.

Leanne: You also promised in your book that promised to the reader that you'll help save them two hours every day.

Sally: Yes.

Leanne: It's just using a combination of these type of hacks or what's your philosophy around time and I know you mentioned that it's really about self-management not time management.

Sally: Yeah. It’s tasks and focus-management really. I don't like the phrase time-management but that's what we know it is called as a commercial type of phrase. I do promise two hours a day because when you get into the book, The Productive Leader, there's three big elements to it. There's your personal productivity, your professional productivity, and your people productivity. And if you do one or two things out of each of those three areas, you will find that you'll be crawling, you'll be taking back, creeping back those two hours. It’s nothing you're not going to use them,  you will use them but you'll be using them for things that are far more valuating and far more fulfilling for either your personal, your professional life. So it could be setting up an email automation system as one. Tidying up the way you have your meetings is another and that could be your professional productivity and your personal productivity, you could do some batching of tasks or some chunking of some work and then in your people productivity, it could be who can I delegate some work to. So just those couple of things set up over the course of the two-week period or we'll wait a couple of weeks actually brings you over time you'll get back two hours a day.

Leanne: I really need those two hours. Haha. With the people side, do you in terms of delegation, do you outsource any tasks using any virtual assistants. Have you gone down that road?

Sally: I have. I mean, as you know I work for myself and so what I tend to do is outsource project to project. So depending on what it is, is what I'll then outsource. So I'm a big fan of it and I know that it can be quite daunting for some people but when you do it right and I'm actually quite passionate about delegation so that will probably be my next book. That if it's done right and it's clear and your expectations are set in place and you do have milestones and progress checks and things like that until you have that such trust in the relationship that you know you can hand the project over and not worry about it, then it does work well. I do that whether they're virtual or not. I just had a video because I'm speaking in Kuwait and so I have to do some promotional video and so I've sent that off to what it was Upwork or whatever it was Fiverr or whatever I kind of remember what it's called now. A guy came forward and said this is what I do, this is who I am and so I have to do my checks and balances. It's my due diligence here and so anyone who has to delegate, you have responsibility to check that you're picking the right person and so once that was established I asked, “Is this something you can do?” “What's your experience with doing this?” and then, “How long do you think it would take?” and so it was slow to set up but once I once I knew that he was the right guy, I uploaded the videos they were done and they were done perfectly any one revision on one was required for and what I did was I asked for Arabic subtitling onto the videos and within 24 hours done dusted and perfect. So it might have taken me two days to set that up and get that relationship right, get my understanding and my expectations clear but then, bang! Done. Thank you very much.

Leanne: We had so a couple things one I can't wait to read your book on delegation. I'm fascinated by it too more the case of when I look at people, there are certain people or I don't know if it's types and hopefully I'm not labelling but delegation seems it's not about just delegating a task, it's really about a mindset and I know that some people have a fear of letting go or have the confidence that someone can perform a task better than other people. So looking forward to reading that book.

Sally: Oh, yeah.

Leanne: Second thing is, what you're presenting in Kuwait? What's that all about? That’s exciting!

Sally: Thank you. It’s the book The Productive Leader.

Leanne: Yes.

Sally: I've been booked to do a one-day presentation in Kuwait. So it's a long way to go for one day.

Leanne: It is.

Sally: I used to live in the Middle East and we didn't actually get to go to Kuwait while we were there so I'm so excited. I think I'll get about five minutes to see the city. But I'm very very excited about going.

Leanne: Oh, that's so cool. I mean, I read in you bio, you've worked or lived in Germany. So the UAE as you mentioned Asia and even outback Australia. So you're presenting to all different types of people, what do you change anything in the way that you deliver or what is it with the different audiences that you do kind of modify to make sure you hit the mark with your message?

Sally: Well, I think the thing that happens before you even stand in front of the audience is asking a lot of questions and questions like to the client not necessarily the audience. There’s two different things there. To the client, “What do you want your audience to do, to think, to feel, to believe, to act on when I when I walk off the stage? Number one. Number two is who's in the room that I need to be aware of? Are there any particular issues that are going to be in the room that will be not spoken about but completely known to everyone except me? Is there any languaging? That is super important. I don't just mean swearing and potty mouth stuff. I actually mean, “Do you use a certain type of terminology in your particular industry?” And so those sort of questions that take it another step further are really important and I do change it because they're not every audience is the same. I sound less Australian when I'm actually overseas.

Leanne: Really? I got some friends, yeah, when they have a few drinks they’re just their accent changes.

Sally: Yeah, I will admit I come from Queensland so I sound a little rednecky, I’m a Queenslander. But when I'm overseas, I do for some reason I switch into a far more less accented Australian accent if that makes any sense.

Leanne: Yeah, I know what you mean. More kind of British English?

Sally: Yes.

Leanne: Yeah.

Sally: And I also slow it down as well. I speak a lot slower when I'm overseas. But also, I mean that's just voice.  But also, I think for the audience when I'm when I'm in the city than I even present differently because there's an expectation perception and while part of me thinks can't they just judge me for me and we can all get on that bandwagon. The reality is you've got to hit a credible no straightaway and so it's dressing the part, speaking the part and then also delivering the part. So when I'm out West, I might wear a pair of jeans and pair of boots and a shirt. Whereas, in the city, I'll be wearing a suit. It just you've got to be thinking about who is and changing things to suit them and as an example is that just recently did some cross-cultural training with a group from the Philippines. So in order to get an exercise done, I had to change some phrasing around so that it would make sense but because English is obviously is not their first language and so I tried different ways to describe a phrase as well as have the person in the group who had English was probably the best out of the whole group and had a chat with him about what the phrase means and have to translate it and so I think for facilitators, it's being okay to play and be flexible and adaptive and keep trying to work things out because your audience wants to get it and that's the thing.

Leanne: Yeah. I think flexibility is key and what most recently last week I was booked into run the strategy session and the agenda just continued to change and I was thinking, “Oh, gosh. I'm not going to have a good night's sleep tonight knowing that it might change again.” But I think that is the nature of the game. That is facilitation. You need to be prepared for anything.

Sally: Oh, yes. I was just going to say. I think that there's a line of being flexible and I'm about to contradict myself and say knowing when to say No and knowing as a facilitator to know when to pull back because let's face it we have a lot of people who want to put in a lot into a day. The more content you shoves in; the more shallow you're going to be and I think that's that bouncing act that makes it very hard for facilitators sometimes.

Leanne: Yeah. It does. Especially if you've got this whole day and they want you to cover all these topics but even just moment you can look at that and just go, “Look, one of those topics alone, it's like it's been a week on it.” I mean, even the doing that delegation, productivity and things like that. So I guess the million-dollar question is a lot of people go to these workshops and they get really inspired but afterwards they don't really implement the changes and I know that at the conference where you emceed what you did was at the beginning of that is you got us to team up with someone as a buddy and we were budding each other, we're going to make each other accountable for learning and embedding all this stuff. As well as setting a time in our diaries and our phones for a week after where we could spend some time to reflect on what we learn about conference. I thought that was such a great tool. What other tips do you have for embedding learning following that workshop?

Sally: I tend to walk out of the programs I deliver with I could guarantee that they've got a coaching session as well and that is to make sure that with between now and a month's time it's usually less than a month but usually within the month I say, “Please call me or book in a session because I want to make sure that over the next month as this feels clunky as you embed new things and I'm there to support you.” and I don't sugar-coat anything. I'm not one of these people who says, “Oh, it's just easy.” No, it's not! You're going through that transition of conscious incompetence and trying to embed something new. You're trying to change something and the latest research says that habits take anywhere from 21 days to 18 months and it depends on the habit and depends on the situation, it depends on you. So you know these things take time and so I often say to people, “Be prepared for it to feel clunky. Please call me.” and then also, “What is it they're going to do? “What's their accountability piece? And I get them to tell me and I will often say depending on the size of the group. “How do you want me to help you stay accountable?” and that's a coaching. It's actually just taken straight out of a coaching context and I will say to every person in the group particularly small groups on a little piece of paper I will say to them, “You need to write down your name, your email, your phone number and how do you want me to help you stay accountable?”

Leanne: Nice. So it could just be like an email or a quick SMS but then they know that someone else is thinking about them and wanting them to succeed. Love it.

Sally: Yeah, definitely. And I say to them, “Just remember scary Sally is coming and get that.” and that’s fun with it and that's the other thing I do say, “What's going to make this fun for you? What’s going to light you up?” and if they say, “Oh, I'm going to do this.” and I said, “Well, no. Say it to me please, you’re excited.”

Leanne: Yes.

Sally: Then don't do it.

Leanne: Yeah.

Sally: Then I say that, I take that pressure off and say, “Don't say that you're going to do something just because you think that's what I want you to hear. I actually want you to tell me what you do want to do it and don't overthink, don't hassle, doesn't have to impress anyone but you.” And when someone, I'm thinking of an example just recently when someone said, “I just want to reread this.” and I said, “Then that's your action and that's okay.” That was the most valuable thing that person could do because at the end of the session they hadn't done their pre-work for the session and at the end of the session I think they felt that they were a little bit behind the group because they didn't do their pre-reading and so they actually said to me and quite quietly so not everyone else heard, “I think I just got to reread this.” and I said, “That is brilliant. Write it down. That's what you're going to do.”

Leanne: Yeah. It doesn't have to be changing the world, right?

Sally: That’s right.

Leanne: But simple steps that at least you get one action done that builds momentum. That’s exciting!

Sally: Absolutely.

Leanne: Just before you mentioned the word fun as well and I think that when I think of you and your brand I think of fun just after what you did at the emcee event plus all the photography and branding that you've got too. I think that's really clever. So all those slides that you had were just photos of you doing different things and with different props. How long did it take you to really create that brand yourself and make it come alive in terms of all the marketing collateral you've got and the training resources?

Sally: Well, I could say 20 years but the real, it's finding the right photographer I think is one person and finding yourself and your branding like, “Who are you?” and I think it's really important to do values exercise for yourself. Now, “What values do you want that light you up, they think to who you are but also resonate as you as a professional and how will then do you want those values to be seen in the market?” and I was called, someone once said to me, “Sally, you're like a lighthouse. You know, you except you're constantly glowing and that means that I feel safe. When I'm with you, you give me safe passage and safe direction and you light the way for me and I love that about you.” and I thought, “Well, that was just fantastic,” So anything to do with light bulbs and lighting the way or a lighthouse was going to be definitely in my branding when that sort of struck a chord with me. The other thing is, you know my undergraduate degree was a Bachelor of Leisure Studies. So if I don't have fun somewhere in what I'm doing and that will be a waste of a degree and I think it's about allowing yourself to shine. I've had probably three or four sets of branding photography done over the years and this latest set I had some very close friends who know me actually say, “Ha! Finally, photos that are so you and that's when you know you're congruent.”

Leanne: Yeah. I was really impressed by them and I think we'll add a link to your website on the show notes so everyone can see what I'm talking about.

Sally: Okay.

Leanne: But just your slides are amazing, very visual and just I think you're right, people just connect with that because it did. I think it represents you even though they don't know you that well from what you were coming across and with those slides it really worked.

Sally: Oh, thank you.

Leanne: So we’re speaking about so many different topics. I'd really kind of surface level. We could speak for ages. We talked about branding, the different types of audience that you've delivered to across the world, cataloguing your resources, productivity, so much more. If people want to get in touch with you and find out or if they want you just to keep them accountable. Where can they find you?

Sally: All the W's. Sally Foley- Lewis; S A LL Y F O L E Y L E W I S.  So website and LinkedIn are probably my two go-to spots but if you google my name then there's only one of me. Thank goodness many people say.

Leanne: Awesome and all the best in Kuwait as well. We can't wait to hear about it. I'm sure you'll post some updates on your LinkedIn about that experience. That's fantastic.

Sally: Oh yeah. Thanks, Leanne. Awesome.

Leanne: Awesome

Sally: And thanks for having me. It's been great chatting.

Leanne: Absolute pleasure. Thank You, Sally.

Sally: Thank you.

[END OF AUDIO] 28:54

First Time Facilitator podcast transcript (Episode 29)

Listen to this episode from First Time Facilitator on Spotify. Ever had to facilitate a strategic or planning session, or important meeting, and wanted some fresh ideas on how to do it, and how to make that agenda come to life? I recently had a fantastic opportunity to facilitate a three day annual planning meeting.

This is a transcript of the First Time Facilitator episode 29: Adventurous agendas and other tools you can use in your next meetingHey everyone, thanks for tuning into Episode 29. Welcome to another solo episode. I’ve had some hectic weeks, which have been full of facilitation and face to face delivery, so I thought I’d share a recent experience with you all, while it was fresh in my mind.If you prefer the interview format of the show, don’t worry - as I have loads of exciting guests queued up for future episodes. I’m simply mixing up the format, as we know all good facilitators should!Last week, I was invited to Sydney for a few days to facilitate an annual planning session. This is a little different ot the work I’ve been exposed to before, in that it was facilitation in it’s truest sense. It wasn’t about teaching a new skill, or delivering a team activity. I was there, as a facilitator to ensure the  conversation was on track (and that discussions weren’t going around in circles), the group were sticking to the task, and we kept to time.It was for my day job - and if you’re new to the show, I work for a global mining services provider.  The details of the agenda are all commercial in confidence, so I can’t go into detail on that side of things. But what I can share with you all, are some of the fantastic tools I discovered while planning for this, as well as some advice I received from others, that I think you, as listeners of this podcast could really benefit from. On that note, I was thinking of creating some kind of peer-support group for First Time Facilitators, maybe a closed Facebook group, where we can start sharing these tools & getting support from each other. If that’s something you’d be interested in, let me know - you can email me - hello@firsttimefacilitator.com; shoot me a tweet @leannehughes, or add me on LinkedIn. I think it would be really great to start leveraging the activities we’re doing around the world, and supporting each other. At this stage, I don’t know really know if there is a need for it, so like I said, if you’re interested, reach out and we’ll go from there.On this episode, I’ll be talking about some tools which are quite visual. You can find a link to all of these on the Adventurous agendas and other tools you can use in your next meeting (Episode 29) show notes page. So let’s jump in. Part of your role as a facilitator at the beginning of these types of sessions is to  to go through the agenda and set expectations. This was a three day planning meeting. Each person attending, already had been briefed on the agenda prior and had access to it.  Therefore, I didn’t want to get up the front and tell them what we are doing that day and at what time because:

1. They already had access to that information and

2. That’s pretty standard and boring.

I found a cool way of presenting the agenda through a website called Gamestorming. It’s called the ‘Hero’s Journey’ agenda. The ‘Hero’s Journey’ was a concept created by a guy called Joseph Campbell in a book called ‘The Hero of a Thousand Faces’. In that book, he maps out and explains that every great adventure, or hero’s journey’ journey goes through a sequence of steps. On the Gamestorming site, Dave Grey, shares how he’s also mapped that hero journey to a normal meeting agenda. You can relate this to Luke Skywalker in Star Ward, Bilbo Baggins in the Hobbit, Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. I’ll give a quick run down of that but also share the video explanation in the show notes. The hero’s journey starts in ordinary life, and that’s where we are at the moment. There are two sections to this, the known world (top half of the circle) which is life as we know it, our regular working day, and the unknown world (which is the bottom half), which for us is 2019 and beyond. We start at the top of the circle in ordinary life and we’re going to take a heroes journey. It starts off with that call to adventure. For Harry Potter, the call comes from Hagrid, and that’s where you start finding meaning on why you’re there. In the case of a meeting, this is a good time to explore the purpose, objectives and outcomes for the meeting, the why. Or, if your first presenter is going to do that, you can mention that here. You’ve had the call to adventure.As you work around the circle, you draw and mention those things on the heroes journey and relate them back to that meeting.For example, a hero always has the assistance of helpers and mentors that assist on the journey, you can link to these external people that are coming in to share their information or advice.When you cross the threshold to the unknown world - that’s probably a good time to have a coffeeTrials and tribulations, problems and pitfalls - in the adventure novels, this is the time when you climb the mountain, or fight the trolls, you can relate this back to brainstorming, About the six o’clock mark of the circle is what you call the pit.. The belly of the whale, where you’ve opened up all of these problems, and think to yourself, ‘Are we ever going to get home?’. This is a moment of great pain..but also great reflection and opportunity. It’s where Bilbo Baggins finds the ring. At that point in the meeting, let’s call it out and reflect on how we feel and how we can make progress.After the pit, you start developing new powers, new ways of doing things. You learn how to use the force. This is where you start creating solutions and actions on how to tackle the unknown. However, the Hero’s Journey doesn’t end there. You still have to cross the threshold back into the known world. These new gifts that you have, you need to figure out how to share those ideas with your teams back home. In the meeting agenda, this is where you start talking about how to communicate the actions from the meeting and the next steps.It’s really cool. Now I only saw this Hero’s Journey agenda a few days before flying down to Sydney but I thought ‘jackpot’ and decided I just had to use it! So I downloaded the explanation video from the Gamestorming site, onto my iPhone, and every opportunity I had, I popped i those headphones and listened to David’s explanation. My next step was to write out the explanation in my own words, linking it back to the upcoming agenda. I then recorded myself explaining it, and then started listening to that over and over again. My final step was to explain the concept to my husband and a couple of friend’s..and once I could do that, I knew I was ready to use it for the main event. You may be thinking this is  a cheesy concept, and maybe it is for the audience you may be pitching it. Always consider your audience and their needs before selecting an appropriate analogy or tool. My audience were a team of Executives that are super busy in-demand people, who were brought up on Star Wars… so an opportunity to talk to them like and relate what they were about to embark on as being heroic, well it worked for them. And I could tell, as they continued to refer back to that heroes journey, using phrases like ‘the pit’ in conversation, to keep track of where they felt they were along the journey, how they were feeling, and how they were going to bring it home.Have you ever been in a meeting where you’re talking about a three year plan, but the conversation keeps getting brought back to detail and the problems of today? Or, the conversation is too abstract when operational detail is exactly what’s needed. I think we’ve all been there, right?When this happens, you can use this next tool, Altitude ( which, I again discovered from the Gamestorming site), to agree on expectations and keep people focused at the right level to serve the goals of the meeting.For prep work, draw up a flipchart divided into three horizontal sections. Again, I’ll link to this tool in the Show Notes. On the flipchart you have the title ‘Satellite’ written up the top, ‘Airplane’ in the middle, and ‘Ground’ on the bottom rung of the third section. When you’re ready to explain the concept, give everyone a sheet of paper and ask them to make a paper airplane. If you have enough time, you can give them the chance to test how well they fly.Then, reveal your Altitude flipchart and and ask the group to define what they mean by the satellite level, or the airplane level, and the ground level in the context of their meeting. For example, if they say that the satellite level is too high but the ground level is too detailed, ask them for examples of the kinds of things they would consider at the right altitude. Then ask them for examples of things that would be too low or too high.When you have reached some consensus on the right altitude level, put a mark on the page to represent the “right” altitude.Now tell them that whenever they notice the conversation going too high (abstract, vague, strategic) or too low (down in the weeds, tactical, operational) they can float their airplane and that will be a signal to the group.I think this tool is fantastic for a few reasons. It stops you, as a facilitator, to be like that teacher coming in to remind people that they’re rushing to detail too quickly. The accountability is on the people in the room to self-moderate - they have agreed on the right level of discussion up front, and they each have their plane to float when they realise the conversation is steered at the wrong altitude.So far, I’ve covered a neat way to talk through your agenda using the Heroes Journey agenda, and set expectations on the level of detail in the meeting using the Altitude flipchart. For the remainder of this episode, I’d like to share the useful advice that I received from three people that helped me hone in and focus on what was important as part of preparing for this workshop. I’m sure all of us receive useful advice from time to time, what’s special about having a podcast is that I can share and scale the advice relevant to you by reading it - and hope it helps positively shape your experience in facilitation, too. I emailed an old boss, Julie Kean. And to be frank, Julie is probably one of the best leaders I’ve ever worked under. She’s currently working in Timor as a Skills Development and Employment Specialist, and has held Executive and Director roles in Education across the pacific region.I haven’t included all the advice she wrote, but here’s a snapshot: My main advice to you is to trust your intuition. You are not there to be centre of attention. You are there to allow others to put together their collective intelligences. As in the old aphorism - you need to be the guide on the side, not the sage on the stage. So the best facilitators don't seem to be facilitating, but provide the space for others to produce the outcomes. Depending on the group, this can be tricky but you should expect an executive group to put in big time. Which brings me to the question - are they doing any prep? One thing you can do as the facilitator is to put some questions to them in advance with an expectation that they will bring answers with them to the sessions. The more confronting the questions the better - even if you don't get to address them during the planned sessions. You can also think about questions that you can send them home with at the end of each day. Make sure they are hard questions - make them work for their money, so to speak. I'm sure you know the concept of wicked problems - throw a few at them during the day and let them develop solutions. Scenario planning is another strategy that can work well with the right group. You can develop a range of scenarios in advance and have them work through and document solutions. This can provide the basis for risk management planning, but can also develop some blue sky thinking. If you planning on parking ideas, make sure you come back to these and really play them up. Sometimes the parking lot can provide the best thinking and the best outcomes. If you park a lot of ideas over three days you can go through a selection process with the group to identify those that merit further thinking and those than can be discarded. And finally, remember that the process of planning is often more important than the outputs. This may be a one-off opportunity for every voice to be heard, and that should be valued in its own right - irrespective of any collective outputs from the group. I liked the guide on the side analogy. It relates to refereeing a game of sport.. With a referee, you know you’ve done an amazing job if at the end of the game, no one is talking about you. I think the same thing applies to this type of facilitation. The other section that really stood out for me was to not focus on the outcomes too much, and let them focus on the process of planning. I also connected with Sue Johnstone, you may have heard her in Episode 7 of the podcast. She gave me some of her ideas if you find that teams go in details and around in circles. She said to call it by saying ‘It seems like you’re getting into some detail that may not be necessary right now’ and ask them to park the issues. Following this, introduce a third party perspective into the room; one that is asking for a result and requires them to take action, for example, ‘What are our customers expecting to see?”  Or “Imagine the board chairperson has asked you to provide a broad brush of the options at the end of the day. What would you say?” This is really useful as getting that third party perspective helps them to figure out the impact they’re having. Michael Port also talks about not using absolute words when public speaking, I think it also applies in facilitation. Start looking at ways you can incorporate phrases like ‘It seems like…’ or, ‘What I’m hearing is… is that correct?’. So, those are few tools and tips I discovered last week that may be useful for you, if you’re being asked to facilitate and chair some big meetings.

Let me know your thoughts - leave your comment below!

First Time Facilitator podcast transcript with Joshua John (Episode 28)

Listen to this episode from First Time Facilitator on Spotify. In today's episode, you're going to hear from a good mate of mine, Joshua John. Josh has been living in the Kimberley region of Western Australia and has been working as a Language, Literacy and Numeracy trainer at North Regional TAFE.

This is a transcript of Episode 28 of the First Time Facilitator podcast, with Joshua John.

Leanne: I'd like to welcome to the First Time Facilitator podcast, my former colleague and good mate, Joshua John.

Joshua: Good morning, Leanne.

Leanne: Welcome to the show. Thanks for your time. It's great being in beautiful Broome.

Joshua: I'm glad to have you back for a short holiday back in Broome.

Leanne: Now, Josh, I'd like to start off with you sharing with the audience what you currently do and what you did in your past which enabled you to be in the role that you're in today.

Joshua: At the moment, I'm working at North Regional TAFE. I'm a literacy and numeracy lecturer. I work across a range of industries. That's my daytime job. I've just recently, this year, started an events business called Rise Entertainment and that's mainly around event managing, emceeing, and DJing. In 2007, I was holidaying across in Broome, as a lot of the stories always are, and I was out on a remote community and met with their school principal. I heard there was a job going, working in the school as a tutor and I put my hand up and he gave me a call back. That was my entry into the Kimberley.

From there, that was back in 2007, I've worked communities, in the towns, and all over the shop.

Leanne: That first foray into tutoring, prior to that, what role were you doing? Did you have the education backing to become a tutor or you just knew a lot about the industry, what was going on, a bit about literacy and numeracy at the time that enabled you to make that transition?

Joshua: I was doing some volunteer tutoring in Brisbane just after uni, just to get my experience up once I finished my arts degree. Surprise, surprise there, the offers weren't coming in thick and fast for a Bachelor of Arts in Brisbane with possibly not the best results. I was just volunteering, doing some tutoring for high school students. Then I moved to Darwin where I was just temping. Temping in different offices doing office work. I just found that there were just-- A lot more doors were opening, being in a more regional area, moving from Brisbane to Darwin.

Then I knew that a possible move was also going to happen, moving from Darwin to a more regional center. Like I said, that did happen but by chance, being on holiday in Broome and that's how I fell into education. I then started my grad dip in education to become a qualified teacher as I was working in the school. That's how I got, formally, into education. Then after that, I have moved into the TAFE system, into more training.

Leanne: The interesting thing about this show is it's called First Time Facilitator and facilitation is really about getting the experience in the room, getting people to share that knowledge and training a unique skill set because you're actually there to pass on information. It appears to be more structured, but I know that in the Kimberley and especially working in communities, things don't always go to plan. I'd love you to tell us any stories or some challenges or opportunities you've had while working remotely. What you've had to do a bit differently and the cohort that you're training.

Joshua: It's the more remote you get, the-- You have a lot more freedom to do what you want to do because people aren't watching over your shoulder, so you have a lot more freedom to get into what the clients demand or what works well for the client, rather than going out there and running off-the-shelf product. You can go into a community or with a different group and, working overtime, work out what their needs are and really adapt and modify a program that suits them.

Probably the best example of this was, I was working at a local cattle station, doing some literacy and numeracy work, and then that evolved from essentially the literacy and numeracy tuition into leadership skills and management skills. The station themselves really keen to get the station workers skilled up and exposed to some of these ideas that you might get if you walk into a business course or a management course. I was bringing those out to this remote station and delivering it to these station guys. It was-- Like I said, I had a few years to develop a program which looks completely different at the end from at the start.

It was interesting, they'd come in the morning. First class was at six o'clock in the morning, that'd be the first group. The second group would come in from doing the station work, they'd come in covered in dust and blood and all this stuff and we'd get stuck into it. They were quite keen because obviously, they got to sit in an air-conditioned room for a bit rather than fighting cattle. We went on with a lot of different concepts which wasn't my mandate going in, but that's what I'd work with the group. These station managers were keen to see, saw the progress, their staff enjoyed it, and they just kept on evolving from there,, and a lot of freedom and opportunities to do that.

Leanne: Fantastic. With these guys on the cattle station, guys and girls, I should say, what's interesting sometimes when I have workshops with people that are used to being out on the floor or being active during the day, they actually struggle when they're sitting in a classroom. They're not used to the lack of movement. What kind of activities or-- How did you actually-- You talk about tailoring your content to suit this type of audience, did you play any games? What kind of things did you do with these students to keep them engaged and motivated?

Joshua: That's right. Absolutely, lack of movement's an issue. We have it here with a lot of trades guys. They come into the classroom and then-- It's difficult. What happens is, the facilitator or the lecturer is on their feet. They're walking from the computer to the whiteboard, they're walking around the room and it's all the students, essentially, who are sitting in their seat. As that facilitator, you don't actually realize that you're moving around, so your energy levels are staying up, the blood is flowing in your body. For the people sitting down, that's right, their energy levels are going to go down, so I ensure that I place simple things just to get them to move.

One of the simple ones I do a bit is, rather than handing out maybe the worksheet or something like that and walk around to them, I'll leave them at the front say, "Okay, when you're ready, go up and get that worksheet." It's not because I'm lazy, it's more just to get them walking and moving, and they don't really realize that. You have to keep on doing it otherwise, that's right, people start to nod off, regardless. Everyone knows if you sit down through a three-hour lecture, it's really hard to keep it going, so you have to incorporate movement.

Absolutely, playing team building activities where people are on their feet and working things out together, that's definitely where I-- This type of training programs I like to design because if you're training someone who's in a certain vocation-- If you're training someone whose job is not to sit down and essentially do office work, if you're training someone who's on their feet, then it's good to train them doing those type of tasks. I've designed a few activities where people are on their feet working in a team environment and, essentially, team-based problem solving and really getting into communication.

One of the most important things across every industry is that ability to communicate. Where my training ended up really revolving around was communication and teamwork. Now, with the skills, we're able to run these activities in the classroom. I designed them to be hard and people would fail, then we'd reflect on it, discuss what went wrong and then we'd run it through again and saying, "These are the skills we need to develop." Have a bit of a laugh along the way in a space where people aren't being judged and they're not being stressed out about stuffing something up or obviously getting injured on the job.

Having that classroom is that place where no negative talking and if someone can't do something, that's okay. We're all working together and we're all, obviously, always learning and trying to get better.

Leanne: Fantastic. Did you find that you have to do a bit of rebranding of the classroom? Some people associate a classroom with school. The way schooling's taught, it's very structured and there's right and wrong answers and you must follow this script. When you go in there and you're being flexible, you're getting people up and moving, is that something that you do to move away from the connotation of, this isn't school, this is an adult learning environment?

Joshua: Absolutely. If you walk into a classroom, or a setting, and you hand out, essentially, assessments or workbooks and it's all very literally black and white on the page, people, they get taken back to possibly negative times when they were at school. They would switch off so you've really going to shake that up at the start. The first activities, I ensure you're not asking them to write anything down, you're asking them to engage in the classroom. The first thing I'll always try and do is get everyone to speak, which I know it sounds a bit daunting for some people training, saying, "Oh, it's really difficult to get my students to speak."

It's difficult because they're used to not speaking so they're not going to start halfway through the week or something like that. You need to break that straightaway. The method to do that is, allow them to speak about something that they're not having to rely on their knowledge about the subject and being found out that they're not an expert. I have activities based around like, "Let's have a look at the difference between these two pitches. Circle the difference," and then we'll go around, "Okay, everyone has to say one thing which is different." Everyone can point and say, "Oh, look. This object is in this first picture but it's not in the second."

Just by something as simple as that, the individual has engaged, they've broken that-- No one's laughed at them, they haven't got it wrong. From that, that's the tempo of the class and everyone's keen to go along like that. In saying that, you've got to be careful to ensure that the first person you ask to speak is that individual who's showing a bit more confidence. You're not going to show that-- The kid at the back of the room who's trying to shy away, they'll be last.

What that individual will see is, every other person in the class has spoken, no one's laughed. It gets to their turn, they're able to say something and it's more part of that desire to be part of the group, that no individual is then going to go against it and not speak, that they're like, "Okay, everyone's doing it. I'm going to be part of the group. There's no repercussions." They're engaged, and then from there, the classroom environment is working well.

Leanne: Wow. I really liked you talking about creating a safe environment where everyone feels like it's okay to speak up. I like that you mentioned tempo as well. It's the first time someone on this podcast has mentioned tempo. A lot of facilitation and training is really about, how do you mix that up? At the beginning, you're setting a nice, safe tempo, but there'll be times where you're putting people and challenging people, increasing that rhythm then bringing it back when you reflect, so I like that you brought that into it.

I also want to touch on your time, I think it was in Darwin or was it in Brisbane, when you were doing stand-up comedy. Can you please tell us a bit about that experience? Why did you start doing that and what did you learn from it?

Joshua: It's a very short-lived career of stand-up, but I do enjoy-- I grew up performing on stage. I grew up playing musical instruments, my mother's a musician. From a very early age, I was just on stage tapping a drum or something behind a group of people which you just get so used to it being on stage.

Leanne: Josh loves the microphone.

Joshua: Yes, I don't shy away from it. It's something that's just always been there. Then in school, my eldest brother, when I was in year 8, he was in year 12, he actually wrote the school musical. I just always found myself performing on stage to some extent. I entered a comedy competition, RAW Comedy, in Darwin. Then I was the finalist there, so I traveled to the Melbourne comedy show and performed there. That was probably the biggest performance I've done inside of an audience.

One of the interesting takeaways from that was, right before I went on stage, as I was sitting, essentially, behind the curtain as they're introducing me, I just remember thinking of-- completely forgotten my first line. My mind went blank, and I was like-- In those situations, it's just good to stay calm because that's how the body works. I knew I delivered these lines before, I was well prepared, but it was a massive audience, there was camera crews, et cetera. Mind went blank.

The takeaway there is, that's how the mind works before you do something new, before you get on stage. Even for myself who’s someone who's been on stage a lot, I still get nervous. Particularly when it's something I'm doing for the first time, I still get those nerves and jitters. Maybe the difference is I, not embrace them, but I put up with them and know that's part of the gig and you go through with it.

That would be my advice to people who are presenting for the first time. If you're feeling nervous, well, everyone feels nervous. It's only when you're doing the same gig or the same facilitation to the same clientèle group after about three times, you'll realize, "Oh," then the body just starts to relax and you don't get that heightened state of awareness before, you don't get that adrenalin shot before. Like I said, if I do a different type of gig, then yes, I'll be nervous before I go on stage. It's something I think is always going to happen to individuals. Don't let that be a barrier for you to think you're not cut out for being a facilitator. I'd be surprised if there was an individual who didn't feel like that. It's the case for most people.

Leanne: Yes, I agree. It is the case. I thought it would be easy as well and that every time, I still get nervous. I have have spoken to facilitators and trainers on this podcast that have been doing it for 20 to 30 years and the second that you change up the content, it always comes back. Then what drives you to appear on stages or appear in front of workshop rooms and teach people?

Joshua: It's one of those things most related to my emcee work. Some people say, "You’re emceeing, you like to be on stage, you like to have that microphone." The real skill of a good facilitator or an emcee is someone who can get the event rolling and functioning well. Often that means doing less on the mic and not being up there to listen to your own voice, it's about being effective in your timing and what you're saying, and the tempo of the night. While it's counterintuitive, while I don’t mind being on stage, that's not the draw. The draw for me is the excitement in facilitating, is getting the event rolling well.

Nothing is more annoying or frustrating as seeing a facilitator or an emcee who's up there, who likes the sound of their own voice and they're showboating around. That turns everyone off instinctively. The skill of a real facilitator or an emcee is to be able to make it seem natural for the audience and make the whole event fluid. A lot of the time that's not spending time on the mic but actually getting other people up there and kicking things along, keeping that pace going.

Leanne: Fantastic. Let's talk about emceeing an event. What kind of prep work do you do prior to that night, that big day?

Joshua: The number one thing you can't go without is having a list of the names and checking you can pronounce them correctly. As I said before, often you can go up and then everything just disappears out of your mind. That's just the nerves kicking in and that's when you'll forget the individual's name or their position. I always have a list of the key people and in a really simple running list. From there, it's just a bit of adlibbing, but essentially, you're able to refer what's coming up next and what needs to be said at that point in time.

Just having those. Obviously, you can't stand up and read a list of notes, so your notes are very simple, and you're able to get those key points across. Then the rest is just adlibbing on the night.

Leanne: You've got an uncanny talent. You're very lucky that you can actually I have never [unintelligible 00:17:55] around you, but you can bring in these jokes just in the right moment, at the right time. Where does that come from? Is that just something that Josh has in his personality or did you have these jokes in the back your mind before you got on stage? Where does it come from?

Joshua: Humor is an interesting one. Like I said before, it's good to be prepared, possibly with a few jokes, but nothing would be set in stone where it's like, "Oh, at this point, I'm going to say this gag." A lot of the time I'll skip over them. You need some content, it's not all just ad-libbed, you need some content there but it's all about reading the room. Humor sometimes, like I said, it can seem very lame if an individual's up there and and they're telling a joke that they think is funny. If the room's not ready for that or it's not the right point, you need to restrict the humor.

In other times, that's right. You can just feel the audience. It's just building and everyone's listening to every word you say, so then it's a lot easier to drop a little word in there or a look or a glance which is funny, but that's only because at that stage, at that point of the night, that works. You need to be-- Like I said, I've definitely skipped over jokes or things I've written out just because it just wasn't the right time. It's about reading the room and just doing what's right at the right time.

Leanne: Excellent. Let's skip and go back to the remote training environment. I'd love to hear what you pack, what you find is essential when you're training people in a remote area. What do you put in your car?

Joshua: Some of the most important things I take out, it would be a-- You've obviously got to think about how many people you're training, but usually with me, it's around the 10 mark so it's not a massive audience. Obviously, if it was bigger, I’d have to take more activities. In saying that, I'd take a projector if I had more clients, but if it's smaller groups, I'll just have a laptop there. Definitely like a portable whiteboard, quality speakers. In most of my facilitation, I'll always have short clips of videos that I can put up there because you need to break up who’s speaking and the content, rather than me driving all these information and content.

It's great to go, "Here's a little two-minute clip of an individual," maybe introducing a topic for the first time or just an interesting little activity, because like I said before, it's easy then for the individuals and for everyone in the room, if we watch a-- For example, you could put on a short clip of people arguing in a customer service environment. Then it's very easy to go, "Hey. What went wrong here?" It's quite easy and people feel confident saying, "Hey. That person was rude to that person," or "This person did that," et cetera." It's very easy for everyone. It's not confronting, because you're talking about people on the computer, you're talking about people who aren't there.

It's easy to identify that behavior, and then from that we can say, "Okay. Take those points out," rather than me standing in front of a room for a number of hour saying, "Don't be rude to customers. It's bad and they'll have an argument." Always taking visual short videos, like I said, quality speakers to get all around the room. It's something that the person sitting at the back of the room needs to be able to hear or they'll completely switch off.

It's always good, no matter where you're delivering, is to get a sense of the room that you're going to be delivering in. Reorganize that room, so it's efficient. You might be pushing all the tables to the side, having a big open space, put all the desks in circles, et cetera, et cetera. It's important to just be well prepared.

Leanne: Fantastic. That's great. You had some advice for first time facilitators and that was about keeping calm and just making sure that your preparation enables you to deliver when it's the big moment. Do you have any other advice for those starting out their facilitation journey?

Joshua: Advise for first time facilitators. It's all preparation. Give yourself enough time to get your presentation ready. Run that past someone who can give you that feedback, and then it'd probably be, don't try and squeeze too much information into any presentation. Sometimes I chair a meeting here and we have multiple presenters all the time. People have a 3-minute slot and they'll have 15 points that they're trying to make to tell people.

What you need to think about is, "Where is my presentation? Where is that in the sequence of events for that day?" Because if it's all morning and there is 10-minute slots and you're one of those 10-minute slots but there's 5 before you and 5 after, no one has the capacity to remember the 15 points you want them to remember. Write your presentation first, but then go back and clearly be able to define, "What are your key takeaways?" You need to be able to explain those things very simply, and they need to be very obvious from people going away.

Like I said, after, if you are doing a professional development week or professional development day, at the end of the day, how many things can you remember from that day? If you can be really clear and succinct and explain your concepts well and easily, people will remember that, "I can remember, yes. That guy was talking about behavior management," or whatever it was. It's good to really break it down, and don't try and add more information in to make it appear that you're right for the job.

People try to stick in so much content and it's too much. It's like a tsunami of information. It just overwhelms people and it's hard. The brain kind of turns off. It's like "Well, there's too much information here, I can't handle all this. Even if I'm writing down a few notes, it's too much. It's coming too quick." Less is more. Break it down, introduce the key concepts very simply. Then like I said, show a short little video of that concept, maybe in action. Break that video down and talk about it in a more complex way, but then also bring it back into a more simplistic way that, like I said, everyone can understand.

That's the way to get your point across, and then people will walk out of your session going, "That made sense." [laughs]

Leanne: That's really interesting, talking about the order of proceedings and where you're in, say, over day and if you've given a short period of time. What it's really about there is being memorable, is what you said, but also think about what everyone else is doing. They'll be doing what you think you should be doing, which is cramming information down. To be remembered, what you have to do is something that's a bit different. It could be just telling a story for three minutes, bringing in that video, something that no one else has done. Immediately, if your key takeaways are obvious, people will remember. That's just the key for everyone is, when you're in a day and you're one part of that, try and forecast ahead and go, "All right. Well, this is the agenda. This person will be talking about ABC. Where can I come in? What can I do to bring it to life so that my three minutes, everyone remembers that at the end of the day?" That's critical.

Joshua: Absolutely. That's right.

Leanne: Josh, where can people find you if they want to talk to you and find out more?

Joshua: I'm on the world wide web.

[laughter]

Joshua: I'm on Facebook, Broome MC & Wedding DJ. That's my events business. It's called Rise Entertainment, but that's the search you put in. I'm up here in Broome delivering training to North West Australia. That's probably the main contact.

Leanne: You can find the links to Josh's website and his LinkedIn profile and other details on the show notes for this episode. Josh, thank you so much for your time. It's great to reconnect. I love that you have this side hustle of emceeing because you've always asked us to do it within the workplace, so it's great that you're doing it for the public as well.

Joshua: Absolutely. Leanne, thinking back on knowing I'll come in today and talk about some of my things I have been doing with emceeing and event management. A lot of those things that I've actually got into is because of yourself. We've work together. You were the creative driving force in a lot of those activities. You got me a lot of those gigs, you put my name forward, so I'd like to thank you for-- It was your creativity a lot of the time which opened some of those doors to going, "Hey, geez, these things needs to happen. Someone needs to do it. Well, I'll do it." You created the opportunities, so on behalf of myself and everyone in Broome, I've just got you a little token of appreciation.

Leanne: That's lovely.

Joshua: Got you a little Broome Cycles hat, the local cycling shop. It just says "Broome" on it, with a nice sunset. You can take that back to Brisbane and all your travels overseas and just show people beautiful little Broome.

Leanne: I will. We'll have to get a selfie after we've recorded this and pop it on the show notes. You can see the hat there and a photo of Josh and I on the show notes. Thanks for that lovely compliment, and I'm proud to be part of your career development. Let's check in in a couple of years and see where we've both gone.

Joshua: Looking forward to it.

Leanne: Cool. Thanks, Josh.

Joshua: See you, mate.

First Time Facilitator podcast transcript with Neen James (Episode 26)

Listen to this episode from First Time Facilitator on Spotify. In today's episode, I talk to Neen James. Neen is a sought-out, high-energy keynote speaker in the States who challenges her audiences to leverage their focus and pay attention to what matters most at work and in life.

Here's the episode transcript with Neen James. Alternatively, you can listen to my First Time Facilitator conversation with Neen.

Leanne: Okay, I'd like to welcome to the First Time Facilitator Podcast on the line in Pennsylvania, Neen James.

Neen: G'day! What a treat to be able to serve your listeners today, Leanne.

Leanne: Oh, that's a lovely attitude to have Neen. Thank you so much for your time. As I mentioned you're on the line in Pennsylvania however, you're from Sydney I believe.

Neen:  True story. So I live halfway between Philadelphia and New York City on the East Coast and so I didn't even know where Pennsylvania was to be honest with you. But if you look at a map of the U.S., it's the squarest State on kind of the right-hand side of the map. If you're trying to look for where I am, so imagine moving from Sydney City so we lived on the water, we had a beautiful apartment look at the Sydney Opera House and the bridge and then I moved to Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

Now let me just give your listeners a bit of a picture of what that is. That is like perfect Suburbia. I'm talking 2.4 children, a truck a minivan and people even mow their lawn with stripes in it. I mean I moved out to Suburbia and yet I loved it. It's such a different way of life but I absolutely love it.

Leanne: I can see already how impactful you are as a speaker. I love it you launched and tell a story and we're very descriptive about the differences between those two locations and I don't know if I could give up the view of the Opera House to be honest but I'm so glad it did great transition for you.

Neen:  Yes, exactly. I fix that by coming back to Australia because I still call Australia home obviously. I fix that by coming back at least once or twice a year. I was recently back there, my baby sister moved to Sydney with her two little ones so I have the privilege of just being able to hang out in all my local spots. To me, there is nothing more amazing than being able to run across the Harbour Bridge and then grab breakfast at my favourite little place and I'm sure people listening when you think about whether it's your original hometown or things you love about your hometown.

Now, there's so many ways you can engage people by using things like story and sharing personal observations or letting your audience know just a little bit about you that peek behind the curtain that every audience remember once and it's just another engagement strategy as a facilitator.

Leanne: That's brilliant. Thank you so much. Wow, we would try in there. I think that's a really great advice for our audience. I'd like to ask you, I've seen on Instagram your hashtag which is #happylittleozzy. How did you how did you end up coming from Sydney and absolutely just killing it on stages in the US which I hear is a very sort of competitive market when it comes to corporate speaking and training.

Neen:  I followed the love of my life. So I have been married just we recently celebrated 29 years married. Now, I know that your listeners I sound like I'm five. But I promise I have been married pretty much my entire life and I followed my darling here and we created a life here about 14 years ago now. And what was interesting was in Australia I had a corporate career so I worked in retail, banking, telecommunications, and the oil industry and as you probably know Leanne, not a lot chicks in oil in ours and then I set up my own company just before I left to move to the US.

So I guess I'd been sort of playing with being an entrepreneur and I set up a training company when I left corporate and so I did that for maybe two years. So I didn't really have a very established successful business but I was doing okay and then I moved to the US. Now, what's interesting about Australia versus US in the corporate speaking market is the Australian market is so small, so you've got to be really good because it being that there is only so many events that are occurring and every meeting planner talks to each other, that's the beauty of the Australian market, right? So you've got to be good.

What was fascinating to me is when I moved to the US is that the market was so big, so how on earth do you stand out in an environment where there are literally hundreds of choices. I mean there's literally hundreds of conferences in Vegas alone on a weekly basis and so what I realized was that this whole idea of being Australian was actually a novelty.

Now, as an Australian that was really challenging for me to actually promote that I was Australian and I'm sure Australians listening to this will understand it but for your US listeners Leanne they might think I'm a little crazy. But I always get called like something that people remember, my audiences remember and so I had a very dear speaker friend his name is Scott McKain. Someone I look up to, definitely one of my dear friends and speaker role models and Scott McKain was one of the people who said to me, “You have to play up the Australianness of you.” and I was like, “Like tell people how to seek a day?” and he was like, “Exactly.”

So it's really funny that sometimes these things as facilitators or speakers they’re so a part of your core being that you don't actually realize how much your audience loves them and so whether you're in the mining industry, whether you're in HR, whether you are in a corporate, whether you're in non-profit, all the different facilitators that listen to your podcast. It doesn't matter what industry you're in. People want to know who you are and when they have the privilege of being in your training room, you want to create an environment where they get to have a little conversation with you. So I followed my honey and I'm so glad I did because we have the time of our life here and working in the U.S. is amazing but I also make sure that I keep my Australianness in my work as well.

Leanne: Yes. I think it's really true what you say about I guess because we're on our own head so it's really hard for us to see what is unique and different about us all the time and sometimes does take a conversation with someone else to say, “Do you really think that this is what sets me apart?” Just a sort of reflect on that and clarify what makes you unique. Really great point about that.

Neen: Yes. 

Leanne: Yes. So what are the differences between because of your Australianness in the U.S. you mentioned that I guess in the States that's not really a problem with kind of finding or talking about what sets you apart. What about the audiences over there, is there a bit of a difference between the audiences in the US and the Australian market?

Neen: I think there definitely is. If you think about Australians and the way that we have a very, I think our core belief is very different to America and let me explain what I mean by that. As an American, and I became an American citizen as well so we have dual citizenship. It was very important to me that I honour both countries that I loved. But in America our core value is freedom and by that I mean, freedom of speech, freedom to bear arms and even if someone says something stupid beside you they have freedom of speech and so you need to be able to listen to that and so the core value in America is my belief is freedom. The core value in Australia, I believe is equality and that is that we want everyone to be treated equally. We have public health, we have public education, and we love the Aussie battler who pulls themselves up by the bootstraps and then make something of themselves.

In the U.S. they are very confident in the way that they promote themselves, their activities, where they live, the car they drive, they even have stickers on their cars of where they send their kids to school. I mean there is such a wonderful pride that they have. In America, if you do a great job you'll get a standing ovation and that's a fairly as a keynote speaker, that's a common and delightful wonderful thing that audiences do here.

In Australia, I don't see that as much and so I often mourn U.S. because we're going to Australia. Hey, don't be surprised if you don't get a standing ovation from Australians. They think you did your job and you did it well but they're not going to necessarily show you that in the same way because we value equality in Australia versus freedom. Does that make sense, Leanne?

Leanne: Yes.

Neen: So I think knowing that the core values are different, it means that you approach audiences differently. So for example, here in the US I might really emphasize how when they in my case my body of work is all about attention. So how do they grab people's attention, how do they keep attention, how do they pay attention and so I would be talking about, how that's going to make them better at their work, in their home, in their community. That same message would resonate in Australia of course but the stories I would use for the engagement would be different. The audience interaction I would use would be different. The exercises I would use would be different.  Australian audiences and US audiences have different core values and belief systems. They both want to make an impact on the world, they both want to be great at their work but the way you might deliver to those audiences is different.

Leanne: Yes. I really like talking about this sort of cultural mix as well. Recently, I was in Indonesia and I was sort of watching a workshop pilot over there for the company I work for. At the beginning of the workshop it is like 8 o'clock in the morning, we've got these people in high-vis mining gear doing a bit of a war-cry in Indonesia and I just thought there is no way that anyone and Aussie bloke in Australia would be doing a war-cry about the company 8 o'clock in the morning which I thought. So yes, it's fascinating and some of the activity that didn't think would work over there worked because of the audience in their beliefs. So I think it's a really great point that you bring out.

I love to find out, this is a question that you've just inspired me to ask. How did you feel when you had that first standing ovation in the States was it a bit surprising for you and overwhelming then and also bloody amazing?

Neen:   Yes. I think that it's so amazing to me that people share their recognition in different ways and so I'm always honoured when I receive a standing ovation but I also think that people express how they appreciate you differently, right? So some people might complete those smiley sheets in the evaluation, right? and they might give you a 5 out of 5 and that's their way of experiencing that they think you did a great job. I have other audiences where they will line up for literally hours to talk to me and have me sign their books and that to me is like truly one of the coolest, most amazing experiences ever. The people are literally willing to stand in line and wait to have a fantastic conversation with you and take a photo with you and that to me, I don't find it as much overwhelming as I find it totally fills my heart. Like I'm just I am absolutely astounded that people would do that but I also believe that my approach to those situations is my only job Leanne is to stand in service of that room of people, of that line of people, of the person I'm standing and talking to.

So because attention is so important to me, I want to make sure that every person that I have the privilege to serve is feels like they're the most important person to me in that moment whether it's the audience or the individual or the client or the sound engineer that's putting on my microphone. I want to make sure that every interaction they have they feel like they are getting the attention that they want and need and deserve. So I think it's an amazing opportunity when you get a standing ovation it literally does blow your mind and that's incredible but it's never expected. I've never ever expected that and I think for me, what's more impressive is when someone tells me what they're going to do as a result of my keynote.

When someone says, “When you said this, when you told this story, when you challenged us in this way, it made me do this, it made me think this, I want to do that.” and that's the kind of impact you can have as a facilitator of a conversation when people are making behavioural shifts that's far more important to me than a standing ovation.

Leanne: I agree. I think that's the most rewarding part of what I do as well is definitely getting that feedback months later saying, “Hey, I remember this point that you said and as a result this has happened to me.” and you think, “Wow, what a position we're in that we can do that.” and hopefully we're using it to drive positive change. Now, you talk about attention, I'd like to talk about your book Attention Pays and in this, you mentioned that there are three types of attention- personal, professional and global. I was wondering if you could explain to our audience what those three types are and how they can help us or just knowing that can help us when we're building up our facilitation work.

Neen: Absolutely. So the idea of Attention Pays is that when you pay attention it's going to drive profitability, productivity and accountability and when you think about us facilitators people who are doing training sessions and consulting in the world. One of the things that I want you to write down is that these three ways you pay attention, there's something important questions around them. When you think about personal attention that's about who deserves your attention and for many of the people listening to this that's the people in the room that you're training and facilitating, it might be the people you share your life with. If you want to accelerate your personal attention, you've got to understand who deserves your attention and that's about being thoughtful, we're going to come back to that one.

Professional is about what deserves your attention, what are the activities, the events, the projects, the key performance indicators, what deserves your attention, that's about being productive. And the third way we pay attention is global attention and global is about how you pay attention in the world and that's about being responsible and being a contributor. So it's personal about who deserves your attention and being thoughtful. Professional about what deserves your attention and being productive and global about how you pay attention in the world and being responsible.

And when you think about this in the context of someone who is working in consulting or facilitation, what you want to consider is that personal attention is often those one-on-one conversations, it's their conversations in the break. It’s you making sure that you are treating every person who's in the room as your most important event, your most important speech. I remember when I first started in the U.S., I drove for like six hours to a job, it was a three-day job, I had two people in the training room, there was a whole comedy of errors that occurred with this client and for three days I work with two people.

Leanne: Oh, my gosh.

Neen: But I had a curriculum that I had agreed to deliver, I wanted to stand in service of those people. We had an amazing time, it was really hard work but I turned it into more of a coaching-consulting conversation.

Now, I understand if we thought that they were actually going to be 52 people in the room and there are only two people in the room, imagine the adjustments we had to make. But what I've always believed to be true is whoever is in the room, is meant to be in the room. So when you think about personal attention it extends into your personal life as well so who in your personal life does deserve your attention. One of the challenges of choosing a career like consulting facilitation or training or in my case keynote speaking, you are traveling the world literally which means you have a lot of days away from home from people that you care about. So when you are home, are you giving those people that you care about your attention? Are you making sure they know they're a priority?

When it comes to professional attention as a consultant, as a facilitator, you want to think about what's going to really help you move your business forward, move your skills forward, move the day forward because one of the things I realized, Leanne, is you can't manage time. Time is going to happen whether you like it or not but you can manage your attention. So understanding where you're putting your attention and how it's going to move your audience's objectives forward, how it's going to move the business forward, they're the things you want to focus on.

And then global because I'm Australian, I obviously had to have that in there because it may not everyone is environmentally aware, not everyone is caring so much about what's happening in the world. But many people care about what happens in their community, in their local community, in their church, their temple, wherever it is. So global attention is about how you're really showing up in the world, how you're paying attention in the world and making sure you're being responsible and contributing to your community or to the greater planet.

Leanne: Great. So with these three types of attention is there kind of like a ratio of how we should spend our time? What do you find that say when you're starting out in your facilitation or a speaking journey that you focus a lot more time first on your personal attention and then look at deep down the track then start building at more professional skills or do you need to have a balance of all three at all times?

Neen: I don't think you can prescribe anything for anyone because I think the people that are listening to a podcast have such diverse experiences and backgrounds, right? I was so fortunate that in Australia I was privileged to have been on my feet and delivered training and spoken at best practice conferences and spoken at the leadership retreats and updated the board. So I had time on my feet not as much as I needed to be a professional speaker but I had an experience in that regard.

But I was also so fortunate that I work for companies who are willing to invest in me and send me to training programs and allow me to do my MBA and so it's a really hard question to ask as far as how you're going to split it. What I do believe though is you can be a phenomenal facilitator, you can be a fantastic trainer but if you choose to go out on your own and deliver it and have a business of your own doesn't matter how good you are on your feet, doesn't matter how engaged your audience is, if you don't know how to run a business then you don't have a business.

So I learned as a professional speaker, it didn't matter how great I was on stage even though I get fantastic opportunities where people audience members would walk up and say, “Hey, can you come and speak it out of them?” I still have to sell a speech, right? My product is a speech and the people listening your product is maybe the training program if you're out on your own. Now, if you work with a corporation that's a little bit different in that someone is paying your salary on a regular basis and so you're very fortunate to have that opportunity but for people who are listening who might be going out on their own, who might be running their own business or in practice then you have to also be good at focusing your attention on building the business and building your skill set.

Every year I invest heavily in my own development, I'm part of the National Speakers Association, I serve on several boards, I attend programs, I work with a performance coach for two days every single month on my speeches, I have a business coach who helps me with the actual running of my business. So I'm very specific in my own development because if we're going to ask others to invest in themselves, I believe we need to role model that too.

Leanne: Oh, my gosh. I want to give you a virtual high five. That's a 100% agree. I love that you're not resting on your laurels because you've really made it to an exceptional stage over there and to hear that you're still investing all this time on a monthly basis to improve your skill. I think that's very inspiring. So thanks for sharing that.

Neen: Oh, my gosh. I’m in working progress like everyone who’s listening to this episode. So let's just say there are no laurels for this little Ozzy, okay? I think what happens is we often watch other people, we see their lifestyle, we see what they've accomplished and we think, “Oh man, how am I going to do that, I'll never be able to do that.” and by the way, I have people in my life that I look up to in that same way.

But what I've realized is that it's those daily decisions that you make that affect your week, which impact your month, which then add up to your quarter, which then add up to your twelve months. I mean, I think it's those daily decisions we make, I don't feel like I will ever make it here, I don't know what that means. Do you know what I mean? I think that's a crazy thought because there's always the next opportunity, the next level performance, the next skill to develop, the next way to challenge an audience and what's fascinating that everyone listening to this is every audience is so different.

So it doesn't matter how good you are, you can have an audience that blows you away and there fun and they're amazing and engaged and then you can have an audience the next day and nobody wants to talk, nobody wants to play, no one wants to respond to your games, no one wants to do Q&A. I mean, everyone listening to this call and I believe me, I've had them those audiences can be so diverse. I don't know if I can ever make it in this business but I can really try to get better every day.

Leanne: Yes. I think that's what makes it such a really great industry to be in and it was that variety because when I started this podcast I thought I was unusual and that every time that I was running a workshop, even though it might have been the fourth or fifth time and I was confidently content. The second that the audience changed, I just got extremely nervous again and thought I really need to start reinventing this and focusing on who this audience is and is that normal and I found out through the conversation with really experienced people along with what you've just said that is normal. So we just have to keep using our craft and keep reinventing ourselves and I was hoping for that sort of magic potion but doesn't seem to be the case.

Neen: Yes. Oh, my God. It’s so true. Oh, honey when you find it please tell me about that. But I remember there is a phenomenal speaker, one of the top 25 speakers in the world, his name is Matt Church and he's based in Australia out of Sydney and Matt Church gave me advice very early in my speaking career and he said, “The reason that we get nervous is the centre of our thought is wrong.” Meaning what we're focused on, right? And he said, “Often people get nervous because they're thinking about themselves.” right? We think about, “Oh, my God. Are they going to like me? Have I done enough preparation? What if they ask me a question I can't answer? right? So we get nervous because the centre of our thought processes ourselves. Sometimes we get nervous and we move on a little bit and we think, “Oh, my gosh. These people are so qualified like 600 PhD people. What am I going to be able to teach them?” right? And so we get intimidated by the audience or maybe we get nervous because our boss is in the room or people with super big fancy titles are in the room and that's still wrong because the centre of our focus is wrong and if it's not about you and it's not about them.

What Matt explained to me was, it's really about us, it's really about creating a conversation not doing a presentation and when I learned that amazing ninja trick, it totally changed my nervous energy, right? So if you think about it as a facilitator, it's not about you and it's not about them, it's simply about a conversation you're going to create in the room and that's very liberating and I've relied on that many times when I get into my head and I think, “Oh, my gosh. I'm nervous.” and then I think, “Huh, I'm only nervous because I'm worried about myself and I'm not standing in service of this room.” And so it's my belief that when you stand in service, you can't be nervous and that is something that I've had to remind myself of so many times Leanne.

Leanne:  I think I'm going to have something like that printed on a poster and pop it up. I think they'll be useful for everyone “When you stand in service, you won't be nervous.” I love that. Thanks for sharing that quote from Matt. Are there any other sort of who are your other speaker role models, you spoke about Scott and Matt. Anyone else that you can share with that our audience might get some inspiration from?

Neen: You know what's interesting to me is my role models at a very big variety of people and some are known in the US and some are known in Australia and Matt Church would be my number one. I had the privilege of learning from him earlier in my career until to this day, he still remains one of my favourite people to sit in the audience and watch not just because he the way he thinks and his brilliance. The way that he is so strategic and very clever in audience interaction and keynote speaking but because he's such a great human and adores his children and loves his wife and runs a successful practice. I feel like he's the whole package and so for me my role models for a variety of reasons.

I love people like Mark Sanborn, who was a brilliant leadership speaker because he's so eloquent on stage. He’s brilliant at what he does, he has longevity in the business. He’s built a very successful speaking practice and he has quality books that he publishes. So he's someone else that I really admire.

Jay Baer is a marketing speaker that I would encourage people to investigate. Jay has a wonderful energy about him, a high energy, he has great sound bites, he has fantastic social media presence and his quality of product is fantastic too.

So when I think about some of these people that I love, Tami Evans is a fantastic, hilarious speaker in the US. She is loved by audiences, she's always getting standing ovations and she's one of the funniest humans I know and Tami Evans is brilliant at audience engagement.

Judson Laipply is also one of my most favourite role models and Judson people may want to, they want to Google, Evolution of Dance. He was the very first YouTube viral video when YouTube was just starting and I think he remained the highest viewed video until that Gangnam Style video came out or something like that but Judson, I am constantly asking his advice on more audience engagement techniques, more interaction. He's a brilliant at that and so I have so many different role models for so many different reasons.

Connie Podesta is a phenomenal speaker in the US who speaks in front of thousands of people, no slides, just her in her microphone and she is hysterical, she's brilliant at bringing in people up on stage and having fun with them all at once. So for so many reasons I have so many different role models, Leanne and I think often what I'm looking for is “What do they do that is different? What is their mad genius? What is their one thing that they're doing phenomenally well?

I have a dear friend, Tamsen Webster and she has a product called the Red Thread Process and watching her break down someone's ideas so eloquently and presenting it back to them in a way that the world will understand it is phenomenal and she was the executive producer of one of the most successful TEDx franchises here in the U.S.

So all these people that I'm listening, I encourage your listeners to go and check them out and what you'll find is they're all brilliant at their area of expertise and that's how I look for role models. Are they good humans? Are they great on stage? Are they the kind of people who walk their talk who are the same on stage as off stage? That's my kind of role model.

Leanne:  Wow. Thank you so much for all those names and we'll definitely link to all of them in the show notes as well. When you're watching someone that's just killing it and doing something a bit different on stage and you think, “Oh, I like what they're doing. I wonder if that will work for me.” What's your process then, do you try it yourself launch it in a workshop is as a, you just practice it out or how do you incorporate some of what they're doing into your work?

Neen: My first step is always to ask them what they were thinking when they did it. So I would say to someone like to Jay, “When you did this particular thing, tell me about that.” I would say to Tami, “When you set up that joke and then did the call-back, explain to me that process.” So I'm always looking at it from a process point of view. I will never attempt to replicate anything that my friends do on stage because it is their crazy genius, it's their brand, and it’s what they're known for. But what I'm really keen to understand is why do they do it and what process do they follow to achieve it.

And for someone like Tami Evans who was a professional actress so her training is in acting and she understands the power of that and she knows in prove and she has that ability on her fate to be so wishy. I’m not funny but I have the benefit of being an Australian so I am self-deprecating humour until the cows come and so that's my only form of humour. Does that make sense to you, Leanne? And whereas she can actually tell the jokes, she can tell a funny story, she can tell a story the exact same way with the rhythm and the beats and the laugh lines because she can remember lines because she was an actress. I can't remember things to that point, that's not something that I'm gifted with and so what I'm always looking at is not what I can do that they do but why do they do it and what's the process that sits behind it. Because then what I can do is go, “Okay, my version of that might be this.”

Now, the other thing that I would say to people who are listening from a facilitator point of view is there's so many great facilitators out in the world. Sometimes there are things you can replicate. Judson Laipply that I mentioned earlier, he has this really fun icebreaker and I was never a big fan of icebreakers, I'll be honest with you and I used to cringe a little bit every time someone would say, “Oh, we're doing an icebreaker.” But I saw just this one thing and I was like, “That is so freaking brilliant.” and he said “Use it, just use it, just make it yours.” and he said it wasn't his original material we couldn't find the source of it but it was so fun and the first time I did it was felt clunky like I was like, “Well, this Judson did it so much better than me.” But he'd been doing it probably 20, 30 times before I ever saw it. Does that make sense to you, Leanne?

So I think sometimes there are some exercises out in the world that others do better than you might but sometimes it's just giving it a try and doing it in a safe environment where people feel like you've created an environment that they can trust you and that it is safe to try things. Because my role as a keynote speaker is I am paid by the client to deliver a key message, that's not my training ground, that's not my opportunity to try new things. I'm going to try new material when I'm not speaking for a fee, when I'm speaking for free or when I'm with some friends. I'm going to test a story out as opposed to testing it on a main stage where I'm being paid to deliver.

Leanne:   Yes. Absolutely. Totally get that. I've got to ask you, can you share what Judson's icebreaker was, I'm sure our listeners I'm hanging out for it.

Neen: So you know a term a scary story, right? So when people tell a scary story, Judson asks people to share a scarry story. Tell us about the scar that you have and if it didn’t reply to the removal of course, show us your scar and tell us about it and I have watched hundreds of people I mean very intelligent people just crack up telling their stories and so I loved it so it's called a scarry story instead of a scary story.

Leanne: I love that too, gosh! I'd be scared to share mine if it goes back to university days but---

Neen: But isn’t it funny that maybe at least you could think of something. Isn’t that amazing to you?

Leanne: Oh, yes. I had that, the second---

Neen: Everyone has a story like that.

Leanne: Oh, it's brilliant. That's great. Neen, I just want to go back to the attention and the professional attention because I went onto your website and I opened your speaker kit and I just love the colour, I love the words, I love the testimonials, everything about it was fantastic. How long did it take you to get to that stage? I mean how many versions are we talking here? It's just a beautifully put together kit that I think would be a great template for people to sort of use as a base but how did you sort of craft this and what version is this?

Neen: Oh, gosh. I want to say it’s like version 50,000. I think what happens is, one of the challenges with having the career that I have is that I speak about attention. Now what you are probably sitting there thinking, “Well, why is it a big deal?” Well, because people pay attention to the way I do things and so in my world I need to make sure I'm always doing things a little differently or the best version I can humanly afford and so I have a designer that I pay a bazillion dollars to and I say, “Here's my vision for this. I need it to be different to anything that is out there. I need to make sure it is better than anything I've ever seen before and I need to make sure that it quickly grabs the attention of my meeting planner or my bureau partner who is considering hiring a keynote speaker. It also has to represent my fee level.” I'm at a certain fee level in my career now where I can't just have a one-page word document with a logo on it because if they're going to pay a premium, they also want to make sure there's a consistency in all of my collaterals and so I've always invested very heavily in the marketing side of my business because my fears reflect that.

So one of the things people need to consider is not that they would copy that but they would look to say, “What's my best version of that? What's something that I can do that is really great?” Some people that have phenomenal speaker kits, Matt Church is one of them, Mark Sanborn is another one, Sally Hogshead is another one, where they had created something very different but unique to them and so when you're creating your own facilitator kit whatever it looks like. You want to think about what is the best representation of you.

Now, my brand colours were always pink and purple and the purple was very much to offset the pink and it was a hot pink and I stayed very true to that colour palette for many years and when I published my book folding time. I went with a red and grey colour scheme and started to move out of the pink and purple colour palette but what I've done with attention is really driven home the red colour palette. So my website has that throughout the red and the grey a very consistent colours and so what I wanted my speaker kit to do was combine the pink and purple of the past with the grey and red of the future that's what you have that you've seen.

Leanne: Got it. Yes, it look very impressive and interesting you hear that you still invest all those dollars to I guess now that you talk about the level that you're at as a speaker. You have to build everything else up around it as well. Particularly like you said as you are in that field of attention and branding and being out there so that's important.

Neen: And I was just talking to my designer today and I said, “Look, I need an industry-specific version of this particular one sheet for this person.” and because I work in media I do a lot of work with the large some of the movie studios and the television side of the business here in the US and so when you think about the business they're in, they are in the business of attention and so I needed something very quick but there was very elegant that would grab their attention and so I have a different version of media kit for the actual media that I work with. I also have a media kit for my book because I do obviously some TV and radio work and things like when I do a podcast I can just send my media kit to someone which says, “Here's some questions we could talk about, here's some things about the book.” So this level of collaterals all needs to be very consistent and so what I do is I then customize it for industry.

I work with credit unions they have a different budget than my pharmaceutical clients which have a very different budget to my media clients, which have a different budget to my hospital clients and because the industries are so different they're looking for different variations of my messaging. They have different challenges whether they have members or patients or clients or customers, they call them all very different things and so my one page is that I sent them the speaker kit conversions I have for them have their language in it not my language and so that's another thing you can consider if you want to customize is having templates that are customizable based on the type of industry that you serve.

Leanne: Yes and I think that a lot of our facilitators we do that when it comes to the training content. We can make sure that we contextualize the images and everything that we're using but I don't really think anyone's thought about contextualizing the collateral that we present, so thanks for sharing that. Now, with the range of clients that you work with, you must have presented at some pretty amazing locations around the world. What's the best conference venue that you've presented in personally?

Neen: Oh, my gosh. You know it's so hard to compare, right? And I'll tell you why I like different kinds of stages. In Vegas you know the stages are beautiful, they're often full production events where you have an amazing crew and the staging is beautiful, right? So those are those great times where you hope you have a videographer who's capturing like how kind of impressive it all looks, right? And then I have these clients who have boardrooms on like the 50th floor of a sky rise in a magnificent city like New York or Philadelphia and that's a very different kind of location for me and yet one that I love.

One of my very senior leadership teams for a media company that I work with. They took their team on a retreat, I was this speaker and invited me to stay with them. It was literally in the woods, it was one of the most exquisite Spas I've ever been in my entire life. That was my venue so it's really hard for me to say like what my favourite kind of location is. Sometimes I'll be like speaking in a beautiful boardroom in Seattle and looking out over the skyline in the water and then other times I might be in a tiny little room of the FBI where someone's following me to the bathroom where I'm not allowed to be on my own. Do you know what I'm saying? Like so it's really hard for me to choose a location.

You know I once spoke on a navy shipyard where they built submarines and so I had a handler that basically went absolutely everywhere with me and I got to speak to everyone from the person who runs the entire shipyard and their leadership team all the way through to people that were building the submarines that were welding the submarines. I mean it was such a privilege to be there and do that. So no day is the same, no conference location is the same, sometimes the hotels all start to look like. I don't have a particular favourite but what I do love is that every audience is so different, every venue is so different, and every sound crew that I get to work with is very different. That's to your point that you made earlier today Leanne, that's the beauty of this profession.

Leanne:  It is. I would love to hear that FBI story sometime but will leave that for another day. Just incredible and I think you do place some of these images or locations that you're at on your Instagram account too. So encourage listeners to follow you there, it's always exciting to see what you're up to and what time zone you're in every day of the week. Now, we've spoken a lot about tools and tricks for first-time facilitators and how they can gain attention, some speakers to watch out for, even some great icebreakers and really it's all about being of service to your audience and to build a great conversation on the day. Do you have any other tips for our first-time facilitator audience that you'd be happy to share?

Neen:  Yes. I mean I love to facilitate a conversation, doesn't matter if there's 10 or 5,000 people in a room. I will always default to the role of facilitator because it's what I know it's in my DNA and it’s how I love to have a conversation. So some of my favourite techniques are things like doing hot seats bringing people out and I've done this in front of a thousand people. You choose someone out of the audience, you put them on a chair and you play with a flipchart, you ask them some questions and present them back as brilliant. I love doing town hall type events where I would interview a leader from the company and as a result I would get the audience to also share particular questions, things that are on their mind but I'm controlling it as the facilitator. I love doing Q&A in a very different way, instead of going around the table or around the room. I like to make sure that there's some alternative ways to do that. I love getting people to help me co-create the agenda. So the beginning of sessions, I love to ask them what they want to achieve today and create an agenda in front of them.

Now, 9 times out of 10, Leanne I have the same agenda items they do but when you can talk in their language and they're requesting the things that are most important to them by co-creating an agenda, it's a really powerful way to make sure that you customized that particular training. I love setting up accountability partners in the room so that people have to declare what they're going to do as a result of the training. I ask people to share with their accountability partner something they can't stop doing, something they can start doing and then I encourage them to check in with their accountability partner in 30 days. There's so many different ways I love to engage audiences. I get them to take photos and share them with each other. I get them to do all kinds of things where they feel safe that they're sharing with someone else so sharing with a room or sharing with a group of people but they feel like they can apply everything as soon as they leave. One of the best engagement techniques is to keep it really practical so as soon as they leave your workshop, they can share with someone else what they learned and they can implement it in their everyday life.

Leanne:  Oh, wow! Just tons of useful information there so thank you for that. I agree with the accountability partners, big time! I think we all need one of those in our lives, if not a few to cover all the different aspects of what we do. But personally, I just love your passion for this field and everything that you've shared with our audience today. We could have spoken for hours, I think there's so much to cover. I want to know what systems do you use and how you make all this happen and how you actually do all this every day, it's incredible. But time is life sink. So I’d like to ask and where can people find you, Neen?

Neen: I believe the easiest thing is if you just search me on social media. I'm so fortunate there is only one Neen James and so one of the things that you'll find is Twitter is where I have a lot of conversations with my clients and my audiences. Instagram is the peek behind the curtain of my life. Neenjames.com  you will find hundreds of articles you can download for free and some of the resources that you have mentioned to your listeners today and you'll also see that if you go to my blog, you'll find there's a lot of articles written there for people who want to be professional speakers and so whether you choose that career or not you might do a search for that and you'll find some of these amazing people that I've talked to you about and you'll see resources there that I believe in as well. So hopefully that's just some places you can start. You may also want to see get your hands on a copy of Attention Pays and see if you enjoy it as well.

Leanne:  Absolutely. We'll pop a link to your book and all those resources in the show notes but I also want to share with the audience. So I heard about name through Michael Ports Steal the Show Podcast and you've been on and introduced with him.

Neen: Oh. I love him.

Leanne:  Yes. I can tell you guys love each other. The conversation, like I'm cracking up in the car listening to you brave talk. I've got a lot of value, a lot of value out of it. There's one episode in particular where you talk about conceptual models and you guys do a deep dive on that and I'd love to share that with our audience I think that's really useful too. Didn't have time to talk about it on our show but that's fine because there's so many other resources that our listeners can access and Neen I'm just so grateful for your time and your energy and all the information you've provided today and just through your book and your blog and all your conversations. It's just wonderful to see an Australian doing so well over there and thank you so much for your time.

Neen: It's my privilege and the great thing is Americans love an accent. So if you come over and do any work in Australia you have a huge advantage. Leanne, thank you for what you're doing in the world and being able to serve those first-time facilitators and whether the people are starting out in their career or they've been doing this a long time. It feels like you have so many great resources that can help everyone no matter what stage in their career they’re in. Thank you for what you do.

Leanne:  Oh, thanks again Neen, love your work.

[END OF AUDIO] 43:23

First Time Facilitator podcast transcript with Mark McKeon (Episode 25)

Listen to this episode from First Time Facilitator on Spotify. In today's episode, I talk to Mark McKeon about the parallels between creating high performance on the footy pitch; and high stake situations in a group workshop facilitation environment. Need some inspiration and motivation?

Here’s the episode transcript for Episode 25 with Mark McKeon. Alternatively you can listen to my conversation with Mark.

Leanne: Welcome to the First Time Facilitator Podcast, Mark McKeon.

Mark McKeon: Hello Leanne

Leanne: Hi Mark, thanks so much for your time. Mark to start, I'd really love you to share with our listeners your career journey, it's a bit different from any other facilitator that we've had on the show. You started out playing in a high performing footy team and then transitioned to a high performing coach, and now you work with businesses as well. You've pivoted your skills through sport and business, can you share with our listeners a little bit about your career journey and how you wound up in the world of speaking and facilitating?

Mark: It's certainly not a stayed journey, it was really serendipity 101 because, as you mentioned I was involved with footy as a player, and then as a high performance coach my original training was in biomechanics and human movement. While I was doing the high performance coaching, because in those days it wasn't a full time role, I also set up corporate gyms for clients, and one of the clients actually asked me to do a talk to the staff to try to get more people to join the camp.

I did that and I had a call couple of days later from an agent, a speakers bureau rep asking me to- when I was doing another talk I had let him know because he wanted to come and watch. I said, "Well, I'm not doing anymore, that was the only one. That was a one off." He actually then organized a job, a freebie came along, I guess he liked what we saw and asked if I'd want him to represent me.

It was purely by accident and then slowly over the next five years that took over from my corporate work and then another 10 years later from my coaching work, and for the last, I guess 20 years, it's been an absolute full time role.

Leanne: Congratulations. That first stage, can you remember that was over say 20 years ago, what kind of preparation had you had before that, had you had any kind of media training through your footy career or was this just something that you learnt on your own?

Mark: Look, no, to be honest, I think it's maybe just a skill that I've managed to have, and it was obviously very raw at the time and I've hopefully improved it since then, but I just try to do it in as honest and as natural way as I could. I still try to do that now maybe I think it's like 1,400 presentations later I still try to bring that same honesty to my presentations when I can.

Leanne: Wow. Let's talk about those parallels between I guess high performance. Also, I used to play netball, not at the level that you did, but at a pretty high level. I've often said in the Podcast the way that I prepare for a big workshop or a speech is the same way that I prepare for a netball game in terms of my morning routine, the music I listen to when I'm on the drive in. Do you find that there are some parallels between playing in a high performing game like a footy final as opposed to presenting in front of thousands of people?

Mark: Yes, definitely. It's one of the things that really drew me towards it because after I played for a little while, but then coached for a lot longer, you do everything you can and you do your role to your highest level but come game day, the players would run out, not watch from the sidelines and whether that's a ego thing or a desire to have the most influence you can, really restores the fact that if you are on stage, if you are facilitating it, it was you, it was your performance, it was your ability to affect the outcome, so I think that's a really strong parallel from a broader point of view of the AFL environment and a corporate environment.

I think it's also amazing how much impact leaders have, coaches or business leaders have in getting that discretionary effort, in getting that high level of performance out of their teams is amazingly close parallels there.

Leanne: Let's talk about that discretionary effort, what does that look like for you in terms of your preparation for a big- say for a big workshop? Say you got a new client, they want something, let's talk about you guys are in training a bit later, but you are approached and you haven't worked in an industry before, what kind of effort do you put in to making that a really great experience for the people that show up?

Mark: That's where the rubber hits the road. That's just one thing you can't [unintelligible 00:04:30] regardless of whether you have been traveling or you have been busy with other roles, you have to do that, you have to do that research. I always would want to have that absolutely done at least the day before the event, if not well before that. Certainly, that starts with your web search, you're checking their website and getting a close understanding of what the industry does, what their product or service is, if you haven't had previous experience with that company or with that industry.

Then most importantly, when you're getting a brief from the clients, often the clients don't really know what it is they want or you might be working with a committee and there are [chuckles] differing views on what should and what shouldn't happen. One of the great dangers especially in a facilitation role is it becomes vague and you don't have clear idea of what you are trying to achieve.

When I do that brief I'm always starting with the end in mind and I often ask the people if you had a magic wand in this day or this say could go as well as they possibly could, what would be the three outcomes? For them that can be a really challenging question that they need to go away and think about and discuss. Once you know as a facilitator what those three outcomes are, then you can work back and do your preparation about your discussion groups or what content you might provide yourself and you can structure your day.

I'm quite a casual person but that's one thing that I'm not casual about, I can be quite painful about that and the only other thing is room set up. I'm very pedantic about room set up to make sure that you've got the best opportunity for people to be involved.

Leanne: Great, so in terms of room set up, what does that look like for you?

Mark: Every room is different, but I would certainly, and it depends on the size of the group and so on. The worst rooms are long, skinny rooms like corridor type rooms where you are at one end and there can be a long distance between you and the last person. That makes it much harder. A room that was like that, I would try to have that configured, so that I was in the side in the middle so people are only half as far away from you as they would be to have it the other way.

If it's more of a presentation thing and it is a large audience, you have to have a stage. Often, organizers won't provide a stage, but you have to have a stage. I'm about 183 centimeters, I'm reasonably tall, but if people are sitting down and they might be 10,15 meters away from you, it's very hard for them to see you. I also would never have a lectern because a lectern is a barrier between you and the audience and you need to be open and in control, so I'd absolutely get rid of that.

In terms of seating with a small group where it may be a facilitation where there's 30 or 40 people, I think round tables open at the front, so people aren't sitting with their back to you, are much more preferable rather than a U-shaped- most are U-shaped depending on the number of people in the room can work, but it tends to be very formal and very back to school because people are sitting next to each other almost like they are back in school.

If it's a large audience but in a bigger auditorium that might hold a few hundred or even more people to block off the back and have the people more towards the front, so they are closer to you.

Leanne: Yes, you always find a nice big sort of room set up. When you invite people to come in, they always linger towards the back and it's a bit of effort to rally them up the front. That's really good practical advice.

Mark: Pleasure. Just in regard to that too for people who haven't facilitated so many times before, if you are ever in doubt as to whether you should or shouldn't use a microphone, always, in my opinion, use it because you might have a strong voice, but you could be speaking all day and the extra amplification that you get through a mic makes your voice much deeper, much more resonant and it just really adds to quality.

Sometimes people say, "Why did you use a mic? There wasn't that many people there." It actually, it's one of those subtle thing that helps. My preference is for a lapel mic because it means both hands are free. When you have a hand held mic unless you have it in the right spot as it very easy to get that popping peep all the time. If it's a directional mic one other thing that sometimes people may not be aware of, if you hold the mic a hand held mic vertically just in front of your chin, you don't get nearly as good a sound as if you hold it at an angle so the top of the microphone is directly in front of your mouth, but of course, when you do that you are actually partially hiding your face. [chuckles]

Whichever way you go with a hand held mic you lose a little bit, so my preference is the lapel mic. Of course, I wouldn't use a lectern mic because to use the lectern mic you need to stand behind the lectern, and as I mentioned that could be a block between you and the audience, but just to add to that all these things or opinions and people have their own preference.

Leanne: That's true, but I agree with you on all of those, especially the having a lectern up there. I think there's nothing worse, it creates a block. I guess people use it because it's a bit of a safety net for them, because they can have their notes there and everything else. I do challenge all of our listeners too, if given the option go the lapel, it's definitely more free. Just remember to have it switched off when you're offstage. [chuckles]

Mark: Yes. Also, I'm sorry to interrupt there Leanne, also, be pedantic about the battery. If there's an AV take there, they'll often say, "Just had a new battery yesterday", but I would actually respectfully ask for a new battery before your session because I've been on stage in front of quite a few 100 people when the battery's gone, just fails and you're mute. It's embarrassing for someone have to run up on stage and fiddle around with the battery pack while you're trying to do your presentation.

Leanne: Is that one of the worst things that happened to you onstage or have you had any other experiences that you can share?

Mark: Look, things are going to happen, that certainly happened a couple of times. There's been malfunctions in the warning system, you'll get alarms as if there's been a fire and so on. Once at a presentation at the MCG they were testing a siren, so they rang the siren every 15 seconds for about 10 minutes. There's been malfunctions of equipment where stages have collapsed, not in a dangerous way where anyone's got hurt or anything like that, but things are going to happen and that's when it does the audience will take the lead from you.

If you show that it's not really worrying you or you're pretending that's it's not really worrying you, they'll come along for the ride. Expect the unexpected.

Leanne: That's really good advice, to expect the unexpected, I think it's key for all facilitators to be extremely flexible, which is difficult if you want to control where it's going and those outcomes that you spoke about, your top three and waving that magic wand, I think that's a really great question. What other in terms of your delivery style, what do you think that you bring to a show or to an event. What does Mark bring?

Mark: Well, hopefully some knowledge and some expertise and some enthusiasm. When I was thinking about the chat we were going to have, and this is my number one tip if you like, it's something that even quite a few people in the industry with a lot of experience, to be honest I think don't do. It's what I call being audience centric. What I mean by that is, if you're at the front whether it's a keynote presentation or a facilitation, you've been given the privilege because either you know something that the audience don't know or you're trying to get the audience to do something that they may not be doing.

You're in a really important center of influence there. A lot of people when they're in that situation, they're thinking of themselves, "What will I say? How will I go? I hope I don't run out of time, I hope they can see my slides, I hope I get an eight out of 10." They're thinking about themselves. Even to the point where sometimes when I actually help teach presentation skills, when people are putting a practice, I'll put a plant in the audience who will actually get out their phone and pretend to send a text message or even lift up a newspaper, full tabloid newspaper and hide their head behind the newspaper in the front row.

After the person has done this practice presentation you'll say of them, "Who do you think wasn't quite engaged?" Very often they won't know.

Leanne: Wow. Okay. Because I weren't paying attention, I was more absorbed in-[crosstalk]

Mark: Exactly. By audience centric, what I mean by that is you're a servant for the audience. The more you think about the audience, how can I help the audience in your preparation phase, and then in the actual presentation or facilitation phase, it makes you look at the audience, it makes you aware if a particular person maybe isn't quite engaged or if you've really hit a note that you need to keep going on, whether it's time to pause and ask questions.

The cues are always there from the audience and I think it's the most important thing. In addition to that, audiences love it, they love it, they can sense it, they can smell it when you've got their best interests at heart. I think it enriches the experience for everyone. If as a presenter you get a bit nervous or unsure, it tends to take away all that anxiety because your focus is away from yourself and towards the audience.

I often say to people, some people present with a easier solution, "Now, what we should problem again, mentality." As a facilitator you need to have the opposite, you need to dig and find and listen and watch. I think that's the magic, I really do think that's the magic.

Leanne: That is the magic. I love audience-centric approach. What you were explaining in terms of your presentation skills training, I think that everyone's worst fears is they're out there talking and someone will pull out to find that it's very real. I think instead of seeing it as something to be fearful about, it's really a sign to you to say, instead of continuing what you're doing, why don't you break it up? Why don't you ask your question and use this as a cue to make the workshop a better impact?

I think that's a really great practical tool for all of our learners. Don't take it as a personal hit to what you're doing, take it as a sign to switch things around.

Mark: What happens from that and if you using a slide deck and where that session has gone means that the next couple of slides are no longer valid or not at that time. Then I don't think there's anything wrong with acknowledging that because of the way the session's gone. Going to slide mode, fast forwarding through to where you want to go and just bring up the next slide.

You don't have to be a prisoner to the structure that you've set. A lot of people are worried about running out of content, they'll prepare four hours worth for an hour presentation.

I find it's always different, if certainly in a facilitation, a keynote it's a little bit different but a facilitation is always different and on forever swapping slides around and stopping and accelerating and changing the times and the breaks and so on, all really hopefully, to the benefit of the audience rather than my own comfort level.

Leanne: Wow. Yes, very challenging, great information there. You talked about people do have this fear of running out of content before the times allocated is over. What do you do in that situation if you have run out of time or do you throughout the day recognize, "We've gone quickly here, we have more time for a discussion here." Do you pace it a bit more or do you wait until the end and go, "Well, here are some other things I've thought about, let's do this now." How did you approach it?

Mark: It's a good question. To be honest, I've been doing this a long time now, I have a lot of blocks of different information and I think maybe one of the indicators that you maybe have reached a certain level of competence or beyond is that you've always got more than you have time for. That's one thing so I guess you'd say fundamentally. The second thing is I will always have more ready in the preparation phase than I think I'm going to need.

Sometimes those later ones that I wasn't going to get to because of the way the session goes, maybe will come forward and something else we wont to get to. I'm always going back to that thinking with the end in mind, "What's going to be the best thing to actually get to those outcomes we want?" That's the other, maybe a really important thing that's a little bit different to sport, to be honest.

When you were playing netball or if any of your listeners are playing sport, I found I would always perform better when I was just in a moment, I wasn't really thinking about it too much. I wasn't conscious of how many kicks I'd had, I was just doing it. As a facilitator you almost need another part of your brain because while you might even be speaking, listening and be part of discussion, part of your brain has got to be thinking, 'Where do I go next? What does that person mean? What's the context, how do I move towards that outcome?"

You almost need to split your brain to the one that's actively there, to the one that's thinking about where do I go next. That's something that probably does come from experience. When people come to me and say they want to be a facilitator, I actually [inaudible 00:19:02] focus on that audience centricity I spoke. I mentioned about the split brain and then I'll tell them, "Go away and do it a 100 times and come back", because that's what it takes I think. That's a [unintelligible 00:19:14] -

Leanne: It is. It's really, really difficult to stay in the moment and stay completely present, which as we know is really important. Then also I think, "where is this moving to? What do I need to do next?" You don't need to split your brain, but I've never heard of it being compartmentalized that. I think by doing this Podcast as well, when I first started I think this is episode 25.

When I first started I was keeping to script a lot, but I think through the journey I'm listening to what you're saying, but I'm thinking where is this conversation leading to, and directing it that way. I think live questions and interviewing is very similar to the whole and split brain in terms of facilitation too.

Mark: I agree, absolutely agree. There's a lot of synergy there and sometimes when you're being interviewed from someone and the discussion is headed in a certain direction, [chuckles] it can tell you that they're just asking you the next question that's on their run so just not no longer [unintelligible 00:20:06] relevant or is congruent. A good thing for facilitators to do is to listen to skilled interviewers. You're doing a great job.

I think the morning DJs who interview a lot of people get really skilled at-- [unintelligible 00:20:26] and really getting to the core of whatever the issue is really quickly, because they only have a short amount of time to interview someone. They maybe not get so much time for preparation. I find that terrific and sometimes when I'm listening to them I'm thinking to myself, "what question would I ask next?" Then they ask a better one than the one I have in mind and I think that's-- you always got to try to keep learning if you can.

Leanne: That's right. I think my favorite, I've got two favorites. Richard Fidler from ABC Conversations is one of mine and Andrew Denton is a bit of a legend in Australian journalism. He really gets the core, he gets a lot of emotion right there in a longest space of time. Mark, I guess being present is and then having to forecast ahead and being standing up all day, it can be pretty exhausting. You do this full time. How do you manage your energy levels through the day and through the week and make sure that you set to go and full of energy every time that you're out onstage?

Mark: That's a good question because it can be extremely draining. You might have heard the saying, it's a hard way to make an easy living. I think anyone who's been on stage for six to eight hours in a day can certainly attest to how mentally draining it is. On the day, I do get there early to make sure the room set up is right, the sound is right and so on and everything's ready to go.

Then I disappear until about five minutes before the session is going to start and I don't mean to be disrespectful to people. As soon as people know you're the facilitator, you're the speaker and they see you, they want to engage, they want to start and it's almost like your work has started little early. During the breaks, I disappear during break. Sometimes I think many people may take the wrong inference from that. I'm not trying to be arrogant at all. I'm just trying to freshen myself up to the next session.

Even to the point sometimes where I'll say, "look, sorry, but I have a quick phone call I needed to make." Just to get away and get that space.

If at all possible I try to get some fresh air. Have one coffee during the morning break. Then just really chill out even to the point where at lunchtime if I can, if there's a green room or something like that, I will actually lie down and just breathe or do a bit of meditation, that sort of stuff. Just give myself as much space and as much rest as I can. Then at the end of the day I will always stay back and talk to people and answer any questions they may have.

I absolutely try to be quite selfish during the day. I never drink alcohol the night before I'm going to present. Usually, I will fly in the night before rather than the morning for there's a few reasons for that, because you never know if you're going to get a flight delay, but then you can get a good night's sleep, be up, ready to go. Usually do a little bit of exercise on the morning of a presentation to to be ready.

I also just mentally prepare too, done all of the actual preparation the day or the days before. The actual morning of the event, I don't say that loud, but I do say to myself how great this is going to be, how much fun it's going to be.

Leanne: Fantastic.

Mark: How it's a privilege for you to be there. You're really going to help people, you really do. Pump myself up on the morning of a session.

Leanne: That's really great to hear that tip. Especially about being selfish, I think because you want to be of service to people and help everyone, but I think you do have to protect yourself particularly, when you haven't done the days workshop. I really like your excuse of just going to make a phone call because I want to get away, but I don't think people pick up on that cue sometime, so I'm going to use that one. I think some of our listeners will too, so thanks.

Now, I was wondering if you could explain, I really found that your concept of the Go Zone, that I saw on your website. I find that really interesting. I think it would be useful for you to explain that to our listeners. What that Go Zone is really about?

Mark: Yes, sure. Truly, I guess you'd say it's my signature program. It's one of those things it's been like 20 years in the making. It's really an evolution of all of the work I've done in the past because my passion is for what I call sustainable peak performance that people in corporate life achieving to a high level, but being able to maintain that level for five, 10, 20 years as opposed to someone who can reach a level of sales goals or be a good effective leader or manager, but they just can't maintain that pace.

It's also part of the issue is when I was a young footy player, the training that we actually went through was quite barbaric. I think I spent five years just being tired every day and just enduring my career rather than really enjoying it. All those things really set up a passion for me about this whole sustainable peak performance. The Go Zone is a structure in a system where you shift between keys or zones as I call them between a Go Zone, a slow zone and a no zone.

Go zone is for corporate people are usually two hours, their periods if they're at their desk where they are having the door shut. They've switched off their email arrival times and they just power through tasks. A task is anything that's up to an hour, anything beyond an a hour is a project and you break it down into smaller tasks. You have a task list, you have everything you need.

The task could be a phone call, it could be an email, it could be working on the spreadsheet, it could be writing a report, it could be doing a 101. When you're in this Go Zone, there the most important tasks for your business that day and there's no excuses, there's no distractions. You actually have a buzzer that tells you when the Go Zone is up and you just power through them. You're not trying to do five or 10. You're just trying to do one at a time to the best of your ability till the time is complete.

There's a lot of blood chemistry that sits under that the way adrenaline, cortisol work in your body and the neurotransmitters of serotonin and melatonin to balance them out because you can't be this Go Zone state all day, every day. For most people, it's a couple of hours. The slow zone is a longer zone where you're still working, it's still productive, but you do a bit of this, you do a bit of that. You maybe make a call, go out grab a coffee, check the paper, listen to another conversation. You're just going from one task to another which is fine as long as it's not your only level of performance, because a lot of people are in this slows zone, all day, every day.

Leanne: Yes.

Mark: It's like a groove that they can't get out of it. In the third zone is the recovery zone, that's what I call the no zone. This is away from work times, when you're not at work, but crucially you're not thinking about work, where you're investing in a passion or hobby, a pastime. You take it easy on yourself, your phone's off, you just do something you really enjoy.

You're trying to do these Go Zone to no zone on a two to one ratio. In the course of a week, if you had eight hours in the Go Zone, you'll be four hours in the no zone, not necessarily same day, just by [unintelligible 00:28:01] over the week. You had some structure of changing levels of intensity upwards and downwards and everything else is asleep or the slow zone. A lot of people use that to really create some rigor and structure around their performance and to get a little bit of mental toughness into their daily routine.

Leanne: What a great concept because I know that all the rage now is high intensity interval training which is the difference between doing something at a really fast rate and then recovery as well. I think what you're doing here just aligning that to the workplace. I think when you were talking about the slow zone, I was thinking, "yes, that's exactly what I'm sitting in most of the time." I'd love to share this with my colleagues and just go, "look, can we make a commitment to looking at creating a ratio like this and respecting each other's time and getting to the Go Zone two hours every day." I think that would be really-- you churn up so much work, you could- not coast, but I can imagine those two hours are high impact.

Mark: You're right, it's important. What you said it's true, there especially if you're working in an open plane environment or something like that where respecting each other's time. There's quite a few companies who do Go Zones and during the Go Zone time, it's not okay to go and interrupt someone or ask them about something or play music or have loud conversations. There's certainly that element of it.

I think the two major benefits are certainly the productivity, I think that's pretty well proven. Also, the liberation, the control of your blood chemistry. I love doing Go Zones in the morning. I usually do mine 10:30 to 12:30, lunch is the reward. I'm still working in the afternoon. [chuckles] It feels like I'm cruising a bit. It just feels like the end of the day, it's like, "wow, that's just-- how easy was that."

I don't feel comfortable doing slow zones unless I've either had a Go Zone or I've got one scheduled. That's the other thing I always schedule these things in advance, I always know when my next Go Zone is going to be, when my no zone is going be. If I have to move them because of flight changes or something like that, you tend to move it, but you don't lose it, and that's really important because a lot of people, the thing that they will neglect will be the no zones.

They'll do the work part because there's always extra work to do, but when they get busier, they won't do the no zone, the fun zone, the recovery zone, and I often [unintelligible 00:30:26] stresses and the problem, the problem is like a recovery and when people don't have recovery, it's virtually impossible long-term to get that sustainable level of peak performance. They can do it for a while with work ethic or they just grind it out, but long-term that just doesn't work like that. You'll know from your athlete days, you have to have the rest in order to get that level of performance.

Leanne: Yes, for sure. What I like that you said in the recovery zone, the no zone is to stay away from your phones because I think a lot of people think they do relax by looking at their phones, [chuckles] but I do think it's counter-intuitive, and you need to give yourself a break, so thanks for raising that. Mark, this is not even a segue but I really wanted to bring it up before our time lapses, but I loved-- on your website you got a video of you entering a stage, it's like 007 style.

I mean that's a really cool idea, kind of x-factor, what kind of other things that are x-factors that you bring into leading your workshops or all these keynotes? I do encourage, on a side note, for all our listeners to hop on there, we'll link to that video in our show notes of this episode, because I thought it was really funny and cool.

Mark: That's an interesting point you raise. It's a fine line, so that video you're talking about, that was for a company I had already presented to, I think six years in a row. In one sense, you're looking for something different, but also the people remember stories and they remember images, so I was dressed as 007 and the content of that message was O-O-7, so 'O' for organization, 'O' for optimism, and it's seven daily habits.

The whole idea of that imagery of me in a James Bond mask was meant to remind people and to create a bit of an entrance, so another time all done for a sales group, I actually dressed in a crocodile outfit to make the point that in sales you had to have a thick skin and people remembered that image. Once as a caveman with a big wooden "Why?" about finding your strong "Why" because a caveman had a very obvious "why", they just needed to eat and stay warm, so helping people remember that image.

You also have to be careful that you don't go too far, because I have a little bit of a hobby to do illusions like magic tricks and I used to do them on stage and make things disappear and so on, but you have to be really careful that the gimmicks don't take over and that audience would start waiting for the next trick because I wouldn't introduce it, I'd just do it and something funny would happen, and then you can lose the impact of the key message you're trying to convey.

You have to be clear for the audience, what is this? Is it a keynote or a magic show? I actually don't do that much anymore because the imagery and the gimmick taken too far actually detracts from the session, and I did have to learn that lesson. But stories and images, as long as they're congruent to the message, so the James Bond OO7, the crocodile skin, you've got to have a thick skin, you've got to be strong, the caveman, the strong "why?", they were congruent to the message, so it works, but if you just do a gimmick without a reason, without a link, then the people won't get it and it'll detract.

Leanne: Yes. Just a question, how did you get these ideas of the caveman and the "why?" Was that something that you thought of straight away or were you in the shower one day and thought that this was a great costume, how did you link those two kind of seemingly disparate things together?

Mark: I suppose you say it's imagination, but I think it's one of the great things if you -what we're talking about the Go Zone before, I've done the Go Zone presentation of a book, at least 300 or 400 times, I think, and most of the time it's pretty much the same and I love doing it, but as a facilitator, it's also great to have these other challenges that get thrown at you.

It's a client you've worked with before or there's a specific really strong theme, and to go away and think of something that's going to make that work, and if you can make it a lot of fun for the audience and also fun for yourself, it's an absolute winner, so I think that really comes back to the imagination, but for me it's not so much the idea that comes during the shower, it's a time when you do a Go Zone and lock yourself in the door and you just think to yourself, "right, what are we going to do in this session?"

It might take you 20-30 minutes of grinding out ideas till you come up with something, so that's that whole thing about, it's more about perspiration than inspiration. I think it's a great thing for facilitators to do to keep themselves on edge.

Leanne: Yes, I agree too. On that note, finally, what is your advice to a first time facilitator?

Mark: I think a couple things. Certainly, the audience centricity. Certainly, do your preparation beforehand. Certainly, work on splitting your brain, so that you can think about what's coming next, all those things. Certainly get every job you can, get ever [unintelligible 00:35:52], it a rotary club, do meetings, local sporting clubs, even if it means you're not getting paid for those jobs, there's no substitute for being up the front.

Also, don't be put off if you think that it's a crowded field and, "how am I going to get work?" From a marketing point of view, the absolute best way to get jobs is to do a good job, and it might be hard to break in, but there's always room for a quality facilitator in the industry. Personally, I think it's just a fantastic career because it gives you a lot of challenge, the opportunity to travel, meet great people, but it also gives you personal freedom, so you're not working a 9 to 5 job, not that there's anything wrong with that, but I love the ability to be free, almost be a performer in a way because it all comes down to your level of performance.

For people who've maybe got that aspiration or do a bit or like to do more, work on your craft, just work on your craft, look for every opportunity because it can create a - and I've been so lucky that it's created such a fantastic lifestyle and provided for my family and so on. Don't give up if it's a bit hard because there are opportunities there, more and more.

Leanne: I've got to say Mark, that's probably been one of the most inspiring responses I've heard to that question on the show today, so thank you so much. We've covered, just in these 40 minutes, there's so much that we've covered and a lot more that we could cover. We've covered everything from your tips in terms of even the detail of getting a new battery for your microphone and the type of microphone that you should use, through to the questions that you ask to clarify with the clients and the research that you do and why that's so important.

As well as how to structure your day, so you are more productive and can be the best facilitator that you can be, so Mark, thank you so much for all your insight and wisdom, it's been really great talking to you today.

Mark: My pleasure, thanks a lot, Leanne.

First Time Facilitator podcast transcript with Sean Lavin (Episode 24)

Listen to this episode from First Time Facilitator on Spotify. In today's episode, I talk to Sean Lavin about his experience with facilitation and the team profile tool called the 'Team Management Profile'. Sean is a passionate, optimistic and friendly personality with a strong background in both hotel/services and open-cut coal mining operations.

Here's the episode transcript for Episode 24 with Sean Lavin.

Leanne: Welcome to the First Time Facilitator Podcast my colleague and friend, Sean Lavin.

Sean: Thanks, Leanne. It’s really nice to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Leanne: It's great to have you on the show. Now, Sean tell us a bit about yourself, you've got a really interesting career history and I'd love to hear how you came to the world of finding facilitation and presenting in public.

Sean: Yeah, cool. I guess it was more of an organic sort of process. So in high school, I did a little bit of public speaking more forced into it because my brother did a lot of it and I think the expectation was kind of set but I always found it quite easy. It didn't really stress me out and I saw a lot of other people who I guess found it really quiet or they would get very nervous so I sort of did a little bit of that and then I finished school and I went to uni. I did Hotel and Tourism Management so I got into the hotel industry so my job was all about service and about going up and approaching strangers and saying hello to them and welcoming them into the hotel and trying to make their days as great as possible. So I sort of just worked on that I guess, it sort of became very natural that I was very confident in front of strangers and people. I’ve always been very social and then I sort of left that career to go into mining for a bit of a sea-change.

Leanne: So what was the reason sort of behind that?

Sean: Look, honestly, I just looked at, I look to my boss and what he was doing I looked at his boss and it just wasn't what I wanted to do. I really enjoyed the sort of social aspect of working in the hotel industry but I guess that the sort of shift work, changing shifts to the last minute, we're always sort of short-staffed and running around like crazy.

Leanne: Sounds a bit like mining though.

Sean: Well, yeah I guess so. Yeah, my brother-in-law at that time was actually working in the mining industry and business was booming and he said, “Hey, if you want to sea-change come and drive a truck for a while.” and so I thought “Great. Perfect opportunity to get on and even time rest there when I go back to uni and study something.” I was really keen on doing which was the people side of things so I went back and studied, did my masters in management in HR and the rest is kind of history. I was driving a truck around in circles for about six years studying on the side and then I was fortunate enough to transition into the graduate program in the HR space within the same business and so that brought me down to down to Brisbane, down to the city about 18 months ago. I've just joined started my third rotation of the graduate program into the final straight I guess and really diving into the facilitation side of things and loving it so that's the snapshot, I guess.

Leanne: Now, we've got something in common because I know that in those trucks you're driving in circles but while you were doing that, what else were you listening to in the truck?

Sean: Yes, yeah exactly. So a really good friend of mine, Matt Linney, big shout out to Matti. I'll put him on to this so he can never listen. He asked me probably would have been around 2014, whether I listen to podcasts I said, “I really don’t know what they are. I never really heard of them.” He said “Mate, you’re like out of everyone I know, you need to be getting involved in this because you love it.” So he put me onto a few podcasts and I just loved it, you could drive around in a truck in the middle of the night because we worked a 24-hour operation. I just felt like I was sitting in a room with some amazing people having these conversations and it was just awesome and so yeah I jumped on the podcast bandwagon. My phone is just constantly telling me I've got no storage left because I've got too many podcasts banged up and yeah, so honestly podcasts have actually become quite a big part of my life in the sense of where I get information and education from nowadays, yeah.

Leanne: Yeah. I think that's where Sean and I sort of bonded over very quickly is that he told me about a podcast, The Art of Charm  was last year.

Sean: Yes.

Leanne: And so I started listening to that and I thought, “Oh yeah, Sean actually has good taste in podcasts.” and we frequently to share episodes and things. It’s so nice to know that four years later, you're appearing on your first podcast, who would have thought?

Sean: Yeah. The inaugural podcast. I was a little bit nervous but I thought, “You know what, let's just have a chat and have a conversation because that's how I used to feel listening to podcasts.” So I thought, “Well, how could I be actually be involved in one.”

Leanne: Yeah.

Sean: Yeah. So thanks for having me, this is great.

Leanne: It is great. Now, I’d like to really sort of not a very straightforward segue but really talk about I guess the focus of this episode which is a tool an assessment tool but both you and I got accreditation before quite recently we decided to use and it's called the Team Management Profile. So in a previous episode I've interviewed a guy, Adam, we spoke about the strengths finder tool and I do have quite a few HR people that listen to the podcast and I think it's really nice from time to time to talk to people with accreditation, find out what the tool is useful for and how to use it. So I guess before you even stepped into that room and did the accreditation, what did you know about the TMP that stands team management profile what did you know about it?

Sean: Yeah, very little. I'm fairly fresh, a fairly green into the world of HR and facilitation really. It's really only been about 18 months, so very little. I knew there was a really pretty coloured wheel and that meant something that was very powerful. I'd sat in on a couple of sessions prior to our accreditation with another colleague of ours who is accredited and so I kind of got a little bit of a crash course into what it was all about and that really set me up going in to do the accreditation because you know I was really excited to learn more about the amazing tool that is TMP.

Leanne: Cool. So can you let us know a bit more about the tool and what it does and why you'd use it?

Sean: Yeah. So it's actually quite simple on the surface as you basically have participants who sign up and they go through a questionnaires about 60 questions and of that it sort of spits out a personalized report. It gives you a bit of an insight into the way that you like to work and sort of I suppose your preferred role within a team. So there's lots of different tasks that sort of fall into the work scope in any sort of industry in any business globally. I think everyone sort of has a preference for what they like doing in that life cycle of work and this is just a great tool to highlight or show hey what you actually prefer doing and then you can actually structure the way the tasks are delegated and this sort of work that you take on based on what you prefer to do.

Leanne: So as part of the accreditation process we each had to complete in our Profiles, I'd like to ask you just to start, what did you find personally from your profile? Was it a surprise, shock or you completely on-board with what you read when you got your profile? And what does that profile even tell you?

Sean: Yeah, look I was completely on board. I was quite blown away and this is something that another colleague mentioned only last week was that “I can't believe how 60 questions could be so accurate.” I think a lot of people go into it, thinking it’s a little bit airy-fairy almost like it's sort of telling your future or you're reading horoscopes or something. But it was really accurate and the description that it breaks down services you know, this is the way you probably like to work, you like people to approach you in this sort of way, you get flustered if this happens and you can kind of start relating to what it's telling you about yourself and the way you like to work and for me personally it was it was probably 95% spot-on you know I get. So my major preference I guess is what they call a concluded producer or my preference is all that output so it's all about just getting things done.

So there's some people that love researching, there's some people love thinking of the great ideas, there's some people that like organizing it all and you got the people who like myself just like doing it getting it done. I think that's why I really enjoy facilitation as well because it's the output. It's you who do the prep work before it but then when you actually get up and run a workshop that's the output from a facilitator’s perspective. Then you've got those who like to actually control, make sure that what's being done is what we wanted to do in the first place and then trying to maintain it as well. So a lot of different preferences and you can be across the board and across the spectrum in with the preference.

Leanne: Yeah, that’s right. Because if you look at the wheel it's all beautiful colours, it's really nice and bright. What we usually see from people is that they have a major preference and have two minor preferences and either side of that. But Sean's, your wheel was a bit different.

Sean: Yeah. So I was what they call a “split-wheel”. Where for instance generally your preference, your major preference and you'll have actually two minor preferences and they usually sit close by because that's the kind of scope of work that you like to do and it's that sort of process. For me, it was actually split so I actually looked at my percentage breakdown and found that I'm fairly brought across the whole wheel. I think my major preference, so I should say there's eight different pieces of that wheel and seven of them are all within about six percent of each other.

Leanne: Okay.

Sean: All adding up to a hundred percent. So it's not good or bad, it's just the way that we each like to go about our work and the work that we prefer to do and I like to think that it's for me personally that I can kind of touch into lots of different aspects of say a work cycle and be you know comfortable enough doing it.

Leanne: Unlike you're unbalanced friend that you're looking at right now.

Sean: Yeah. I’m staring down at you Leanne. So there's some people that might get 0% or 1% in some areas and so for instance, if you are quite low inside the reporter advisor piece which is all about gathering information. You probably don't like going and researching and trying to find information, how to do market research or doing say cost analysis that sort of work. It's doesn't mean you can't do it, it doesn't mean that you can't learn to do it, it just means that for right now that's not your preference and so then your preference would lie in another aspect of that work. So great task to delegate.

Leanne: Yeah, sure. I agree. I don't think I was very high and reporter advisor either. So when you received your profile have you actually looked at any of the action items or what kind of value has it given you to know that “Okay, this is what I am.” What does that mean for you now seeing that profile?

Sean: Yeah, it's actually quite funny. So in the team, I mean currently we've got quite a few people that have a different preference and you can kind of see the work that they do or the sort of ideas that they have and where that fits in. I'll share the story that we had, so we had yourself Leanne who thought of this great idea you then passed it on to someone who loves organizing. She put everything in place and got everything lined up and then she gave me the PowerPoint presentation to do you know that final sort of pieces to sort that output. So we kind of, we actually without realizing it and before doing accreditation. We were actually delegating tasks in line with our preference which is quite cool.

Leanne: Now in terms of teams. How can a tool like this help a team? So you might have a support team like a finance team that comes to you again talking to the HR practitioners or anyone in a business that's been asked to run a team building session. I think we often get asked to do that we've got two hours, we’ve got to come up with something. I found, I guess the TMP is a really great tool to do that with. How does it help teams?

Sean: Yeah. I think it really helps especially a manager of a team or so there's more senior people in the team to understand what the preferences are for the people that make up that team. So if you're going to delegate a task. So there's somebody who loves organizing and you delegate them a researching task, it's probably shouldn't surprise you that maybe they don't spend as much time as they should on it, maybe what you're expecting to get out of them wasn't they didn't live up to your expectation and so when you understand that preference when either that person doesn't prefer doing the researching tasks maybe that's something that you should really be delegating to somebody else and then giving them you know a piece of work that then falls into their preference and hopefully your start getting better results because you're allowing your teammates I guess to actually work to their preference, to work in the space that they actually enjoy and they like to do.

Leanne: That's perfect and I think another thing that we sort of when we were unpacking the tool they’re all different. There's two different scales that make up, what people prefer so people at work. It’s a formula people plus work equals people at work sounds very simple but when we break down the people, there's a scale it's called the right eye scale which we won't really go into but one of those measures was making decisions and it can be based on your belief or on analytical data.

Sean: Yeah.

Leanne: Yeah. I find that's a really interesting scale because if you put people with two different mindsets into a meeting trying to create a decision based on two different criteria, you can see where there might be some conflict as well.

Sean: Yeah, absolutely. So somebody who likes to make decisions analytically they look at all the facts and the figures and the data and they go, “Yep, this is a great idea, this is what we should do.” I think if somebody on the belief side goes, “Yeah. But how is that kind of that may look good on paper but have you thought about how it's going to affect other teams you know, what about the Penguins?” There could be all these sort of pieces that don't add up in the data but that we need to consider. So if you've got someone who's very heavy on the analytical that's fine, that's absolutely normal, that's okay. But sometimes it can pay to have someone who's got that preference to be more belief-based in their decision making so you can kind of they can throw out a few things that maybe the data hadn't considered.

Leanne: Yeah. I think that's for me, in terms of the tool and what the way I've seen our team sort of mapped across all those different areas, now I understand and like you said “I understand why people doing things differently in meetings or it's why it's not the same as you.” and I think I guess the real premises that it's different, does not mean that someone else is wrong just because I don't.

Sean: Yes.

Leanne: Yes, it's a really great diversity tool if you want to really bring that up.

Sean: Yes.

Leanne: Now let's talk about, so Sean and I were accredited and then shortly after so two weeks after I was in Indonesia working on another project and Sean was left to, were given the task of running a workshop for the first time to about 25-30 people. What was your process in using this tool to create a workshop you give it a brief off for three hours. I think the outcomes were to have fun but make sure people develop self-awareness and then we also developed a team awareness. What was the process you went through to sort of structure a workshop like that?

Sean: Yeah, cool. So I guess that the first step for me was to look at what the team wanted. So what do they actually want to get out of it, “Did they want to understand the TMP and what it's all about?” Did they want some sort of tangible tools to take away?” So sort of I guess, yeah saying “What's the end goal? What are you trying to get to?” and then they working back from there when it comes to your planning. So fortunately myself Leanne went and saw a general manager and asked her so “Hey, what do you want us to get out of the group or you know what do you want to see them see at the end?” and her response was great you know number one thing was just to have fun and I love that because I think that's you know the variety and the novelty that really makes any sort of workshop, it's amazing. So that was a really cool brief in the sense that “Alright.  We're going to keep it light, we're going to keep it fun but we're all going to learn something about ourselves and we're going to learn how we can use the TMP to really engage or collaborate better as a team.” So that was the sort of the first step look at the end goal and what we actually wanted to get out of it. I then sort of had wanted to tailor the material to the audience.

So the team management profile is massive in the sense that the amount of information, the amount of data, the amount of things you can do with is huge and honestly you'd need weeks you know, a two-week workshop to get through at all which is great because there's so many resources but at the same time you've got to be very selective as to what you want to use depending on the I guess the time you've got for the workshop and then yeah really was going back and focusing on fun. So we had three hours, we probably spent the first half an hour, they had nothing to do with TMP at all purposely. We did that deliberately just to really break the room out really, we did with the networking, icebreaker, we did trivia, we had all this crazy stuff on the tables for everyone to play with. So we made it really fun in the sense that when we actually jumped into the material everyone was really relaxed, really comfortable and really instead of engaged and switched on and it works seamlessly.

Leanne: Yeah. I remember sort of turning to you after the first 20 minutes and go “Wow feels really good in this room,it just felt really nice and light.” and Sean, he’s underselling himself I think something happened and he kind of made this equip to one of our participants, one of our class clowns who's also my former manager and I just really lifted the mood as well so I think just moments like that you seized it. Share! I’d love you to share what was the Icebreaker question that you've got everyone to answer.

Sean: Yeah so one of my favourite things or favourite themes is around networking and that's something that I think especially in a workshop setting you kind of go back to your school days just naturally. So walk into a room and there's you know some people you might know, some people you're friendly with, somebody might not and you just sort of sit there, you've got a designated seat or you just sit anywhere except for the front row of course. And you just sort of sit there quietly not really sure whether you're allowed to talk, whether you know you can might say hello to someone next to you and then that's it and then you start looking at your phone you start looking around the room waiting for it to start.

Leanne: Hmmm, so true.

Sean: And I think the networking thing is just giving people the permission to speak to each other. It's okay, we're all here to learn and to you know enjoy our time together we may as well use it as best as possible. So when it comes to icebreakers, I think you've got all the resources you need in the room and that's just people. So all you need to do is basically give them the permission but also a little bit of guidance on how to do that so I love throwing out so you know to start with, just turn to the person next to you either say “Hello” or introduce yourself if you don't know them and then giving them a sparry sort of thought-provoking question or a scenario just to discuss.”

So the one that we use for instance was that some: “Life has given you 24 hours of leave effective immediately, you know you've got no commitments, you've got no kids, you've got no family, you've got no jobs to do, and you have 24 hours to do whatever you want. How are you going to spend it?” And so you say all right turn to the person next to you say hello, introduce yourself and then what are you going to do?- You're free 24 hours. And it's great, some of the responses were “I'm just going to put my feet up and read a book.” Someone says that “I'm going to call my friends and see if anyone wants to go to the pub.” Like it was really cool some of the responses and then you sort of debrief that quickly afterwards and you find some really interesting things out about each other about how they would spend 24 hours with no commitments.

Leanne: It was a really great question that's why I wanted you to sort of explain it on the podcast because I think if you are struggling for like another icebreaker or something that's really easy like you said you don't need any materials at all. You could use a sort of halfway through as an energizer as well but everyone sort of lights up and thinks, “Wow, what an opportunity.” I mean, how often would we ever get 24 hours free for ourselves, right?

Sean: Yeah, never happens you know.

Leanne: Yeah.

Sean: It was great because it's one of those questions where you think “Oh yeah, actually I don't really know what I do.” and then you start thinking a bit more “Okay, well if I'm completely free and I have no kids and that I have no work, Wow! I don't know.” Because it's such a strange thing for us to have very rarely you know in the modern sort of world and corporate society that's we actually don’t get 24 hours where there is no obligation.

Leanne: What a dream.

Sean: Yeah. So that's just one simple thought-provoking question and they're the sort of ones I'd like to use because they're really simple, you need no resources and you can have a bit of fun with it.

Leanne: Yeah, it’s gold. So it lasts sort of twelve months. You have really started developing your skills as a facilitator. You've been travelling around Australia visiting small towns, my sites also different levels within the office that we're in.

Sean: Yeah.

Leanne: What have you sort of developed or notice about the important skills that a facilitator needs both personally and also what you sort of model from others and where do you want to sort of grow in that area?

Sean: Yeah. Okay cool. So I think one of the best things that our facilitator can do and I think any facilitator will tell you this is you've got to have an open mind and you've got to be able to approach everything with curiosity. So you can't really go into a session or a workshop with this set agenda that at 9:50 we're going to talk about this at 9:55 we're going to have a break. It just doesn't work and you'll the kill room by doing it that way so I think you got to be really open, really try and engage everybody try and get everybody interacting because the real goals really lies in the conversations that they have when you sort of debrief at the end of a session he says “Hey, you know tell me one thing you learned today, one thing you're going to take away.” Many times in my short career doing this, it's been “Oh, it's been great just to talk with like-minded people or people that understand my job and the role and what I have to do and what I have to deal with.” and just they suck a lot out of the conversation that they're having with each other and then the material in this sort of learnings goes with that. But yeah, I think as a facilitator, it's great to really focus on that interaction and then the day you got to make it fun- that's the best. Because the best workshops or the best say seminars and things you go to are the ones that are fun and get you laughing or you know thinking about something that's just completely silly and that's the sort of stuff that you take away. So if you can blend a lot of fun and humour with serious content the stuff that you're actually trying to get across to the audience I think it makes for a really good session.

Leanne: Yeah, cool. So I guess before you're really sort of having a stubborn facilitation. Do you kind of see it as an exercise where it was a structured thing and you need to really know your content and be all over the content and have you kind of relaxed that now or as a result?

Sean: Yeah. I think I approached it more like I was a teacher and that's not the way you should do it. I mean it's a natural because you're standing up there. Everyone's looking at you and you've almost feel this obligation like you have to give them education or you have to give them tools or tricks or whatever it is that you're trying to get across to them and it just doesn't work. It doesn't work at all because as I mentioned before I think the gold is in the conversation. So as a facilitator, it's about you know really trying to steer the ship as opposed to making sure it gets to its destination as fast as possible. So yeah, I think you can really kill the room by trying to teach people about unless that is what you're there for if you’re a lecturer.

Leanne: Yeah, that’s purely training in.

Sean: Exactly. So that's the sort of difference between I guess training and facilitation. And there's nothing better than as a facilitator when you can sit back say nothing for 10 minutes because there's people just chewing out you know some fantastic or really working on a problem or an issue and they're talking it out.

Leanne: Yeah.

Sean: Yeah and that's so good, that's the best.

Leanne: It is. It’s kind of like invisible but the reason that they have such a stimulating conversation is because you sort of you've set the context, you've made it comfortable for them to do so.

Sean: Yeah, exactly. So it's okay, this is a safe place we can say whatever we want, we're going to you know we're going to be respectful obviously and I think everyone is in any way and yeah you can just have real genuine conversations and I think that's the best and the facilitator really that's the responsibility of the facilitator to make sure that it's okay for people to drop their guard and have those conversations.

Leanne: 100% agree. Now, did mention before that you've had a short career in facilitation.  I'm just curious is anything happened in a training session so far that you've learned a lot from that didn’t go to plan that you can you can share your experience with our listeners so they may avoid things like that in their career?

Sean: Yeah. So I was tasked a few months ago to roll out some training around having or teaching our supervisors on our mine sites to have I suppose more difficult conversations with people and their crew. You know times we have some of those issues that pop up which you know it doesn't really aligns with supervisors day to day job but it is something that they have to deal with. So we put together a bit of a training package. It was a bit of a crash course for them but it was just to give them a bit of a model and a bit of a guide to follow when they had to have these conversations. So one of the first sessions I think at no fault of anyone's, it was just everything was wrong, the timing was wrong and the environment was wrong, the way I tried to deliver the training was completely wrong for the room.

Leanne: In what way?

Sean: I think I tried to make it more of a brainstorming-type education piece to you know basically it was a group that were up. I didn't realize at the time but they were literally walking out of the training session and going on their days off, they were finished work and it was the last thing before they leave.

Leanne: Yeah. That was a poor timing, isn’t it? It’s the last thing they need before they go.

Sean: Poor-time in the room. It was a good-sized room but we had a couple of extra people so it was sort of a bit crammed. It was only an hour session. I had two people walk in about half an hour just over half an hour late. It was just everything was terrible and I remember walking out of that going that was “I've got to change everything.” you know because I felt it was on me as the facilitator or as the you know the trainer in this sense I guess to make sure that the content is getting across to them and I just felt like I totally failed. So I had a session that next night and I just changed it completely. I turned it, I sat down, I didn't stand up, and I didn't use a whiteboard. I pretty much threw the script out and I just stuck, we had a few slides and I just sat down and we literally had a discussion piece to turn into a conversation piece and not a training education piece.

Leanne: Yeah, right.

Sean: It was so much better. It was great and I sort of I needed that terrible a home situation in that environment to realize that I wasn't rolling this out the way it needed to have been done to get them.

Leanne: Wow, so how are you feeling you would've been pretty bummed I guess?

Sean: Yeah. I was like “That was just awful.” But you know I was there for a reason and I think they were all the guys in the room. It just wasn't right, it wasn't right I mean and it wasn't really anyone's fault because I was on site, my time was very restricted. We only had small windows and the sites for a 24 hour operation so you literally pulling people away from their job and they've got deadlines, they've got things happening and they've got thing to go away to talk to some clown from head office about how to have a difficult conversation- “I don't have time for this.” you know. So it's really, it was a tough room, it's a tough crowd and the way I want about it was completely wrong but I didn't know that until I’d crashed on them.

Leanne: Until you crashed. Yeah, well, tough is the best way, isn’t it? Unfortunately.  And we can talk about it a lot and share these experiences with all our listeners as well but sometimes you just have to go through the fire and not to come out.

Sean: Yeah, I didn’t know that's exactly what it was, it was baptism by fire. But I sound a bit bummed out but you know what I just need to change it, I need to make this. If I try and do that again I'm going to get the same result. So I didn't I totally changed and I sat at the back of the room and I sort of had everyone facing the screen and I was sitting behind them so they look at the screen but I actually had to turn around to then have a conversation or talk about certain dot points or pieces of the material. So it’s good, so they couldn't stare at the screen the whole time but they also weren't staring at me trying to educate them the whole time. It was great- “This is so much better.”

Leanne: It's interesting how the dynamics of the environment and the way that it's set up can have a huge impact and I think I'd like to explore that in future episodes with any sort of thing Feng Shui experts or…

Sean: Yeah, because the environment matters.

Leanne: Because I think, the second that you sort of stand up there, people looking at you for that information whereas if you want facilitate a conversation and I think Bob Dick spoke about this and one of my previous conversations around where he actually positions what he does with the furniture.

Sean: Yeah.

Leanne: And it’s good to explore what really works the best for different situations and yeah.

Sean: Yeah, environment’s huge. There's nothing better than especially when you show up, you've been asked to travel to facilitate something and you show up and you're like “This room is perfect, this is going to be so good.” Then you can see how you're going to set it up, what you want to do and especially if you're trying to throw some novelty and a bit of fun in there when you've got a great room it really sets it.

Leanne: Yes it does, unfortunately that's probably only 20% of the time.

Sean: I think you’re like, you got to work with what you've got.

Leanne: That's right.

Sean: Once again it's up to you as a facilitator to do that because your participants are walking in and they're expecting you to you know to give them something or educate them so it's totally up to you how you go about it you know. If you've got a terrible environment, you got to work with that.

Leanne: That's right. So you're on your new journey in facilitation. What advice could you offer to someone beginning their journey?

Sean: A 100% just say YES! It's kind of been a motto. One of my good friends used to say to me he's like, “Just be a yes-man, just say yes and just do it.” and so it was kind of this so much of a mantra I just say yes to everything.

Leanne: So in terms of life as well or just…

Sean: Generally.

Leanne: Yeah.

Sean: If the opportunity comes up or someone asks you if you want to do something, just say yes!

Leanne: I can actually validate that. Every time I ask Sean to do something. But I only give you the cool, sexy task. Don’t I?

Sean: Yes, far as you know, yeah.

Leanne: Yeah but he does, he's very, he says yes and I think it's opened up so many doors for you. It's a great philosophy.

Sean: Yeah. I think if you say No straightaway, you shut it down whereas if you say Yes straightaway and then you think about it and go it's not going to work. You can kind of get out of it a lot easier and save a lot of face you know. If someone says, “Oh, can you travel you know halfway across the country next week to do this training session?” and you go “Yep, cool. I'll make it work.” and then you have a look at your calendar and you think about what you've got on personally and you go back and say, “Look, you know I said yes but it's really going to be very difficult so I'm sorry, I'm not going to be able to do it.” and I think you get a lot more respect that way as opposed to just saying “No, I'm busy. No, find someone else I can't do it.” you said instead of you know always going back to No or answering everything with a No, if you answer it with a Yes, you know you get a little bit of leverage if in terms it doesn't work out. But I guess I sort of say yes to everything and try and follow through with that all the time and do as best as I can.

Leanne: That concluded a producer in you.

Sean: Maybe. Yeah, it's all that output. It’s like “Let's just get it done you know something needs doing. Yep I'll jump in and make sure it gets done.” Yeah, exactly.

Leanne: Everyone needs Sean on their team.

Sean:  But it's great too because it opens up the opportunity you know. I've had many instances in the last 18 months on this graduate program where I've just said “Yes I put my hand out, yeah I'll do it, no problem.” and I think that's the mentality as a graduate you need to have because that's where the opportunities really coming up. People know they can rely on you that you are going to be flexible and the opportunities are massive. The people you meet you know all of a sudden you end up you're just having a conversation and you find out they are you know an executive of the company and yeah and if had you not said yes to being at that event or in that situation you'd never, you wouldn't be having the conversation you be yeah sitting there staring in an Excel spreadsheet wondering what you're doing with your life.

Leanne: Blaming everyone else of your second chances.

Sean: Exactly.

Leanne: Now, I’d like to a bit about talking about facilitation. The other thing that you've been doing and this is another opportunity that you said yes to has been getting into roles which include emceeing like a big event so you had a huge event earlier this year and it was based on a goal that you set yourself after attending the same event last year. Emceeing, I do find from time to time that a lot of facilitators because they are confident speaking in front of groups are often tapped on the shoulder and say “Hey, you can emcee as well.”

Sean: Yeah.

Leanne: But they’re kind of two different skill sets yeah.

Sean: Yeah.

Leanne: Yes. So I'd like to know what your approach was for the emcee gig that you said yes to. How much lead-up time you were given and what you actually prepared? How you prepared for that?

Sean: Yeah, cool. So basically it was a big quite a large induction. Had about two hundred and thirty old people in the room. I'd actually put my hand up to present at that induction so I sort of said “Oh, look I really I think there's some value, I can add value. I want a 20-minute window where I can present.” and it was a really big goal for me because I was really interested in the facilitation stuff and I thought well what better way to try and you know jump in the deep end then get up on stage in front of 230 random people and the subject was actually on networking so I was talking to them about networking. So yeah, I did that and it was received with you know welcome arms, welcomed open arms and said “Yeah, we cry. So no one ever puts their hand up to present, we'd love to have somebody come down and do something a bit different so that was cool.” and about a month before that, I got a call and they said “Hey, why don't you just emcee the whole event?” I actually can emcee the event I should say with the colleague of mine Amanda and I just said yes. I was like “Yep.” I didn't even hesitate and I said “Yep, sounds great.” and then I hung up the phone and thought “Okay, what does that involve?” Like I said, I never emceed before so I thought “Yeah sure, I can do that. I just introduce a few people and say thank you can't be that hard.” and then I started thinking I actually got into the content and how big this event was for someone who'd never done it before and it was I wouldn't say I was afraid of it or nervous about it but I was definitely “Alright. I've got to be on my A-game. I've got to do some serious prep.”

So I guess the big thing was knowing the content as in knowing the sort of how big the room is, how many people you've got, what their background is, it was basically majority graduates. So a lot of people who are green to say full-time work or say corporate or site sort of work I guess so it's good to kind of understand the background of fortunately a majority of my audience and yeah and then I suppose knowing the content more who's going to be speaking you know, do you have their buyers, do you have their backgrounds and I really tried to make it fun and put a bit of novelty in there and so I get for instance get one of the managing directors profiles and his bio and then I just try and add something personal. I'd worked with a few of them fortunately and just add something from my piece you know, something I'd seen them do or something that talked about and try and relate it and just go completely off script in a very positive way.

Leanne: That’s good.

Sean: And it was great. It was received really well and I think it instead of just being many like reading off a teleprompter, it might have been more personal and yeah it was great.

Leanne: Natural and authentic.

Sean: Natural yeah.

Leanne: And has a personal touch. That person would have felt really good that you've actually noticed something about them as well.

Sean: Yeah. It was a lot of them I would met. The first thing they would say was replying to whatever I said.

Leanne: Nice.

Sean: For instance, I welcome one of our managing directors up and had the big buyer about what he had studied and how long he'd be in the industry and his assets look and on top of all that he is the nicest man you'll ever meet. So I welcome out you know this person and the first thing he said was get up he's like “Wow. I didn't realize I was so nice. It’s so great that you know…” He’s like, “It's so nice of people noticing how nice I am. This is amazing.” And that’s how we started.

Leanne: And everyone would’ve laughed and created off that mood.

Sean: Broke the tension like the boredom of you know just reading someone's bio and it was great, received really well.

Leanne: Oh, fantastic. Sean, if we've got some instances want to get in contact with you or find you or connect with you. How would they do that?

Sean: Yeah, look probably LinkedIn is the best way to get to me so it's just Sean Lavin. It's spelled  L A V I N. You see me working for a company for Thiess which is a global mining services provider. So absolutely reach out to me a message I'll definitely respond as soon as I can. And I am on the other sort of strains as well on the other aspects of social media but more of the personal sort of things so I don't use them too often to be honest. I'm more of a stalker than a poster.

Leanne: Thanks for being so honest. So we'll have a link to Sean's LinkedIn profile on the show notes for this episode which I'll mention in the introductions so you can find them there.

Sean, it's been a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you again for saying Yes when I asked you on again this whole personal philosophy I said would you like to be on the podcast. As someone that's not becoming facilitator without hesitation he agreed so I think we've learnt a lot about the profile. I guess the stepping stones and it's become it's so recent for you becoming a facilitator so it's really great hearing the detail around what you did and the daunting experience has happened to you in the first sort of six months of doing it but how that shaped you as well as been really positive so thanks so much for your time being on the show and I'll let Sean head off now and head off on his holiday. I've kept him captive in our office.

Sean: Yeah, the beach is calling but no thank you. It's kind of cool that you know being a first-time facilitator I’m in my mind anyway and actually getting to come on a podcast of the same title is been great. So thank you so much for having me.

Leanne: No problem. Thanks Sean.

Sean: Cheers!

First Time Facilitator podcast transcript with Lynne Cazaly (Episode 23)

Listen to this episode from First Time Facilitator on Spotify. In today's episode, I talk to Lynne Cazaly. Lynne is a communication and engagement expert. She is obsessed with helping leaders lead their teams through transformation and change.

Here is the episode transcript from my interview with Lynne Cazaly on Episode 23 of the podcast.

Leanne: Welcome to the First Time Facilitator Podcast, Lynne Cazaly.

Lynne: Great to be here.

Leanne: It's so great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for giving us your time. I really appreciate it.

I'd love to start just by asking you the question on how you found your feet in the world of training and facilitation. Was it always something that you aspire to or is it something that you fell into?

Lynne: It's definitely something I fell into so my sense is a lot of people don't kind of leave school or during school girl. I'm going to be a facilitator. I think that they've got some capabilities that kind of lend themselves to being great facilitators.

So my background was as a Communications Specialist so I had a background in public relations, I worked in health, sports, art, media government and I did some lecturing at university and communications and consulting and communications and so I was learning a lot about what people think and how they communicate with each other. But the constant theme through all of those roles that I had was that I was playing this interpreter role, I was kind of working for a company, listening to what the management and leadership and the board and directors and everything was saying and then interpreting that for their community and their stakeholders and then I'd be listening to the community and stakeholders and interpreting that for the organization so I became this what I think you could call a boundary rider like in sports, you know it's a person who's got one leg on either side of the boundary lot.

Leanne: Yeah, it’s really a cool time.

Lynne: So yeah, there I was really what I was doing was facilitating communication between different parties and different stakeholders and groups as well as working with communication. And people started asking me, “Oh, will you facilitate our strategy day or our comms plan or our sales plan?” and I thought, “Oh, I'll be able to do that. I’ll have a crack at that.” and that's what I did.

And then in early 2000s, I did an Advanced Diploma in facilitation with the Groupwork Institute here in Victoria and I kind of just topped off my experience with some of the great theory around facilitation. So yeah, it certainly wasn't a planned journey or a planned process but yeah I'm happy I found it. I wish I did know about it in those years when you're trying to make a decision about “What am I going to study? What am I going to be?”

Leanne: Yeah, you’re right because I think a lot of the facilitators that I've spoken to have been launched from different careers and it could be Project Management Communications like you said my background is in marketing as well.

Lynne: Right.

Leanne: We've got people that are Software Engineers.

Lynne: Yeah.

Leanne: And I think, one of the thing is the theme is within their organizations or their own context they are being asked to explain what they know and so they want to become really good at explaining it to people which is why they find facilitation and realize, “Hey, I actually really enjoy this.”

Lynne: Yes. So it becomes less about their subject matter knowledge and more about the act of helping people and helping people get their work done or helping people understand something.

Leanne: That's right. So when you ask to facilitate your first strategy day, we're talking all these years ago because you're very experienced now. I don't know if you can reflect on that time and sort of share what you were thinking or what your strategies were going into that day because it would have been pretty daunting if you had that experience.

Lynne: Yes, it was. Yeah, I was really nervous and you know just the thumping heart most of the day and couldn't sleep well the night before and wondering you know, “Will I stuff this up?” and “What will I do if they don't know what to do?” and “Is my agenda good?” So all of this self-doubt and so I think this is one of the things that is the biggest challenge is that this confidence and we end up being too much worried about ourselves and we forget about actually helping the people that were there to help. So yeah, I had the classic doubt, you know, paranoia- “I'm not good at this.” “I'll crash and burn.” “This will ruin my career.” Okay, I still have some of those thoughts.

Leanne: I was just going to ask you that question. I mean, are there nights where you've got some workshops there and keynote speeches that you've sort of refined over the years. Even with refined content to new audiences do you still sort of think the night before? Like, “Oh, gosh. How am I going to go…?”

Lynne: Yeah.

Leanne: Ah.

Lynne: Yeah and even if I'm not using much content that is I've crafted an agenda with them and so it's about them the participants contributing the content. Yeah I'm still thinking, “Gee, I don't even know these people and I'm going to walk into this room.” and every time I walk into a room to facilitate, a bunch of strangers, every time. So you've got to have this ability to rapidly build rapport and connect with people because you need them to be on your side to trust you really quickly that you're there to help them. Not to tell them what to do but to work with them and I don't think that just comes from cockiness like, “I'll be out of do this.” That gets you into a lot of trouble whereas more of the humility of going “Gee!” and curiosity of “Wow! I wonder what they need help with today.”

Leanne: Yeah.

Lynne: I wonder what I'll be able to help them do rather than “Gee, I hope it all goes well.” It may not go well you know and I'm hanging on to “Oh, it better go well.” Well, it's going to go, it's going to go.

Leanne: So coming from the place of curiosity is what we're experienced.

Lynne: Yeah, definitely! I wonder why that person said that. I wonder where they're going with that rather than “Gee, what a douche.” like “What's he doing and why she being such a…”  No! Just going “That's really interesting. Hmm...” So that's some stuff I think that comes from the Groupwork Institute and their philosophy around facilitation which was you know just slowing things down and really being more of service to the room rather than thinking you've got to control everything.

Leanne: I think that's kind of difference between when you're delivering a speech which is a very it's kind of like a solo event and you definitely want to engage people and not want to be arrogant. The facilitation is about drawing people in and like you said make them feel comfortable and I think it is you need to show that authentically you are curious about what's going on for them especially I guess people come into your room from all walks of life and they come in with all different attitudes as well and sometimes it's very noticeable when someone just doesn't want to be there.

Lynne: Yeah.

Leanne: It's that something, how do you cope with that? It's like, I know from my experience when I first started it was my worst nightmare when I knew that someone wasn't interested I felt instantly  a little bit anxious but now sought after talking to facilitator it's interesting finding out what their strategies are so how do you cope with that?

Lynne: Well, it happens all the time. Even last week I was facilitating a session and there was someone in the room and they're doing niche most of the time and then they're eating their lunch at the time that wasn’t lunchtime and in and out of the room, kind of going, “Yeah, do they not want to be here?” or you know “What's going on?” and I remember facilitating some workshops for a Logistics Firm and we had a lot of the drivers of the vehicles that would you know they had to come along to the sessions and a lot of the other team you know people working in the warehouse and mechanical people and admin, a customer service. A lot of them were very keen but the people who were driving the vehicles were just, it was totally this every time. They're like “What's…?” They'd look around the room that I'd set up with you know nice post-it notes and markers and stuff and they go, “What's this shit?” Literally what they would say. “This looks like my kid's room. What's this crap, what are we doing today?” and I never engaged in an “Oh, you're here to do blah blah blah…” You know I never went into that parental or teacher mode. I just zip it and think, “Yeah of course, they're going to come in here.” and wonder “What this is? I just want to be in their truck delivering, you know delivering the products and doing that sort of work. I don't want to be in a workshop.”

Leanne: No.

Lynne: So again, I think I'm not here to fix them but I'm here to again build trust as quickly as I can and build engagement throughout the session and time and time again in those sessions around changed. Some of those drivers would come up to me at the end and they shake my hand they go, “Yes, thanks. That was good I didn't fall asleep, yeah it was really good.” So kind of thinking I don't have to win them over at all and I don't have to win them over in the first five minutes but just carry on you know.

Leanne: Steady-steady.

Lynne: Yeah, steady-steady and time and again they kind of came on board throughout the workshop and participated in activities and contributed and yeah we were able to draw them out.

Leanne: Awe, that is a bit of a win. I know you’re not winning them over but you would have been pretty happy.

Lynne: Oh, I look at- Yes!

Leanne: Got a smile!

Lynne: Yeah and as soon as they're contributing you know and participating. Even tiny things like what's your name or how long have you worked here or gee you must have seen a lot of change in the organization you know as soon as someone contributes a story about what they do or what they've seen. I just think, “Yes, great you know, I've got them now contributing to something that this whole groups going to be working on. That's good, it’s safe for them to speak up here.”

Leanne: Yeah, fantastic. So let's just say I'm in a workshop of say 20 people and there is like that one or two to people that aren't engaging at all. Do you try to cook them in it anyway like pay special attention to them or you do you sort of focus on the 18 other people that are engaging? Well, does it depend on the context environment? These are one of the variables here.

Lynne: Yeah, it does. It does depend on that. But I like to look at people's behaviour and think of their behavioural styles not their characteristics or personality but what's the behaviour they're exhibiting at the moment. And if they're quiet and not actively participating then my thinking is “Well, maybe they're thinking. Maybe they're not disengaged.” and I use visuals all the time in my workshops. So you know, here’s a flip chart, you see my office at the moment what's always here but I'll always be using flip charts in my workshops and the effect that visuals have on people, on their eyes, their mind, they can't help but look and engagement naturally, automatically goes up. So yeah, engaging with people when it's all talk is very difficult, can be very difficult. But as soon as you've got visuals there. Bang! Engagement goes up. “I can't help but look at the stuff that you're capturing from around the room.”

Leanne: Yeah. I was just on the back of what you’ve been showing me is a flipchart. Saw your website and a light bulb and like you said “You just can't unsee that, you've seen it, it's in your head.” You've sort of thinking, “What’s that about?” I'm seeing some really beautiful handwriting which I also saw on your website and the way that you draw is its really simple but it's effective and I know what you're trying to convey. Have you always been interested in drawing or as again just a tool that you've brought into your facilitation toolkit because you think yeah visuals are so important?

Lynne: Yeah. I have no art training at all. This is not about art, I say, it’s smart not art. So it's how we’re capturing and reflecting back to people the stuff that they're saying. I don't like the idea of someone sitting in the corner you know typing into a laptop “Oh, you know, I'm the scribe. I'm capturing what's happening today.” I think we don't know what you're capturing and its useless going into a computer so let's make it visible and then people can see and because using the tools of a visual is facilitation. So if facilitation means to make ease, to make easier, visuals do that. They instantly help make engagement easier, communication easier, collaboration easier, impact easier. It makes it easier to get to outcomes by about 25%, recall is easier by about 33%. So if we're not using visuals and we're facilitators we're really pushing sinopia. We're making it harder for us and for the group.

Leanne: Yeah, really good point and then you've written a book about this called Visual Mojo. In that book do you actually explain how we can use visual cues as a facilitator? What’s involved in that book?

Lynne: Yeah. It's Visual Mojo, so that's around the confidence of using visuals because most of us think we're crap at drawing.

Leanne: Yup.

Lynne: So this is about how to capture your thinking, convey information and collaborate using visuals. So I go through how to draw simple shapes and use lines. How to draw people because I think the sooner you put people in some of the pictures and charts you know anytime we capture anything on a flip chart or a whiteboard. Don't just write words.

Leanne: Yeah.

Lynne: We have to work too hard to digest that. So some words and visuals will really help get the message across. So whether you're you know capturing, you're eliciting information from the group and you write some of that up there with an anchor image as I call it. Something that helps people attach that those words with an icon or whether you're explaining something you know you might be explaining, “Okay, now we're going to break into three groups.” and you know those long-winded instructions that facilitators sometimes have. And sure enough someone in the room will go, “What? What’ll we have to do?” So I find that if I sketch out you know groups of three and I'll draw three people, draw a clock fifteen minutes and then a speech bubble and I'll put the keywords what we're going to talk about in groups of three for 15 minutes then that flip chart is there and no one asks you “What are we doing?” They’ll just look at it and you explain it and point to it, break into groups of three, talk for 15 minutes on this topic and I'll remind you know when it's time to wrap up and that just works every time.

Leanne: Where has that information been all my life? Our colleague and I just ran a workshop this morning and it was yeah I was trying to make this very complicated instruction very simple so I was staging it and checking in every now and then. But if I had just drawn it. The time limit and this is where you go. I guess that is something I'm going to start implementing straightaway and I’ll iterate drawing skill if they can draw a circle and letters and numbers.

Lynne: Exactly, that's it. Even keywords if there are three steps to this activity and go, “Here's the first step on the first chart, and we’re doing this. The second steps on the next chart, the third steps on the next chart.”

Leanne: Yeah, fantastic.

Lynne: You can have all three charts pinned up at once. So those that need to see the big picture can see everything and you know compartmentalizes information so we've got information in chunks. All of this is making it easier, that's facilitation. How do we make this thing easier and breaking down something like complicated instructions for an activity is you know we need to be really good at that. We need to have great clarity when we're delivering information.

Leanne: Yeah, that’s right.

Lynne: Yeah. Don't just rely on words for that.

Leanne: No. Thank you. That's excellent! I just wanted to share a quote that you said. So you mentioned that “Every time you're working with more than one other person, it's time to put facilitation skills to work.” So why do you think is the case and I guess the flip side of that, do you think people in organizations recognize that because I think, I mean I'm going to give you my opinion here. I think people think that facilitation is a skill that somewhere else is that the trainer or facilitator needs to have it, that it's not a role of a leader?

Lynne: Yeah.

Leanne: What I'm saying in here is every meeting if you've got more than one person you're going to have to draw on these skills so can you explain that a bit further?

Lynne: Yeah. Well, this is coming from the book called Leader as Facilitator which is about how to inspire, engage and get work done. So this book I wrote in 2016 and this is exactly that point which is helping leaders realize that every time they get the team together or even just have a one-on-one or one-on-two, one-on-three conversation, they need to just switch into the role of facilitator because they've got to make that little meeting easier. We know how much meeting suck so bad, right? They're run badly and that's the main problem, they're run badly. We can talk about lots of other things about them but mainly meetings are run really poorly. So with some facilitation skill, a leader cannot become a full-time facilitator but just swing into that role and think “Okay, how do I need to make this environment safe for these people to speak?” which probably means they need to shut up more. You know, “What are the questions? What’s the topic? What are they actually bringing this group together for?” And every time there's more than one person, they've now got the opportunity to draw that information out of those people because I see it a lot you'll have one loudmouth in a small group meeting and two other people don't feel like speaking. Well, it's the leaders job to you know just quiet in the loudmouth down and help lift up and encourage the other to not shut the loudmouth down and not expect those quieter people like, “Now come on, lean in and speak up!” No, it's not their job. It’s the leader’s job to make the environment great and elicit that information. So yeah I'm seeing more and more workplaces wanting to do this because they realize leadership's changing and they have to create more collaborative, co-created environments.

Leanne: Yeah. I'm looking at leadership in the aspirational requirements of a leader and it's sometimes it seems like it is this unicorn. They've got to be just great people but also have some technical capability, be a great role model listen to people, coach them. It's like wow and especially in the world we're living in now which is just subject to so much change and I was on your website before and I loved there's a workshop that really caught my eye and it was called The Sensemaking Workshop. I'd love to talk to you about that. So you said that the Institute for the future predicts it since making it to be the number one skill we need for 2020 which is only a couple years away. What is the skill of sense-making? I'm sure our audience, it may be the first time I've heard that term.

Lynne: Yeah. It kind of sounds a bit my lab tease the word “wanky”?

Leanne: Of course, this is an Australian podcast.

Lynne: Okay. I’ll probably say that instead of the other swear words that I probably get in trouble for and you know in the States. But since making can sound like “Oh, it's a made-up word or don't you mean making sense?” So sensemaking is when you connect the dots with information and try and work out what the hell's going on and we're often trying to do that in teams and groups. We get people together particularly in meetings and workshops, we're trying to make sense of what's going on, make some decisions and some plans and put stuff into practice and I think challenges come when we bring people together and we just expect that they're going to start collaborating and working well. But if we do some sensemaking, we give them some skills about how to maybe map out their ideas or think or talk together and the facilitator can be a sense makeup. So you can very much use visual skills, you can be a sensemaker using visuals. So it's kind of creating a map you know, whenever we're traveling somewhere or we're looking for a coffee shop, we get our phone out, we're great cartographers, you know we're great users of maps and in sensemaking, maps really are the visual charts it is showing, “This is where we are.” “This is where we want to go to.” and this is “Let's talk about now how we're going to get there.” Because that's kind of the overriding model that most workplaces and meetings are following. “This is where we are.” “This is where we need to get to know how we're going to get there.” So sensemaking helps people connect the dots and see, “What's really going on here?” and then it helps us make better decisions.

Leanne: Yeah, cool. A lot of the time I guess in meetings because we are so time poor and there's a something that's thrust upon us and we need to solve it and nobody goes straight into solution mode.

Lynne: Oh, really?

Leanne: You never really step out and talk about the process of how we're going to solve it because we have no time it needs to be solved and you think but by going through that process, it's very easy to clear and clear to see you know “What are the risks?, What's going on here?”, “Do we agree with that?”, “Okay, this is what will inform our decision process then.”

Lynne: Yes. So now you're uncovering a better process which great facilitation is having a really good process underlying. The work that the team's going to do and you're going to help them you know get through that work easier than if you weren't there in the room or if they had someone else to believe.

Leanne: You made with yourself redundant.

Lynne: Yeah.

Leanne: So you love the variety of workshops that you do offer. I'd like to hear a bit about let's just say you get approached by a client and they want something that's not off-the-shelf not within your range but you know that you can deliver it. I’d like to know, what is your process of putting together a package or a course for someone? They'll give you their objectives. What’s then, what do you do next?

Lynne: So this is probably a little bit more like a training design or learning design which is one of my earlier roles was working in a sales team and we helped all of the business development team that were out there on the road selling. We designed and delivered all of their professional development so I was constantly having to create new programs. So this happened a lot in one of these consulting roles that I had. But what we do is kind of find out those similar questions, “Where's the team at now?”, “Where do we need to get them to?” So what's that gap of performance and until we can identify that gap I think it's all just waffle. You know, if we start saying, “Oh let's run an activity about this and let's get them to read Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why”. Let's get them to watch that TED talk where there's a single guy dancing at the festival.”

Leanne: Oh, the second follower. Yeah, I've seen that everywhere.

Lynne: So I think there's a lot of biggest kind of I'd say cliched tools that we might throw into a training program thinking, “That'll do. That'll make them learn.” But I'd come back and go so, “Where's this team or group at now?, “What are the main things they're doing really well and what's the stuff we need them to either do better?” or “Where's the new capability?, “What's the new thing that we need them to do?” And often I see teams or groups trying to achieve and consultants learning and development consultants trying to fit too much into one day and so we've got “Okay, today here's 15, you know learning at home.”

Leanne: I know.

Lynne: It's crazy. It's not going to happen. So if you can blow that down and go, “Let's just focus on one or two, maximum three.” You know “What are the absolute must-haves?” and then maybe some of those other ones. If you're following that 70-20-10 model of learning on the job and learning through coaching and then for more face-to-face learning then use that as some of the on the job or the coaching like you've pushed some of those other modules or learning outcomes or topics off to other ways that people are going to learn. Not in that 10% when you're doing face to face. So that's how I do, I find out what this gap is that we're closing and try and narrow and get this gap as specific and as miserable as possible rather than you know,  “Come and teach us  conflict resolution.”

Leanne: We won’t training on communication.

Lynne: So you want to go, “What's going on in communication?”, “Where are the problems?”, “What are the issues?”, “Are these two people aren't talking well to each other?” Okay, well that's not to be covered in the workshop. you know we want something that's going to be and value to the whole group and not just be of value to them but it’s delivered in a way that they actually we've got some chance at making some sort of shift. We're not going to totally change them but some but some chance and that's the visual mojo or sensemaking workshop. I've refined that over a number of years and I just keep the elements that work and that people like and I keep getting rid of the stuff that doesn't work and that people don't like. So every time I run that visual session, I know I'm closing a gap around confidence in people's ability to think and communicate visually.

Leanne: Yeah fantastic. You do, you iterate it over and over again.

Lynne: Yeah. Keep that gap as narrow as possible. Here’s the thing that these sessions going to address. Not all of these 15 things.

Leanne: Yes, it's too confusing, too ambitious. Yes.

Lynne: So if you fluff up for failure like failure sexy. But not that sort of failure.

Leanne: No. I've never had fairly been described as sexy before.

Lynne: Oh, it’s everywhere now. That’s the right thing to do.

Leanne: Oh, I must have been in the cave. Okay. So when you are designing these programs are there any particular ice-breakers or energisers that lean on that you know yet this works every time?

Lynne: Oh, well I could be you know speaking an unpopular opinion here but I don't use icebreakers. So I don't have a go-to icebreaker. I think my view is they’re a little bit dated and a little cliched and lots of people have seen and coached and work with use quite dated and tacky activities that have elements.

Leanne: The “Two lies and one truth”.

Lynne: Oh, please. I am about to just go off my mind about this. Why would you get people together and you're trying to work with them for the day. Why would you encourage them to lie to each other and you’re trying to let things passed.

Leanne: I don’t know. I’ve sat through 15 workshops so that's been…

Lynne: It must be stopped immediately that activity is not good unless you're training for ACO and you're trying to work out, you're trying to catch liars, right? That's a great activity for them. But I think generally in the business world, get rid of stupid activities and anything that involves a blindfold. No! Just don't put blindfolds on people, stupid! We're trying to build trust.

Leanne: I think hopefully. I think that was stamped out in the 90’s because I don’t remember in my adult years. How safe we were in legislation and...

Lynne: Oh no. People still suggest it.

Leanne: Yeah and with big markers trying to people to try out to trust exercise.

Lynne: No. It's not. That is not how you build trust.

Leanne: Setting people up to trust you. Yes.

Lynne: I'm always saying you know “For what purpose, for this activity. Why am I running this?” If I'm trying to break the ice then there are ways to break the ice. The best way to get people to break the ice is to get them start working on something. Like they're probably there for work so let's get them to start working on something. Why make them play some silly game?

Leanne: Yeah.

Lynne: What issue that people have about actually starting some of the work? There are some pieces of work that you could begin working on. The best way to get people working together is to get them to start working together.

Leanne: It sounds so simple.

Lynne: It does, though I think Ben's icebreakers and games are kind of hang overs from the 50’s 60’s and 70’s and they were probably the ways that our teachers were taught and then that's carried on we think, “Oh, that's what you do.” or the training and assessment certificate says you must conduct an icebreaker. But I would say “Well, who decided that?” you know, so there's some of my views on icebreakers. I think it can cause more damage to people by making them feel embarrassed, socially awkward and I think you've got to keep a very safe environment and very low risk early on in a workshop yeah and icebreakers to me most of them are too they're too risky and I think what's the most socially awkward, socially anxious, introverted person going to think about this?

Leanne: Yeah. Completely shut off. Yeah.

Lynne: It's not good. So yeah, a lot of experiencing engagement challenges in teams and at workshops and maybe it could be because we've done some things that are negatively impacting how we're building engagement and building trust.

Leanne: Yeah. I spoke to a guy called Sean D'Souza on the podcast last week and he pretty much said: “No one cares about your bullet points, nobody cares about your content until they feel safe.”

Lynne: Yeah.

Leanne: I was like, “That is such a good point.”

Lynne: Yeah, it's so true. It's like…

Leanne: Yeah, because they're seeing where they are in the workshop, what's comfortable, what's going to happen to them. So, it's all about them. They're not actually looking and seeing what the information is because they don't feel that they can trust the environment yet.

Lynne: Yes, exactly. And some by the end of the day are still going, “No. I still can't trust the environment.” and that's why they've set their arms crossed you know disengaged-looking face. However, they might still be thinking. We think you know we can't lie consumption that someone's disengaged simply on how they look.

Leanne: Yes. I love that mindset. So let's just say when you've gone in, you've identified the gaps, you've written the most amazing content, everyone's engaged, thinking about it taking action. They walk out. How then can you in some way, how can you embed the learning from that day's workshop or what strategies do you have so that when they leave that day feeling inspired and motivated, fantastic that they do something. Well, they change some behaviour following that. So, in three months’ time, I mean this such a tough thing to do and I'm just curious what are your thoughts around that?

Lynne: Yes so three months for me is a long time.

Leanne: Yeah.

Lynne: But how do I get a behaviour change in a lot shorter time? So I'm looking for behaviour change on the day in the workshop. So I'm wanting to see people particularly with my visual thinking, visual mojo, and visual sensemaking workshop. I'm checking and testing throughout the day to see are these people shifting like “Are they getting a new behaviour?” Not waiting till the end and then trying to do some follow-up webinar two weeks later to check in with learning.

I'm looking for little points throughout the day like probably thirty of them and I'm checking have they got that did they get that and then the beautiful task of reincorporation. So then I'll be running some activities later on in the day, “Are they reincorporating stuff we covered in the morning?” So now they're starting to put this stuff to practice and is there thinking shifting, is their behaviour in their team or their group whatever the topic is, is that starting to change? Now they're trying it out, you know they're trying it on. I think we expect a lot that you know “Watch on my PowerPoint slides and now go behave differently.” and it just isn't like that. So what opportunities are you giving people throughout the day to try some new behaviours on.

Leanne: Yeah fantastic. That's so embedding it in the terms of the content and the way that you structured the course of learning.

Lynne: Absolutely, yes.

Leanne: Awe, that's really good. Yep love that.

Lynne: So if you come back to going, well the gap now is a very narrow gap that we've defined now. I can make some really good stuff happen to close that narrow gap rather than having this broad topic of communication. Maybe you know the much narrower gap, I'm covering is delivering 90 second explanations in meetings maybe that's the narrow gap and now I can deliver skill around that and we can practice it and they can by the end of the day they will have new behaviours and they will not want to let those behaviours go because I'll have tried them on they'll go “Yeah, actually that feels pretty good. I've now seen it in other people in the room. I'm seeing how effective it is.” And one of my favourite tasks is just to give people some homework just within 72 hours. So I give them a task that they have to come back to me with just individually. So safe, just come back to me, doesn't support cast to the whole team or group, you just straight back to me. Here’s a demonstration of one of their skills or behaviours connected with the workshop.

Leanne: Oh cool. Yeah.

Lynne: Yeah.

Leanne: Yeah that sounds really fair, 72 hours, a non-confrontational, yeah.

Lynne: Yeah and I found the people who do that go on and do really good stuff with the program and the people who are still don't quite have the confidence. I've got an online program then that I send people in enrolment to and I find that the people who haven't sent me their homework are the ones that go straight in to the online program because they want to learn a bit more or they want to feel it out a bit more and they'll take a little bit longer and then their homework will come through.

Leanne: Awe, that's good at least they’re still completing the homework.

Lynne: Yeah.

Leanne: That’s fantastic.

Lynne: Yeah and majority of people do, “Because I want some feedback.” or “How am I going?” or you know maybe they feel like “Oh, this is looking pretty crappy.” and I’d go, “No, it looks really good.” you know. So you would come back to this mojo, all this confidence not only does the facilitator need it but in a training situation you kind of have to confirm or affirm that when people have got that competency like let them know, you know let them know that they're going well or I might say give them that social proof or I'll go “Look, I've seen you know three and a half thousand people do this program and I can tell you, you're doing really well.” and they'll go, “Oh, okay so compared to others, I'm doing okay.” “Oh, yeah. Yeah you've got this.”

Leanne: Oh that's so, yeah great strategy.

Lynne: With some feedback.

Leanne: Yeah.

Lynne: You know direct feedback to them. “I can see you're doing well with this.” So some of that growth mindset stuff. “I can see you've worked really hard on this.”

Leanne: Yeah.

Lynne: Yeah, it’s like acknowledgement.

Leanne: Yeah. Look we're getting so many practical tips from you Lynne. What is one piece of a practical advice that you could offer to a first-time facilitator or to yourself say you know 15, 20 years ago whenever you started that one-day strategy session. If you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice what would that be?

Lynne: As a facilitator I'd say, don't go in thinking that you know the answer and some of the best ways to build engagement in a team or group is to push what we say, “Push the work into the room or push the questions out into the groups.” So rather than you’re playing consultant or subject matter expert or teacher as in “I have the answers to this. I know, I'm going to share.” That that you put the challenge or the questions out to the group and that's the work that they're going to start doing. You know have I said don't play silly icebreakers maybe some of the icebreaking years get them to answer some of the initial questions about this topic: What are their thoughts? What do they know about it? And this get them participating, contributing and you've been more of the facilitator not the person who has all the answers.

Leanne: That's fantastic advice and on that Lynne, I like to thank you so much for all of your time, your insight. I don't know if you've noticed but I've been like scribbling, you can’t read my writing, it's not as good as yours.

Lynne: Did you use any shapes or icon?

Leanne: I did use some circles and I've used some arrows that would sort of link things together

Lynne: Oh, good.

Leanne: Yeah. So some kind of taking some baby steps on what you recommended in terms of your visual mojo. I'm not a mojo level yet.

Lynne: Yeah, but with some, the podcast if you want to put a link there for people to shoot me an email and if they just say, “Look, I heard about, I heard you on this podcast.” Oh, I'll send back. I've got like a PDF with some icons on it that people can follow and draw and practice. So I couldn't send that right on back to them for now you know just a little gift or something.

Leanne: Oh, well gift for the audience.  That's the first time we've had a gift from what about. Actually, now sorry, we had a template sent through back in Episode Eight. So Lynne, your website is a lynnecazaly.com and we’ll write that on the show notes as well and you've also got a huge following on Twitter so we'll put your Twitter account on there if anyone starts using questions on that.

Lynne: Thank you. Yes.

Leanne: Thank you so much for your time and all your insight. The stuff that you're rattling off is just it's so yeah, I mean some of the stuff I've kind of heard before but majority of things are just simple tweaks in terms of the way that you can explain an instruction using symbols that's going to improve my game like by 10% straightaway. So I really appreciate that.

Lynne: Yes. You’ll save time. The message will land and they'll go “Wow, she is a smooth facilitator.”

Leanne: Yeah. I love that. Thanks again, Lynne. I'm sure you'll get a bit of a feedback from this one.

Lynne: All right. Thanks. Great to speak to you.

Leanne:  Thank you.

First Time Facilitator podcast transcript with Sean D'Souza (Episode 22)

Listen to this episode from First Time Facilitator on Spotify. In today's episode, I talk to Sean D'Souza. Sean is a cartoonist, author, online marketing strategist, a pretty good cook (judging from his social media photos) and an energetic facilitator who applies his skills in creating a different kind of workshop.

Here is the episode transcript from my interview with Sean D'Souza on Episode 22 of the podcast.

You can listen to my interview with Sean D'Souza on the First Time Facilitator podcast.

Leanne: Welcome to the show from across the ditch, Sean D'Souza.

Sean: Hello. Hi, Leanne.

Leanne: Hi Sean. Sean, I really want to get into it because I've given you a really fantastic introduction to who you are and what you do. But I want to talk about the time and a lot of these days when we run workshops and organizations or you know even outside. We're really limited with the amount of time that we have so in the two days we try and cram as much information into our participants heads as we can. But when I went to Singapore and went to your workshop it was a three-day workshop and in that you spent I think it was the first five minutes of the workshop explaining that “Hey we can cover all this content in half a day.” So I really like to hear your philosophy around embedding information in people's heads and guaranteeing a skill by using time a bit more differently to everyone else.

Sean: Yeah. First of all the reason why I say that at the start of a workshop is because of the objection that comes up you know it's like we seem to be loitering around a lot we have lots of breaks but the point is “Why do you go to a workshop?” and it depends on why you go to a workshop. If you're with a corporate you go there to waste time, right? But if you're a small business for instance, the chances are that you're looking for a skill. But even if you're in a corporate, there is a pretty good chance that you're looking for a skill and what the person needs to do, the person conducting the workshop is they need to understand that whatever they understand is not easily assimilated by the participant and then once they assimilate that they still have to practice it and so there's lots of this breaking down that goes on. So the formula that I have is like one-fifth or one-sixth of the time needs to be spent by me you know with slides and stuff like but the rest of the time is for them to work on the assignments that I give them and the group assignments and individual assignments in you know breaking it down to the point where they walk away with the elk notes and they know what to do. That is very crucial because if you need to go back and read a whole bunch of notes just to get something done that's like you know having to drive a car and going, “Oh, where are my notes?”

Leanne: Yeah absolutely. So on that, how do you confidently say then that you do guaranteed this skill and why do you think time giving people a space to reflect and talk about it? Why is that more effective than just saying than just throwing that information at someone? Why is that sort of group engagement giving them the space so effective?

Sean: Because information is very tiring. So what we do is we look at 4:00 p.m. and you look at 4:00 p.m. on day 1, 4:00 p.m. on day 2, 4 p.m. on day 3. You look at people's faces and they get very tired and if at 4 p.m. they are all bubbly and stuff and they're not exhausted that tells you that the volume of information is not too great and that means that they're able to assimilate it. Just like you would on a normal day, you have tasks to do and 4 p.m. doesn't necessarily tire you out but when you're at a workshop people just give you more and more information thinking that is the most important thing but it's not it's. What you really want from the workshop is you go in there not to get more information. You could sit at home, you go there specifically to come back after 3:00 so if I go to say a Photoshop workshop, when I come back from the Photoshop workshop I can have a 200 page book, I can have all of these slides I can have the notes and videos and stuff but can I do masking in Photoshop? - That’s the goal. So as a presenter, you have to go “Wait! How am I going to design this stuff?” so that everyone and this is without exception, everyone can do masking in Photoshop and it might well be that masking involves seven days. So in that case you go, “Okay, we won't do everything in masking, we'll do something that we can manage in five days.” and then maybe you can't do in five days and so you have to almost break it down to the point where you go, “Okay, if we do A, B and C then in three days it's guaranteed that everyone in the room will be able to do it.”

Leanne: I like how you said talked about A B and C and chunking it down because I've noticed something very similar in your podcasts you really talk about three things in every episode over the space of say 20 to 30 minutes. It is the number three something special to you or am I just reading too much into that?

Sean: The first thing is what I tend to do is I tend to say “Okay, I'll tell you three things about why you need to make workshops really safe.” and then I usually can think of one thing or the second thing and then ask to force myself to put the tether third thing in so from my perspective it's good because it forces me to elaborate on a specific point. But from a client's point of view as well, it's not that hard to focus or to work on three things you know if I do A B and C, they can kind of remember that. I don't think there's any science to it. We seem to like three things but I'm at the moment you go to 4 and 5 and 6, it's much harder because you have to remember these are not things these are concepts so when I say “Okay, safety in workshops.” Well, that's not a thing that looks like a bullet point but it's really, it could be a whole workshop in itself. That's what you know facilitators and presenters don't understand that one little bullet point that you just made. If you could just go deeper into that, that would be so much, I mean that would be useful to me rather than you jumping to point two and point three and point four and onwards.

Leanne: Yeah and you brought up a really good point about all those notes from a Photoshop workshop, we could take away a 200 page guide but how often do we really go back to our desks and refer to it? I think you know, let's put it on the shelf and think “Yeah. One day I'll read that but five years later it's still gathering dust.” So it's a very good point.

Sean: Yeah, because that should be the purpose of the workshop. The purpose of a workshop is to get people out of their house, out of their office space and you know give them time to travel because the travel to the workshop gets you to think, the travel after the workshop gets you to think. So those are very crucial but also in the workshop, because we give them so many breaks so you say, well, people often ask me, well, “How do you know that people aren't checking their email during the workshop?” Well, if you have like 12 breaks or 6 breaks and they have enough time to do all that stuff. So they're not going to do it in the workshop, in the workshop they're participating so this design of something is very crucial.

Leanne: And I think, if you're an external consultant going into a company I think you really want to guarantee that output but at the same time if it may be difficult extremely explaining to your client “Hey, I do need to give these people frequent breaks.” The first the client may be thinking, “What the hell are you doing?” you know it actually earning your hourly rate. So I guess it's important to convince that these kind of concepts are really important to guarantee that skill.

You've brought up the concept of creating a safe environment for your workshop. Is that something that you, I know you have Renuka in the corner there that helps you and with preparing and setting all of that up? How do you create a safe space with people that aren't really confident in asking questions or speaking out? How do you ensure that you guarantee them the skill by creating a safe place where they do feel safe to raise issues and questions?

Sean: Yes, so one of the things that people don't realize is that people don't care about your content. They don't care about your slides and they don't care about anything.

Leanne: Okay.

Sean: Yeah, they don’t. They only care until they feel safe. So they're not going to do anything if they end up looking like a fool or they end up, whatever! You have to think of them almost like five-year-old kids like you know, the five-year-old kid in the house is bouncing around laughing and stuff and then you take her out and then she's wiggling between the father's toes trying to stay away from your gaze because the father just said “Sing a song, come on Emily. Sing a song!” No, not going to sing a song, right? But you give Emily enough space and enough time and she will do that. So what we do is we set it up so that people are safe. Now, one of the things now, I don't know people have you know multiple questions to this and this becomes a whole workshop in itself but essentially what we do is for most workshops and not the one you did but for most workshops, what we do is we create the notes and we send it to them a month in advance. You’ll say “Well, if you're going to send them all a notes a month in advance then why are you going to show up to the workshop, as in the presenter, what's the point?” and the point is that I feel safe as a person reading the notes. Now there's no shock and awe, there's no “Oh, I have to come and I have to see all these slides for the first time.” and after you assimilate all the stuff- No! You're there, you’ve read the notes, you understand it, and so what's the job of the presenter? Well, the presenter has to show up there and now explain the same concept with different examples. So now you're getting a much deeper understanding of the same thing, different angles- same concept!

So if I say safety and I send you a book with several examples of how you create safety in workshops or how you create a safe zone then when you come to the workshop I show you different examples. How does it work in a corporate environment? How does it work if you're having a course online and you can't see anybody? So now you're getting depth in it. Now that creates one level of safety, the second level of safety and it depends on who's having the workshop. But what we do is we get people to show up before the workshop as in the day before.  Now, in Singapore you know the workshop you attended, we landed just the night before. It doesn't usually happen but we tend to have a meet and greet the previous night. In Brussels, we went to the Tintin Museum.

Leanne: Oh, great.

Sean: Yeah. Yeah I know you missed out.

Leanne: I know. I got all the photos, thanks for that while I was sitting in my cubicle.

Sean: So all of this stuff is done as a preparation then we have soft toys that people chuck around. We have sometimes when you come to the workshop you'll get maybe a little postcard with your name written on it. These are all these little things that enable people to go “Oh, this is a fun environment. This is not a place where I'm going to be put down and made a fool of.” and this takes a long time. When you get to a Psychotactics workshop you don't realize it but until about 11 o'clock you're doing nothing.

Leanne: Ah yeah.

Sean: Yeah absolutely nothing. You just had a bunch of introductions which are also engineered for you not to introduce yourself but to introduce somebody else. You’re doing a whole bunch of stuff until you finish the first coffee break which is at 10:30 and then at 11 o'clock that's when you're actually doing the first assignment.

Leanne: Yeah, you're right. I'm actually just sort of reflecting on our days in Singapore and yeah there is a bit of a science behind it, good to hear.

Sean: Yeah. So this just goes on through the days and then as people you know they get to know so we put them in groups but of course we've had really bad examples in groups. So the point is how do you make that safe as well which is you know on Day 1, we'll have a group and it's random it's not even like necessarily the same groups and then sometimes if we find that we need to change the groups the next day we change the groups and what that does is now you say, “Well, that's uncomfortable.” but it is safe at some level because you feel “Okay, I don't have to be with this person all the time.”

Leanne: Yeah, absolutely.

Sean: And so, there are lots of very small things but essentially if you start thinking of it as an adult workshop and going, “I've got a whole bunch of 10-year-olds. How do I keep them comfortable and happy?” then yeah, lots of breaks, stuff toys. Think of it as a ten-year-old party and I think you'll have a formula out there.

Leanne: That it sounds really fun. Interesting point that you said that “No one really cares about the presenter, all the slides until you make them feel safe.” It's the first time I've heard anyone say that. A lot of people talk about the importance of getting everyone to know each other and feel comfortable but no one's said it like in those words which is really great.

You talked about the levels of safety so giving up the notes in advance again that's another new concept I've never heard and a lot of people would think “Hang on! Well yeah, what is the point of me showing up here?” and I think that challenge on the facilitator to start figuring out more examples or then putting more emphasis on how we're going to make this more relevant for the people in the room at the time especially if they've read their notes prior. And then I like the idea of the meet and greet beforehand, it takes that mystery away of who's in the room because like you said when you're rocking up to a workshop you could be pretty apprehensive of who's going to be in there, how I even get there, all these thoughts going through your head before you even see the first slide.

Now, I want to talk about the way that you introduce topics as well and you always start from a high level overview. So in Singapore you spoke about the Manhattan Skyline and then you're really just teaching us the importance of foundations. Sorry, is that the way that you introduce the concepts a lot of the time, is it through using stories and looking at things that are going out in the world and then trying to make that relevant to the concept you're exploring?

Sean: Yep, because that's what you remember. So information again is very tiring and most of us thinking that that's what the clients want. The clients don't actually want that, if you know, we know how, what clients really want in a workshop and that is they want to leave the room and you say, “That's not possible!” Well, do this the next time you're having a workshop tell them, “Look, all of you are here for the information, right? And they'll all say “Yes!” and you go “Okay, so we're going to do this workshop until 9:00 p.m. tonight.” and then watch their faces. Yeah, it's the same thing as school, right? So you know, if you tell a bunch of 10-year-olds “Hey, school ends at 4 o'clock every day but if we do all stuff really well, we can all go at 3 o'clock.” and they go “Okay, yes!” and if you take 30-year-olds in a room or 50-year-olds in the room and you do that it's exactly the same. I've gone away from your question but the point is that people are looking for the exit sign and so if you design your workshop around an exit sign which is, “How can I get people moving all the time?” then that's the way they learn because they don't really learn sitting down there while you're droning on forever. That's not when they're learning. That's when they're just hearing not even listening to you, that's when they're checking their email. But once you've given them stuff to do, once they're starting to move, once they're starting to discuss stuff, once they're going to the cafe and back and you know how many trips we did to the cafe and back. I mean, we pretty much spent an hour and a half just going back and forth.

Leanne: And I don't think anyone was looking at their watch thinking “We need to get back, we're enjoying all of our time away.” as well.

Sean: Right.

Leanne: I think what we're talking about, what we were learning as part of that drinking great coffee.

Sean: Yeah, but in that section, that's where you're doing all your learning where you're doing all your assimilating and your question was “the concepts”. So if you give people like a whole bunch of bullet points, it's very hard to remember but if I tell you a story like for instance, we have this book called “The Brain Audit” and in that I talked about how you land at an airport and you have seven red bags and stuff and then if I meet that person six years later and they go “Hey, you know I still remember that story.” So finding that story at the top of your presentation and then in the different sections of your presentation that makes a big difference because I can remember the stories and yeah after that and like for instance, you did the Sales Page Workshop and now you know that to build the Sales Page, you don't start, see, tell me, I'm putting you on the spot now. How do you build a Sales Page?

Leanne: Well, we started by writing all the bullet points.

Sean: Yeah, but where do you start from the headline?

Leanne: No.

Sean: Yeah, exactly!

Leanne: The benefits and features and you bullet points.

Sean: So what effectively, what are you saying is you're starting at the bottom?

Leanne: We are.

Sean: And that's where the Manhattan example comes in. You build a building a skyscraper from the bottom up not from the top down. So the concept stays in your head and then you don't have to refer, you don't even have notes until now but if I gave you that assignment to do, you could do it, right?

Leanne: Yep, absolutely.

Sean: And it needs to be something that you can fit on the back of a postcard. If you can do that then you've said too much.

Leanne: I have to upload an image of the postcard to the show notes for this episode because they're beautiful. So Sean hand drawn these- the postcards, which had all the important points and the process for writing a sales page and yeah I could look at that right now and write a sales page just from looking at the artwork on that.

Sean: And this is the interesting part that you know anyone listening to this will go, “Okay, I got the whole workshop. I don't have to go to the workshop.” See? That's the beauty of it. That all those three days are encapsulated in their postcard and in your head you can expand all of it.

Leanne: Yep.

Sean: But the person looking at it has no idea, I mean they have some idea but they don't have the same idea that you have.

Leanne: Yeah like the real substance and experience, yeah that's right.

Sean: Right and it's important to note that you still don't have notes or slides or anything and you can still do it, that's important!

Leanne: Hmm yeah, that is important. Yeah. So, do you use the same concept? I'm trying to, I'm trying to draw parallels now, so you put your DaVinci course out for sale, so what is Sean and his team can teach anyone how to cartoon which is just a skill that everyone thinks that they can't do. Everyone I know is, “Oh, I can't draw!” so cartooning is a bit of a stretch. You teach this to all system made, it create a structure so you can teach people around the world that are online not even in the same room or in the same time zone. How do you take to school like cartooning to an audience that's all around the world?

Sean: Okay, so one of the things that you went through and most people go through is what we call a “layering system”. So a layer consists of A then AB then AB and C then AB and C and D. So every time you're doing, you're always still doing A and then you're always adding B and then you're always adding, so what most training does is they go A B C D E and that's overload. But if you do A, AB, AC, AD, ABCD sorry then every time you're going back to the original, you're going back and practicing that and you're getting better at A, getting better at A, getting better at A and that's what we call tiny increments.  So we increased it but all the time you're repeating it and I'm repeating myself here. So that is one of the things that we do.

The second thing that is even more crucial is this whole factor of getting people in the safe zone. So almost everyone who joins a course like we teach different skills like writing or presentations or whatever. And cartooning is so from left field because people say “I could never do that.” So the first point is to get them to the point where they're not making fools of themselves because everyone who draws like a six-year-old stop drawing when they were six years old which is why they draw like six-year-old. But having now been you know and now they're 35 or 55 or 75, it doesn't mean that they have to do 69 years more of drawing to get to a 75-year-old. Because a very fluent artist is like a very fluent speaker of a language. It takes about six to nine months to get very fluent in any language and what we do is instead of going “Okay, you have to practice every day you have to…” You just build this in tiny increments and then that builds a huge amount of confidence.

In fact, the first assignment for the cartooning course is to draw circles just random circle what we call “circly circles”. So it's just it's like a two-year-old could do so you get your first gold star as it were for doing stuff that any two-year-old could do very easily. And you know what? A lot of people struggle on that one, they try to draw a perfect circles and then we have to break that to the point where you go, “I want you to take a crayon with your thumb with your fist or whatever and how you draw it on the wall.” So you have to break those patterns and then very quickly within a few weeks they're drawing Snoopy, within a few weeks they're drawing complex stuff like stuff from Ice Age and they go, “Wait a second, this is what animators do. How am I doing this in five weeks?” So the confidence is what we're working on. We're now working on the skill because they don't have the skill and they don't have the practice. The main thing is they don't have that volume of cartoons in their head. They don't know how the finger goes, how the hand goes, how the legs go and then we get them to another level of practice which is copying.

Now, in almost every age, copying was the way to go about stuff. So Van Gogh, he copied all of Hokusai’s work from Japan. All of the Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, all, they're not sitting there and going, “Oh, what's in my brain?” –No!  They have this model in front of them and they're copying and in our age we have confused copying with plagiarism. Like taking credit for somebody else's work but this is not taking credit and this is copying, as a kid you trace. So anyway, to answer the question in a briefer manner, what do you have to really work on when you're teaching people is you have to get their confidence up. Because when you get their confidence up then they use less energy thinking, “Oh, am I doing the wrong thing? Am I doing the, you know, am I a fool?” Because they burn up all of this energy trying to be so smart and you're giving them tasks that don't require so much energy and that boosts the skill level because now they go, “Okay I can do this.”

Leanne: Yeah. I mean because you taught us how to draw the whale as part of the workshop and when you said that “Draw a whale.” and I just draw any whale. Yeah mine looked like a of six-year-old’s whale and then you broke it down and said “Draw a rectangle and do this.” and the confidence I guess of all of us was we thought it was excellent because you broke it down into those layered steps and made it really easy and yeah while all the whale is just a combination of all different strokes.

Sean: Yeah and this is the problem that a lot of facilitators do. So the facilitator is also not in the safe zone. They're also feeling like they're being judged, right? So they're always in that safe zone themselves and so they try to be smarter than the audience and that kind of comes across. The audience figures it out that you're smarter, you're standing there on this pedestal as it were. So when you bring the audience, so often a client will tell you, “Oh, it's so easy for you to do that.” So now if you go, “Okay, wait a second, how do we get rid of this objection? It's so easy for you to do that and how do we get you to do it? Now you go, “Wow! If I can do this, what else can I do?” All the time you're working between these factors of: “How am I going to increase their confidence? How are they going to feel more safe? How are they going to use less energy?” Puff! We get skill. So skill is really…What people think, skill is “I'll just practice and practice.” but practice, it gets you there but it takes very long.

Leanne: Yeah. Would you say it's like a transfer of confidence?

Sean: The first thing is, it's a factor of energy so if it takes you a long time or it's a complex thing to do then you're going to use up a lot of energy and if you lose up a lot of energy, you lose confidence and then you never acquire the skill.

Essentially it's an equation, which is an equation is “this plus this equals to this”, right? So energy plus confidence is equal to skill. That's what it is! It's not “I will practice, practice, practice, practice and get skilled.” No! If you have continuously difficult tasks like “Okay, now go build a computer.  Okay, now go destroy the building.” It’s like “This is really hard!” But if you say “Okay, go get me a glass of water.” Then you say, “Okay, go and make some noodles.” as in you know, the two-minute noodles. You can accomplish all of those things and now this is again you go back to a 10-year-old and the 10-year-old goes, “I'm so smart. I brought water today. You know at home I don't get to bring water but in school I did bring water today.” - Okay fine! So now they're excited about that activity because it requires a little energy and then you can say “Okay now we're going to chop onions with a chef's knife.” right? And you go “How am I going to give a nine-year-old to chop onions with a chef's knife.” 

This is all the task of energy. The reason why people grow up and go “I can't cook. I can't draw.” it's because the first time they're given a recipe, it's like, “Okay, here are 30 ingredients go make a great Indian dish.” Sure! I mean it doesn't work like that.

So the facilitation process is the same thing which is if you give me tiny increments I don't have to burn up so much energy to learn it. I don't have to burn up so much energy to wonder if I'm a fool or whatever and I know that you're not trying to show off as a facilitator. So now because I have that energy, I can put it to use and gain more confidence and then as I gain more confidence I get more skill and in that whole formula you have all these brakes so you're like, you're confused you speak with someone else, you speak to the presenter. You have space to get rid of all the objections and the problems and stuff which otherwise it's like, “Ah I got stuck at five, at 10:30 and now it's 12 o'clock and now it's 2 o'clock.” and you know the biggest problem is that clients will not stop you, they will say, “I'm sure, he'll cover this on Day 2.”

Leanne: Yes.

Sean: And you never covered that on Day 2 because you have no idea that they have that problem and they're waiting for Day 2 by which point they're completely confused. So there are all of this and I'm not saying our system is perfect. In fact, we have to keep tweaking it for this very reason which is we want people to have that skill and they still have all of these obstructions that they put in their way and so we have to keep tweaking that, it's just how it is.

Leanne: Yeah, so you're actually writing a book on talent, aren’t you?

Sean: Yes.

Leanne: I know you've been talking about it for a while but I think you're getting momentum which is really great.

Sean: Yeah, we have to pre-sell it. Yeah that’s the only one I’m going to write.

Leanne: Oh, this a great podcast to talk about talent man. This can over-the-line build up momentum even more. So do you believe that you can teach anyone anything? Or do you think the person coming in to learn the skill has to have some degree of motivation to want to learn the skill depending on the complexity of that skill?

Sean: I'll give you an example of my niece, Marsha and I'll give you an example of the other niece Cara. So one was 8 in the other was 13 when we started this exercise. Now both of them were not motivated, as in Cara point-blank told me. We said we're going to have these Friday sessions and both of you can draw and paint like with real watercolours and in real watercolour books and stuff. Cara point-blank at 8 has decided, “I can't draw.” and “Okay, I come to paint because I can just throw colour on the paper.” right? – So, I can't draw.  Then we have Marsha and Marsha is like “Okay, I'll do whatever you want but swimming, I rated it as a ten and painting or drawing is five.” So there's really no motivation on the part of both of these kids and what we decided was “Look!  It's not about the content, it's about the energy.” and so we got them there and we give them Cola and they have you know they dance, they run around, they eat chips, they listen to music and stuff and in the last half an hour that's when they're drawing and painting.

Leanne: Ah.

Sean: If you see their work, you will be astounded. So what's really driving their stuff is first of all, its “Oh, this is so much fun!” So they would put up with the pain of drawing because 70% of it is fun. So okay, I'll humour you. But what happens is in the process that we teach them in tiny increments so it's like “Let's draw a snowman today.” or “Tomorrow, let's draw something.” We're starting to build it up and then you only figure out what it is right at the end, right? So it's still all this fun, fun, fun, fun and their drawings are superb. So now Marsha looks at her paintings and goes “Wow, that's so good.” and she's a teenager and you know pretty much like a teenager looks in front of a mirror and goes “Oh, I look so great.” or whatever they spend time in front of the mirror. Marsha does that with her paintings and Cara's like “What are you looking at your painting for so long?”

But Cara, if her parents say “Oh, do you want to go for painting class?” and she's like “Yeah.” and what she did was she said “I have these photos on my iPad.” and I let her draw on the iPad as well and she said “Where's my work?” because she did like three or four drawings and I said it's in this folder and she says “That folders called I can’t draw.” and I said “Yeah, because you said you couldn't draw so I put them in the ‘I can’t draw’ folder and she said “But that was two months ago.” So this is the level, this is how you start to get into this factor of talent which is you have to understand what causes people to be motivated in the first place and it's not your stupid bullet points, it's not your content, it's not all of that stuff. They are motivated by fun, if you want to teach spelling get the kids out on the playground and you say, “How do we spell appetizer? You’re A, your P, your P, your E.” and then move them around and then you say ,“Okay, now can we break up appetizer, so you’re the letter T, right? so you go and find other kids and you make a letter so you make a letter like taser, T, A, S, E, R or a sitter and now the kids are running around they're learning spellings but they're having fun. If you say “Tomorrow, who wants to learn spellings?” Well, everyone is like, “Yay, spelling time, what is wrong with this school?”

Leanne: That sounds really fun.

Sean: I know but that's the whole point. The point is that if I'm having fun, I'm not burning up energy. If I'm not burning up energy, I'm getting confident and I know that I'm learning. It's not like I'm saying “Oh, I'm just having fun I'm not learning anything.” So it’s a fun designed in a way that gets people to understand or to learn it. That builds the confidence all the time and then that leads to skill, well that's how we do it.

Leanne: Yeah, so that's how you do it and that's something that you've refined say over the last what 15 to 20 years, so it didn't start out this way?

Sean: Yep.

Leanne: I'd love to hear about a time where, was there a time that you can think, reflect on where things didn't go so well in a workshop or some of your Peterson's participants were still scratching their heads afterwards? Like we're going back quite a few years, I'd imagine and then when you started to think, “Hey, I actually really need to start thinking about how I deliver this now.” or have you always been this good as a teacher?

Sean: No one's, I mean, one of the things that we do is we always ask for feedback like not praise. We interview everyone for testimonials that's for sure but we also ask for specific feedback. So when I left Singapore after your workshop, I had like 25 points. 25 things that I had to fix from that workshop to the next workshop.

Leanne: Really? 25?

Sean: Yes, I can send you the list.

Leanne: Okay.

Sean: And you know, you thought, “Oh, that was a pretty good workshop.” but there are 25 and then the Brussels workshop, there are 25 and then when we do the same workshop. So we've been doing the article writing course for instance online since 2006 and at the end of the course people are expected to write a thousand words on what was wrong with the course. So now, say let's say 250 people have written what was wrong with the course, we have 250,000 words of feedback. This is how you fix things. It's not helpful, you need a stiff drink at the end of the day because they all sound very ungrateful.

Leanne: Yes. So you need to get yourself into a safe space before you rave in. Wow! 250,000 words.

Sean: Yeah but the good thing is what we do is we have that mix. So we have, “Okay, you give us your feedback, what you can…?” and it's not just feedback is like, “What do you suggest? How do we go about it?” and I have this conversation with them. “How do we fix it? What do we do? But what if I have this problem?” and then the clients come up with the solution.

The next stage is the testimonials where they talk about how much. So the client looks at feedback as, “Look. I really am giving you feedback not because I hate you but because I love your stuff and I want to see.” So they're trying to fix something that they see is broken. But you see it as, “Oh goodness, I gave everything and they want all of this more.” So that is a definite problem, you have to get yourself into loving feedback and if you can't do that, then do the feedback first and the very next thing you do is the testimonials. Because the energy that comes from the testimonial will kind of reduce the impact or the brutality of that feedback.

The problems that we've had in the past have really stemmed from me getting exhausted. So when I used to do any workshops or presentations before, I had to literally rest for a week. And I thought “Why am I having to rest for a week? I already know this stuff, I'm so exhausted. These guys must be really exhausted.” So started to think about this whole topic about what people want and it's to do with marketing rather than, because people, they say one thing and then they mean something else but it's not like they know what they mean. A good example of this is Weight Watchers and if you say, “What is Weight Watchers slogan?” Well, when they started out it was eat all the food you want and you think, “That doesn't make any sense?”

Leanne: No.

Sean: Yes, it does! It makes perfect sense. The people that get in trouble and go to Weight Watchers are people who eat all the food they want. 

Leanne: Yes.

Sean: The people who don't have the problem don't have to go to Weight Watchers. So Weight Watchers is effectively saying is, “You can eat all the food you want, we'll show you how to eat it.” right?

Leanne: Yeah.

Sean: So that's the one factor, that is. I can't express that, I can't express that I want to eat everything in sight. I can't express that, I don't want to admit that. But when I see the slogan, I just go “Oh yeah, that's the right place.” So we had to look at our workshops and go “What do people really want?” and the answer is they want to have fun. Whether you look at a corporate event or you look at a small business event or any event. Everybody who comes there says, “I want to have fun.” So then you know you speak to your partner, you speak to your accountant and they say, “You're going to a three day workshop, you're going to spend all this money what are you going to do?” and you go, “I'm going to have fun!”  No! That's not going to work, it's not going to work for you, it’s not going to work for them, and they aren't fun. You can have fun here, why spending all this money? So I can't admit that to myself but that doesn't mean as a facilitator that you can't teach while letting them have a blast.

Leanne: No.

Sean: Yeah.

Leanne: That's what I'm finding. I find the most effective facilitators are the ones that bring in the most fun and then learning is kind of like the side effect of having a great time.

Sean: Yes and the worst facilitators always said at the start they say, “Okay, are you guys ready to have fun?” and then you sit through three days of complete agony.

Leanne: It's like, yeah my husband says if he meets anyone that ever says that introduces themselves as easy going but you've got to watch out!

Sean: Yeah, it's overcompensation.

Leanne: It is overcompensation.

Sean: Yeah.

Leanne: So what is some advice that you could give to people that are starting their journey in facilitating and leading workshops in their own context? What would you tell them Sean?

Sean: Well, I think the main thing is that they have to get very comfortable with themselves and that's quite a journey. It's got nothing to do with the audience, it's got everything to do with how much authority you have in that space. And so if you look at say Photoshop, well, no one has the authority in everything in Photoshop but maybe in masking and then maybe in the sub subset of masking. So what you want to do is you want to be comfortable, you feel like you're in a safe space and any questions that come within that space you can talk about it.

Then the second thing that you want to do is you want to take that little subset or sub subset and then expand that so that say, you could cover that material I don't know half a day. Well, you don't have to go for three days, you have to be really confident to take a half day material for three days but let's say you said, “Okay, we'll do this in one day or one and a half days.” Well, now what you have to do is you have to go, “Okay, I have to explain in one third of the space. I have to get them to work in half one third of the space and then I have to get them to build exercises or do something like that in one third of the space.” and then the clients go, “Yeah. So I learnt it, I practiced it, I made mistakes and I fixed it.” and now you have one and a half days. When you get more proficient at it, well, now you can go “Okay, we've got three days I've got more examples for you. I've got more activity for you.” and I don't feel any fear that our tea break is going for 45 minutes.

Leanne: Yeah. That's a black belt status for facilitators being that comfortable and confident to do that.

Sean: Right. Because you also have to know like when we went to Brussels for instance. The stuff that you guys covered in the first day, they hadn't covered in the first day but they were a much larger group and it seems like, “Oh damn, I haven't covered. I'm going to get into trouble.” And you have to be I think as a facilitator, you have to be comfortable in your own skin. So you have to be comfortable that you're going to goof up 50 to 60 percent of your early days before you start getting to do the comfort level. But breaking it up is always a good way because once you're confident then you don't have to overcompensate and you don't have to be “I'm the boss here and you're just minions.”

Leanne: Yeah, that's right and just “Respect me because I'm the one that's standing up in front of the room.” It's actually the respects coming from what you're giving them in terms of the skill and your authority.

Sean: The best way to do that is to get them to tell you what you've already told them and if they can do that, well, now you've given them slides.

Leanne: Yeah. That's an excellent point to finish on. Sean, thank you so much for your time and I know that you're known as “the online marketing” kind of Guru. We've spoken about a topic though that I think you're going to grow through in terms of bringing out your book and you're going to be another expert on talent as well. So you've got three hats. Yeah, I talked about your Singapore workshop in a previous podcast and told everyone I'd bring you one so I'm sure they're all looking forward to this. Where can people find you if they want to sort of follow up and see what else that you do?

Sean: Well, we're at PsychoTactics, I don't know if you can spell it but Google can so look up PsychoTactics and that PsychoTactics outcome, that's where we are.

Leanne: Fantastic. Thank you so much, Sean. It’s been great having you on the show.

Sean: You're welcome.