Episode 3: Conquering your fear of public speaking with expert trainer and facilitator, Nikki McMurray
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL FIND OUT ABOUT:
How she used to throw up before speaking in public and how she overcame that fear
How she manages the participants (and her own) energy levels over a five-day workshop.
Why it’s important to shut the world off (and your phone) when you’re in a learning environment
Why you need a sense of humour when working on the road
Her strategies for ensuring introverts are heard in a group workshop
Her simple hack that ensures participants grasp the instructions of a group activity
The two things she would do differently if she had to start her business again
ABOUT OUR GUEST
Nikki McMurray has over 25 years experience in the adult education industry. Her roles ranged from managing registered training organizations, managing the training function within organizations and facilitating.Her facilitation style is respectful to the adult learner’s past experience and qualifications with a hands-on, highly interactive approach with a focus of connecting theory with practice.Clients comment that programs and personal coaching conducted by Nikki are high quality, very practical and personally challenging.She has a diverse background that includes consulting in a training and on the job coaching capacity to Mining open cut and underground (coal and hard rock), Rail, Water, Gas, Manufacturing, State and Federal Government industries as well as many others.
REFERENCE
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Leanne: I'd like to introduce you to our guest today. She has over 25 years experience in the adult education industry. And as a facilitator, she's terrific at really honing in, and evaluating the dynamics of a group. She ensures that all of her sessions are hands on, and interactive with the focus on connecting theory with practice. Her background expands consulting, training, and coaching for industries for a company called ‘Corporate Learning Partners’. And she's worked in open cut and underground mining, rail, water, gas, manufacturing, and government. Welcome to the podcast, Nikki McMurray.Nikki: Thanks LeanneLeanne: Nikki, 25 years is a long time to be working in education and learning in development. Have you ever had a career outside of that industry?Nikki: Yes, in the very early days, I was in IT and then I went into Marketing. And I happened to get a job in the world of corporate adult education, fell in love with it, and haven't left it since.Leanne: So do you think some of the IT, and marketing skills helped you where you are today?Nikki: I think absolutely, absolutely. And you know even though you're in the industry of adult education, you're actually in everyone else's industry. It's not just adult education in its purest form like a university. You're in and out of different industries, and that's what makes it interesting and exciting.Leanne: How did you actually get into the world of facilitation and education?Nikki: I took on a job as a coordinator of P&O and it was in their training and education area. I really enjoyed the vibe, and the excitement, and the enthusiasm, and the fact that when you partake in skills or knowledge there’s a certain amount of excitement for the participants, and sometimes even nervousness.From there, I went to uni at night, and then studied adult education. And I was actually not a facilitator for a very long time. I stayed in Administration, and I worked my way up to being a site manager for a computer training firm that concentrated only on corporate. And about 12 years ago, I walked away from corporate, and started my own business. And that was the first time I ever facilitated full time. So it was pretty scary, and exciting.Leanne: So you came from an admin background and then to managing client training in organisations, do you think that helped you when you became a facilitator?Nikki: Oh absolutelyLeanne: In what way?Nikki: I think it’s because I focus primarily on leadership workshops and I have been a manager for many years. Therefore I have a really good understanding of a lot of the issues, and the challenges leaders face in the workplace. And most of those challenges don’t vary from industry to industry. So I can relate. I'm very empathetic and compassionate for all the leaders I work with now as a coach and a facilitator in their area of leadership. Because there probably isn't a challenge that they're having that I haven't had myself in real life, where I tripped and stumbled as well.Leanne: I guess it helps because you can talk the language when it comes to feeding back information to clients about what's going on in the training environment too. And then provide feedback on what they can do to continue building on a person’s ability after you’ve left.Nikki: I think that's what good adult education is all about; sustainability, making sure that things are handed over in a manner that is easy for the individual to contextualise back in the workplace. For them to be out and go back and know “I can do this” and “I might probably trip and stumble little bit”. But I was warned I was going to trip and stumble, but I want to do it bad enough that I'm motivated to push through.Leanne: Yeah, that's really good insight into embedding all those learning strategies. Any other tips on doing that? Because I think it's an area where companies struggle. You can go in with approach of…, oh we're going to run this workshop, and then we expect people to change instantly. But we know that's not the case. What do you recommend to a client?Nikki: The number one best way of getting a return on investment when it comes to adult education is ensuring that before the individual goes to whatever the learning is - a meeting occurs between them and their one up. A discussion occurs about the workshop objectives and what do you personally need to get out of this. And then a follow-up meeting. That is the number one way of getting a return on investment.Participants walk into my learning environment with all different expectations. Some purely for lunch. Let's get serious - unfortunately, that is true. A day off work and I should get a really nice lunch here.Others come in with no real idea, but just happy to be there. You know I’m a new people leader, and I just need anything you can give me. The ones that get the most out of it actually come in with very specific challenges. You can't remember everything from a one to even a three day workshop. You're only going to really remember what's relevant, and what you need.So if you come in without anything really in mind, you probably walk out going, “Wow that was really interesting and I met some nice people.” But none of the tools will have really stuck for you because there was nothing in it in the first place, unless a challenge through the workshop comes to mind, and then you start zeroing in on how you can fix that. But it's amazing how many people come into a workshop with no understanding of even what we're going to be covering. That one-on-one meeting with the boss before and after is important.Leanne: Okay, so let's just say that you do have participants in the workshop, and they've got no idea why they're there. As the facilitator, you expect there has been some sort of conversation. How then do you manage that and bring them into the learning journey?Nikki: I think that through activities and discussions you start getting an understanding of where they're at in people leadership, how much experience they've got, and the confidence level. And normally by that confidence level, you can probably guess the areas that they probably find challenging. It’s probably not even on their radar because they're avoiding it.Leanne: So you talked a lot about the participants pre-work. But I just want to talk about your preparation before a workshop. And I know in our work together, we'll have a workshop that starts at 10:00 in the morning and Nikki will show up at 7:00 in the morning to get the room ready. Is it sort of like a ritual that you've had over the course of your time in this environment - that it's really important to prepare?Nikki: I like at least an hour and a half, and if I have more, I’ll take as much as I can get. I think it's really important to be very familiar with your environment, with the technology that's available, and also the way in which you want the room set out. The way in which the room set out, the music that you've got playing all set a tone for when they walk in the door, and that also includes your own preparation. I am a huge prepper. People ay to me all the time, “Oh I just wing it.” That might work for them but I would never ever do that. I just can’t.I do a lot of preparation even if I'm running the same program over and over again. And the room and making sure that it set up the way you need it be, to work the participants is really important. You've got to be thinking ahead of the types of activities you’re doing, type of space that you've got available, and be able to utilise everything that you can; the best way you can. That might be walking in and rearranging the whole room that someone has so kindly set up for you - because we thought there were going to be 16 participants and now we find out that there's going to be 12. It's nice that it's cozy and intimate if we have smaller numbers. But it also it's important that they're comfortable if there are large numbers, and there's always enough space for everybody. A lot of the organisations I work for are very male dominated. Girls/women I find don't find it too hard being a bit more squashed in; where the guys like a little bit more space.Leanne: You did mention earlier that some people are there just for the catering. I find that really interesting. A lot of the feedback sheets we get back, if the workshop has delivered the comments are about the catering. Is there an ultimate menu for workshops?Nikki: It's like air-conditioning. It'll never be perfect for everybody! And most organisations these days don't even do catering. Most people bring their own when it's in-house. So if people are lucky enough to actually get the company to provide the catering it’s normally a nice lunch because it's a free lunch.Leanne: The only feedback I have about that is I made the mistake once of serving cakes and sweet food at morning tea and hot savoury items that afternoon. And I didn't really hear the end of it! So switch those two around they will love the catering.Okay, so let's talk about energy. And a lot of workshop you facilitate run up to five day workshops. I’ve never done anything like that. Even after one day it can be pretty exhausting. How do you keep your participants moving along over the course of five days?Nikki: The course design is really important in regards to energy levels. As you know, I like to have them up and moving around approximately every 20 minutes to 30 minutes because I think that most of the people I work with don't actually sit at desks full-time. So they like sitting down but they're not used to it, and find it really hard to stay focused. If you have them moving around to doing activities or even just standing, it can make a huge, huge difference to the energy levels.For me personally, I'm pretty passionate about what I do. So I think it's important to shut the outside world off. You know everyone has things going on outside the learning environment. And I think it's really important as a facilitator that we're able to just to shut down turn our mobile phones off, as well as participants. Create that environment that's going to be best for them to get something out of the program. I am naturally pretty high energy.Leanne: I agree with that!Nikki: I do know a lot of people that are extreme introverts that do what I do, and they really work themselves up. That might be with coffee or a sugar hit first thing in the morning, a Coca-Cola, or something to just get themselves fired up. I don't need that. I just drink green tea. You don't need me in a learning environment with coffee. I’d be climbing the walls.Leanne: That's a really sort of great lead into a facilitation, and getting up in front of a room. Was that something that came naturally to you; public speaking, presenting in public?Nikki: No, I was petrified of presenting in public. Physically used to throw up.Leanne I think our listeners are grateful that you've said that. Because people that I've spoken to don't really have the confidence, and think that it's something that they can’t overcome. Obviously, you're one example of someone that's overcome it. What were the steps you took - how did you actually work your way up to becoming a facilitator you are today?Nikki: My father was very insistent that all of his children speak in public. He felt that if you had the confidence to speak publicly, you'd have the confidence to do anything you want in life. It wasn’t really about necessarily publicly speaking, and the skills about it. It was about having the confidence. Because if you look at what is the word people's biggest fear in the world, it's public speaking; next to spiders, and heights I believe.I did join the debating team, and I made a complete idiot of myself every single time I got up; that’s if I got up. Most of the time I was down the girl's toilet heaving. And when I did get up, I would go into flight; fight; freeze. I would freeze, and make squeaking noises. So every time I ever decided to join the debating team, there was always this huge sigh. “Oh my goodness she's doing it again. We've got no chance to get to the finals this year.” I left school knowing I would never speak in public. It was absolutely physically impossible.Very soon after I got a job, and I was asked after a few months working there if I could do a presentation to the board - that I was to walk in, there would be some questions, I would answer them, and then hop out.I was really honest with my boss and said, “Look, I can’t do that, and this is the reason why…”. They made it really clear it wasn't negotiable. And dad at times was asking me, “How’s your job going?” I said, “I love it, but I'm leaving.” And he said, “Why?” And I said, “They want me to talk, stand up and talk to board members. We all know what's going to happen.” So I'm just going to resign now. And he said, “Oh look, if you’re going to resign then you might as well give it a red hot go.”I went in with my resignation in my back pocket thinking you know, maybe I could throw it over the mess I might make. I did a lot of nodding and shaking my head trying to answer their questions with yes and no answers. After a while, one of the board members just said, “Look, you're wasting our time. Do you want to leave?” I just shrugged. I was going to resign anyway. I gave it a shot, and I walked out. One of the board members came up to me in the afternoon and said to me, “Are you scared of public speaking?” I said, “Petrified.” And he said, “I can help you with it.” And I said, “All right, it's okay, I’m resigning.”Dad kept saying to me, “You know how long are you going to run from this?” And I was like forever sounds good. There are plenty of jobs around. I'm not worried. I’m really skilled.And the board member talked me out of resigning, and took me under his wing. Over the following months, I got more and more confident. And it's something, even to this day that if I do not get up and do public speaking at least once a month, I go through all the nerves all over again. It's still there. It's now it's about managing it. So when people talk to me about their fears of getting up in front of a group of people oh, I can relate very well. I'm very empathetic.Leanne: So what would be your advice to someone that is a first time facilitator or wants to make that transition from subject matter experts to sharing their knowledge?Nikki: The more you do it, the easier it gets. Everyone that first rides a bike will fall off. Every time anyone gets up to publicly speak, they're going to make mistakes. It’s about motivation. It's about wanting to do it bad enough that you got to put up with the trips, and the stumbles, and the scrapes, and the bruises.If you really want to do it, you just need to practice just like when you rode a bike for the very first time. And public speaking is the same.You do it often enough, you can walk away from it. You come back you might be a little bit wobbly, but you're find your feet a lot faster. So practice makes perfect. I had plenty of people that I used to watch. Either for my own professional development, or watching someone before hiring them. So I know what made a good facilitator.It’s about using every opportunity you get to speak in public. Most people that don't like it when they're offered to do it, will run a mile. I did it myself. So the idea of it is is feeling motivated enough to get good at it to throw yourself in every opportunity you get and jump on board. It's not something you can read about and go, “Okay, it'll be like reading a book on how to ride a bike.” And then thinking, “After I've read the book, I can go and jump on the bike and I'm not going to fall off.”Leanne: You just absolutely have a great presence when you're in a workshop. And you look across participants, and everyone's really listening on your every word. If you had to pick one unique skill or superpower that you bring to the role of facilitator, what do you think that is for you?Nikki: Well I'm going to actually ask you. You've watched me a few times facilitate, so can I ask you what you…What do you think my superpower is?Leanne: Ok this is my observation as a client. When you’ve been running a session for a couple of hours I'll just drop in at lunch; or at the end of the day. I’ll ask you how the course been going with your participants. And very quickly you can go around the room and talk about each participant - pointing out things like ‘That person's not engaged at the moment’; ‘This person's a little bit quiet’; ‘I think the three sitting here is probably not a good idea, I'm going to split them up tomorrow’.You know exactly how each participant in that room is feeling, thinking, and their level of engagement in the workshop. But not only that, you've got solutions on how you're going to fix that, and make it better for them.. I think that's an impressive thing I’ve found about your facilitation style - identifying what’s going on in that room to an amazing level of detail. Would you agree with that?Nikki: It's my responsibility to ensure I have engagement. These people need to walk away with particular skills. And they’re not going to walk away with everything. But they should be walking away with two or three things that they can feel comfortable enough to use back in the workplace tomorrow. It would be very poor of me not to understand where my participants are going. And there's certain activities that I do first up to get a little bit more of an understanding of them, and give them the opportunity to talk about what they want to talk that about. There are certain icebreakers that I like using due to the effect that you get a little bit more of an understanding of why people are here, why they are in front of you and how much experience they have.Leanne: You mentioned a couple of icebreakers that you use to let down their guard, find more information about them, reasons why they're in the room, levels of experience. Is there a particular icebreaker that's your go-to one to find that information out?Nikki: I like to line them up in order of how long they've been a people leader for. Make a little bit of fun, you can’t open your mouth when you do it. Make sure that those hand signals are kept nice and clean also. From that, get them to then go down the line and introduce themselves. Ask them ‘Who are you, what's your role around here, how long have you been doing people leader’? Then I get them to team up, pair up with those that are least experience with those that have got more experience, and talk about what's their number one leadership challenge. And that's where we we find out who came in with something on their mind, and those that are just there not sure even what they're there to learn. But I think all senses are on high alert in that first one hour of the workshop as a facilitator.You’re really watching, and observing, and listening even when you're getting them to do an activity - you're listening to who's being more dominant than somebody else in the activity, who's being supportive of each other in the activity, who's sitting there doing absolutely nothing and looking a little bit concerned. You know because at the end of the day, we're going to have introverts, we're going to have extroverts. And we don't want the introverts walked all over.So in that first the first hour, I use the DISC model and I normally within the first hour will be able to work out who is where on the DISC model. That also allows me then to know what's the best way of communicating with them and where their stretch places would be. So I consider how far I can stretch them before they get us feel a little bit uncomfortable because you want a little bit of a stretch, but we certainly don't want to break anyone. We want them to be supported.Leanne: How do you then manage then bring in people that might be more quiet or reserved? How do you bring them into the workshop, and engage them?Nikki: With Dominance, we normally find they’re quite vocal. Not all the time, but quite often. They also they want to share their experiences and their stories. It's about allowing them the space to. But also making at times drawing the line and at times saying, “You know I think you're working too hard. Jeff I've heard from you for the last four times. I think you might want to have a break now. You’re carrying the load for all these other people. Let's hear from someone that hasn't said anything yet.” And it's about being polite and respectful - but also with a bit of fun. There's a little bit of tongue in cheek in being able to manage those personalities.Leanne: We spoke about earlier, there are certain skills of a facilitator - preparing is really important for you and making sure you use all of your senses, to see what’s going on, and then listening in to create a good dynamic. Is there anything else that a facilitator really needs in their back pocket?Nikki: I was thinking about this on my drive in this afternoon, and there are so many. And for every facilitator you asked that question to, it'll be something different. Now I am extremely high energy, so I know I'm not everyone's cup of tea. I can be quite overwhelming if you're a real introvert, and it's working out who is who in your zoo. You then moderate yourself of what's appropriate for this learning environment.But by really being prepared with your material you then have the energy, and the headspace when you’re facilitating to change very quickly on a dime.If you have’t prepared and you are facilitating, and things aren’t going well, the energy levels aren’t right, or people are becoming argumentative. It's very hard for you to throw in other strategiesIf you’ve got the content in your head, you can be quite flexible. And you can introduce different strategies all the time because you know your content well enough that it happens no matter what. You can then, in your head, while delivering the content be thinking about other strategies, and things you've got to do. That was probably a really long winded.Leanne: Aha! I love it. Long winded is good. Nikki: Because if you were to get up, and say the same thing. Like for instance an induction. But I can imagine if you ran inductions you would get to the point where you would memorise it. You would actually be able to think about other things while doing it. And you will notice other things because you know the content so well. Your head doesn't have to be all in the content.You'll be noticing people leaning forward, or arms folded, or looking at the window, or having a chat with the person next to... You'll notice all of those things because you know you material so well.Leanne: Yeah that brings me into an interesting story. Nikki kindly asked me to co-facilitate a session last year and it was part of a leadership course. So I studied, and studied, and studied on this model. I'd been working at a TAFE for the last six years, and I walked into Nikki’s workshop, and I delivered this session like it was at a TAFE. And after the workshop, Nikki said to me ‘You’re training them, and you’re not facilitating”. And I didn’t understand what she meant. I thought that was what I was meant to do. I was meant to train them, and teach them in this model. Then you explained that training and facilitating are two different skill sets. Do you want to expand on that a bit more?Nikki: Yes, so when you’re training someone; in something, you can work out their current skill and knowledge and then you feel that gap in a very quite structured manner.When you facilitate, there’s more of an expectation of these people are coming in with this certain amount of experience, and knowledge, and skill already. They’ve already got a fair bit, and it's about really pulling out what they already have in their heads.And so you will have someone that's got a lot of experience. You'll have someone in your learning environment with 20, 30 years experiences, and then you'll have someone with none. It's about managing the dynamics of the group - that those people who have got the experience are able to share it, and give those who have got no experience the opportunity to share how they would use that, and have a feel about it, whether they could see themselves using it, and then filling the gaps.Leanne: All right, so we've spoken a lot about activities, and energy levels. Let's talk about staging an activity. Do you go through a specific process when you do that?Nikki: I'll give you an example. I've been working with a company recently with people who are people leaders that have actually been chosen to co-facilitate with me on a leadership program.We put them through some facilitation skills to prepare them to be shoulder to shoulder with me in a learning environment doing certain sections of the program. And interestingly, they always choose flip chart activities. And they go, “They look like the easiest. I’ll do these.”It never ceases to amaze me how much chaos can be created in the manner in which they set the activity up. I'll give you an example. When I get people to do a flip chart activity, I first off show them each of the flip charts; Then I say to them, “In a moment I'm going to get you to stand up in four groups, and I'm going to give you one of these flip charts each. I'm going to get you to work on it for two minutes, or three minutes. And then after that, I will rotate your group to the next flip chart.”It's amazing that with these kind of facilitators they’ll start the commencement of the activity with, “We’re going to do an activity I'll get you all to stand up.”It never ceases to amaze me that when you get people to stand up, they automatically will start talking to the person next to them, wonder whether they meant to take a pen with them, or… And they don't even know the activity, but chaos has already being created.So it’s really simple things which are one of those things where we trip and stumble a lot. We'll throw at an instruction and everyone will go, “What did that mean, or what did she say about this, or what are we meant to be doing next?” And it will create this chaos, and you've got to bring them all back to the centre of the room, and then explain it again. And sometimes again.Leanne: So I guess you're saying prevention is better than cure here.Nikki: It isLeanne: Say, “Hey we’re going to do an activity. I'm going to explain it now.” Try and prevent them from standing.Nikki: I say that the moment they stand is the moment you will have them disengaged. They will suddenly need to go to the loo, get a cup of coffee, check they’re phone, be on their way to their activity. So it's best while they’re seated to give them as much information as you can. Then before they stand, let them know what's going to happen next. That's why I say “In a moment I'm going to get you to stand up, and I'll get you to work in groups; four groups. And each of the groups will be given a flip chat”… If you start the activity with, “We’re going to an activity I'll get you stand up.” The moment they stand up, it is so much more difficult to get them reengaged in finishing what instructions you need to do.Leanne: How do you manage preparing with flying, again keeping the energy levels, responding to e-mails, running a business on the road for most of the week? How do you do that?Nikki: You can't take yourself too seriously. When you work and live on the road, you've got to have a sense of humour because Murphy’s Law is just sitting there on your shoulder. You can have a whole week of what could ever go wrong, does go wrong. If you don't keep your sense of humour I think and if you take yourself too seriously you could end up being a very stressed, cranky, angry person.Leanne: How long has Corporate Learning Partners been operating?Nikki: About 13 years now.Leanne: Okay, and you mentioned that was the first time that you made into a full time facilitation role.Nikki: Yeah, so I went from managing training organisations, and walked out the door, and went into developing leadership programs, facilitating leadership programs.Leanne: So making that step from I guess full time employment to running your own business is a huge step. You have no idea how it's going to go.Nikki: Massive step.Leanne: Why did you make that step? What propelled you do that? Did you have any clients sort of on the books? Or you just thought you could do things better?Nikki: I actually felt that it was my natural next step. I'd been in the management area for a very long time. For those that are people leaders out there, you will hear know what I mean by you know, you get to a point where you go is this something that I want to continue doing. I got to a point where I was at the level of general management by the time I left. It was getting more and more paper orientated, not people - and I like being around people.So I thought, “Why not give it a go?” And it was a huge risk. I had no clients. I did have a very strong network of colleagues because I had for so many years worked with other facilitators I’d hired as contractors to do work for me. So I had a wonderful network, and an incredibly supportive network. There's a couple there that used to receive phone calls every night after I finish my day going, “I think this is wrong. And what do you would you do about that?” That network was absolutely crucial.Leanne: Looking back at starting a business, would you do anything a bit differently?Nikki: As mentioned before, you can't know everything when you take the leap of faith to do something. You've got a bit of knowledge about what you're doing. At the end of the day, I knew a lot about adult education, and I knew a lot about how to manage clients. I knew a lot about how you know, people would come to the training when I was a manager and say, “Look we think we need these, and this is the reason why”. I was already quite good at being able to interpret concerns, and put them into practical ways of moving forward.So it took a lot to the table from my experience. But you know registering businesses, organising GST etc when I had a mortgage and a kid in a private school. So you’re really juggling that. One moment I'm developing, the next moment I’m presenting, the next moment I’m invoicing then I'm having to follow up; juggling all of it. It was a huge learning curve. Yeah, so having a good accountant would be believe it or not right up there. And if I had to have a second one, it would be have a great network. Sometimes it's just nice to have a sounding board.Leanne: Will definitely put those two recommendations in our show notes for this episode. Where can people find you?Nikki: www.corporatelearningpartners.com.au has all the details. Plus a little bit about what we do, the tops companies we work for, and the work that we've done in the past.Leanne: Absolutely recommend Nikki, and her team. They do a stellar job in delivering anything that you've got.. So Nikki, thank you so much for coming on the ‘First Time Facilitator Podcast’. I've definitely learnt an awful lot to up my facilitation game. And I've already had some great feedback from you over the last year and a half. So thank you for that.Nikki: Thank you Leanne for the opportunity.