Episode 138: There's no such thing as a difficult group - only an inflexible facilitator with Marcus Crow
We’ve been delivering in-person workshops for years. We’re comfortable. Give us a marker pen, some butcher’s paper and some decent catering: We’re good to go!
When Covid hit earlier this year, many of us had to shift gears and deliver workshops online. We had to adjust to new technology, new ways of experiencing workshops, a range of energy levels. We all started feeling like First Time Facilitators!
That’s the conversation I have with today’s guest, Marcus Crow.
Marcus has an insane amount of in-person workshop experience. He’s also the co-founder of 10,000 HOURS. They design and deliver content for Training, Conferences and Offsites, and they have been honing their craft for more than 20 years. Prior to starting 10,000 Hours, he co-founded, built and sold Phuel / Oxygen Learning to John Singleton's STW (now WPP).
Since 1997, clients hire Marcus to do three things:
(1) be their keynote speaker, (2) provide strong facilitation for their high-stakes meetings and off-sites, (3) teach their team new skills.
He works at the front of the room at their conferences, meetings, road-shows, team off-sites, town-halls and team huddles.
Marcus’ Experience:
As a guy standing at the front of the room: Keynote speeches, high-stakes facilitation, workshops, offsites, conference hosting for market leading organisations across industry. Thousands of sessions to tens of thousands of people over more than twenty-two years.
As an advisor: Meeting architecture, building conference agendas, configuring strategy offsite objectives and outcomes, constructing workshop activities, designing plenary and small group sessions, rehearsing senior talent for high-stakes presentations.
As an entrepreneur: Start-ups, mergers, capital raising, staff retention equity plans, trademark disputes, grooming business for sale, succession-planning, talent management, acquisitions, IP licensing.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
What it takes to adapt a face to face workshop, and move it online
How you can build your flexibility muscles as a facilitator
What to do when you encounter resistance from someone in your workshop
Good tips for timing for your virtual sessions
Key considerations if you’re thinking of dropping your job and starting your facilitation business
Here are some questions I asked Marcus during the interview:
What’s the difference in your preparation between being a keynote speaker and as a facilitator? What’s your approach?
What did you learn that’s different, new and challenging for you, that pushed you out of your comfort zone?
How do you feel about being forced to transition to the online facilitation world?
How are you converting face to face to virtual workshops in terms of timing, pre and post sessions?
What would be your advice for people who would like to start their own facilitation business?
Resources mentioned on this show:
Connect with Marcus Crow on Linkedin
Join the conversation when the podcast is over in our free Facebook group called The Flipchart
Get on the waitlist for Virtually Possible 2.0!
Quotes:
“We need a brand that’s going to recognize wisdom as we get older.”
“There’s no such thing as a difficult group, there's only a flexible facilitator.”
Watch the video!
About your host: Leanne Hughes
Leanne Hughes is an international facilitator, speaker and coach who loves creating unpredictable workshop experiences, that predictably work.
She combines her experience in Marketing, with her education in Human Resources and Psychology, to help leaders create engaging everyday experiences - that are so contagious they scale across teams, functions and regions.
Leanne has facilitated leadership, onboarding and team-development workshops across Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development. She has over 13 years’ of experience across a range of industries including mining, government and tourism sectors.
She’s the host of the First Time Facilitator podcast and was a finalist in the 2018 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Tweet Leanne your number one takeaway from this episode!
Grab my cheat sheet:
The 5 unpredictable ways to start a Zoom meeting (that predictably work)
