First Time Facilitator podcast transcript (Episode 31)
This is the transcript of my conversation with Sally Foley-Lewis. Click to listen to my First Time Facilitator conversation with Sally.
Leanne: I'd like to welcome this week's guest who is a dynamic and interactive presenter, MC, and much-sought-after facilitator and executive coach. Her clients rave about her because she leaves the audience equipped to take immediate positive action. Welcome to the First Time Facilitator Podcast, Sally Foley-Lewis. It's great to have you on the show.
Sally: Oh, Leanne. I'm so delighted to spend a little bit of time with you and chatting our favourite topic; facilitation.
Leanne: We could talk, I mean there's so much to talk about in terms of facilitation. But I saw you earlier this year as an emcee at the Institute for Learning Professionals Conference held in Brisbane. So you open up that conference and you really made us all laugh, you look completely natural on stage, you were talking about al l the different types of people that attend conferences which was just yeah I found that really funny. The stage looks like a bit of a happy place for you has it always been that way?
Sally: As a child, if I'm in front of an audience or if an audiences and imprisoned and have just watch me, I'm always happy. That's just something that I have found incredibly easy to do and I know that doesn't come naturally for other people. Trust me, I'm not good at everything but being in front of a crowd is yeah, it is, it's my happy place.
Leanne: Oh, wow. You're very very lucky. How long have you been in this game of running workshops facilitating emceeing?
Sally: Well, don't let my youthful looks deceive you, dear Leanne. Hahaha. Look, at least 20 years. My first job at a university was working as a Recreation Officer in a Psychiatric Hospital in Brisbane and so I was in front of the, my audience back then with patients and so we would do cooking classes or we'd do some training around some skills for cleaning or crafts or anything like that. So my first job at a university, I already had an audience as such. Yeah, so it's over 20 years.
Leanne: Wow. So in terms of what you need back then 20 years ago and the skills that you've honed now, what's really changed? I mean like the audience obviously has changed. You no longer working with patients. What have you done to really hone your craft in terms of your development?
Sally: I am a big believer of lifelong learning. So I have got books, I'm surrounded by books that I read. When courses come up that I think are going to really take my skills to a haul other level then I will jump on them. Advance facilitation programs, professional speaking courses, training courses. Also programs that probably a little bit left of centre but expand my thinking. And in the last sort of 10 to 15 years, I'm even looking at going in, I mean, I've been spending a lot of time going and seeing other speakers speak and other facilitators facilitate secondly for the content but firstly for the process. The reason why I do that is because I want to sit there and watch the audience and what's the facilitator interaction and probably in the last five years, I've been really more attuned to going, “That was great. That was awesome. This is what I've learned.” But also, “This is what I didn't like.” Now, why didn't I like that?, Why did that not resonate with me?” Because there's value in both sides of that coin and I think any opportunity presents a learning opportunity and heightening that level of observation and ability to say and well, stop and say to yourself, “Why didn't I like it?” or “Why did I like it?” is really important.
Leanne: Yeah, it's a really powerful question. Now that I've been in some workshops and I've thought the facilitators been incredible and killed it and I've really resonated the person and then I talked to the person next to me and that didn't hit the mark. It's pretty fascinating why some facilitators stick and why others don't. Why do you think people are more interested in some facilitator styles over others?
Sally: Well, I think it comes down to why have people presented? Why do people shop in the first place? So, who's your audience and what do they want? And also, is the message being delivered in a way that resonates? I think that's where it comes down to you as the facilitator is having multiple formats of your message ready to go so that it can hit everyone in the room in the right way and I also believe that you will have a very clear bell curve of audience. You'll have people who will be, “No, thank you. Never again.” You'll have people in the room who go, “Yep, pretty good.” and don't take that personally, that's actually take it as it is, that's pretty good. And then, there'll be other people in the room that will become your own personal stalkers because they love you so much. So I think, the good facilitators understand that and also the good facilitators know that of the end that didn't like you, there is some value in trying to work out why but don't stay there because that's just soul-destroying.
Leanne: And I think, yeah, you've had 20 years experienced of this and I think that call of “don't taking it personally” is actually really useful for our first-time facilitators who was just starting their journey. How did you develop your resilience? Was it just a case of, “Okay, I'll take the feedback but I'm going to move on and be constructive with it.” or did you have any sort of other kind of coping mechanism to deal with the feedback from the No group in that bell curve?
Sally: There's been multiple little things along the way and that's been willing to listen. Thanks the person for the feedback but then also remember to ask yourself, “Is that true?, “Is this true of that person?” and “Is this true of me and what I need to be doing to get better?” And then also, I know this sounds really bizarre but after I have facilitated or delivered some training whatever. I come home and I have a shower. It’s a little ritual where I wash away the day because if I if I had someone who gave me some feedback that didn't resonate or didn't make sense or they just didn't like me then I washed that away. But also, in the shower it gives me time to actually step back and relax and say, “Okay, what do I need to take out of this?” So that's one thing. The other big lesson for me is that I have got the biggest expectations of myself. I'm self-competitive and what that means is I'm always going to be my worst critic and sometimes I need to calm that little bunny right down and actually noticed that there are 19 very goods and only one good. So which one do you focus on?
Leanne: Oh, yes.
Sally: Yeah and that's something that's really important and you know what? The goods are good. Don't devalue good, it's good and that's a positive word and I think we sometimes and put good into a not good enough category in our own heads when we're doing that mind chatter. Good is good and be okay with that and focus on the 19 very goods that you've got.
Leanne: Yeah. Isn't it funny how we do just go back to that one feedback form and really dwell on it when you've got overwhelming evidence that it actually went really well.
Sally: Exactly.
Leanne: Good tip. I'm the shower thing. Yeah. I love doing that too, actually. I didn't really think of it as a strategy but it's something that I when I reflect on the work that I've done at the end of the day, yeah, there’s nothing better than just having a hot shower, letting it go and then focus and resetting the next day. I think that's great!
Sally: Absolutely.
Leanne: So you spoke about as in terms of your facilitation you've created information you deliver it in multiple formats. So you have that in your back pocket so you can relate these stories or whatever mediums to present. Are there any other sort of other tips or skills that you think facilitators really need?
Sally: Yeah. I think that in the room, what I have seen a lot of is that a facilitators feel the need to be seen as the expert. While they are hired on that premise, I think there's a lot of facilitators who could do was remembering that people in the room have got experiences and they actually combined with your experience, create a really wonderful depth and richness to the room and so instead of just being the talking head in the front of the room, maybe it's a case of asking a question first and saying, “Who's had experience of this?”, “What's your insights around this?”, “What do you hope to get out of this?” and really listen to what's been said because that can then help you determine how deep you go on some things and it also helps you determine whether you need to actually deliver information as knowledge transfer or actually get into an exercise or an activity to truly immerse the group into something. I think that's something that some facilitators get caught up in whether its nerves or an expectation to be seen as something X Y Zed. I'm not sure but that's one of the things I think a lot of facilitators could do to just take that deep breath and ask first.
Leanne: I think there's a real fine line between facilitating and training and I also think for some reason, if you're at the front of the room, you're expected you're the authority figure so you're expected to know it all. I think that's where we cover coming from so I really like the idea of just letting go and using questions more to find out what your audience actually does know and where can you fill that gap.
Sally: Yeah.
Leanne: Now, you mentioned that you read a lot of books but you've also written a few books yourself. Now one of the books is called The Productive Leader and I really wanted to talk about, you talked about productivity and using systems to make work easier and I know as a facilitator especially working for a big company, we've got some content and then were asked to deliver a workshop or something entirely new or we might be asked to change a half-day workshop into a full day or cut it down to an hour. So we're constantly having to go through all the resources we've created and make all these changes and we save them somewhere. Is there a better way of doing that?
Sally: Look, I think there's just one layer and this actually creates work to start with but saves you a lot of time later and that is as you save, where's your cataloguing of your IP. What I think happens is that we create all these programs and all these resources and we've got files everywhere and we've even probably got them cross-reference to. It was somewhere they're sitting in a training folder or a facilitation folder and then somewhere else they're sitting into the actual topic folder and I think what we're not doing is creating a really clear catalogue and I've got a very, look, I'm big for simple. To me, it's very difficult to make things simple but that's where I'm always striving for which means an Excel spreadsheet that has a cross-referencing of the file name and the activity, the resources and also what it will help to, what topic it's supposed to hit on whether it's interpersonal communications, time management, leadership, delegation feedback, whatever it is and it can be more than one. So that way, when I go into the Excel spreadsheet and I do a find, say I've got to do a Lunch and Learn on feedback. If I do find feedback, there I go I've got about six or seven activities: Bang! Pick and choose.
Leanne: Oh, my gosh. That sounds incredible. Yeah, so easy.
Sally: I'm not going to lie to you, the set-up is big. It does take a bit of work to set it up but it is so worth it when you imagine in 12 months’ time you're going and looking for something and all you have to do is do a find search in an Excel spreadsheet. So that's one of the little hacks I think is really valuable and time-saving.
Leanne: Yeah. I mean, I'm even thinking now get so many people at work coming up to me and going, “Oh, do you have a good energizer or something they can get people moving or an activity that's great for engineers, or?” and so if we had just a shared Excel document where all that was. I really like that.
Sally: Yes.
Leanne: You also promised in your book that promised to the reader that you'll help save them two hours every day.
Sally: Yes.
Leanne: It's just using a combination of these type of hacks or what's your philosophy around time and I know you mentioned that it's really about self-management not time management.
Sally: Yeah. It’s tasks and focus-management really. I don't like the phrase time-management but that's what we know it is called as a commercial type of phrase. I do promise two hours a day because when you get into the book, The Productive Leader, there's three big elements to it. There's your personal productivity, your professional productivity, and your people productivity. And if you do one or two things out of each of those three areas, you will find that you'll be crawling, you'll be taking back, creeping back those two hours. It’s nothing you're not going to use them, you will use them but you'll be using them for things that are far more valuating and far more fulfilling for either your personal, your professional life. So it could be setting up an email automation system as one. Tidying up the way you have your meetings is another and that could be your professional productivity and your personal productivity, you could do some batching of tasks or some chunking of some work and then in your people productivity, it could be who can I delegate some work to. So just those couple of things set up over the course of the two-week period or we'll wait a couple of weeks actually brings you over time you'll get back two hours a day.
Leanne: I really need those two hours. Haha. With the people side, do you in terms of delegation, do you outsource any tasks using any virtual assistants. Have you gone down that road?
Sally: I have. I mean, as you know I work for myself and so what I tend to do is outsource project to project. So depending on what it is, is what I'll then outsource. So I'm a big fan of it and I know that it can be quite daunting for some people but when you do it right and I'm actually quite passionate about delegation so that will probably be my next book. That if it's done right and it's clear and your expectations are set in place and you do have milestones and progress checks and things like that until you have that such trust in the relationship that you know you can hand the project over and not worry about it, then it does work well. I do that whether they're virtual or not. I just had a video because I'm speaking in Kuwait and so I have to do some promotional video and so I've sent that off to what it was Upwork or whatever it was Fiverr or whatever I kind of remember what it's called now. A guy came forward and said this is what I do, this is who I am and so I have to do my checks and balances. It's my due diligence here and so anyone who has to delegate, you have responsibility to check that you're picking the right person and so once that was established I asked, “Is this something you can do?” “What's your experience with doing this?” and then, “How long do you think it would take?” and so it was slow to set up but once I once I knew that he was the right guy, I uploaded the videos they were done and they were done perfectly any one revision on one was required for and what I did was I asked for Arabic subtitling onto the videos and within 24 hours done dusted and perfect. So it might have taken me two days to set that up and get that relationship right, get my understanding and my expectations clear but then, bang! Done. Thank you very much.
Leanne: We had so a couple things one I can't wait to read your book on delegation. I'm fascinated by it too more the case of when I look at people, there are certain people or I don't know if it's types and hopefully I'm not labelling but delegation seems it's not about just delegating a task, it's really about a mindset and I know that some people have a fear of letting go or have the confidence that someone can perform a task better than other people. So looking forward to reading that book.
Sally: Oh, yeah.
Leanne: Second thing is, what you're presenting in Kuwait? What's that all about? That’s exciting!
Sally: Thank you. It’s the book The Productive Leader.
Leanne: Yes.
Sally: I've been booked to do a one-day presentation in Kuwait. So it's a long way to go for one day.
Leanne: It is.
Sally: I used to live in the Middle East and we didn't actually get to go to Kuwait while we were there so I'm so excited. I think I'll get about five minutes to see the city. But I'm very very excited about going.
Leanne: Oh, that's so cool. I mean, I read in you bio, you've worked or lived in Germany. So the UAE as you mentioned Asia and even outback Australia. So you're presenting to all different types of people, what do you change anything in the way that you deliver or what is it with the different audiences that you do kind of modify to make sure you hit the mark with your message?
Sally: Well, I think the thing that happens before you even stand in front of the audience is asking a lot of questions and questions like to the client not necessarily the audience. There’s two different things there. To the client, “What do you want your audience to do, to think, to feel, to believe, to act on when I when I walk off the stage? Number one. Number two is who's in the room that I need to be aware of? Are there any particular issues that are going to be in the room that will be not spoken about but completely known to everyone except me? Is there any languaging? That is super important. I don't just mean swearing and potty mouth stuff. I actually mean, “Do you use a certain type of terminology in your particular industry?” And so those sort of questions that take it another step further are really important and I do change it because they're not every audience is the same. I sound less Australian when I'm actually overseas.
Leanne: Really? I got some friends, yeah, when they have a few drinks they’re just their accent changes.
Sally: Yeah, I will admit I come from Queensland so I sound a little rednecky, I’m a Queenslander. But when I'm overseas, I do for some reason I switch into a far more less accented Australian accent if that makes any sense.
Leanne: Yeah, I know what you mean. More kind of British English?
Sally: Yes.
Leanne: Yeah.
Sally: And I also slow it down as well. I speak a lot slower when I'm overseas. But also, I mean that's just voice. But also, I think for the audience when I'm when I'm in the city than I even present differently because there's an expectation perception and while part of me thinks can't they just judge me for me and we can all get on that bandwagon. The reality is you've got to hit a credible no straightaway and so it's dressing the part, speaking the part and then also delivering the part. So when I'm out West, I might wear a pair of jeans and pair of boots and a shirt. Whereas, in the city, I'll be wearing a suit. It just you've got to be thinking about who is and changing things to suit them and as an example is that just recently did some cross-cultural training with a group from the Philippines. So in order to get an exercise done, I had to change some phrasing around so that it would make sense but because English is obviously is not their first language and so I tried different ways to describe a phrase as well as have the person in the group who had English was probably the best out of the whole group and had a chat with him about what the phrase means and have to translate it and so I think for facilitators, it's being okay to play and be flexible and adaptive and keep trying to work things out because your audience wants to get it and that's the thing.
Leanne: Yeah. I think flexibility is key and what most recently last week I was booked into run the strategy session and the agenda just continued to change and I was thinking, “Oh, gosh. I'm not going to have a good night's sleep tonight knowing that it might change again.” But I think that is the nature of the game. That is facilitation. You need to be prepared for anything.
Sally: Oh, yes. I was just going to say. I think that there's a line of being flexible and I'm about to contradict myself and say knowing when to say No and knowing as a facilitator to know when to pull back because let's face it we have a lot of people who want to put in a lot into a day. The more content you shoves in; the more shallow you're going to be and I think that's that bouncing act that makes it very hard for facilitators sometimes.
Leanne: Yeah. It does. Especially if you've got this whole day and they want you to cover all these topics but even just moment you can look at that and just go, “Look, one of those topics alone, it's like it's been a week on it.” I mean, even the doing that delegation, productivity and things like that. So I guess the million-dollar question is a lot of people go to these workshops and they get really inspired but afterwards they don't really implement the changes and I know that at the conference where you emceed what you did was at the beginning of that is you got us to team up with someone as a buddy and we were budding each other, we're going to make each other accountable for learning and embedding all this stuff. As well as setting a time in our diaries and our phones for a week after where we could spend some time to reflect on what we learn about conference. I thought that was such a great tool. What other tips do you have for embedding learning following that workshop?
Sally: I tend to walk out of the programs I deliver with I could guarantee that they've got a coaching session as well and that is to make sure that with between now and a month's time it's usually less than a month but usually within the month I say, “Please call me or book in a session because I want to make sure that over the next month as this feels clunky as you embed new things and I'm there to support you.” and I don't sugar-coat anything. I'm not one of these people who says, “Oh, it's just easy.” No, it's not! You're going through that transition of conscious incompetence and trying to embed something new. You're trying to change something and the latest research says that habits take anywhere from 21 days to 18 months and it depends on the habit and depends on the situation, it depends on you. So you know these things take time and so I often say to people, “Be prepared for it to feel clunky. Please call me.” and then also, “What is it they're going to do? “What's their accountability piece? And I get them to tell me and I will often say depending on the size of the group. “How do you want me to help you stay accountable?” and that's a coaching. It's actually just taken straight out of a coaching context and I will say to every person in the group particularly small groups on a little piece of paper I will say to them, “You need to write down your name, your email, your phone number and how do you want me to help you stay accountable?”
Leanne: Nice. So it could just be like an email or a quick SMS but then they know that someone else is thinking about them and wanting them to succeed. Love it.
Sally: Yeah, definitely. And I say to them, “Just remember scary Sally is coming and get that.” and that’s fun with it and that's the other thing I do say, “What's going to make this fun for you? What’s going to light you up?” and if they say, “Oh, I'm going to do this.” and I said, “Well, no. Say it to me please, you’re excited.”
Leanne: Yes.
Sally: Then don't do it.
Leanne: Yeah.
Sally: Then I say that, I take that pressure off and say, “Don't say that you're going to do something just because you think that's what I want you to hear. I actually want you to tell me what you do want to do it and don't overthink, don't hassle, doesn't have to impress anyone but you.” And when someone, I'm thinking of an example just recently when someone said, “I just want to reread this.” and I said, “Then that's your action and that's okay.” That was the most valuable thing that person could do because at the end of the session they hadn't done their pre-work for the session and at the end of the session I think they felt that they were a little bit behind the group because they didn't do their pre-reading and so they actually said to me and quite quietly so not everyone else heard, “I think I just got to reread this.” and I said, “That is brilliant. Write it down. That's what you're going to do.”
Leanne: Yeah. It doesn't have to be changing the world, right?
Sally: That’s right.
Leanne: But simple steps that at least you get one action done that builds momentum. That’s exciting!
Sally: Absolutely.
Leanne: Just before you mentioned the word fun as well and I think that when I think of you and your brand I think of fun just after what you did at the emcee event plus all the photography and branding that you've got too. I think that's really clever. So all those slides that you had were just photos of you doing different things and with different props. How long did it take you to really create that brand yourself and make it come alive in terms of all the marketing collateral you've got and the training resources?
Sally: Well, I could say 20 years but the real, it's finding the right photographer I think is one person and finding yourself and your branding like, “Who are you?” and I think it's really important to do values exercise for yourself. Now, “What values do you want that light you up, they think to who you are but also resonate as you as a professional and how will then do you want those values to be seen in the market?” and I was called, someone once said to me, “Sally, you're like a lighthouse. You know, you except you're constantly glowing and that means that I feel safe. When I'm with you, you give me safe passage and safe direction and you light the way for me and I love that about you.” and I thought, “Well, that was just fantastic,” So anything to do with light bulbs and lighting the way or a lighthouse was going to be definitely in my branding when that sort of struck a chord with me. The other thing is, you know my undergraduate degree was a Bachelor of Leisure Studies. So if I don't have fun somewhere in what I'm doing and that will be a waste of a degree and I think it's about allowing yourself to shine. I've had probably three or four sets of branding photography done over the years and this latest set I had some very close friends who know me actually say, “Ha! Finally, photos that are so you and that's when you know you're congruent.”
Leanne: Yeah. I was really impressed by them and I think we'll add a link to your website on the show notes so everyone can see what I'm talking about.
Sally: Okay.
Leanne: But just your slides are amazing, very visual and just I think you're right, people just connect with that because it did. I think it represents you even though they don't know you that well from what you were coming across and with those slides it really worked.
Sally: Oh, thank you.
Leanne: So we’re speaking about so many different topics. I'd really kind of surface level. We could speak for ages. We talked about branding, the different types of audience that you've delivered to across the world, cataloguing your resources, productivity, so much more. If people want to get in touch with you and find out or if they want you just to keep them accountable. Where can they find you?
Sally: All the W's. Sally Foley- Lewis; S A LL Y F O L E Y L E W I S. So website and LinkedIn are probably my two go-to spots but if you google my name then there's only one of me. Thank goodness many people say.
Leanne: Awesome and all the best in Kuwait as well. We can't wait to hear about it. I'm sure you'll post some updates on your LinkedIn about that experience. That's fantastic.
Sally: Oh yeah. Thanks, Leanne. Awesome.
Leanne: Awesome
Sally: And thanks for having me. It's been great chatting.
Leanne: Absolute pleasure. Thank You, Sally.
Sally: Thank you.
[END OF AUDIO] 28:54