First Time Facilitator podcast transcript
This is an episode transcript of my conversation with Sarah McVanel on Episode 39 of the First Time Facilitator podcast.
Leanne: I would like to welcome to the First Time Facilitator podcast, joining us all the way in Canada, Sarah McVanel. Sarah, welcome to the show.
Sarah: Thanks, Leanne. It’s awesome to be here.
Leanne: It's awesome to have you on the show and even better is that Sarah was recommended by a listener of the podcast, Amanada, who saw Sarah at a workshop. Obviously, was very inspired and got on the email straightaway and connected us both, so credit to you.
Sarah: Oh, thank you and what a huge credit and booster confidence that is too. So I'm hugely grateful.
Leanne: A lot of people ask me how I find guests for the show and I think my favourite guests are the ones that have been recommended by people that walked out of workshops thinking that person was just dynamic and incredible. So it is an extremely amazing credit to you. Now, let us start by finding out how you've actually got into the field of facilitation of organizational development what led you down the path to where you are now?
Sarah: Well, it's such a beautiful cousin to add all education and that actually started when I was in my undergrad. I went to a university that really believed and hugely supporting our undergrads and so by the time I was a senior level undergrad, there are a few teachers assistant positions open for the really huge first year Psychology courses of my undergrad in Psych that I was able to become a teacher assistant and then I just consumed every opportunity possible to learn how to be a really great educator of people in the university system.
But so much of that's transferable to working with motivated adults and professionals. And so my second job which was only a couple years after grad school was working as an educator in a Mental Health Hospital and then the facilitation offered opportunities just opened right up. Whether be challenging conversations and helping people to have those conversations so kind of more one-on-one type of facilitation that would border on mediation not even realizing what it was at the time.
Right through to very large program realignment and having to try to help a whole bunch of people get used to a lot of change and then start to set the course. So just a couple of years out of school and like I think a lot of facilitators, listeners, who are on the line is there's no one straight way to becoming a facilitator and so we're all mutts and I think we can be proud of that because that's how we bring our genius and our authentic greatness to whatever group were working with is it's a combination of all of our unique experiences.
Leanne: Yeah, I think so and I think it's right we'd bring all different types of facilitators onto the show just to demonstrate that there is no one career path into this field and I think a lot of people resonate with that and there's also no one way of saying, “Oh, look! Sarah is amazing and I've got to be exactly like Sarah because she's so wonderful.” It's like what can you bring your experience to really demonstrate that. So in that first time, I mean you got experience very young in your career, how did you feel being up in front of a room and possibly talking to people that were maybe double your age or had a lot more life experience than you. How did that feel?
Sarah: Yeah. Well, you know the irony is, I trained to become a therapist and so in comparison to trying to help people through divorce and loss and all of these things that I was completely unqualified to do. Facilitation actually didn't seem that overwhelming good really and I'm sure you talk about this all the time in your show that the beauty of facilitation is you get to hold the space that the people in the room are the exact people who need to be there. That they're the ones with the great ideas with the best path forward and that your truly best gift as a facilitator is to help bring that out.
So I think my confidence built partly through experience and just some trial and error getting some great mentorship by people who had more experience than I did and taking some courses and practicing different facilitation methods. And I think for those listeners who were earlier in their journey, when you start to notice crossover that, “Huh. That thing I learned in that course is similar from the way this person's doing it and then I also think my mentor was talking about that.” and that's what I really liked when I went to that breakout session at that conference last year. That's where you start to get your facilitator legs underneath you because you're seeing synergies and you're seeing what works for you and you begin to start to trust your authentic voice as a facilitator.
Leanne: Yeah. It’s really true about the linking is really important and not forgetting that as soon as you're out of a workshop you took that hat off. It’s like it's always with you. I know sometimes when I'm shopping or I hear a song, I think, “Oh, that relates to blah blah blah.” or something that happened in my life and I think that's a really great example of explaining the grow model and leadership.
Sarah: Right. Yes.
Leanne: It’s always with us.
Sarah: Yeah, I love that. And on the other neat thing I think for your listener to understand is as you're building, you're cultivating this career as a facilitator, it will then open other doors for you that you may or may not even realize. So for example, 50% of my income now in my business comes from speaking which by the way four years ago I was working in a corporate job so who knew that I was even going to be working for myself. So that was surprising and then defined myself as I'm working for myself realizing that actually it's doing a lot of keynote speaking that is the next version of my career. Well, everything that I work so hard to master and cultivate as a facilitator now shows up in my speaking skills as well. So I don't think there's anything lost on people really building the skill set.
Leanne: I've had a few listeners ride in and they've either recently left their corporate jobs to start their own consultancy or they're really looking at how they transition that. Do you want to quickly talk through this? I mean there's so many places we can go from what you just said.
Sarah: I know.
Leanne: I'd love to just focus us on that part for the moment and then we'll move on. You said four years ago, you're working in corporate and before we even got onto recorded this we were talking about the word “side hustle”. So can you just share with us what was your journey transitioning from a corporate career into just killing it with your own business now?
Sarah: I love that- killing it. Wahoo. Standing for each other’s word, I love it. I think I did a lot of work that didn't really have a terminology and the side hustle and the gig economy, we talk a lot about it now but we weren't talking about it five, ten years ago. When people started to ask me, “Hey, would you be able to come and facilitate this strategic planning or our group is going through a difficult challenging time and we need an outside person to help us think through and make decisions?”
So many different types of facilitation that people in my network were asking me to do and I would ask my employer is that okay if I take a vacation day and I would go and do and it would be great because whatever I learned there and whatever I practiced there, it made me actually better the work in the workplace. So that was I guess the first version of my entrepreneurship journey was actually while I was still working and I know that you have that same situation where you're working full time and then you have your side hustle.
That's such a great risk-free, confidence-building, risk-reduction way to start your entrepreneurship journey and to really also see what is your genius. Because when I went out into the workplace and it was actually precipitated by a very serious mental health crisis of one of my kids and my son doing incredibly well now. So this is all a very good story, so in case any listeners are you know, “Oh, my gosh.” It's all good everybody, it's good. It’s good because I took all the skills and my passion that I had in my corporate life and I found a way to be able to monetize them.
So I definitely worked very hard in that five months’ notice that I had given to try to figure out how do I connect in with people and let them know that this is what I'm doing now and that I will be available as of January 2015 for hire and you know what, the amazing thing is because facilitation is such an adaptable flexible agile skill set and because people grasp what that's about. Even if they don't use the word, “I need a quote facilitator.” They can describe it and you're like, “Yes. I have something in that bag of tricks that can help this client.”
So I was able to start earning money right away and then I started to get wise to the idea that-- and this is from mentorship, this wasn't just my own idea. But really listening to people who were crushing in the biz and they said, “You really need to focus on one core area of expertise because people pay more and respect specialists more than generalists and a lot of us as facilitators are generalists.” and that's really really good as you're growing your career.
However, we're going to notice there are things that we're better at than others that we like more than others and it's okay that you can like lots of things or that you can be really good at lots of things but what do you really love? If you could only focus on one thing for the rest of your days, if it's governance facilitation, if it's strategic planning, if it's imploding teams, if it's working with executive teams. What is that sweet spot that you absolutely love and really cultivating and harvesting that? That really was the next phase of my entrepreneurship journey was really respecting that my area of expertise is recognition.
And when I can help leadership teams, when I can help groups of middle managers, when I can even help frontline staff, whether it be in a keynote right through to a half-day facilitated workshop or facilitated planning session to really tap in and leverage that, that I know they're going to break the results because this is what I saw in my corporate career as an organizational development expert. So that's just in terms of a journey. It's a lot of trial and error but of course that's exactly what we experienced as facilitators, right? You have to quote, trust the process.
So men does it, you do your words come back to bite you when it's like, “Oh, my gosh. In my own life, I have to quote, trust the process too.” and to your point, it's been hugely not only beneficial of having a much happier, healthier family life but also my lifestyles better, financially I'm bringing in as much money if not more than in my corporate job which in Canada, if you make a certain amount in the public sector, it has been reported in the paper. So it was a pretty decent income and the great thing is I get to do what I love every single day and if the client isn't the right fit, I don't have to get working with them if I don't want to.
Leanne: Yes. [laughs]
Sarah: And I love most of my clients. Don't get me wrong but occasionally there's like, “That's not a good fit it.”
Leanne: Yes.
Sarah: Okay, but were not to be. Yeah.
Leanne: My head's going in so many directions but what I wanted to focus on, I guess. I want to talk about your recognition stuff in a moment but you said something really interesting and I was googling this a lot earlier this year. So I was asked to facilitate an internal global strategy day and I'm thinking, “Oh, this is interesting.” because I work for the company and they usually go external and I was googling articles about should you bring in an external versus an internal, most pros and cons of both. Because you've worked in both, you've been an internal man, you've been in external. What is the value that an external person can bring? What’s the value of the external person?
Sarah: Yeah. So of course, like so much of what we talked about in facilitation, really understand what the core objectives are. So if the objective is from an external facilitator side, neutrality, not worried that people won't speak up and say something, people feeling this individual isn't connected at all to the outcome that they feel completely disconnected to that, that people perhaps respect in your culture external people more. That is the reality, sometimes, we value externals such as just take a look at your hiring practices. If you hire and people get promotions based on hiring from outside versus hiring from within that is probably your indication that you also need an external facilitator.
Whereas, the flipside is that if you have a culture where we really value our internal people, we work very hard in succession planning and fostering and building your talent to have an external person that can do an internal individuals job would almost feel like I don't want to say slap in the face that's a violent analogy but it could feel like a disconnect and it frankly it's not recognizing and valuing your own talent and either way what I would say is so let's say you really feel for this particular engagement an external facilitator you want to either try it or it is the way to go and you've got your reasons.
I would still respect your internal people by going to them and say, “Hey, I know you could do an amazing job. Leanne, you are a rock star, you're so good, you've done this for us before. I want to just give you a heads up. We are going to go and we're going to ask an external facilitator to bid on this project. Please know that is not a slight on your abilities. Their motivation for that is A, B and C and most people will say, “Great! How can I help then?” and then actually what the nice thing that can happen and this is where I've seen external facilitators really get huge value is your internal people can learn from them and of course your external person can learn from your internal people.
But why you want to pay the money is that you can also have that as a learning growth experience for your internal people as well and then maybe it comes back in house the next year or maybe it's always external but your internal person can be part of that process. They can help you recruit the right person, they can help that proposals, and they can give you a sense as to what they think. If they were looking for somebody, what do they think of this group or this objective would best suit what type of facilitator.
Leanne: Yeah. That’s really great.
Sarah: Does that help?
Leanne: Yeah, absolutely. You’ve connecting both- I think what you said, it all does every single sort of question about facilitation really comes down to that “What is the outcome?” when you're deciding anything, right? So that's really great.
Sarah: Yeah.
Leanne: So let's talk about recognition. So why did that really pop out for you as an area of focus. Why recognition over leadership, over strategy? I’d love to hear.
Sarah: Yeah. I actually goosebumps when you ask that question and that's how much I love my topic and anyone out there who's trying to find their area of expertise, do the goosebumps test. When somebody asks you juicy question and you just get so too sort of electrified by your topic and it's like, “Oh yeah, you’re right. That's right, I get to talk about that all the time.” That's probably your area of genius. So why do I know because when we would work with and when I say “we”, as I climb the corporate ladder often this would be not just me but the people who reported to me as well. We worked as a team and so if we were trying to help some teams that were really struggling, great great people, super professional, talented, but for whatever reason it could be a huge change, it could be compassion fatigue, it could be dynamics within the group, and you know the drill, right? There's all kinds of reasons why teams start to go south. We just held the space that each one of them and collectively there was greatness there but the best most effective, fastest strategy we knew how to use was to help them through recognition. Teach them to recognize themselves because oftentimes they weren't and they were feeling very depleted as well as to be able to notice the greatness within each other and the greatness within their team the greatness from the organization.
And when my co-author that I used to work with, another facilitation guru that I actually had the privilege to speak at a conference with next year or next week in Colorado and I'm so excited to be facilitating with her again next week. She and I just decided that the world needed to be having more of a conversation about recognition. That we undervalue it, we dismiss it, we think that it's all this too easy stuff that you know how to do in kindergarten isn't as important as all things that are go on a job posting. But we had seen how this was a game changer and that will people were able to recognize themselves and each other then it could be a total turnaround in the team and then whatever we did after that just made it better but exponentially better at first from the recognition work.
So we validated that, we went to a Canadian engagement survey company called Metrics At Work and were just waiting I'm sure for a nosy blonde to poke around at their quarter of a million engagement survey data points to try to validate what we had been seeing as facilitators and what they did was they separated out the twenty least satisfied teams with the twenty most satisfied teams and what they found was that in actual fact there was a huge statistically significant difference of things that as a facilitator, it's pretty hard to impact like trust in the organization, satisfaction with management, continuous improvement in innovation cultures over engagement and intention to stay.
So in other words what we found was the best easiest way to get at all kinds of other things that I did not have easy strategies than my facilitator toolkit, I could use recognition and get huge results and so that's when I had to really hold myself accountable to stand tall in my expertise and in my passion and pick one thing. The easy choice was recognition. So that was kind of how the facilitation experience that I've had and working with so many teams helped me tremendously and being able to figure out what that core area of expertise I could hang my hat on as a professional.
Leanne: Yeah. It's because it's really interesting. You're the first recognition expert that I've met so it kind of, it was very brave because I don't know it in Australia what it's like in Canada but it's not really seen as a thing. A lot of people like you said go down the traditional paths of leadership and team-building.
Sarah: Yeah.
Leanne: And recognition is something that's really separate and really interesting and I love that you've called your business greatness magnified. How did you come to picking that name? I think that's another hard choice for people is not only the topic but what they actually call their side hustle or their business.
Sarah: So our brand, my co-authors and a co-author and I, the work we would do, would we would help people “FROG” each other which stands for “Forever Recognize Others’ Greatness and so greatness had to be in my business name somewhere. So that's where greatness magnified because I'm also a professional coach and as I say a speaker. So it was- I try very hard to magnify or help people magnify their own greatness. No matter what the how of the delivery method is that's the ultimate one of the ultimate results. So that was how we, how I came to name it.
But if anyone is looking for a hack on how to do that, here's my suggestion: brainstorm lists and send it out to people you trust. Send it out to your mother, your brother, your sister, your past colleagues, your current friends, and your ex-boyfriend that you still have coffee with once a year. All these people and then have them tell you does it pass certain tests like, “Does this exemplify me as a person?” “Is this catchy?” “Do you know what I mean by that?” So one of my- the surprising sub benefits of having this name is that people will say, “Sarah, you are a greatness magnified.” or “Sarah, you really magnify people’s greatness.” In other words, they turn it into a verb or an adjective and that's like a scout sticky title I think, or people will look at my business card and go, “Oh, I really like that name.”
But that takes though really again standing tall as a facilitator and as a business owner, as a professional and saying, “Who am I and what is my core area? Your point around a lot of people say, “I do planning.” or “I do leadership.” I think we have to get braver to be able to earn what we deserve because of all the education, the experience, your passion, your depth of knowledge in all the investments that you make every single day to be the professional that you are. I really firmly believe that is worth getting paid for; and people naturally pay for experts over generalists and I know this is not all about money and put it this way. I know a lot of the people that listen to your podcast are they have families or they want to have a family.
Even if you're at the end of your career and you're getting into facilitation, you probably want to spend time with your grandkids, you probably also want to do fitness, you want to pursue your hobbies or get back to hobbies. If you have one core area of expertise then you don't have to be up on the literature a hundred different places and this is where I think frankly, we have it a little easier when we’re specialist. Whether you are specialist within your organization or specialist on your own, writing your own side hustle, your own full-time business is when you stand tall in that area of expertise because how you do it, your amazingness as a facilitator, that goes with you no matter what your area of expertise is, right?
Sometimes we get focused on the “how”, I do it this way.” and then we brand ourselves and we attach it to somebody else's methodology. But then, they're the expert and you have to go along for the ride and you'll never be able to charge what you're worth until they let's say, get so famous and they charge so much that it's kind of like, “Okay. Well, you can't afford me now. Hire Sarah or hire Leanne.” But that's one of the mistakes I see a lot of facilitators making when they first launch their side hustle or their full-time business, at least in my version it's a mistake is giving away your power to somebody else's brand and instead like, “What do you love?” and you may love their methodology, you may love it but it can- you can probably still carve out a niche for yourself even when you love what they do and who they are all about and what their model is.
Leanne: Oh, my gosh. This is so powerful and I hope everyone's listening to this bright and early on a Monday or Tuesday morning and getting completely motivated because I certainly am.
Sarah: Good.
Leanne: Yeah. I'm still trying to figure out what my niche is. I really like- the other week, I was running a session on creative thinking and I just could not read enough about it. I love talking about ideas. So I'm thinking that's kind of where I might go down and help people become, will believe that they are more creative and a lot of people just say that they're not but I also love the strengths finder tool and I was like, “Maybe I need to focus on that.” So it's actually really interesting what you're saying right now with- it's very timely for me and really into figure out and to test my ideas with my friends and say, “Does this actually reflect who I am?”
Sarah: Yeah.
Leanne: Because sometimes it’s really difficult we think we know ourselves but it's really difficult to judge that, isn't it?
Sarah: It is, for sure and getting feedback from people that you trust and you value I think is a great strategy and also combining the things that you love. So where does creativity meet strengths methodology. And the other, the flip side around it is what have we still not solved in the world of everything we know? And we're doing around strengths and there's many inventories and tools out there. We've been talking about it a lot for 10, 15 years now, which is great. I'm so thrilled that we are.
And creativity, we've known how important that is for so long and yet adults are walking around then saying, “I'm not an artist tonight. I don't know how to dance.” But I'm sure when there were four there pictures with 18 fingers and they're really clumsy dance moves. They just thought they were the bomb. So there is still room, Leanne, for there to be a version of helping people get back to their artistic strength and really using us their superpower or that creative strength is your capital for growing as a business. How can you fill a void that's still not met? What business objectives or what personal objectives does that solve by bringing strengths and creativity together? Because as I say, the “how you do that”, whether it's a strength finder tool, you can use other people's tools.
One of the questions you had prepared for me and which by the way, you did an amazing prep for this podcast was around you've got lots of tools and how do you set, use that in your business. I get to pick and choose from my toolbox just like you do, just like everybody on this podcast. So it's not that you don't use other people's tools and benefit. If you can serve your client best by using a tool that's out there in the market. I'm not saying everybody go out and create new tools, that's, oh, my gosh, that sounds exhausting.
Leanne: Hahaha. Yeah. [laughs]
Sarah: But how can you help the client see that what you're bringing to the table such as the looking at strengths and creativity in your own unique beautiful way, Leanne, is solving a business scene that still isn't solved despite everything thing we know about strengths and everything we know about creativity it's where people aren't using it or like be a disruptor. Like strengths is out and this is in or I don't know. I'm not sure what it is, but, yeah.
Leanne: Thank you. I feel like this is my own sort of personal coaching call.
Sarah: That’s good.
Leanne: We are thinking of you and other listeners. We are thinking of you and hopefully these questions, they're really great prompting questions. We are what business objective is it solving if you actually decide to do what you do. Are you actually meeting a pain point or are you just inventing something that may not wash when it's actually put to market. So that's really good criteria.
Sarah: And what a beautiful opportunity to practice while you're working in an organization because we cannot and I just I hope everyone walks away from this podcast really hearing them when I say that no organization has enough bank even Google to have people around who are fulfilling an important function. So thinking about what problem do I truly solve and what is the root problem that I'm solving is essential if you're an internal facilitator or you're an external facilitator trying to convince a client to invest in you.
Because I used to think of it like every day I had to prove that I was worth it. Not from a fear-based scarcity mentality like I may lose my job but more like my job is to fulfil a value proposition every single day for my employer to keep me around and keep my team around and that wasn't always easy working in the not-for-profit sector. It was really easy to for some another department to argue what we need those resources not them but I would have my clients and our clients for the team defend why they couldn't live without us or and why that those vacancies needed to be fulfilled or why I needed to have reserved the education dollars to keep the people in the department up on their game and always learning new facilitation coaching and other related tools and strategies.
So we all need to be very conscious of what problem am I solving for my client, whether they're internal or external and the better we are doing that, the better we serve our clients. And frankly, the more were being intrapreneurs, if you're internal in the organization as well as entrepreneurs, if you're external to the organization. We all need to be intrapreneurs and frankly this is not just true facilitators, this is HR people, this is your operations people, these are your purchasing people, and this is anybody who does not bring in money because they're working with the customer. Everybody needs to be thinking about, “How do I serve my internal clients’ best?” and that's how you keep a job and that's how you just keep getting better. It’s up your game, right?
Leanne: Oh, high five. That was really interesting you talked about how is- and my team adding value and it was recognized within your business that your team was that they couldn't be poached for other roles and that all leads back to what you're talking about in terms of recognition and that was the recognition from within others in your organizations and you did share, you spoke about FROG briefly and I'd love for you to share that model with listeners who want to sure about what FROG actually means, what it stands for, how you can use it?
Sarah: Yeah. So FROG stands Forever Recognize Others Greatness and of course it starts with recognizing yourself. So forever recognize our own greatness blog. But when we recognize our own greatness then we're just that much better able to naturally authentically notice it all around us and so it's interesting when my co-author Brenda and I wrote the book, we actually- we were going to write all about team and organizational recognition and we realized that we're missing part of the story and that's why we started with self-recognition and when we think of self-recognition as facilitators, think about the effectiveness you have when you show up confidently, prepared and knowing what your strengths are as facilitator as opposed to let's say feeling like this group's going to reject you, worried what they're going to say, thinking that you don't have enough skills, not sure you haven't perhaps dug deep enough with your client to truly know what they most want and need.
You show up with more greatness and better able to serve them in the most resourceful way when you recognize your own greatness and then you naturally- because you're not so caught up in your own stuff and the noise going on your own head and shutting down the imposter syndrome or letting it take over, whatever is going on in your brain. Then, you're able to notice the greatness and all your participants and ask better questions and probe a little deeper and push a little farther and read the room to know, “I think I better go there.” and your co-facilitator going, “Oh.” And you’re sure enough your gut instinct was right, “Oh, yeah. She went there and that was perfect, that was exactly what needed to happen. So knowing who you are like being able to frog yourself as a facilitator for recognize our greatness and then forever recognize other's greatness allows you to really stand tall and be the most resourceful facilitator for your clients.
Leanne: Are there any sort of other skills that you think are really key for facilitators that who want to get better or be the best. What else do they need?
Sarah: So for in the example that you provided or in your own life with passion around strengths and with creativity. You're naturally I'm sure drawn towards compelling creativity and so people will probably describe your workshops as a very creative, very resourceful, very strength based place and somebody else they may describe that facilitator and the environment that they have as supple and strategic and it's okay and you may actually be able to deliver on the same objective or perhaps this is where you decide who's the right facilitator for the client based on who they need.
But I honestly believe outside of the basics of facilitation, how do you lead a group, how do you set up the environment so that the facilitation learning or the decision makes- flawless consulting book is my Bible of making sure you're contracting well and knowing what your focus is and what you're there to do and how to best serve your clients. Once you have the basics down and that's not that hard to get. I bet most of your listeners have it in speed and could probably teach it to other people. After that, I honestly think it's listening to your own inner gut about where you shine and you love and being a facilitator isn't quite the right fit.
You can get some of that opportunity through your side hustle or maybe you decide that's when you decide to look for somewhere else or that's when you decide to approach your boss or somebody else and say, “I'd love to do more of this but I don't think this is what the department most needs or this division- what serves the division best. Is there- let's take a look at another area.” and I think that's actually it's being unselfish by being able to be very curious about your greatness as a facilitator and to really cultivate and nurture and develop that skill sets.
Leanne: Yeah, because I know when we sort of look to market to hire facilitators, I think in terms of their skill, they're all relatively the same. But it's really about what we want that person because yet they have worked, they have it some kind of presence which is quite a commanding presence which will be suitable for this audience compared to that person which will inspire that enthusiasm. So you're right. Like the facilitators, that the skills of this facilitator are the same but it's really about what is a personality that person brings and makes those people feel. I did have a question there about all your accreditation. I was looking at your, stalking your LinkedIn profile.
Sarah: I love it.
Leanne: Wow. You’ve had got a ton of experience and you've also got a ton of accreditations and so I thought, I'd ask you a bit of an interesting question, might be quite tricky to answer. But you've got MBTI Six Sigma all these different certifications. Is there one that you found that's been the most useful either for you personally or for your business?
Sarah: I think different things at different times. I would say anything I invested in core facilitation basics and in Canada, in Ontario where I learned a lot of that was through the Institute for Cultural Affairs, ICA which is for any of the Canadian listeners out there, it's on Queen Street East in Toronto, I highly recommend their work and part of why I love it is because they the same facilitation tools and techniques they teach us how to use in corporate. They bring two huts in Africa or small rural villages in India. They know this stuff works everywhere around the world and philanthropically all the money they make from training us corporate people, they allow, it allows them to go and do some pretty amazing facilitation work around the world.
So that's I guess, that was essential in my early days of facilitation and then when I invested interestingly enough as a coach to become trained as a coach, I learned how to listen way better more deeply, more authentically, I ask better questions, I just was a more curious facilitator, that's just such an incredible journey and talk about having to really get through your own stuff. You cannot have a whole bunch of banging baggage hanging around with you as a coach. You can’t hide behind things quite as easily as you can in facilitation or training and things like that because it's one on one and it can be pretty vulnerable stuff.
So I would say those were two really fundamental and then probably from a confidence building early on in my facilitation days, having the tools so Myers-Briggs and personality dimensions and Mcquaig and Human Synergistics all their various tools. I will just say though that I hardly ever use them now, partly because I'm just so much more confident in being able to find the right tools and fit for my client.
So although I think it's really good to have a very big juicy toolkit as a facilitator. We also have to balance that with being careful that we're not trying every client as being Lucian and we can get overly reliant and comfortable shall I say when using some tools because it's just easier and you know them and probably very unpopular thing. But I think that it goes along with my earlier comment around being very connected to what you uniquely, your greatness.
Leanne: Yeah, I agree. I think sometimes that tool can possibly be a crutch as a facilitator if you haven't got that confidence yet but I guess if it does help you to get that confidence then just sort of balance out where the right time is to use it. So thanks. That's really interesting insight. For all those first-time facilitators listening, do you have any advice that you could give to them? Advice that you've personally received or advice that you think, “Oh, gosh. If I heard this early in my career this would have really helped me.”
Sarah: Oh, gosh. Where to start? I would say, probably the thing I wish that somebody had told me was, do you know you're- by being a facilitator and the type of expertise that you have you already are an entrepreneur. Because I was always telling myself that if- you have to wait until it's they quote right time to go out and do it on your own or to really hustle for the business.
I probably could have done a lot more work in my side hustle but I just when every, somebody would come to me then that I would do the work. So I would say, if you are able to contract and your clients are asking for you and you're getting repeat business as an internal individual then there is clearly monetizable value outside.
Leanne: Yeah.
Sarah: So that I mean I say that and it seems kind of ironic because what I do for a living is I help organizations and leaders retain their top talent through recognition. So it seems kind of contrary but the great thing is you have options by being a facilitator and that this toolkit and the diversity that you have, it means you have options. So you work for an amazing employer who values you and loves what you do and you're able to keep growing, you love working in a team, amazing. Stay! If you are not being treated as the valued commodity that you are, if you don't love what you do, if you work in a toxic environment, if your team is great but all the clients you serve just feel like they're just not a good ethical fit or a good values fit then please know that you have a monetizable business within you already. Otherwise, you wouldn't still be employed, right? and people wouldn't be asking for you.
So that's I guess what I wish somebody had told me was that all of these skills and it's not that the market is saturated because that is what I assumed. This was my biggest inner critic message. Well, there's lots of those quote consultants out there and consultants almost had like I hate to say it, I had a dirty word in my head was because I painted everybody with the same brush which totally was not fair and I wish I could undo that sort of thinking.
But what I realized is that when you truly solve clients problems and they- leaders, staff, frontline staff, customers or just organizations as a whole are dealing with tremendous challenges to be able to stand in business, to be able to keep their jobs, to be able to keep working, to be able to keep doing the work that they- or the adding the value that they're trying to add in the world.
You could be the person that helps them stand in business or that helps them double their growth and that helps them would make it a better place to work whatever those goals are. So yeah, whatever your genius is, whatever value you are already offering, there is a monetizable business in there and just believe that you may not know what that is yet but it's there.
Leanne: Amazing. Sarah, I feel like this has really been a personal coaching call.
Sarah: Haha. Yey! I feel like a lot less talking and we’re coaching. Sounds like you’ve got some value which I’m glad.
Leanne: I definitely did and I know that our listeners will tune. I'm sure they're very excited about asking themselves these questions after listening to this and really figuring out brainstorming what it is and sharing that out with family and friends and trusted advisers. So we spoke about so many topics on side hustles in particular, recognition and how it's important to really find your own style. If people want to continue their conversation with you, where can they find you?
Sarah: Of course they're welcome to go to my website greatnessmagnified or as you say stalk me on LinkedIn, that's really hilarious. I love it. But you know what I'll give you for the show notes a link into my calendar if people want to have a 15 minute chat, if something in this conversation really resonated for them and they want to maybe begin to process some of these things that they've been thinking about around, “Hmm. Could I have a business here and what transferable skills do I have as a facilitator?” and or “How could I build this in as my genius in my current job so that I have options.” Because who knows what's going to happen the economy and a few years from now. I'm happy to spend 15 minutes with any of the rock star listeners that you have to help them to really stand tall in their greatness and recognize their own greatness.
Leanne: That's an amazing offers. Thank you so much and yet like Sarah said, we will link to her calendar in the show notes of this episode. Sarah, thank you so much for your time and I can understand why Amanada recommended you so highly. Just know that you can motivate just through the power of audio is an incredible skill as well.
Sarah: Thank you.
Leanne: So well done to you and thanks so much for your insight. We could have spoken for hours.
Sarah: Well, maybe we'll have a part two conversation and I'd love it based on you know if the listeners have something that they'd like to hear more about how facilitation intersects with a speaking career or more on any of the other things that we talked about then I'd be- if you're interest in having me back, Leanne.
Leanne: Of course, I’d love-
Sarah: I just love to have a part two!
Leanne: Oh, amazing. Let’s do it. Let’s see that out.
Sarah: Okay. Sounds good.
Leanne: Thanks, Sarah.