Episode 11: Losing your voice when delivering a workshop? You’re doing it wrong with Emmanuella Grace
In this First Time Facilitator episode, Emmanuella Grace from Find Your Voice Australia explains what your voice is telling people. After running full-day workshops, she shares her ideas on preventing voice loss, and the fundamental things you can do to look after your voice. We explore longer-term approaches to creating stronger voice presence, which involves exploring your mindset.
In this First Time Facilitator episode, Emmanuella Grace from Find Your Voice Australia explains what your voice is telling people. After running full-day workshops, she shares her ideas on preventing voice loss, and the fundamental things you can do to look after your voice. We explore longer-term approaches to creating stronger voice presence, which involves exploring your mindset.
In this episode you’ll learn
How to look after the instrument that matters the most in your facilitation
What to do when the adrenaline is high before a big presentation (and how to avoid your vocal chords from closing over)
The secret of the three second pause and how you can use it at your next meeting
Why you need to talk out loud before preparing for a workshop (rather than just reading your notes)
Why you hate hearing your voice when it’s played back to you
About our guest
Emmanuella is the founder of Find Your Voice, a vocal training organisation of voice and performance experts dedicated to training people from all walks of life to master their voice and give strong performances. With almost 2 decades of performance and coaching experience in Australia, the UK, Europe and the USA Emmanuella Grace has helped 1000’s of people overcome the obstacles that limit their performances.
Resources
Read the First Time Facilitator episode transcript with Emmanuella Grace.
Episode 10: Keeping workshop content fresh after 25 years (and how I was inspired by a flamenco dancing facilitator) with Scott Amy
In Episode 10 of the First Time Facilitator podcast, Scott Amy from the Pacific Institute shares his secrets on Socratic facilitation and how he was inspired by a faciltator who incorporated flamenco dancing in his workshop.
In Episode 10 of the First Time Facilitator podcast, Scott Amy from the Pacific Institute shares his secrets on Socratic facilitation and how he was inspired by a faciltator who incorporated flamenco dancing in his workshop.
In this episode you’ll learn
Why seeing a strong facilitator (who used a style of flamenco dancing in his workshops) inspired Scott to leave the Defence force
How he’s run the same workshop for 25 years and how he keeps it energised/content fresh
How facilitators need confidence in themselves, ability to grow, desire to grow the org their working with; and their ability to engage people
What Socratic facilitation is all about and how it can help you discover the truth for your participants
Three great questions you can use to implement Socractic facilitation in your next workshop
About our guest
Scott Amy, Manager Client Services with The Pacific Institute has worked extensively in training, facilitating, coaching and project design with clients in many countries around the world, including Singapore, Indonesia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Australia.Working with The Pacific Institute since 1994, he has been involved in many project roles with clients from a very broad cross section of industry, education and community. Working with leadership and executive management levels through to front line operations staff, professional educators, students and community development resources, has provided him with valuable experience into how people think and behave in situations of change and leadership.With a strong background in training and training design, his skills in communication, allow him to reach all levels of an organisation and teams providing maximum outcomes. Combined with his Socratic approach to facilitation, which encourages participants to find their own solutions by working through options and applying information, Scott is one of The Pacific Institute’s most requested resources.Scott has been a student of leadership, and its effects for many years, and with a Defence Force background in training and education, has used these experiences as a basis for his continuing studies in Effective Leadership.He has played a major role in developing people and organisations with clients such as: Coca Cola, Snowy Hydro Limited, AMP Insurance, Queensland Education Department, Television Corporation of Singapore, Air New Zealand, Fonterra and Rio Tinto
Resources
Video we discussed: Forget big charge, start with a tiny habbit.View the First Time Facilitator episode 10 transcript.
Episode 9: The three minute rule of group facilitation with Cherelle Witney
In this First Time Facilitator podcast episode, facilitator, entrepreneur and inventor Cherelle Witney shares how a diverse career spanning legal, health and tourism has helped her confidently deliver workshops to thousands of participants.
In this First Time Facilitator podcast episode, facilitator, entrepreneur and inventor Cherelle Witney shares how a diverse career spanning legal, health and tourism has helped her confidently deliver workshops to thousands of participants.
In this episode you’ll learn:
How to create a safe environment (hint: It’s all about being yourself)
Why you only have three minutes to create a trusting space with your group
Why it’s important to set ground rules for the workshop
Why you need a Mary Poppins bag full of stuff
The #1 nightmare of all facilitators (and how to manage it)
About our guest
Cherelle Witney is the Founder of LIFT Performance Solutions, Leadership trainer and coach.
She believes that being curious to learn and willing to welcome shared learning keeps us positively energised & connected throughout our work and our life. Her aim is to be a facilitator that inspires her participants with diverse real experience & insights that makes learning practical and fun!
On the Belbin profile she’s a Specialist, Plant, Shaper which means she likes detail, to be up to date with facts, theories and practices. loves ideas, innovative thinking and “what if….” questions.
Over the last 18+ years, her career has included work as a senior manager & leader, internal trainer/facilitator and professional coach in a variety of private and public organisations with 7 years in public health and 6 years in law.
Her facilitation work uses a variety of tools from brainstorming to framing to open space and journey maps to assist strategic planning processes, creation of organisational learning & development plans, effective process improvement pathways and change engagement strategies in organisations of 12 to 1200 people.
Resources
Books:
The Other "F" Word: How Smart Leaders, Teams, and Entrepreneurs Put Failure to Work
Smart Leaders, Smarter Teams: How You and Your Team Get Unstuck to Get Results
Ordinary Meetings DON’T Interest Me!: What is Facilitation? (Creative Group Leadership Book 1)
Transcript
Read the full First Time Facilitator transcript with Cherelle Witney
Episode 8: Storytelling works! (Because no one's ever asked to see a Powerpoint presentation twice)
In this First Time Facilitator episode, internationally bestselling author Matthew Dicks shares why storytelling so important, and how telling stories is not simply sharing a series of events; it’s the manipulation of emotions.
In this First Time Facilitator episode, internationally bestselling author Matthew Dicks shares why storytelling so important, and how telling stories is not simply sharing a series of events; it’s the manipulation of emotions.
It’s a skill that can be taught and he shares some of the techniques he uses to engage his audience, whether they're 10 year old kids, or politicians.
In this episode you’ll learn:
What a story is (and what it isn’t)
The details you should leave in your story and more importantly; the details you can leave out
How you can become more memorable by sharing things that are vulnerable, amusing or embarrassing
That it’s important to assume that no one wants to listen to anything you have to say
How to start collecting your own stories by reflecting on everyday moments
About our guest
Matthew Dicks is the internationally bestselling author of the novels Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend, Something Missing, Unexpectedly, Milo, The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs, and the upcoming Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling. His novels have been translated into more than 25 languages worldwide.
When not hunched over a computer screen, Matthew fills his days as an elementary school teacher, a storyteller, a speaking coach, a blogger, a wedding DJ, a minister, a life coach, and a Lord of Sealand.
Matthew is a 35-time Moth StorySLAM champion and 5-time GrandSLAM champion. He has also told stories for This American Life, TED, The Colin McEnroe Show, The Story Collider, The Liar Show, Literary Death Match, The Mouth, and many others.Heis also the co-founder and creative director of Speak Up, a Hartford-based storytelling organization that produces shows throughout New England.Matthew is the creator and co-host of Boy vs. Girl, a podcast about gender and gender stereotypes.
Resources
Grab his new book! Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling
Video: Life lessons learned while pole vaulting told by Matthew Dicks
Transcript
Read the full First Time Facilitator transcript with Matthew Dicks.
Thoughts on the episode? Share your comments below!
Episode 7: Preparation: It's the security blanket for facilitators with Sue Johnston
In this First Time Facilitator episode, Sue Johnston from the Artemis Group shares practical facilitation advice from an introvert's perspective. She talks about how she ‘accidentally’ wound up as a facilitator after working on strategies to make weekly teleconferences more effective.Sue also emphasises the importance of preparation, and why it’s critical to revisit and communicate the purpose of a workshop.
In this First Time Facilitator episode, Sue Johnston from the Artemis Group shares practical facilitation advice from an introvert's perspective. She talks about how she ‘accidentally’ wound up as a facilitator after working on strategies to make weekly teleconferences more effective.Sue also emphasises the importance of preparation, and why it’s critical to revisit and communicate the purpose of a workshop.
In this episode you’ll learn
An introvert’s perspective on how it takes courage to step up in the room
Why it’s important to ‘call out’ behaviour in the moment and reinforce the purpose of your workshop
Why preparation is critical and how it works as a security blanket, particularly for first time facilitators.
Why you need to bring your authentic self to your facilitation
How to incorporate SCARF, a neuro-leaderhsip tool to engage your participants.
About our guest
Sue Johnston founded Artemis Group in 2000 as a vehicle for her professional services work with clients and entrepreneurial adventures.She’s a registered nurse, public sector advisor, health sector strategist, manager, entrepreneur, and now an advisor, facilitator and leadership coach.
Her clients include public sector organisations, private sector businesses, non-government organisations, and individual leaders and entrepreneurs.She’s a certified Daring Way Facilitator Candidate, a Results Based Coach with The Neuro Leadership Institute and a member of the International Coach Federation.
Resources
Sue's book recommendation: The secrets of facilitation by Michael Wilkinson
Episode 6: We need more mindful leaders (and we need them right now) with Rachel Grace
In this First Time Facilitator episode, we hear from consultant, Rachel Grace, on how she facilitates and leads mindfulness workshops; and coaches people to adapt to the rapid change of modern day work-life and society. Rachel believe the world needs more mindful leaders and they need them right now.The skill of mindfulness isn't only important to our leaders. It's an essential skill for a facilitator to remain present in their training/group workshop environment, and to not think about what's going on in the outside world; or worry about what's ahead. It's about listening, staying focused and tuning in to the non-verbal 'clues' in the room.
In this episode you'll learn
The definition of mindfulness (Tip: It's not about having a blank mind)
Why mindfulness isn't just hippy, fluffy stuff
How you can start gaining the benefits from mindulness after 15 minutes
Why businesses who want to be more agile need to start developing agile minds
Why mindfulness and neuro-agility is a key skill set in navigating a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world
About our guest
Rachel has first class honours degree in psychology and over 10-years experience in researching, understanding and working with individuals and organisations to change human behaviour. She's paired her formal training and work experience in psychology and leadership coaching, with a long stint working on permaculture and commercial organic farms.She has worked with individuals privately and with leaders in organisations from across the public, private, higher education and healthcare sectors. In amongst all of that, she has strung together serious training in meditation and now has 20-years experience on the path, a daily personal practice and the scientific literacy to know that the benefits of mindfulness is not just hippy-fluff. It’s an evidence-based skills with an unbeatable capacity for transforming people, their work and organisational impact.
Resources
Transcript
Click here to view the full First Time Facilitator transcript with Rachel Grace.
Episode 5: How to use humour to deliver x-factor presentations (and laughs) with Andrew Tarvin
In this First Time Facilitator episode, we hear from Humor Engineer, Andrew Tarvin on how he crafts and embeds comedy into his presentations and work life. Andrew provides simple, actionable tips on how to do this; and why it's important to brings laughter into the workplace.
In this First Time Facilitator episode, we hear from Humor Engineer, Andrew Tarvin on how he crafts and embeds comedy into his presentations and work life. Andrew provides simple, actionable tips on how to do this; and why it's important to brings laughter into the workplace.
In this episode you’ll learn:
Simple hacks you can use to add humour in your workplace
Why using humour consistently can change behaviours (people start to perceive meetings differently and creates engagement in the long-term)
How to start introducing humour by trying one or two things with your emails
How Andrew developed and rehearsed his TEDx speech
Why he suggests first time facilitators should take improv classes
About our guest
Andrew Tarvin is the world’s first Humor Engineer, teaching people how to get better results while having more fun. He has worked with thousands of people at 200+ organizations, including P&G, GE, and Microsoft. Combining his background as a project manager at Procter & Gamble with his experience as an international comedian, Andrew’s program are engaging, entertaining, and most important, effective. He is a best-selling author, has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and TEDx, and has delivered programs in 50 states, 18 countries, and 3 continents. He loves the color orange and is obsessed with chocolate.
References
Transcript
Episode 4: Why drawing together can help solve complex problems (and change the world) with Marcel Van Hove
Marcel combines agile team coaching with visual thinking. Marcel believes that a group of people drawing together on a whiteboard can change the world. He loves high-performing teams and therefore coaches teams everyday.
In this episode you'll learn:
How drawing for others shows participants that you value their time
Why drawing on a flip-chart is more authentic and human and invites feedback, over a pre-prepared powerpoint presentation
The four-step system they teach, so that anyone can walk out of their two day workshop with the skills for visual facilitation
About our guest
Marcel combines agile team coaching with visual thinking. Marcel believes that a group of people drawing together on a whiteboard can change the world. He loves high-performing teams and therefore coaches teams everyday. He likes to share his experience in his trainings, as a speaker at conferences and as the host of a user group. He produced several videos explaining agile practices, principles and lean thinking using visual facilitation techniques. When he is not drawing he loves to meditate and travels around the world.
References
Show transcript
Leanne : I'd like to introduce you to our guest, who believes that a group of people drawing together on a whiteboard can solve complex problems and change the world. He's on a secret mission to bring visual thinking, visual facilitation, and story-telling back to every human on earth. He's the co-founder, visual facilitator, and agile coach at Visual Friends and he is on the line all the way from Germany. Welcome to the show, Marcel van Hove. How are you going?
Marcel Van Hove: Thank you very much. I'm going very well, thanks for having me.
Leanne : Thanks for joining us.
Marcel: What a great introduction, thanks for that.
Leanne : The introduction works really well because your mission is really unique; believing that people drawing together can change the world. Tell us a bit about yourself and how you ended up in the world of not only facilitation but visual facilitation.
Marcel: Going back a couple of years, I worked in a-- well, maybe go even one step further, I have been a geek, a software guy, my whole career. I've studied information, technology, and all those things. Then over time, I learned that I really prefer to work with people and to facilitate meetings.
With the agile movement, I got exposed to in 2003. I became an agile trainer very soon, Scrum master and agile coach in 2008. One day, it was one of our tuning days, which is like a get-together of the whole company in Hamburg, one of the co-founders came back from a training and-- That was a training at Neuland with the Bikablo academy, which we train today in Australia.
We just looked at him, he explained Scrum to us in a stick-figure drawing. We just couldn't believe what we were seeing because we would never expect that this normal guy could surprisingly draw like a pro. That was amazing.
Leanne : That is amazing. I guess a lot of people, maybe your colleagues as well in that room, would have seen it and been pretty stunned and surprised by how amazing this technique was. What lead you to then pursue it further and say, "I actually want to learn this and I want to teach other people?" Did you know straight away? Or did you have to go think about it, or did it come back a few years later? How did that all work?
Marcel: From the minute I saw it, I knew that this would be the thing that I want to do going forward. It was so amazing because one of the principles in agile way of working, for example in Kanban, is that you visualize your work and you should visualize all the policies. This means by drawing it up on a flip chart paper and putting it up on the wall that everyone can see it, so it actually radiates information back to you, you can't really look away.
This principle is called a visual, like an information radiator. When we saw him drawing Scrum to us in a ten-minute session live, I knew I want to learn this too. I want to learn this and I changed-- We all went to this training, we invited the whole people on board and just went to this training for two days. I and another couple of people from IT agile in Hamburg, we stick to it and we just use this going forward.
Whenever, I was running an agile training, I was instead of using PowerPoint, using pre-prepared flipcharts or drawing live for the people, which created a whole different experience in the training room.
Leanne : Okay, in what way did it create a unique experience compared to what you'd done previously?
Marcel: At first, when you draw for other people in a nice way, even just a clean, neat handwriting, it shows: that you value their lifetime, that you value their time to be in a training room with you, that you show a bit of respect that they share with you time.
The other thing is that it's actually very handy, you can rip off the flipchart page, put it there on the wall, and when the conversation comes back; let's say to agile manifest or values, you can point to this flipchart that you draw there and say, "What are you referring to, this one or that one?"
With PowerPoint, you press spacebar and the slide is gone and you have to go back. What happens in an agile environment is that you load up the room with all the information needed. That's not new, that is known from Cape Canaveral shooting a rocket to the moon, where you have these big monitors giving you all the information you need around, in the room. In software teams, it's a marker and a piece of paper, it's enough, or a whiteboard.
Leanne : I'm really curious, how quickly did you pick up this skill? Were you channeling anything from your childhood in that you loved being artistic? Or do you think that even if you weren't artistic as a kid, this is something that you could better at?
Marcel: Yes, I absolutely have no artistic skills whatsoever. [laughs] As I said, in the beginning, I'm an IT guy. I can program a bit and then people put me away from the keyboard because I destroy more than I could do well. Really, I'm not a creative person. It's a craft I learned over the years from Martin Haussmann, from the Bikablo guys in Cologne. Then, when I moved to Australia I asked the guys, "Hey, would you like if I start translating and do it in Australia?"
Leanne : You mentioned that what it does-- and I saw this in one of your videos, what it does is by drawing on a piece of paper, you're kind of directing a conversation to that page and not at the person, particularly in complex situations where you're trying to solve a problem. Would you say it is disarming or--? Then it doesn't get personal because you're both just talking to a piece of paper that can't argue back? Is that the main premise behind this?
Marcel: This is one of the strongest reasons why visualizing together is so powerful and improves the collaboration so much. First, exactly as you just said, you point to the wall and this is not-- You can do this exercise where you stand opposite of each other and you just say, you repeat-- Again, I learned it from a guy who does service design thinking. He would repeat like, "This is crap."
The other person shouts at you, at the same time, directly opposite of each other. If you repeat that it becomes actually very quickly like, "This is shit. This is shit." You repeat this back and forth, back and forth and it becomes very, very aggressive, even if you are in a very happy mood a second ago.
That's very surprisingly [sic], and when you do the same again, pointing towards the wall where you imagine a whiteboard and you do repeat the same exercise, you'll look at this wall and just say, "This is shit." The other person says, "Yeah, this too." What happens is you just laugh at the wall, you just look at it and see, "Yeah, it's just a wall, it's just an idea." The same happens when you draw with people on a whiteboard.
I had this experience when I worked at MYOB, for example, as an agile coach. I had situations where they were struggling to figure out how to best build API's, interfaces to talk like two systems to each other. They had like strongly disagreements in how they can best do it; just by drawing them up, just by visualizing on a whiteboard, it became instantly like a collaborative standup meeting with everyone drawing together and scratching out.
It was amazing; you could walk away, as the coach, and leave them alone after five minutes. Normally, it would have been like a conflict management situation where you had a workshop where you hold your hands and learn to be nice to each other. You could really see that just this setup of how you draw in a standup mode on a whiteboard or flipchart changes the whole situation.
Even more, we actually learn faster. When we listen to someone, we learn what-- in the same time when you use all four modalities like your auditorial, your visual because you see it. When you have done something in your hand, you have kinesthetic experience. Depending on who's in the room, people learn differently and they understand the other person faster through that, just by finding their way to understand. If they need to draw something up to get an understanding, they can do it. Otherwise, only the speakers in the meeting are the powerful people.
Leanne : Just reflecting on meetings that I've been to, in my corporate history as well, sometimes when you explain something to someone, you've got a very clear idea of what that looks like in your head. You don't understand why they don't understand it eithe because our perceptions and beliefs and everything else that make us who we are, create that idea of what it looks like in our own heads, and when you assume that everyone else has that same idea.
It can be frustrating when you try to explain that. You think that you've been very clear and like, "Why are they not picking this up?" I can quickly understand then, if you were to draw it, very quickly you go, "Oh, I get it." I can almost see myself nodding as they're drawing because when I can see it illustrated, it just makes more sense and I can see where they're coming from.
Marcel: Absolutely, and actually it can add a little game to it, which we often run to introduce visual thinking in the meet-up that we have around Australia.
The thing is like imagine the following three things: a dog, a cat and now a mouse. Now, I draw them in front of you. I draw a dog, I draw a cat but now I draw an old school computer mouse. I had biased you with the first two animals and you were assuming that the last one is a mouse animal as well.
It is actually, when you draw we were going down this path and then assuming that the next idea is related to that, but it wasn't. It was a new thought that comes from a different context. Only if you visualize together, you actually can see that that's where this misunderstanding appeared.
This is a very simple example but in complex problem solving, this is very often the case that you just have a discussion around, as I said before, some interfaces, some API's, some technical stuff. Another person says something and it's not the same idea.
Leanne : Yes, definitely. You start questioning all those assumptions because it's clear to say-- If I ever go to one of your workshops and you do that dog, cat, mouse thing, I would probably pass the test.
[laughter]
Marcel: One thing I want to clarify, it's not my workshop. It's very important to say that Bikablo is around for more than 10 years. It started in Cologne by a couple of guys. I only have helped to translate it partly and I probably have opened up the market since the last four years in Australia and New Zealand. The training, it has been proven for over 10 years. It evolves over and over again through now over 30 trainers around the world. We are just four trainers right now in Australia, running trainings but the group is even bigger.
We have a Skype gathering tomorrow for example, where we get together and talk about different trainings that have been run in Japan, in Singapore, in Us, was a tour last year. The Bikablo group is actually a much bigger group of people. The vision of France is just Australia and New Zealand, that's one thing. I'm very grateful and thankful for this training, I learned-- Yes, Oh my gosh, it's almost 10 years ago as well.
Leanne : Wow, there's [sic] a lot of good things that come out of Germany. I'm a big fan of the thermo mix too.
Marcel: [laughs] Thank you for that but I feel like there's a lot of misconceptions about German engineering. That might be true of Bikablo but if you want real precision you go to Switzerland.
Leanne : Good to know. The word Bikablo, for our audience, that's spelt B-I-K-A-B-L-O. What does that word actually mean?
Marcel: It actually is like three syllables put together of three German words. Which is build our carton block. If you take the first syllables of those words and put them together it’s Bikablo. If you translate those three words, build our carton block it means picture card pack.
This is like what it was, the first product. It was some pictures with a description, let's say a finish line and you see there, underneath, is the word go or deadline. Those pictures were mounted together to a pack. You had a visual dictionary like words to pictures, let's say that.
This one was the Bikablo one which is around for over 10 years as well. It was the first product that the guys from the Bikablo academy created.
Leanne : Interesting to know that it's based on an acronym of some German language, picture, card, pack, if that's easy to remember. We spoke about visual facilitation, helping you disarm it in terms of a conflict resolution. What else are the positives in terms of meetings? What other outcomes can it drive?
Marcel: One of the things is that I struggled with or I noticed that a manager struggles with. He only has the tool of PowerPoint and created like-- I have see this so many times, he created a re-structuring for example. It was his announcement but it was announcement. It was his draft and he wanted to have feedback. Because he put it in PowerPoint, it looked almost like locked in.
Because he used a corporate template, it looked even better and cleaner and that created stress or conflict because the people wanted to have input in that re-structuring of the department, for example. When you do the same with posters on a flip chart and you present the same information, maybe on a flip chart, on a white board. Maybe you bring a pre-prepared poster along with gaps in it.
You just have a headline and it is restructuring for this department and then you put posters underneath. The people are much more open to say, "Can I make a suggestion?" You might take this poster off the wall and rip it apart and say, "This team should be out here and out there. We don't need this team because it's not a feature team or something".
If you see the same thing in a PowerPoint, it feels like it's a written book, you can't change a thing anymore. This is dangerous because the good people with the strong brain might stop adding an idea to that which is the sugar coating on the top which makes this idea that's wrapped awesome.
Leanne : The professional image of that information shared even just by looking at it. Without even looking at the data, you've all ready assumed in your head, "Yes, interestingly enough that this is locked in." Whereas if you bring a piece of paper and you're working through and talking through the decisions that are being made. I can absolutely see why they'd be an opportunity in that room to lift up your hand and be more confident to say something.
Marcel: It's more human because you bring more to the table of yourself. Again, if you have to polish PowerPoint Deck, it's very neutral of any emotions. If you bring your own hand writing and write something on a white board in a neat hand writing, it has to look neat.
Otherwise, it's like why you're not using the PowerPoint. I suggest you bring in a flip chart paper or a poster that is pre-prepared because then you don't lose time. If you bring that it is like, "Oh my God, did you do that for us? This is so nice." You show yourself.
If you think of an iceberg, you lower the water level and you see who you are a bit more, which gives the people a chance to connect better with you. If you just see a polished PowerPoint Deck, it's just-- there's no personality in there. It is just a corporate look of you, which is very boring often.
Leanne : I'm all ready sold on this idea, to be honest. I've got a few meetings tomorrow, so I'm going to give it a go. On the night of-- You mentioned, you need to have really neat hand writing. I'm a very quick messy hand writer, normally and in front of a classroom, when I'm delivering a workshop.
I'm left handed too, so one of the time, I'm scrubbing out my own writing. When I look back at it later I'm thinking, "How did anyone even read that?" Is there a solution for that? How can I make my handwriting better?
Marcel: First, left or right handed is not advantage or disadvantage. For example, Martin Haussmann, who started Bikablo, is left handed as well, and has a very neat handwriting when he works for people. On the flip side, I have seen his handwriting and my own handwriting is not nice when we write for ourselves. I have two handwritings. This is like two modes.
I have a handwriting for others and I have a handwriting for taking vision notes. It's probably worse as my doctor's that I go for. The thing is first, slow down. If there's one thing you can do is slow yourself down but of course, not to a point that people look at you and say, "What, you actually doing here"?
It has to be a lot like maybe some bullet points, you write neat and then underneath, you still keep this first handwriting. Another thing you can actually think of is why are you running this workshop? What would happen if you stand at the back of the room, which is actually a technique?
You stand there and let the people work and you facilitate the meeting only. It means probably, instead of you write, the person who said it writes a neat poster, if you hand out big posters like A5 size which is like a half of a normal paper. It's like if you hand out this and a big marker, actually everyone can read it even from five to 10 meters away.
Then, it brings back this task to everyone to write neat. Then, you have this agreement that you actually should slow down and wait for Steve for a second who writes his poster. Then you put it up and read it out again, "Thanks for your contribution, a great idea". You're just a person, basically like hanging up the washing, hanging up posters on the wall with prompts.
That's not magic. You actually can do that and ask someone else, "Hey, could you maybe--" just yes. Or maybe yourself come to the front and present your idea. You make everyone write that you don't have to rush. If 50 people shout at you what you should write down at the same time, of course you have to be very fast. So they are the two ideas I have on that.
Leanne : Yes, and they are very practical tips that I hadn't really thought about. It's really good for a couple of reasons, one, it gives ownership to the person suggesting the idea, which is quite nice, also just an engagement strategy that they're actually moving around posting something up. Also, that the facilitator doesn't have to do everything. It can be shared within the room. Yes, really great techniques there.
Marcel: Maybe one thing, like if you do that for the first time that you change from a normal PowerPoint meeting to a more participative post it or whiteboard-driven meeting with flipchart paper and you have those things, like have someone in the room who backs you up. This is this classical first follow. You need to have someone who validates that your new approach is okay for the team.
That would be very helpful and my suggestion is, it should not cost more time than the PowerPoint Deck, so pre-prepare all those things. Like you have, for example, the slide deck you had before, but now you bring it in as a flipchart paper pad and have some sticky tape, a blue tape ready not a row. You have sticky tape ready, cut it off, so that you can do just one, two click and to the wall and you refer to that information and then you move on.
The people actually automatically put out stress in your system. You don't let the people wait so long. It's all about handling paper. For me, the next step would probably be that you ask the people to join in like, "Can you take off the paper and hang it over there?" If you-- that-- If the people agree to that and help you because it's natural to every human being who hadn't-- who grew up in Australia particularly, I would say.
It's like helping others, is very clear to us. I then just ask the people to help and what you create just by you running the meeting is a team. It just comes as a side effect that you create a team. You start directly into forming a new team just for this meeting but they will laugh together when the flipchart, falls down or they [laughs] It's not-- They can't rip off sticky tape.
You just have those moments of them, fun together and everyone was like helps each other, so if you can do that. I have done this with senior leaders. I have done this in big corporate. They're all humans. It's all good. We are over estimate or over think the-- like meetings in general that there are so difficult or something.
Leanne : Okay. Yes, you did-- On your website you mentioned that you also do visuals summaries at events. From what I can tell, they're like those-- There a lot of videos like that on YouTube where they're explaining videos with concepts of different things. It's really quick; the guy's just drawing on the whiteboard. Is that actually what you do at big events?
Marcel: The graphic recordings, let's say, the conference, round table or something, yes. That's amazing, that's makes actually a lot of fun to record them. You learn so much as a graphic recorder. You listen to the conversations, to the talk and you have to honor to summarize it on a big sheet of paper, on stage or on an Ipad and we can watch it on a data projector or you print it out on cards afterwards. We've all done all those things.
Leanne : That's such a way to get your participants engage in the conference as well. As their person drawing, how do you pick out what concepts to actually put on the board? I'm sure there's [sic] lots of ideas going around the room at different times. How do you know which concepts to focus in on?
Marcel: You learn that overtime. We trained it-- Actually we practice it on the second day of the training, of the Bikablo basics, where we focus on finding the right keywords. My first suggestion would be, don't write down capability or capability uplift. That's not an insight. Add a verb to the term and voila you have a full sentence. We need to uplift our whatever drawing skills.
That's now something meaningful. Otherwise, it becomes a buzzword bingo in speech puzzles. Make sure that you, when you write down something that you have real information there on the whiteboard and not just one word. You just need to let go. We compare it in Bikablo with a diver who goes down diving under the water, when you are from Brisbane, you'd probably know it very well. I have been diving on the Great Barrier Reef near Kens.
When you go down there, it's a different world. It's very silent. You have-- your-- the world-- All these noise, whatever happens on the deep end, you don't care anymore. You're just there with yourself. The same is true for drawing. When you hear on stage an amazing insight, you need to say, "Okay. I captured that. I make this decision which is like this moment of going down underwater."
From there on, you write this down neat, in a neat handwriting and you will miss out, while you are in this drawing mode or in relation to that like underwater, all these noise that goes around. Then, you come back up and you listen again to the conversation that happens on stage and you find the next thing you would like. The next jewel you would like to capture. Then, you go down again and be with your marker alone for a moment.
Of course, this up and down, like this mode, are very professional graphically callers, they swap instantly. They know what time you practice and your short term memory improves. In the beginning, you just need to relax and just let go that you will not capture everything and that's okay.
Leanne : I liked your analogy of going underwater and being in the zone. I want to talk to people that are fairly new this skill and probably when they start drawing, they're not in the zone yet. I love that you write a LinkedIn article with the following title; why start drawing today and become a visual facilitator tomorrow. How can you promise the people that come into your today workshop, walk out with those artistic skills? How does that work?
Marcel: They don't learn any artistic skills. They learn a craft. I promise it or we, the visual friends, we promised it because it happened to all of us, every trainer of us. As I said before, when I went to this training, I knew I can draw now. I was thinking like, "I can't draw." We visualized. We always put the words first. We have a direct colored out liner to write the words first.
Then we add an icon to it which is step two and then we frame it was a nice pitch fur which we call containers. With that, we overlap with other shapes, which bring and hold information together. Through that you create like this mind type, I'm feeling or you create a timeline along this and you see where this conversation went. Those things, you actually can learn because you can just follow a template where this is all ready solved.
It's like a writing-- we compared with writing sentences. In the morning, we-- you learn how to hold a pen. That's the step one thing on-- we'll not move on until everyone knows how to draw a line. This is how simple we start. Through that we basically go one gear up over, over, next step, next step, next step.
After they won, they often take a picture of what they did and say-- Coming back the next morning, they say, "My wife or my husband can't-- don't believe that I did this." We once had a guy in the training who did like say-- we call this in the afternoon, the celebration piece of day two.
He did a drawing actually after they won; look we have on both days, the celebration piece. He took a picture of that. He visualized the process of how he met his wife. An amazing, very nice and funny drawing with stick figures, how he met his wife. He actually put this on his widget because he was from China.
He got over hundred replies from this whole big family telling him how amazing this is that he drew this for his wife. He-- they all didn't got the point that it was actually in a training done.
Leanne : Oh my gosh.
[crosstalk]
Marcel: He was so happy with that at the end. For me, it was like, "This is cool." You can use it actually for-- not only for meetings. For me, it's a skill. Where would you use another language? You can use when you can speak French, I don't actually. If you speak another language, you can use it in every context. This is a lifelong skill? This is also true for all the visual facilitators that teach Bikablo around the world. They come from different areas. Some are working like Martin Ruckert
or I, we work in agile coaching but others work in psychology and use it for family therapy or for visual coaching. It's very diverse and you can use this language for whatever you need it for.
Leanne : If I ever did come to a workshop, I wouldn't want to tell anyone, I'd just go, "I'm going away for a couple days." Then maybe a month later, bring out this amazing drawing as part of a workshop and just receive all the love. It's like having a secret kind of super power. What participants do you get at your workshops? They come from all sort of industries and different roles, facilitators, project managers, who are they?
Marcel: They come from all directions and it's for me often hard to understand like, "How did you actually hear about it in the first time?" There are some groups of people, one strong group of people just because we have this network in the tech industry are probably business analysis. They participate to a huge percentage in it. Another one, are consultants and facilitators trainers who use this to replace-- it's not replacing by the way, it's using as well, replacing PowerPoint.
Having like a different way of conveying the message. Surprisingly, a lot of people from HR, just see it as they want to present their ideas in this way and in general every leader, manager, facilitator which is for me today the same, like a good leader is a facilitator. Actually, while I say this list it's actually not true because they come from all directions.
I'm very happy about this because you actually bring very diverse group of people together in a training and you have-- Those people would not have met before in any other way, they're not from the same industry in general, completely mixed, it's very nice.
Leanne : Looking ahead to the future, what projects are you working on now or in the short term?
Marcel: For us, 2018 is about on boarding, having a couple more people because we have so much demand in the trainings. That we bring like two more trainers on board and we probably, with that reach now enough momentum that we bring the whole Bikablo curriculum over from Europe.
Which is four different trainings that belong to the Bikablo curriculum, which is meeting facilitation, it's visual consulting, it's a visual storytelling, it's graphic recording. Those four subjects in itself are two days training but compared to Germany where we train over 2000 people every year. We don't have this step two yet, and I hope for 2018 that we have more advanced trainings.
For me personally, I enjoy producing a podcast like you as well, and bringing people together and building the visual friends as a team of people, we enjoy working together and just uniting a nice group of trainers to, to work together.
That's my biggest goal, my main job which is I am the father at home and I'm very happy with that. I take care of our little son, Liam, who is now 7 months old, most of the time you might hear him in the background. This is my goal for 2018, bringing a group of trainers bringing the visual friends closer together and growing the market, growing Bikablo in Australia and New Zealand.
Leanne : Congratulations on your growth and for being able to scale in such a way that you can let it run in Australia and New Zealand, while you got your family back in Germany, that's really exciting, well done on that.
Marcel: This is something that is only possible because it's such a systematic approach, if you learn Bikablo from Martin or from John or from all other trainers who come on board, it's not different to when I run the training.
It's actually a very scalable model that can be rolled out across a company, similar to the Scrum framework or safe or less or can run or something. For me, it's important that you don't see it as a skill that one person has and he's like this craft or this artist, it's just another skill under your belt and you can just learn it in two days.
Leanne : Finally Marcel, where can people find you?
Marcel: When you are in Australia, the best website will be visualfriends.com. You just go over to the website and follow us on Instagram or LinkedIn or Twitter. Here in Europe you go to bikablo.com, like B-I-K-A-B-L-O.com, that's the website of the Bikablo Academy. We run monthly trainings in all major cities around Australia and we are very happy to finally have our first Auckland training locked in and confirmed in a couple of weeks.
Leanne : You’re taking over the world, one drawing at a time, it sounds. That's fantastic. I really appreciate your time and all your insights, as well as some practical tips and just hearing about the benefits of drawing things in a meeting and how profound it can be for getting really great outcomes. It's something that I'm going to share with everyone I know and I hope you are enjoying that German café.
Marcel: Absolutely, thank you very much, but I actually miss Melbourne coffee right now. It's like one of hardest things for me over here, is Melbourne Coffee is not here.
Leanne : Maybe that's something else, you can move between countries.
Marcel: Yes, the other way around.
Leanne : That's all.
Marcel: Exactly.
Leanne : Thanks Marcel.
Episode 3: Conquering your fear of public speaking with expert trainer and facilitator, Nikki McMurray
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.
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.
Episode 2: It’s not about you: Diversity and Inclusion expert, Teagan Dowler shares why listening is the #1 skill of a facilitator
Teagan Dowler is the Founder of The BCW, Treasurer of the Diversity Practitioners Association, Author of Rules of the Game and Organisational Development and Leadership Coach.Teagan has worked across a range of industries including Civil Construction, Iron Ore, Coal, Financial, and Health in the areas of Organisational Change, Human Resources, Learning and Development and Human Behaviour Coaching and Psychology.
Welcome to the second episode of the First Time Facilitator podcast.
Episode 2 First Time Facilitator podcast with Teagan Dowler
Teagan Dowler is the Founder of The BCW, Treasurer of the Diversity Practitioners Association, Author of Rules of the Game and Organisational Development and Leadership Coach.Teagan has worked across a range of industries including Civil Construction, Iron Ore, Coal, Financial, and Health in the areas of Organisational Change, Human Resources, Learning and Development and Human Behaviour Coaching and Psychology.She is the author of Rules of the Game: Women in the Masculine Industries, which provides recommendations from her own experience and those of over 50 women and men to achieve success in traditionally male-dominated industries.As a leader in the area of diversity, inclusion and leadership, Teagan and is regularly asked to comment on industry developments. She has been quoted in The Australian House of Representatives, featured in a range of magazines (including OK! Magazine, The Collective, CLEO) and interviewed on live breakfast radio for 4BC Brisbane and ABC Radio Gippsland.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL FIND OUT ABOUT:
How an interest in nutrition lead her to a career in psychology and human behaviour
Her strategies for answering questions in your workshop (when you’re unsure of the answer)
Why flexibility and listening are critical strengths of a great facilitator
Why you need to embrace fear and step up in front of a workshop to share your wisdom
The importance of authenticity - particularly when things don't go to plan in the training room
How organisations have changed in their attitude and response to Diversity and Inclusion initiatives and approaches
RESOURCES
Social Media: The Blue Collared Woman (Facebook) and TheBCW (Instagram)
Find Teagan on LinkedIn.
TRANSCRIPT
Leanne: Thanks for tuning into episode two of ‘First Time Facilitator’. I really appreciate your support. I'm also interested in hearing what you think about the show, so shoot me an email any time with your feedback. I'm at firsttimefacilitator@gmail.com, or leave a review in iTunes. Let me know if there are specific aspects of facilitation that you'd like to learn more about, or feel free to recommend guests that I can interview on upcoming shows. I met our next guest through another facilitator, and she focuses in on the diversity, and inclusion space. I have to say I think she is one of the most relatable people I've ever met. She has an effortless, and natural way of making you feel really great after you chat to her. And I think that's her unique facilitator superpower. So, let's hear from her in episode two.Our guest has worked across a range of industries including civil construction, iron ore, coal, financial, and health in the areas of organisational change, human resources, learning and development, and human behaviour, coaching, and psychology. She's the author of Rules of The Game: Women in the Masculine Industries, and this book provides recommendations and how to achieve success in traditionally male dominated industries. She's the founder of the Blue Collared Woman known as the B.C.W; the Treasurer of the ‘Diversity Practitioners Association’ as well as an organisational development, and leadership coach. Welcome to the show, Teagan Dowler.Teagan: Lovely, thank you so much for having me today.Leanne: It’s so great to have you here. Our audience may or may not have heard of you. I'm curious to hear a bit about your career journey, and what brings you here today.Teagan: Yeah, it's a funny one Leanne. I grew up in a really small country town down in Victoria. And I actually originally wanted to be a nutritionist; funnily enough. So when I was going through school, I then realised the reason I was interested in nutrition was actually all around the psychology. Why did people have certain approaches to food? And I was interested in understanding the relationship in the mental aspects around that - then that led into psychology. Loved learning about psychology, but when I went through psych at uni, the new wave of positive psychology was not actually in vogue at that time in university.And as a young 20-year old I just thought that's a heavy industry to go into. You're dealing with the darker side of human nature, and I wanted to have a little bit more a lot of experience before really going into that space. So maybe it's something I'll do later down the track. But I then thought, “Oh well what's another avenue? I'll segue the psychology into business.” And started looking at organisational behaviour which then led to a masters in human resource management. Finished that and thought, “Well what industry do I want to go in to?” At the time my dad had built a very good career in the mining industry. So I've been around the culture, I understood it, I liked it for its frankness and its directness, and thought, “Let's give it a go”.Leanne: Wow! And did you get to travel to mines around Australia?Teagan: I've been to a lot. So WA, South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland. I think the only states I haven't worked in is Northern Territory and TassieLeanne: Okay, so your dad had worked in the mining industry.Teagan: CorrectLeanne: Did he prepare you for that first day out on the mine site?Teagan: Prepared is a really interesting word. So it's a very dynamic industry and the sheer experience of circumstances that you can find yourself in are varied. I suppose in terms of the preparation aspect, it was an understanding of the culture, and I'd grown up in that environment. So in essence, I was prepared for what to expect. But in terms of some of the unique experiences and circumstances you find yourself in probably not. Which is hard for him to be able to prepare a young female to handle those scenarios when he himself may not have experienced it.Leanne: Yeah, that's right. That's really interesting, and we’ll talk a bit about diversity later on. So when you're at the mine site you're working in a HR role?Teagan: It's more of a broader strategic pace. So we work mainly with mine leaders in regards to a range of operational discipline aspects. So leadership is one of them. How they look at their planning, their production is another aspect, how they communicate as well. So it's HR/strategy/operational.Leanne: I guess one of the things I notice from you is that you have a very natural way of presenting. And I'm wondering if that was hard over the years and do you sort of reflect back on previous workshops, and from years ago and think, “What was I doing”? Or do you actually just always been that natural and authentic in front of an audience?Teagan: That's lovely of you to say; thank you.You always do a bit of a self-critical reflection to think, “Gosh! Am I coming across the way I'm hoping I am”. I think for me, what has enabled me to be the facilitator I am today is probably watching other facilitators. And from a very young age, I always got involved in public speaking. And the fear that that brings is somewhat addictive in a way, scary upfront, but when you finished, it's really exhilarating. And I quite like that feeling of conquering something that you were nervous about. And it was through watching other facilitators, and other speakers in the techniques that they would display, and how they would talk; that's what's enabled me to take pieces from that and build my style today.Leanne: You talked about having fear. Is that something that you still go through when you deliver workshops?Teagan: Yeah, definitely. I think every group I have a little bit of a nervousness in my stomach because you don't know the people necessarily. It's a new group of people, age or time. And with the variety of people that you have, you've got to be on your toes. So for me personally, there's always the feeling of gosh, will I actually be able to answer their questions, will I be able to manage the group dynamics affectively, will they be interested in the content, or more so, how can I make the content interesting and relevant for them? So yeah, I'm always still nervous.Leanne: So yeah, me too as well. I think it’s easier when you deliver the same workshop a few times but then when there’s a new audience, it throws you back and you really need to prepare again. So what are new strategies when working with groups? Do you have anything in your back pocket for those experiences?Teagan: Yeah, I think what's helped me the most is definitely know your content. And I would suggest knowing your content beyond just what's in your resource guide, or what's on the slides, or the handouts that you're giving. Because the real richness can come through conversations more so than that content. And it's been helpful to be able to tap into external knowledge, or external understandings of research, or stories, or real life application that can help you in the moments where you think, “Oh gosh! Maybe I'm losing them, or maybe they throw a curveball question.” In that moment where someone is asking you a question and you think, “I have no idea what to say or how to respond.”Leanne: Do you have any strategies for working with that one that you can pass on?Teagan: My go to is, “That's a great question. What do you think?” And then I open it up to the group or the individual, yeah. And sometimes saying, “Look I'm not sure.” can be very useful as well because the way I set up my sessions is that I'm not the be all and all. I'm not the Oracle. I don't have all the information. This is very much a collaborative learning approach where I learn from the participants just as much as I hope that they will learn from me.Leanne: Yeah like that it's a two way sort of learning curve. So do you think there is a difference between being a facilitator compared to just being a trainer. Are they two different skills, or are they one in the same?Teagan: That's a good question. It's actually something I probably haven't thought about, and it might come down to semantics in a way. In my perception of a trainer is very much around I give you information. This is the information, and we run through in a very structured way. For me, the concept of a facilitator is a lot more as you said that two way, give and take. We're all here on the learning journey to use a cliché.Leanne: So in your observation, what are the skills of a great facilitator?Teagan: I can probably speak for myself around my perception of great. Because everyone will have a different version of great, and certainly a comfort level of what feels great when you're facilitating, or what you might observe. And certainly energy is something that is important, and body language aspects. So that very simple concept around openness, and engagement, small nuances around how you use your body when you’re facilitating, and engaging in conversation is very powerful. I also think one of the important aspects as a facilitator is listening just as much as it is talking, and giving information.Because we're probably all been in that circumstance where someone's asked a question, or they've made a statement. And you can see the facilitator didn't really get it and move on, and give an answer that might not actually align with the person. And that's a risk of turning someone off when that happens. So I think not only the concept of energy no new content, but also very much listening and observing what you people need. And maybe it's that flexibility aspect as well.You are going with the mindset of this is how it's going to run, this is what I need to say. But there's been times where you need to go off script because you can say there's a need in your audience, and that's going to give them better value than what you had originally anticipated. So that flexibility, tapping into print, your knowledge around what you're talking about is really useful.Leanne: So flexibility, we need to listen, and be adaptable. It sounds like a pretty exhausting profession. How do you feel at the end of a big training day?Teagan: I’m wiped to be honest. I'll be frank about it. It then makes me think around, “Geez, am I an extrovert or an introvert?’ Because they say that when an introvert is being quite energetic it's exhausting and gosh, in some of my hardest workshops which funnily enough have been the diversity and inclusion workshops which we’ll talk about. I've had after a full day of that I’ll go home, and go to bed. Because I'm so tired of just the process, and the mental fatigue around keeping up with a very challenging topic for some participants.I honestly feel shattered after a day, and I think is it just because I'm standing up all day or… But I think it's all about that sort of worry management, and always having a Plan B, C, or D that you could go to.Leanne: What is the best advice that you could give someone? To a technical expert or someone that works in HR who sits in that room and thinks, “I could actually get up and deliver something. But I don't really have that confidence.” What advice could you give to them?Teagan: Embrace the fear. That's a mantra that I try and live by. You just sometimes have to think, “What's the worst thing that can happen?” If you have knowledge that is important and someone else will benefit from you sharing. So have confidence in that, or faith that you can deliver the content, and that you will do it well. And if you walk away, and you think, “Oh I could have done that better”, that's a great learning opportunity. So really I think, what's the worst thing that can happen, and just go for it.Leanne: That's right the sun will still set and rise the next day.Teagan: It’s exactly right. Even as a kid I used to have this weird thing that if I had something scary to do during the day which was usually school sports or school swimming. I remember waking up in the morning and thinking, “Next time I'm in bed tonight, it'll all be over. Time is a finite thing, and in a few hours the scariness will be done.” So it's the same concept as an adult.Leanne: In the lead up to a workshop say it's a speech or workshop with a big client for example. How much work or prep time do you put in? So it's a 2-hour workshop. Do you really have a ratio, or how do you…?Teagan: It really depends on how comfortable I am with the topic, and whether I've done it before, what the client is expecting, very much depends upon the info on delivering.Leanne: Tell us the time where things didn't go so well in a training workshop. What happened, and what did you learn from that?Teagan: Yeah, look it was actually quite recently when I was delivering an inclusive leadership workshop. And as I alluded to before, it can be a topic that's quite confronting for people. Because we start talking about concepts such as self and identity, and how our identities lead to different outcomes such as the identities of others leads to different outcomes for them. And we are in a time at the moment where a lot of organisations are having these conversations which previously have been more social broader conversations, and then they are now coming into the workplace, and putting additional pressures on leaders.And one of the leaders in these workshops was having a difficult time being able to… not understand the concept. But it was misaligning with his existing value set. And what had happened was one of the other participants had said something which had upset the other participants. And it was about lunch time I think when this one participant came to me and said, “Look Teagan, I'm just gonna let you know that I'm gonna leave”. And I thought, “Oh my gosh! Oh no, what have I done?” Initially immediately I went to what have I done, I failed, I haven't been good enough in this. And so there was this little conversation in my head going just be calm, listen, don’t over-react. And so I started asking him questions to understand what was going on.And we talked around his discomfort with what the other person had said. And I didn't challenge him in that moment for his desire to leave. I gently asked him to think about it. Maybe go for a walk around, cool down a little bit, or have a drink, decide if he wants to come back. He did do that and he said, “No, I still want to leave.” And I said, “That's fine, completely understand.” So he went and I thought, “Oh dear, that's terrible. I've never had anyone walk out of a training session before.” And so went back to the group, carried on. They were all fine. I explained that we all need to be respectful about what we're saying in a group forum, and finished the session off.That night, he actually called me back. He sought out my personal number, and he called me at about 7:00 at night. And I thought, “Oh gosh! Oh no! What happened here? Is he completely upset?” And what was really lovely is that he actually said, “I've had a think about it, and I understand now what you were talking about, and I probably didn't need to leave. But I did at the time, and I'm just want to let you know that it wasn't anything you did…” So that was a really interesting experience because as a facilitator, you're always conscious of delivering value to each participant, and value is a different thing for each person. And I felt that I had failed for this individual at the time. And then you're also conscious around your brand as a facilitator as well.And being able to make sure that you’re delivering what an organisation is wanting you to deliver, or a team, or manager; whoever it is. And I guess the thing that I learnt from that experience was in a way, you've got to make sure as a facilitator that you are managing all those different needs of the group as much as you can. But if you find that at the end of the day you can't for whatever reason, that's okay too. And you're not going to please everyone all the time. I suppose if you come from as a position of integrity for yourself, and you know that you've done all that you can do. And if you reflect and realise, “Oh, I could have done that better than that”, that's a learning. That's all you can really do.Leanne: That's yeah really good advice. I had a similar situation, and I mulled over all evening. I was thinking, “What could I have done better?” And I sort of went through the similar process as you, and I asked a few questions, or let's have a break. And yeah it sort of just come down to personal accountability, and being respectful. We’ll move on to the topic of diversity. What compelled you to write your book, ‘The Rules of the Game’, and what's their response been to the book?Teagan: Yeah, ‘Rules of the Game – ‘Women in the Masculine Industries’ was written back - gosh, I think it was about two years ago now. And it came from the desire to share the stories, and share them in a truthful manner. So when I first joined the industry, there was not a huge focus on diversity. There was a few women in mining, women in construction groups, and what not.But they seemed quite external to organisations. Organisations will send women off, but they weren't really integrated into how we do business. I started actually the ‘Blue Collared Woman’ or the BCW as a blog. And it began very much around me just sharing experiences of myself and others and some strategies that we've all used to try and work our way through it. And it started to gain popularity. And I thought, “Well how can we reach more people, and how can we really give a handy resource for people in the industry and women for to learn from other women, but also for men to understand experiences of women in an unfiltered way?”And so I started the writing process, and it took about two years, two and a half years to collate all the interviews, and the research, and many weekends spent on the computer. But I wanted to write it just to really help other women. When I was telling people that I was writing this book, one of my mentors actually said, “Don’t do it”. They told me not to release it because they were very worried that it would isolate me from the industry, and cast me as a troublemaker.Leanne: ...Which is completely unlike you Teagan. Absolutely not your brand; troublemaker! I've really enjoyed reading it. I found the steps very actionable and practical because you tell real stories of people working on site. I found it very useful, especially as I was new to the mining industry, really had no idea. And going through that was just lovely to see I guess in practical solutions, and how to navigate your way through it.Teagan: Oh great!And that's really sort of the focus of the audience was people who were women who were new to the industry, young, coming in perhaps maybe, or those that had changed from one industry to another because they're awesome subtle nuances in the traditionally masculine industries culturally. And coming in with eyes open, and learning from the experiences of other women is really helpful. It puts you on a… I guess a few steps ahead really to be able to be successful.Leanne: It's like I've got this secret book. I know exactly what I need to do. You spoke about diversity ten years ago, and how people in roles were external to companies, and now we see a lot of diversity advisors. It's a real focus. It’s about KPIs, and business strategies. On the ground have you seen much of a change in terms of cultures in those industries?Teagan: I would say yes. The mere fact that we're talking about it in industry is a really big thing. Even numbers, it's different. So being able to walk into a workplace and see a woman out in the workshop, or even driving trucks, and operating machinery now; it's changed. It's no longer the rarity. It's more common to start seeing women in those roles. So a lot has changed very much. And in fact I was just talking with Alina, and she was explaining that she's got two workshops. That one has about 40 percent diversity, one has ten percent different locations. And she said, “It's so evident when you walk in to those workplaces. There's a different vibe, there's a different culture, people are more receptive to different ideas. It's changing, it really is.Leanne: That’s so encouraging to hear. What you think the greatest opportunities are in the diversity space, in the next one to three years. Where do you think we can grow? I'm talking about Australian industries in particular.Teagan: Yeah, I really think it's important that we don’t forget the conversation about everyone in the workplace. So a lot of organisations are really focused on KPI diversity metrics. At the moment we focusing on smaller subsets of characteristics. What I am finding now though is that… and in fact someone this week said to me, by doing that we're actually creating exclusion for the majority of our employees. And when you think about it workplace is the majority of our workplaces are males. And so it's really important that in the conversation around diversity and inclusion that we very much have a conversation around how is inclusion beneficial and incorporates the male population in our workplaces.Leanne: So those conversations that you're talking about; being inclusive. How does BCW help clients, or sites, of projects embrace or is it through workshops coaching variety of mediums?Teagan: All of the above. We do a range of things from helping organisation set strategy through to diversity inclusion audits. We do inclusive leadership workshops we do coaching. There's a range of I guess different services and support that we can offer really depending on where an organisation is at in terms of their maturity along the D&I curve.Leanne: Do you know a lot of companies saying, “Oh we’re not ready for this yet”, and if so what's your response to that?Teagan: Good question. I would say two years ago it might have had a few companies in that space. Now most organisations realise that they have to be in the game. Yeah, because society is changing, the pool; the talent pool that they'll be looking for is also highly competitive as well. So if they're not seen to be an employer who is really open and inclusive in in their workplace, they will get left behind of talent. And there's actually a great organisation called DCC who actually screen employers on their female supportive work environments. But in general those organisations are also very good around the whole inclusive characteristics. So you can actually go onto that website, and see which employers have been endorsed.Leanne: We’ll put those in the show. Interestingly with the increase of technology, we find a lot of companies are relying on online learning and technology to really spread a message. I know that you offer online courses. Do you think it will replace the face to face experience, compliment it? Where do you think it sits in terms of learning, and embedding culture change?Teagan: I may be unpopular on this one perhaps. My answer is I hope not to be honest because of the feedback that I'm currently getting certainly from the industries that I'm working in is that online just does not hit the mark particularly with your operational space. So having the ability to whip out say a smartphone, or a log in via a link on a website; that works for some employees. And so I do think there's a space for online training.But in terms of being able to hit others, you've got to always consider what's the best medium for being able to connect, impart, information, and also create a shift. I think that face to face space is ideal, it's irreplaceable. But there is a space sometimes when you might need to do online training. So it's around understanding what's the outcome that you wanna achieve from that training and that content you wanna impart, and then deciding what medium’s gonna be best.Leanne: And I think the value in running these workshops is not only the delivery, but I guess each participant sharing their information...Teagan: AbsolutelyLeanne: …and their storiesTeagan: YeahLeanne: You wear so many hats. What keeps you driven, and how do you wake up in the morning, and balance all these different roles that you have?Teagan: Sometimes I wake up in the morning and think I'm not balancing these roles very well to be honest. And I have to remind myself to make sure that I'm not spreading myself too thin. But really you've got to find your passion. And for me, diversity and inclusion has been this burning passion deep within me that I want to see change. So it's more than just a job for me. I love it, and I'm motivated intrinsically by what we are trying to achieve. So that helps immensely. But yeah, you got to watch you don't put too much on the load.Leanne: I bet there's so many exciting opportunities waiting for you, and it's hard to say no sometimes.Teagan: Thank you, I'm trying to learn how to in a way that doesn't disappoint anyone, or lead me to run myself down.Leanne: Thank you so much for being on the show. Where can people find you?Teagan: They can jump online. So my website is The BCW, or they can jump on to the social media channesl. I'm on Facebook; the Blue Collared Woman, or Instagram. They can search thebcw.Leanne: Perfect! We'd loved hearing you tips, and tricks, and strategies for becoming a first time facilitator, and thank you so much again.Teagan: It’s been such a pleasure. Thanks for having me Leanne.Thanks very much for tuning into First Time Facilitator. If you like the episode, please share it with your mates, or subscribe to the podcast feed in i-Tunes.
The First Time Facilitator Podcast: Presentations | Workshops | Training Sessions | Speaking | Presence
Whether you’re a first-time facilitator or a seasoned pro, listen in for tips and tricks to make a bigger impact at the next workshop you deliver.Leanne Hughes from the First Time Facilitator blog reveals all of her group facilitation, training and workshop tips and tricks so you can be ahead of the curve the next time you step out in front of a group.Discover how you can tweak elements of your facilitation style, or incorporate new techniques to engage your audience and leave with lasting impact (and 5-star feedback).Icebreakers, leadership, group interaction, preparation, games, conflict, props, flip-charts, delivery, voice, body language, confidence, discussions and everything that works (and doesn’t work) to help you better understand how to deliver and connect with your audience, every single time.Coming soon.
Episode 1: Just Rock It! Facilitation and training tips from leadership guru Sonia McDonald
This podcast is for those of you that are experts and want to share your knowledge and skills with others. In my experience, it can be difficult taking that first step to become a facilitator.Today’s guest, and our very first, Sonia McDonald, will share some amazing advice and some tips and tricks on facilitation and training.
Welcome to the first ever episode of the First Time Facilitator podcast.
Episode 1 First Time Facilitator podcast with Sonia McDonald
This podcast is for those of you that are experts and want to share your knowledge and skills with others. In my experience, it can be difficult taking that first step to become a facilitator.Today’s guest, and our very first, Sonia McDonald, will share some amazing advice and some tips and tricks on facilitation and training.Sonia was recently named in the top 250 influential women across the globe by Richtopia. She’s an entrepreneur, though leader, a keynote speaker, executive coach, board advisor, and author. She’s the CEO and founder of Leadership HQ and is launching her latest book ‘Just Rock It’ in February.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL FIND OUT ABOUT:
Sonia’s response when someone asked if she knew anything about leadership.
How she was unprepared for what was to come when founding Leadership HQ.
Her success expectation after she created the leadership blog.
An insightful piece of advice to people that need that extra push or courage to stand at the front of the room.
How she’s able to fill the room with immense energy while presenting.
Key skills you need to learn so as to engage people in a workshop.
Skills she’s improved over the years and how she did it.
How she’s able to communicate in different styles to different types of audiences.
Best way to embed learning after a workshop.
The biggest challenge in the leadership space.
Why you should read Sonia’s new book, 'Just Rock It', and the motivation behind writing it.
Best advice to a first time facilitator.
Her go-to icebreaker.
RESOURCES
Video: Your body language may shape who you are by Amy Cuddy
Websites: Leadership HQ and Sonia McDonald
Book: Just Rock It by Sonia McDonald
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Leanne: Hi I'm Leanne, and I live in Brisbane Australia. I've created this podcast to really help those of you who are experts - or look if you don't like that word, you’re pretty good at what you do, and now you wanna take that leap, and share your skills and knowledge with others. From my experience, I remember that it's difficult taking that first step to become a facilitator. So through this show, I'll be interviewing some amazing guests who will share their tips, tricks, and give you actionable advice. Also from time to time I’ll record some solo episodes that really hone in on specific training, and facilitation skills.Interviews and links that we talk about on the show can be found at firsttimefacilitator.com, and I’d love you to support the podcast by subscribing to it in iTunes. Now let's move on to our very first guest Sonia McDonald from Leadership HQ. She's an absolute power house. And I hope you feel inspired to take the leap into facilitation after hearing her story.Welcome to the show Sonia McDonald.Sonia: Hello lovely Leanne. How are you? I'm so honoured. Thank you so much for asking me.Leanne: It's an absolute pleasure. I’ve attended some of your workshops, and it's so true about the energy that you convey.Sonia: I am very passionate with what I do in the leadership space. Thank you very much for the lovely words.Leanne: I wanted to start with a bit about your story. And I’ve heard this one in of the workshops that you've run for us. You were working in HR roles overseas, and returned back to Australia. And you were given a start by someone who asked you if you knew a bit about leadership. What was your response to that?Sonia: My response was I know so much about leadership, and I faked it. I completely faked it. Look I wasn't faking that I could do brain surgery. However, I did have some confidence in my ability obviously with my background, and people, and culture in HR. However, I did have that belief in myself that I could definitely learn it to get myself up to space. So I did fake that I knew a lot in the interview.Leanne: I love that. How did you prepare with what was to come?Sonia: That's a great question. I think for me… I saw the opportunity was going be a great opportunity. I was on the train travelling home to the Gold Coast and I thought, “Okay, what's my plan?” And I just went online and I bought every single book I could on Amazon on leadership. And I just read, and I researched, and I read blogs, and I read articles.And I just kind of put my hands on everything that I could read, and watch, and research. And I also think the thing that also made a big difference is that I made sure that I put it into practice, and learnt by doing. I also started writing a blog called ‘Leadership HQ’ to help me learn. So I thought all it really helped me learn not only by doing that by writing about my learnings, and my insights.Leanne: Yeah, I’ve heard that quite a bit. A lot of people say that the best way to learn a new skill is teach someone else. So with your leadership blog did you have any idea it was going to turn into what it is today?Sonia: No, no, not in a million years. If you had said to me, ‘If we had a time machine. Sonia, we're going to go ten years in the future and this is where you’ll be…” I would have said “No, you're on some sort of drug.” It’s amazing how the world works. I feel so blessed that this is what I'm doing today.Leanne: That’s so great. And look I work with colleagues and sit in workshops with them and hear them say, ‘Oh! I could have run that workshop.” But they never actually take that step, and stand in front of a classroom. I know that’s a bit daunting. What is your advice to people who have the knowledge, but need a bit of a push to get up to the front of the room? What would you say to them?Sonia: Oh gosh! I mean I suppose this is what leadership is about. I think leadership is sometimes about doing things that make you feel uncomfortable, that take you out of that comfort zone - where you have the courage to just give it a go. And also leadership for me is about making a difference. I do that through developing and encouraging others. So I get a lot of people that say to me that they would really love to be able to stand up in front of a room, and be out to do I’m doing, or be able to public speaking, or run workshops. I think the only way you can do it - is do it.I suppose it helps if you watch by others, and figure out what works for you, what doesn't work for you. Also maybe even look online, or watch videos on YouTube, or TED talks. By having the courage to stand up and do it, and even going go to things like Toast Masters. And you know you and I spoke at that Disrupt HR, and you just rocked it. I was like sitting there going, “Oh my gosh! I mean Leanne you just rocked it.” And it takes a lot of courage to get up there.I imagine how it's going to feel when I get up onstage, and or I've stood up in front of that room, or I've presented some knowledge, or some insights; How I'm going to feel that I could make a difference, or help someone else in that room.It’s focusing on the feeling after you do it. And go you know what? I did it. I had the courage to do it. And also learning from it. I mean I remember the first couple of times I started presenting and speaking on stage, and doing workshops. Oh my gosh! There was so many these things I stopped. But it was so good for me to stuff up because I thought, “Well this is what I’ll do differently next time.” And I didn’t let the stuff-ups stop me because it is the best feeling, Leanne. I mean Leanne how did you feel after you…?Leanne: Yeah, it's such an amazing feeling. I sort of likened it to… I used to play netball quite competitively when I was a bit younger - that adrenaline that you get before a big match. It was the same feeling, and I hadn't had that feeling in quite a while. Yeah obviously time, blood, sweat, and tears went into that Disrupt HR speech. And afterwards, all the speakers are floating, and high five-ing, and I felt that feeling for days. It was great- definitely worth it.Sonia: Yeah, it is. Isn’t it?Leanne: Just do it, absolutely. So I guess what you're talking about in terms of attitude and having that confidence to be a leader - well that's what I learnt when I went to one of your breakfast events last year; the Leadership Attitude workshop. And I remember walking into the room. It was about 7:00 in the morning. Looking around - well, no one has been caffeinated yet. It's pretty quiet.When we left an hour an a half later, the volume of that room was amplified, everyone was talking to each other, there was really great energy in the room. And I think that reflects on your style of presenting and providing that energy. How did you learn to do that? Is this something that is just Sonia? Or, did you have to learn that skill?Sonia: I’d have to say maybe a little bit of both. It was more around again trial and error and putting myself out there, and kind of getting a sense around what worked for me in terms of my style. I think it is because I'm so passionate about this space - that for me to be that authentic self when I’m presenting and speaking it… it’s because I'm so passionate about it, I let it come out.And I’m not afraid to be vulnerable, and to kind of make a fool of myself if I need to help inspire others to get that sense of purpose and passion within themselves. So I think it's a combination. I think it was much of our successes and you know lots of failures to find my style.Leanne: Now I’d like to delve into some information on how to help others become facilitator. In your observation, what do you think the core skills are that someone needs to learn to be good at engaging people in a workshop?Sonia: I think you've got to put your ego aside. Like put it at the front door when you walk into a room. It's not about you. It's about them, and their experience. Practice is really important.. When I was facilitate all workshops understanding what the client wants, what the audience wants in terms of action - what do you want them to walk away with? How do you want them to feel, or how do you want to make them feel? What sort of key things do you want them to take away? It's important that you think about the end goal and what outcomes you're wanting to achieve; but not bombard them with too much information - think about the top five things you want them to walk away with. Obviously energy is really important; the energy that you bring to the group.Also think about your audience. For example, I’ll adjust my facilitation style to say a group of emerging leaders versus an executive leadership team or a CEO.Also I'm very visual. So for me, it's making sure that I blend anything that I facilitate. I bring in lots of a lot of visual pictures, particularly if I show slides.. I won’t stand in front of them and go blah, blah, blah, blah. Thanks very much, okay bye.I’ll share a couple of slides, share a couple of key points and ask, “Okay, how does everyone feel about that? Let's talk about that talk to the person next to you. Let's share those insights”. In this way, they are thinking about what I've said and what it means to them.So I think those sort of things work really well. Also not being afraid. I think some people in times when they facilitate they are, “What if I say something stupid, or what happens if someone disagrees with me?” Gosh, that's happened to me.Leanne: Oh has it? What did you do?Sonia: I just hid under the table. I’m not kidding; oh!Leanne: I think that is a huge fear.Sonia: Yeah look I always thank people like oh wow okay thank you, that's a really interesting insight - tell me why, let's talk about that. And again, it’s ego out to the door. It's not about me, it's about them.It's about you being the facilitator and saying, “Okay, all right. Let's talk about this. What's the rest of the group think about this?" And sometimes I've even been in workshops or I’ve facilitated, or when you’re running a type of team-building or high performance team, where the group dynamics, or teams disagree.Sometimes people have become quite aggressive and you have to say, “Hey look, let's not go down that road. It might not be taking us in the direction we want to go. Let’s park it and talk about it another time.”That's where the facilitator is really important. You're checking in with the energy of the group, and you're watching body language. So with facilitation there's more to just getting up in front of people, and showing slides, or talking, or sharing insights of learnings.It takes so much out of you because you've also got to be listening to the group, but also looking at the body language of the group. If I feel that the group, or the energy is feeling a little bit low, or this is getting a little bit too much, I'll say, “Guys let's take a 5-minute brain break. Let's go out, let's stretch. So reading the energy, and the body language of the group is really important too.Leanne: I mean that's really great, and really comprehensive. I’m just curious about the picking up on the dynamics of the group. Would you say that something that you've improved at over the years?Sonia: I think that's where you just need to be really present. So when you are presenting, you’re also reading the room (and not sitting there thinking “I don't know what to make for dinner tonight”). If you are noticing something you’re not afraid to say “Mary, or Jim. I've noticed that your energy is changing. Is there something that you'd like to share?” It could be even in the break, you might go up to someone and say, “I have noticed something with your body language - is everything okay? Because nine out of ten people say, “Hi thanks for asking me - yes, I wasn't comfortable with this, or I wouldn't mind sharing this next. Is that okay?” Yeah of course, I thought I'd check in with you.Leanne: Yeah this is something I experienced something last year. You're absolutely right. It's all about checking in, taking breaks, and just making sure they’re comfortable and that you can bring it together. Because one person can have a huge impact on the group dynamics.Sonia: Yeah that's a really good learning for you as well. So thanks for sharing that.Leanne: You mentioned before that you run sessions for a diverse audience. Sometimes you’re delivering workshops for teenagers, but equally you can feel very comfortable in boardrooms. So what is it about your communication that changes - what do you pitch differently?Sonia: That's a really good question. Last week, when I walked into a room with over 200 teenagers, I walked into the room with a lot of energy. I was wearing jeans, and a suit jacket because I wanted to relate to them. I didn't want to go in there too corporate. I watched how I was presenting myself. Because I have a teenage daughter I also adjusted my language slightly. It was really important for that I connected with the group.I was also probably be a little bit more relaxed with a group of 200 teenagers. I was running up and down the room. First is I'm probably a little less formal. I did use the word friggin’. They were looking at me going, “I think you friggin’ understand this.”. They all just laughed. I was able to laugh, and make a joke about my slide - I put a picture up of myself when I was 15 with like pants, and big blue glasses.So I try to see how I could connect with them. So then they would feel comfortable that, “Oh my gosh! This is the CEO of Leadership HQ talking. But if I was working with an executive leadership teamI probably wouldn't put a picture of myself, and I probably wouldn't go, “Hey, how are you all friggin’ going today” I would be more polished and structured while still being my authentic self. So I do have a style which I know you've seen it. So I think you do need adjust your style depending on the audience. I think that's really important.Leanne: So, you see people enjoying a workshop and they have learnt all this great information and leadership tools. Then, when you check in a couple weeks later, and they’re not implementing them. What's the right way to embed learnings following a workshop?Sonia: Wow that is… Isn’t that the zillion dollar question? I always say to groups, “What do you really want to get out today? Why is today important?” And at the end of the workshop I also ask “What are three things you've learnt today? What are three things that you could change? What would happen if you did change these three things, and what would happen if you didn't change these three things?”I always follow up especially if I'm doing a leadership program, or where I’m spending a day with the team. I always follow up and say to the stakeholders, “Look can you send these article on, or can you send this video to the participants.”Even in between workshop program when I roll out 12 month leadership programs, I always keep the learnings front of mind. I email participants and ask, “Okay, tell me what did you get from that. Tell me what you've done differently, what actions have you implemented, what successes have you had?”. Let's share that with the group.If it's front of mind and the more seriously you take your self-development, the more serious others are going to take you. I find the coaching really transformational because we’re meeting with them once a month. And each month, we're having a conversations, they’re going off to put it into action. We send them their goals or what they need to do. Like to focus on here’s an article you could read, here’s some resources on a platform you could look at.They're actually seeing the change because they're actually focused on it, and they're committed to it, and they want to do it. And that takes champions. It takes people like yourself or myself to go out there and keep them engaged. Does that make sense?Leanne: Oh, absolutely. It’s completely right in terms of just having that frequent kind of touch point, but also the accountability. I think all of us kind of need someone to be accountable to - there's so much else going on in life and at work. It’s hard to keep focused on some of these things.Sonia: This is why when I do any sort of leadership program, or coaching, it's about having the managers involved. I say to them, “Can you please have conversations with your people around what they're learning, and what they got out of it.” You can also have an accountability buddy, someone on the program that you meet once a month.Leanne: Yeah, really good tactical advice about the accountability buddy and the importance of the line manager and their involvement.I'd like to quickly to segue on to leadership, and I this is probably a really open question. But what do you think the biggest challenge is in the leadership space? What are you finding?Sonia: This is what I am out there pretty much standing on top of the mountain screaming about; you know trying to influence others and inspire others. Leadership isn't about a role title - it’s an attitude, mindset, and behaviours. The other thing that I'm seeing I suppose it that there’s so much going on in the world today. We're kind of looking at leaders to have more resilience, and being more agile, and being more vulnerable; and we need more great examples of leadership.I’m seeing people having more discussions around not willing to accept poor behaviour, and poor leadership, and I'm wanting more. I'm wanting stronger leaders out there. I’m wanting to see more examples, more leaders that we can follow, more leaders we can learn from, or more leaders we can see as showing the way that what makes a great leader. What I'm finding is a lot of people are wanting not only to step-up and be that great leader, but they're looking for more great leaders as examples.Leanne: When you ask, “Who are the famous leaders in the world?” We always sort of go to the Nelson Mandela’s, Oprah’s and the Mother Theresa’s where leadership seems unattainable. So it's really good that we can identify people around us who can aspire to.Sonia: Yeah, it is. It's just that's what I think sometimes because we make leadership bigger than what it is because of those examples. You know we kind of go, “Oh man, we can never amount to that.” Well leadership is fundamentally about making a difference, and helping each other shine.Leanne: We do and that leads me on to the question of the premise behind your latest book; ‘Just RockIt’. What's it about?Sonia: ‘Just RockIt’ is all about helping everyone step up and stand tall and go for what they really want. Whether it's to be that best version of you; to a great leader; to start a business; to step up in your career…Whatever you want to do in terms of taking on the world.The last decade I’ve been working in the space. And you know how passionate I am about mental health especially the younger leaders, future leaders. We’re still afraid to put ourselves out there.I want people to start to go ‘You know want? I only have this one life. I don't want to get to that day where I look back on my life; and didn’t lead the life I wanted to lead”. I want people to get out there and work it, and help others work it as well. I want help you be the best you can be as well.Leanne: That is such a great message. I'll definitely get a copy and I'll be at your launch!Sonia: Oh thanks!Leanne: Yeah, I do hear people say things like “Oh I can’t do that”. They have limiting beliefs. And I say “Yes, you can. You can absolutely do it.”Sonia: I don't want to hear "I'll try/I should have/I could have". I always say, “If I can do it, you can too.” I started a company from a blog, and I came back to Australia as a full-time mother with only 2,000 dollars in the bank. And I had to move back in with my parents, and I was like oh boy.And I'm not saying that I dance on rainbows every day. We're all human. I definitely have my ups and downs, and my knocks. However, I focus on what makes me rock.I focus on how I can make my life rock, and help others rock it. One of the chapters in my book is not to give it crap. And it's… you know, I know how it's difficult. And some days I go, “Oh my gosh! I do give a crap about that.”But it's about caring about what, or giving a crap about what really matters to you, and only focusing on that - focus on what makes you beautiful and unique.Leanne: That’s lovely. I couldn't have said it any better myself. So, what's the best advice that you could offer to someone; to a first time facilitator?Sonia: Other than the fact that it’s awesome that you doing this, I would just say, “Think of the end in mind, and think about what outcomes, or think about the audience and what do you think they’ll need. So think about what outcomes or key messages you wanna get across to the great, and then work backwards.When I first started, I would get the flip chart out and think, “Okay, this is what I want them to walk away with" and then I work backwards and then I'd start to map it out, like chapters of a book. What do you want each component of the workshop to entail? What key messages, what sort of learnings can you bring to the group, or to the workshop? What sort of methods could you use? Like videos, brainstorming. What sort of creative stuff could you bring in?I always say that when you're a first time facilitator to not be afraid of being creative. Bring in play-doh, big coloured pencils, crayons, or stickers, or paper. Think about thing that can bring out the creativity in the room. Begin with the end in mind and then work backwards.Leanne: Recently I was looking through some old workshops notes I presented a few years ago and reading through my facilitator notes. I had even written down my own name (like hello, my name is Leanne), c’mon! My notes were written to a tee. It’s really funny looking back and comparing it to what I do now, today I don’t script the detail. I know what the idea is, but it's really about creating that interaction. So you definitely have to start from somewhere. And you're right, it's about the audience. What's your go-to icebreaker?Sonia: A go to icebreaker? Look there’s so many different icebreakers. There's lots of different things I bring - I’ve got an activity or a nuclear bomb exercise which is quite fun, and quite funny, we use body language to decode a code. I also love to get people up and I say, “Okay, brainstorm. What are your top three strengths? What are your three passions? I call it the strengths sharing super-fast session. I think we did that in Leadership Attitude which you came to the last year.Leanne: Yeah, that was really fun. Yeah everyone was buzzing and it's so positive people can't wait to share their strengths. It's a good one.Sonia: Yeah, it is a good one. There’s also these great websites where you can pick up different resources cards. I'll put the cards at the table, and go, “Choose a card, or a quote, or a word, that resonates to you. Now let's go out go and talk to people around the room Why did you pick that card?Leanne: Sonia you absolutely rock. Thank you so much for all of you insights on this interview. I've learned a lot and I hope our audience has as well. Finally, where can people find you?Sonia: Where can they find me? They can find me on social media. You know I'm pretty active on that - LinkedIn or Facebook - also leadershiphq.com.au, or soniamcdonald.com.au as well.Leanne: Fantastic! Thank you so much for joining us on ‘First TimeFacilitator’.Sonia: Oh, you rock. Thank you so much.