Episode 146: Workshop Design in the Moment (and from your back pocket) with Meg Bolger
Meg Bolger is a facilitator working to create a more beautiful and just world. She's the co-developer of Facilitator Cards, a deck of 60 processing tools for facilitators. Meg is also the co-author of Unlocking the Magic of Facilitation and the co-creator of The Safe Zone Project, a free online resource for creating powerful, effective LGBTQ+ awareness and training workshops.
I spend TOO many time designing workshops, making sure every activity, every piece of content is fit for purpose!
Wouldn't it be great if planning a workshop was as easy as shuffling some cards around?
Today's guest thought so, too!
In this conversation, we talk about how Meg found her feet in facilitation, how she became clever at structuring her facilitation activities and process, and how she can pretty much, create a workshop from thin air, using a cool tactical tool - her deck of Facilitator Cards.
We also explore the role of facilitator: How we can often wear many hats, and how it’s important to differentiate between educator, trainer, process facilitator.
Close to the end of the conversation, Mel also shares a really cool metaphorical question she asks participants in her virtual sessions, so stick around for that!
About our guest: Meg Bolger
Meg Bolger is a facilitator working to create a more beautiful and just world. She's the co-developer of Facilitator Cards, a deck of 60 processing tools for facilitators. Meg is also the co-author of Unlocking the Magic of Facilitation and the co-creator of The Safe Zone Project, a free online resource for creating powerful, effective LGBTQ+ awareness and training workshops.
Meg lives in Tacoma, WA with her partner where she can be making overly elaborate food, going on long walks, and badly playing guitar.
Learn more about Meg's current work at Facilitator.Cards and all of her projects at MegBolger.com.
In this episode you will learn:
Process of developing facilitation skills
Designing your workshop using facilitator cards
Preparing for a facilitation event through mind mapping
How to deal with a facilitation topic with which you have strong opinion about
Learning from mistakes as a facilitator
Questions Leanne asked Meg during the interview:
Did you always want to be a facilitator? How did you discover the work?
How did you build your own facilitation skills?
How did your book come to be?
Why do you think using something tangible like cards is such a useful idea? And what’s on your card that really inspires conversation?
How do you prepare for a big facilitation event?
Have you ever facilitated a workshop where you have a very strong opinion which makes the role of facilitator / remaining unbiased, difficult?
What advice would you give a first time facilitator?
Resources mentioned
Visit Meg Bolger website
Quotes from the episode:
“I’m learning by making mistakes in front of people.”
What you think you think are goals on paper as learning outcomes, are not good enough to develop facilitation from.”
Watch the video!
About your host: Leanne Hughes
Leanne Hughes is an international facilitator, speaker and coach who loves creating unpredictable workshop experiences, that predictably work.
She combines her experience in Marketing, with her education in Human Resources and Psychology, to help leaders create engaging everyday experiences - that are so contagious they scale across teams, functions and regions.
Leanne has facilitated leadership, onboarding and team-development workshops across Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development. She has over 13 years’ of experience across a range of industries including mining, government and tourism sectors.
She’s the host of the First Time Facilitator podcast and was a finalist in the 2018 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Tweet Leanne your number one takeaway from this episode!
Grab my cheat sheet:
The 5 unpredictable ways to start a Zoom meeting (that predictably work)
Episode 145: Activate your attention: How to prime your natural listening and observation skills for meaningful and rich conversations with Marisa Agrasut
As a practitioner, facilitator and enabler, for the last 18 years, Marisa has been working with teams helping them understand, apply and leverage tools, frameworks and methodologies to optimise value creation. From consulting to co-creating, working with Fortune 500 companies to national ministries and non/not-just-for-profits.
This podcast is all about experimenting into the future! In today’s episode, I draw an activity extract out from a recent Virtually Possible 2.0 call, where i was joined by Marisa Agrasut and Joeri Schilders.
In this conversation, Marisa shares a virtual session she developed called: Activate your attention; how to prime your natural listening and observation skills for meaningful and rich conversations.
I’m sharing this as an episode on the show for two reasons:
Listen to the activity she delivers and consider how you could weave it into an upcoming session and
As part of the activity, Marisa and I reflect on 5 amazing facilitator prompts, which may inspire ideas on how you define the value you bring in your work as a facilitator.
Questions for Facilitators:
How do you normally describe yourself?
What value do you describe you bring?
Is what we do a specialised skill?
Should we be ‘licensed’ or held to an ethical code?
What could be done to improve our professional practice?
Exercises done during the interview:
Group discussion about facilitation
Listening activity
Providing feedback about the topics discussed
About our co-hosts:
Marisa Agrasut
As a practitioner, facilitator and enabler, for the last 18 years, Marisa has been working with teams helping them understand, apply and leverage tools, frameworks and methodologies to optimise value creation. From consulting to co-creating, working with Fortune 500 companies to national ministries and non/not-just-for-profits.
During the 2009 Asian economic crisis Marisa embarked on her first - people, planet, profit business model venture, at that time - challenging the negative perception of plant-based diets; enabling reduced-carbon and responsible consumption through a (then) pioneering circularity, systems-thinking, and purpose-led business.
In 2016 she co-founded The Inceptery - working at the edge of conventional boundaries and assumptions, challenging notions of success in our current paradigm, helping future oriented companies embed and further the business resilience imperative into their organisations.
Over the years her practice has evolved primarily from leading creative/value creation processes internally in consultancies for and with clients, to focussing now on the externalisation of cross functional working practices, embedding innovation capability into teams that she works with.
A graduate in Strategic Design Management, she harbours a lifetime fascination with the limitless power of intentionality - meeting at the intersect of where we sense-make, gain insight, find needs, opportunities and originate ideas; to bring about new consciousness, solutions, businesses and technology to improve human-planetary conditions profitably.
Possessing the ‘ambidexterity’ so necessary for this practice she also spends time guiding, coaching and challenging teams, facilitating global innovation labs as well as continues to lead and participate in such initiatives herself.
Find Marisa at The Inceptary or connect with The Inceptary on LinkedIn.
After having lived abroad (US, UK, China and now Singapore) for almost half his life, Joeri set up The Magic Sauce in Singapore in 2013 and facilitates meaty innovation projects.
Joeri Schilders
Over the past decade and a bit, Joeri has worked on 100+ innovation projects for some of the top companies in the world.
Anything from new product development across Asian emerging markets, digitising traditional manufacturing in Europe, to building systemic innovation cultures around the globe.
On top of that, Joeri runs a YouTube channel called ‘The Magic Sauce’ and is the host of ‘The Rebel Rulez Podcast’ which celebrates rebels, rule breakers and sh*t stirrers.
He is fluent in Mandarin, owns over 100 sunglasses (don’t ask) and loves bringing his cats - Baz and Bex into his creative videos.
Resources:
Joeri “The Magic Sauce” Schilders
Check out The Magic Sauce YouTube channel - it’s so good!! You’ll love it.
Visit The Magic Sauce website
Connect with Joeri on Linkedin
Marisa
Check out Marissa’s website The Inceptery
Connect with Marissa on Linkedin
Like The Inceptery Facebook Page
Watch the Video!
About your host: Leanne Hughes
Leanne Hughes is an international facilitator, speaker and coach who loves creating unpredictable workshop experiences, that predictably work.
She combines her experience in Marketing, with her education in Human Resources and Psychology, to help leaders create engaging everyday experiences - that are so contagious they scale across teams, functions and regions.
Leanne has facilitated leadership, onboarding and team-development workshops across Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development. She has over 13 years’ of experience across a range of industries including mining, government and tourism sectors.
She’s the host of the First Time Facilitator podcast and was a finalist in the 2018 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Tweet Leanne your number one takeaway from this episode!
Grab my cheat sheet:
The 5 unpredictable ways to start a Zoom meeting (that predictably work)
Episode 144: Discovering your facilitation home base with Jordan Mendoza
Jordan Mednoza is a sales & training professional with over 25 years experience in sales & marketing and 14 years experience in the Multi-Family Housing industry. In this episode Leanne and Jordan talk about finding your facilitation home base and inspiring people to take action.
Having a home base as a facilitator. A metaphorical place in your workshop room, where you can reset. What's not to love about that idea?
This week on the show I’m chatting to Jordan Mendoza. The best advice Jordan was given when he was a First Time Facilitator, was about discovering that home base: A place where you can reset/centre yourself during a workshop.
I met Jordan Mendoza through previous podcast guest, Andy Storch on a group Zoom call and decided then and there, that I needed to speak to him on the show!
Jordan is sales & training professional with over 25 years experience in sales & marketing and 14 years experience in the Multi-Family Housing industry. He’s also the Host of the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast, he’s never lost a freestyle rap battle in his life, and he’s a breakdancer.
Over the last year, he’s amassed a following fo over 60,000 people on LinkedIn.
In this episode, he shares a tough experience that helped him develop his facilitation skills very quickly, how he’s helped his team make sales virtually and of course, how he built up his following on social media.
About today’s guest: Jordan Mendoza
Jordan is a sales & training professional with over 25 years experience in sales & marketing and 14 years experience in the Multi-Family Housing industry.
After B2B sales for many years he spent 6 years on-site at various apartment communities and roles, gaining a passion for helping others learn and decided to pursue a role where he could share what he has learned through the years.
He is now in his 8th year as a Training & Development Manager, and has the privilege of doing public speaking engagements, creating training content, videography & post production, facilitating local and regional classes, consulting with multiple departments to collaborate on projects in addition to teaching a 6 month Leadership Program that rotates from Metropolitan D.C. to Atlanta each year.
The Leadership program helps people discover their Myers-Briggs 4 letter type, takes them from self-awareness to coming up with their personal Leadership philosophy and finally they work with a team on a business challenge to solve an organizational pain point.
It has afforded him the ability to coach associates in different markets each year and help them discover who they are through self evaluation, in class simulations, and stepping out of their comfort zones.
In this episode you will learn:
How to use powerful open ended questions to inspire people to take action.
Strategies to maximise sales, in the virtual world
How to build relationships with your audience through conversation
Strategies to share content that you have expertise in
How to add value to the conversation with your audience
Here are some questions I asked Jordan during the interview:
What are some of the things you learned from being a facilitator or being a trainer?
What are the important things to remember to communicate a message and inspire people to take action?
What is your story as a first time facilitator?
How can we build trust quickly in a virtual environment?
How do you balance working in a company and doing something on the side?
How do you let yourself be ‘in the zone' to deliver workshops, sales calls, etc?
Are there any fun activities or icebreakers you use that are so reliable and get so much response?
Resources:
Connect with Jordan on Linkedin
Follow Jordan on Instagram
Listen to Blaze Your Own Trail with Jordan Mendoza
Watch the video!
About your host: Leanne Hughes
Leanne Hughes is an international facilitator, speaker and coach who loves creating unpredictable workshop experiences, that predictably work.
She combines her experience in Marketing, with her education in Human Resources and Psychology, to help leaders create engaging everyday experiences - that are so contagious they scale across teams, functions and regions.
Leanne has facilitated leadership, onboarding and team-development workshops across Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development. She has over 13 years’ of experience across a range of industries including mining, government and tourism sectors.
She’s the host of the First Time Facilitator podcast and was a finalist in the 2018 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Tweet Leanne your number one takeaway from this episode!
Grab my cheat sheet:
The 5 unpredictable ways to start a Zoom meeting (that predictably work)
Episode 143: How to deliver hybrid workshops (sessions with both in-person and virtual participants) with Leanne Hughes
How do you deliver engaging workshops when 50% of your participants are in-person at your event, and the other 50% are dialling in? Leanne Hughes shares her responses, and answers other listener questions in this live-stream, podcast recording!
In this Flipchart live-stream event, I answer the following three questions:
How do you embed leadership workshop material through coaching sessions held after your workshop?
How do you facilitate a hybrid workshop, where you have guests in-person, and guests who dial in?
How do you say goodbye and end your virtual workshop, without it being too awkward?
Build your facilitation skills:
Join The Flipchart, a Facebook community of over 1000 facilitators from all over the world
Sign up to Virtually Possible 2.0 - registrations close 22 Oct 2020!
Watch our free mini-series: From Zoomtigue to Zoomtastic
Watch the video!
About your host: Leanne Hughes
Leanne Hughes is an international facilitator, speaker and coach who loves creating unpredictable workshop experiences, that predictably work.
She combines her experience in Marketing, with her education in Human Resources and Psychology, to help leaders create engaging everyday experiences - that are so contagious they scale across teams, functions and regions.
Leanne has facilitated leadership, onboarding and team-development workshops across Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development. She has over 13 years’ of experience across a range of industries including mining, government and tourism sectors.
She’s the host of the First Time Facilitator podcast and was a finalist in the 2018 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Tweet Leanne your number one takeaway from this episode!
Grab my cheat sheet:
The 5 unpredictable ways to start a Zoom meeting (that predictably work)
Episode 142: Curing decision-making disorders through the craft of consulting with Deb Zahn
Deb Zahn is a sought-after consultant with 10 years of successful consulting under her belt. As a go-to source in her market, she routinely brings in 6- and 7-figures a year and has built a steady, reliable pipeline of work. Her consulting methods turn her clients into her biggest fans and best marketers. They come back to her again and again and continually send her new clients.
As you know, this pod is a little different to other facilitation/learning/trainings podcasts, in that it doesn’t just focus on the craft. I enjoy sharing ideas and conversations around the business of facilitation.
I know many listeners who are exploring or tossing up the opportunity of going out on your own - of being your own boss.
As I’m 18 months into my own journey, I always love the opportunity to discuss what it takes to do that, to build and maintain your sanity! Today’s guest is an absolute rock-star when it comes to this, too - so if you’re into building your own facilitation business, or becoming a consultant, you will love this episode.
About today’s guest: Deb Zahn
Deb Zahn is a sought-after consultant with 10 years of successful consulting under her belt. As a go-to source in her market, she routinely brings in 6- and 7-figures a year and has built a steady, reliable pipeline of work. Her consulting methods turn her clients into her biggest fans and best marketers. They come back to her again and again and continually send her new clients.
As a consultant, Deb is especially known for her ability to cure “decision-making disorders” with individuals and groups. She also has earned a reputation as “The Closer,” the consultant who can get high-value contracts with hard-to-get clients. Over the last decade, she has coached countless new consultants and helped them fast track their success. Recently, Deb helped a new consultant get their first contract—worth over $100,000—only three weeks after Deb started coaching them.
She is the host of the Craft of Consulting podcast, which features other successful consultants who share their strategies and insights about building their consulting businesses and delighting their clients as well as consulting clients who share what makes some consultants rise to the top of their hire list.
In this episode you will learn how to:
Define your value to help your clients achieve the results they want
Develop the skill of pivoting conversations to explore outcomes
Focusing on value, not price
Creating boundaries to create work-life balance
Explore opportunities as a facilitator/consultant during COVID
Here are some sample questions I asked Deb:
How did you develop the skill of pivoting language?
How do you help people pick their niche?
How do you create boundaries and create work life balance?
How did you develop your communication skills?
What are your thoughts about creating handles on Instagram?
Resources:
Quotes:
“Excellence is how you build a business.”
“If you make that switch to really being of service to who you want to serve, then everything gets easier.”
Build your facilitation skills:
Join The Flipchart, a Facebook community of over 1000 facilitators from all over the world
Sign up for a free mini-course: From Zoomtigue to Zoomtastic!
Watch the video!
About your host: Leanne Hughes
Leanne Hughes is an international facilitator, speaker and coach who loves creating unpredictable workshop experiences, that predictably work.
She combines her experience in Marketing, with her education in Human Resources and Psychology, to help leaders create engaging everyday experiences - that are so contagious they scale across teams, functions and regions.
Leanne has facilitated leadership, onboarding and team-development workshops across Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development. She has over 13 years’ of experience across a range of industries including mining, government and tourism sectors.
She’s the host of the First Time Facilitator podcast and was a finalist in the 2018 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Tweet Leanne your number one takeaway from this episode!
Grab my cheat sheet:
The 5 unpredictable ways to start a Zoom meeting (that predictably work)
Episode 141: Getting you further, faster in career (and in life) with Warren James
Warren James is a Brisbane-based coach and mentor providing online mentoring, coaching and training to some of Australia’s most talented graduates and employees early in their careers.
Today, as the founder of Rapid Mentoring, he partners with businesses across Australia who are genuinely interested in the development of their staff. For the manager who cares, they give your employees the resources they need to take their career and life further, faster.
We’re switching gears and I’m talking to my good friend, Warren James about LIFE stuff. Okay and a bit of work stuff, including developing our careers and performance reviews
BUT we also delve into sleep, switching off, clarifying your vision, and dealing with stress.
Warren is a Brisbane-based coach and mentor providing online mentoring, coaching and training to some of Australia’s most talented graduates and employees early in their careers.
Check out Warren’s new book: Further Faster!
He also released his first book this week called: Further Faster: The ultimate guide to accelerating your career
Warren has developed his career from the ground-up and has worked with some of the most respected businesses in the industry including BG Group, Shell, QGC, Alinta and Arrow Energy.
As an engineer and later, a project manager, he has faced and overcame challenges that many projects managers face. He has managed projects in excess of $50M, overcome competing deadlines and overcome adversity time and time again.
Having lived and breathed this industry for more than 10 years, he understands what today’s graduates need to not only survive but thrive.
Today, as the founder of Rapid Mentoring, he partners with businesses across Australia who are genuinely interested in the development of their staff.
About today’s guest: Warren James
Warren James is a Brisbane-based coach and mentor providing online mentoring, coaching and training to some of Australia’s most talented graduates and employees early in their careers.
He has developed his career from the ground-up and has worked with some of the most respected businesses in the industry including BG Group, Shell, QGC, Alinta and Arrow Energy.
As an engineer and later, a project manager, he has faced and overcame challenges that many projects managers face. He has managed projects in excess of $50M, overcome competing deadlines and overcome adversity time and time again.
Having lived and breathed this industry for more than 10 years, he understands what today’s graduates need to not only survive but thrive.
Today, as the founder of Rapid Mentoring, he partners with businesses across Australia who are genuinely interested in the development of their staff. For the manager who cares, they give your employees the resources they need to take their career and life further, faster.
In this episode you will learn:
Handling stress, feeling of overwhelm and exhaustion from work
How to get started writing a book
How personal life, career goals, bucket list and finances are important in accelerating your career
Creating balance by planning ahead and creating a vision
Switching off, sleeping better
How to accelerate your career during ing career Covid
Here are some questions I asked Warren during the interview:
Can you please share some pivots, watershed moments in your career that brought you to what you’re doing today?
You mentioned that you were stressed and burnt out, and at the end of that project you took four months off, what was going through your mind when you were in the middle of that feeling overwhelmed, you must have been exhausted?
Is there anything that we could do if you’re caught in the middle of it, reflecting on this experience, if you could give yourself advice, what could you have done to mitigate it?
What were the first steps you took to get you into writing the book?
Can you share why four pillars (personal life, career goals, bucket list and finances) are so important in accelerating your career?
Tell us your strategy about annual performance reviews.
What advice can you give to people who want to accelerate their career especially during this time of Covid?
You’ve transitioned from accelerating your career to accelerating your business, how did you find that shift?
Resources:
Connect with Warren James on Linkedin
Rapid Mentoring website
Warren’s new book: Further Faster: The Ultimate Guide to Accelerating Your Career
Get on the waitlist for Virtually Possible 2.0!
Quotes:
It’s so much more professional to tell people “No!” earlier, than letting them down later down the track.
It’s important to look at your bucket list and the things that you really want to do, enjoy life as much as you can through the process.
Watch the video!
About your host: Leanne Hughes
Leanne Hughes is an international facilitator, speaker and coach who loves creating unpredictable workshop experiences, that predictably work.
She combines her experience in Marketing, with her education in Human Resources and Psychology, to help leaders create engaging everyday experiences - that are so contagious they scale across teams, functions and regions.
Leanne has facilitated leadership, onboarding and team-development workshops across Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development. She has over 13 years’ of experience across a range of industries including mining, government and tourism sectors.
She’s the host of the First Time Facilitator podcast and was a finalist in the 2018 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Tweet Leanne your number one takeaway from this episode!
Grab my cheat sheet:
The 5 unpredictable ways to start a Zoom meeting (that predictably work)
Episode 140: Ready, Fire, Aim: Co-facilitator reflections from Virtually Possible with Joeri Schilders
Welcome to the coolest virtual facilitation program. Made by facilitators for facilitators, you'll get the tools, skills and confidence to take your virtual facilitation game to the next level.
It’s always fun to deliver a project but as we all know as facilitators, many of the lessons learned are discovered in the reflection!
Joeri and I met a few months ago and in space of a few weeks, created a concept for a project, launched it, welcomed members in, created the program and delivered it.
In this episode, Joeri and I debrief the first, online collaboration project we delivered together called Virtually Possible. We debrief:
Benefits and advantages of co-facilitation
Process of building, creating the Virtually Possible facilitation program
Virtually Possible platform - the channels, activities, and fun challenges
SIFT - Stuff up, Insights, First times and Transformation
Virtually Possible 2.0
Join the waitlist!
Watch the video!
About your host: Leanne Hughes
Leanne Hughes is an international facilitator, speaker and coach who loves creating unpredictable workshop experiences, that predictably work.
She combines her experience in Marketing, with her education in Human Resources and Psychology, to help leaders create engaging everyday experiences - that are so contagious they scale across teams, functions and regions.
Leanne has facilitated leadership, onboarding and team-development workshops across Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development. She has over 13 years’ of experience across a range of industries including mining, government and tourism sectors.
She’s the host of the First Time Facilitator podcast and was a finalist in the 2018 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.
About her co-facilitator: Joeri Schilders
After having lived in the US, UK and China for almost half his life, Joeri set up The Magic Sauce in Singapore in 2013. Over the past decade and a bit, he has worked on numerous challenges spanning from new product development across Asian emerging markets, digitising traditional manufacturing in Europe, to building systemic innovation cultures around the globe.
He has been in Asia for more than 20 years and spends most of my time designing and facilitating innovation & co-creation.
Joeri did not go to the University of Innovation.
Instead he brings real stories, tough lessons, tools and tricks learned from running over 100 big and small innovation projects over the past decade, working with some of the coolest industries and businesses. He has the battle scars to show.
In 2013, he set up The Magic Sauce in Singapore with the aim to demystify innovation and creativity for global clients through facilitation, speaking and content creation.
He has an effusive passion for the work he does and always brings tons of energy, a pragmatic approach and fresh inspiration.
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Tweet Leanne your number one takeaway from this episode!
Grab my cheat sheet:
The 5 unpredictable ways to start a Zoom meeting (that predictably work)
Episode 139: Activating your strengths to facilitate results in workshops (and in business) with Charlotte Blair
Charlotte works with Individuals, Managers and Teams to work to specific outcomes that can be measured. She helps organisations become Strengths based.
She has been a Gallup Accredited Coach and ICF Coach for over 6 years and is one of Australia's most experienced Coach and Facilitators using Gallup CliftonStrengths Assessment.
She is also a Learning Republic Revolutionary using 'Issues Based' coaching and Leadership development to get a better return on investment for Learning programs to create lasting impact.
Today, I’m chatting to someone who also shares my love for the Clifton Strengths tool (although in fairness, I think her love for it is 10x mine!).
It’s all well and good to find a tool you love, that echoes back what you think + feel about yourself but more importantly? It’s what you do with it that matters!
Today’s guest, Charlotte Blair from The Strengths Partners shares how we can apply and activate our strengths across various contexts: In the way we facilitate, the way we show up to strengthen our network, how we build our business, and how we apply what we learn.
Charlotte has a passion for helping others maximise their potential. She’s a a highly experienced Gallup-Strengths Certified Coach, consultant and facilitator with over 20 years proven success managing relationships and developing business in highly complex sales environments.
At the end of our conversation, she also shares her favourite workshop activities that you could pretty much design a workshop from, they cover all the key elements!
What I admire about Charlotte is the way she demonstrates her love for connecting, serving and helping others.
About our Guest: Charlotte Blair
Charlotte works with Individuals, Managers and Teams to work to specific outcomes that can be measured. She helps organisations become Strengths based.
Her energy is contagious, her ideas innovative, her spontaneity refreshing and her vision clear, simple and connected to business outcomes. Charlotte’s areas of expertise include Employee Engagement, Speaking up and Leadership with an emphasis on Change. Charlotte has worked with a broad range of clients from Entrepreneurs to Multi Nationals across a wide range of industries including IT, Financial Services, Government, Non for profit and Professional Services.
Some of the companies she has worked with include SEEK, Nab, Mercer, Telstra, NGS Super, TAC, Hologic, Orica, Victoria University. She has been a Gallup Accredited Coach and ICF Coach for over 6 years and is one of Australia's most experienced Coach and Facilitators using Gallup CliftonStrengths Assessment.
She is also a Learning Republic Revolutionary using 'Issues Based' coaching and Leadership development to get a better return on investment for Learning programs to create lasting impact.
In this episode you will learn:
How to use your strengths in your facilitation/workshops
Tips in building your facilitation business by using your strengths to build your network
How to make people take action when the workshop is over
Providing value to people during transition to virtual facilitation
Discovering your intention for your career
Questions Leanne asked Charlotte during the interview:
Let’s talk about your experience with strengths and how that’s played out with your facilitation work and how you deliver? Also can you share what your five strengths are and how you used them in your workshops?
What tips and advice can you offer coaches who just got their accreditation?
How do you bottle up the energy in that workshop and how do you enable people to take action when the workshop is over
How’s your process of transition from face to face workshop to virtual workshop?
What are the ways of discovering or clarifying what our intentions are for our career?
Do you have a favorite activity or energizer that you use to ramp up the energy or connect people during a workshop?
Resources:
Quotes:
“When we discover our skills, we have to be more intentional about using them in building our network.”
“The significance of wanting to make a difference drives me to help others.”
“If I can help other coaches, I’m helping more people discover their strength around the world.”
Watch the video!
About your host: Leanne Hughes
Leanne Hughes is an international facilitator, speaker and coach who loves creating unpredictable workshop experiences, that predictably work.
She combines her experience in Marketing, with her education in Human Resources and Psychology, to help leaders create engaging everyday experiences - that are so contagious they scale across teams, functions and regions.
Leanne has facilitated leadership, onboarding and team-development workshops across Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development. She has over 13 years’ of experience across a range of industries including mining, government and tourism sectors.
She’s the host of the First Time Facilitator podcast and was a finalist in the 2018 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Tweet Leanne your number one takeaway from this episode!
Grab my cheat sheet:
The 5 unpredictable ways to start a Zoom meeting (that predictably work)
Episode 138: There's no such thing as a difficult group - only an inflexible facilitator with Marcus Crow
Marcus Crow is the co-founder of 10,000 HOURS. They design and deliver content for Training, Conferences and Offsites. And they have been honing their craft for more than 20 years. Prior to starting 10,000 Hours, he co-founded, built and sold Phuel / Oxygen Learning to John Singleton's STW (now WPP).
We’ve been delivering in-person workshops for years. We’re comfortable. Give us a marker pen, some butcher’s paper and some decent catering: We’re good to go!
When Covid hit earlier this year, many of us had to shift gears and deliver workshops online. We had to adjust to new technology, new ways of experiencing workshops, a range of energy levels. We all started feeling like First Time Facilitators!
That’s the conversation I have with today’s guest, Marcus Crow.
Marcus has an insane amount of in-person workshop experience. He’s also the co-founder of 10,000 HOURS. They design and deliver content for Training, Conferences and Offsites, and they have been honing their craft for more than 20 years. Prior to starting 10,000 Hours, he co-founded, built and sold Phuel / Oxygen Learning to John Singleton's STW (now WPP).
Since 1997, clients hire Marcus to do three things:
(1) be their keynote speaker, (2) provide strong facilitation for their high-stakes meetings and off-sites, (3) teach their team new skills.
He works at the front of the room at their conferences, meetings, road-shows, team off-sites, town-halls and team huddles.
Marcus’ Experience:
As a guy standing at the front of the room: Keynote speeches, high-stakes facilitation, workshops, offsites, conference hosting for market leading organisations across industry. Thousands of sessions to tens of thousands of people over more than twenty-two years.
As an advisor: Meeting architecture, building conference agendas, configuring strategy offsite objectives and outcomes, constructing workshop activities, designing plenary and small group sessions, rehearsing senior talent for high-stakes presentations.
As an entrepreneur: Start-ups, mergers, capital raising, staff retention equity plans, trademark disputes, grooming business for sale, succession-planning, talent management, acquisitions, IP licensing.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
What it takes to adapt a face to face workshop, and move it online
How you can build your flexibility muscles as a facilitator
What to do when you encounter resistance from someone in your workshop
Good tips for timing for your virtual sessions
Key considerations if you’re thinking of dropping your job and starting your facilitation business
Here are some questions I asked Marcus during the interview:
What’s the difference in your preparation between being a keynote speaker and as a facilitator? What’s your approach?
What did you learn that’s different, new and challenging for you, that pushed you out of your comfort zone?
How do you feel about being forced to transition to the online facilitation world?
How are you converting face to face to virtual workshops in terms of timing, pre and post sessions?
What would be your advice for people who would like to start their own facilitation business?
Resources mentioned on this show:
Connect with Marcus Crow on Linkedin
Join the conversation when the podcast is over in our free Facebook group called The Flipchart
Get on the waitlist for Virtually Possible 2.0!
Quotes:
“We need a brand that’s going to recognize wisdom as we get older.”
“There’s no such thing as a difficult group, there's only a flexible facilitator.”
Watch the video!
About your host: Leanne Hughes
Leanne Hughes is an international facilitator, speaker and coach who loves creating unpredictable workshop experiences, that predictably work.
She combines her experience in Marketing, with her education in Human Resources and Psychology, to help leaders create engaging everyday experiences - that are so contagious they scale across teams, functions and regions.
Leanne has facilitated leadership, onboarding and team-development workshops across Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development. She has over 13 years’ of experience across a range of industries including mining, government and tourism sectors.
She’s the host of the First Time Facilitator podcast and was a finalist in the 2018 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Tweet Leanne your number one takeaway from this episode!
Grab my cheat sheet:
The 5 unpredictable ways to start a Zoom meeting (that predictably work)
Episode 136: How to use body language to increase participation in your virtual workshops with Mark Bowden
Voted the #1 Body Language Professional in the world for two years running, Mark Bowden is passionate about giving your audience the most influential and persuasive communication techniques to stand out, win trust, and gain credibility every time they speak. Inspiring, energetic, engaging, and entirely entertaining, Mark’s memorable talks and training programs not only educate but have proven life-changing in helping people and organizations grow across all industries and sectors.
Mark Bowden is back!
It sounds weird to say this: But this guy makes you feel at home when you chat to him. Yes, I know we’re all at home already — he’s curious, he uses your name when he talks to you, he asks questions, he nods, he does all the things to make you feel safe and ready to contribute.
I spoke to Mark in Episode 102 of the First Time Facilitator podcast, and it’s the #1 most downloaded episode of all time! Last time we spoke, we discussed body language tips for real world workshop facilitation.
It’s funny what changes in less than a year! Or in our case, in 30 episodes.
So, I brought Mark back on the show, to share how we can use our body language to create engagement and connections quickly, in the virtual world.
The answer is more reassuring than you think.
From my perspective - he’s been there, done that but my favourite thing about Mark is how funny, down to earth and comfortable he is to be around.
With our Virtually Possible community opening last week, I also decided to hand over the microphone to the group, and let them ask Mark some questions.
A big thanks to those from VP who joined live and felt comfortable coming off mute to ask Mark a question, you kept the fabulous group interview going, I salute you!
About our Guest: Mark Bowden
Voted the #1 Body Language Professional in the world for two years running, Mark Bowden is passionate about giving your audience the most influential and persuasive communication techniques to stand out, win trust, and gain credibility every time they speak. Inspiring, energetic, engaging, and entirely entertaining, Mark’s memorable talks and training programs not only educate but have proven life-changing in helping people and organizations grow across all industries and sectors.
Mark’s work is consistently invaluable to sales and leadership teams, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and prime ministers of G7 powers. His highly acclaimed TEDx talk has reached millions of people, and he has presented to many of the biggest, coolest, and most innovative organizations in the world, including Shopify, Dell, Viacom, RBC, Fidelity, Amex, Unilever, Daimler, Microsoft, Toyota, VW, Samsung, KPMG, GSK, Walmart, Nestle, and even Real Madrid.
In this episode you will learn:
How to lead the behaviour in a virtual session using your body language, and positive affirmations to create that safe space
Techniques to ramp up your energy by using different camera angles and positions (think, scene changes)
How camera angles affect intimacy of conversation during virtual sessions
How our primitive brain works in a virtual environment and how to best utilise it
The difference between why people are engaged or disengaged in a virtual meeting
Questions asked in this show include:
It is difficult to read the body language in a virtual session, what can we do to compensate for that?
How much do we need to ramp up our gestures and body language in front of a webcam?
What’s your view on standing up or sitting down in a virtual session?
How does the primitive brain work in a virtual environment and to best utilise it?
What can you do to establish a really strong connection or rapport quickly?
Where do you think the future of technology used in virtual facilitation is going?
Resources:
Watch the video! Leanne Hughes along with the Virtually Possible community chat to Mark Bowden
About your host: Leanne Hughes
Leanne Hughes is an international facilitator, speaker and coach who loves creating unpredictable workshop experiences, that predictably work.
She combines her experience in Marketing, with her education in Human Resources and Psychology, to help leaders create engaging everyday experiences - that are so contagious they scale across teams, functions and regions.
Leanne has facilitated leadership, onboarding and team-development workshops across Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development. She has over 13 years’ of experience across a range of industries including mining, government and tourism sectors.
She’s the host of the First Time Facilitator podcast and was a finalist in the 2018 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Tweet Leanne your number one takeaway from this episode!
Grab my cheat sheet:
The 5 unpredictable ways to start a Zoom meeting (that predictably work)