Episode 166: Creating a learning atmosphere of “serious fun" with Dana the Trainer #bestof
Energy is the most important thing when it comes to your workshops, and I discovered this nice and early when I geeked out on an energetic conversation with today’s guest, Dana Jane-Edwards.
This is a #bestof episode - I spoke to Dana back in 2018, when she called herself “Dana the Trainer”. Through a series of pivots and discovering her passion, she is now known as “Diversity Dana”.
Energy is the most important thing when it comes to your workshops, and I discovered this nice and early when I geeked out on an energetic conversation with today’s guest, Dana James-Edwards.
This is a #bestof episode - I spoke to Dana back in 2018, when she called herself “Dana the Trainer”. Through a series of pivots and discovering her passion, she is now known as “Diversity Dana”.
Today’s conversation is as relevant as ever - you’ll learn
Ways to make facilitation more fun, colourful and engaging
How to balance or lift your energy levels when required
What to do when things don't go to plan (hint: prevention is better than cure)
How to create content for new workshops
I want to share her website copy on her About page as a way of introducing her.
Here we go:
My favourite word is the F-Word – FUN
(Wait a minute … what F word were you thinking about?). Seriously!
As you can tell I take an unconventional approach to learning focusing on fun, colour, enjoyment and making things as practical and relevant as possible to make sure that key learnings make it back to the workplace.
What is it that I facilitate? Great question!
I have my fingers in many pies, but my 3 core areas are *drumroll please*
Diversity & Inclusion, Train-The-Trainer (or Coach) and Agile
And if that sounds like an eclectic mix of things that shouldn’t go together and make no sense you’re going to have to read the rest of my bio to find out why and how it all came about. To confuse you even further I sometimes even dabble in some Management & Leadership bits … but that’s a story for another day.
Read the rest of Dana’s story.
What’s new with Leanne and First Time Facilitator?
So excited to share that I’m partnering with Slido on their Online Meetings Revolution trend report. Come along to the launch and hear the interesting data + predictions to make your online meetings as engaging and relevant as possible. It’s on 14 April 2021, here’s the link to sign up.
Join the conversation when the show is over with 1300 facilitators from all over the world in our free group called The Flipchart
Support the show (and my ideas) by buying me a coffee
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Click here to let Leanne know about your number one takeaway from this episode!
Quotes of the show:
"There are so many things that you can do to bring learning, to bring a classroom alive to make things not so painful for people".
Even when you know the content and you're familiar with it, you’re still thinking, 'Who's going to be there tomorrow?', 'What if this exercise doesn't work?', 'What do I have as a backup for this?', 'Did I pack this thing?'
'You cannot be rigid, sticking to your lesson plan. The classroom is a place of surprise. The best facilitators pull the learning out of what is happening in the room, instead of sticking to the script'.
Episode transcript
View the First Time Facilitator episode transcript with Dana the Trainer.
#Bestof: Facilitating once in a lifetime workshop experiences with Steve Sims (Episode 165)
Today’s guest runs the coolest workshops I’ve ever heard of, no joke. And how does he embed learning at the end of these workshops? By making people practice the skills they’ve learn, when they rock up to Sir Elton John’s Oscars after-party.
Today’s guest runs the coolest workshops I’ve ever heard of, no joke. And how does he embed learning at the end of these workshops? By making people practice the skills they’ve learn, when they rock up to Sir Elton John’s Oscars after-party.
Not too many people can say that to their clients...But today’s guest, is a one of a kind guy.
His name is Steve Sims. Steve is the man who created Bluefish, a company that makes once-in-a-lifetime events happen for the rich and famous reveals to the rest of us his trade secrets for making things happen. With his help and expertise, his clients’ fantasies and wildest dreams come true.
Steve is the author of the Bluefishing: The Art of Making Things Happen, and he has a podcast of the same name. Steve has spoken at Harvard and the Pentagon, twice. Getting married by the Pope in the Vatican, being serenaded by Elton John, and connecting with powerful business moguls like Elon Musk are just a few of the many projects he has worked on.
I really wanted Steve on the show to talk about a few key things - the assumptions we have about asking for things, how confidence; and your approach can take you far and (literally) open doors. We also talk about the perfectionism beast.
If you’d like to join the conversation when the show is over, join The Flipchart, a free community on Facebook for First Time Facilitator listeners.
About our guest: Steve Sims
Steve Sims Steve is the visionary founder of Bluefish: the world’s first luxury concierge that delivers the highest level of personalized travel, transportation, and cutting-edge entertainment services to corporate executives, celebrities, professional athletes, and other discerning individuals interested in living life to its fullest.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Steve Sims Website
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Click here to let Leanne know your number one takeaway from this episode!
Quotes of the show:
“I'm a great believer in keeping liability low.”
“The greatest growth comes from the greatest accidents.”
“It’s incredible to have people just be able to realize the rich people are poor people with a lot of money; things don't change, just that bank account.”
“I'm a great believer that perfection is a blue unicorn with three testicles; it doesn't exist.”
“I don't believe speakers should give speeches. I think speakers should have conversations with thousands of people or hundreds of people.”
Episode transcript
View the First Time Facilitator episode transcript with Steve Sims.
Episode 55: Facilitating once in a lifetime workshop experiences with Steve Sims
Today’s guest runs the coolest workshops I’ve ever heard of, no joke. And how does he embed learning at the end of these workshops? By making people practice the skills they’ve learn, when they rock up to Sir Elton John’s Oscars after-party.
Today’s guest runs the coolest workshops I’ve ever heard of, no joke. And how does he embed learning at the end of these workshops? By making people practice the skills they’ve learn, when they rock up to Sir Elton John’s Oscars after-party.
Not too many people can say that to their clients...But today’s guest, is a one of a kind guy.
His name is Steve Sims. Steve is the man who created Bluefish, a company that makes once-in-a-lifetime events happen for the rich and famous reveals to the rest of us his trade secrets for making things happen. With his help and expertise, his clients’ fantasies and wildest dreams come true.
Steve is the author of the Bluefishing: The Art of Making Things Happen, and he has a podcast of the same name. Steve has spoken at Harvard and the Pentagon, twice. Getting married by the Pope in the Vatican, being serenaded by Elton John, and connecting with powerful business moguls like Elon Musk are just a few of the many projects he has worked on.
I really wanted Steve on the show to talk about a few key things - the assumptions we have about asking for things, how confidence; and your approach can take you far and (literally) open doors. We also talk about the perfectionism beast.
If you’d like to join the conversation when the show is over, join The Flipchart, a free community on Facebook for First Time Facilitator listeners.
About our guest: Steve Sims
Steve Sims Steve is the visionary founder of Bluefish: the world’s first luxury concierge that delivers the highest level of personalized travel, transportation, and cutting-edge entertainment services to corporate executives, celebrities, professional athletes, and other discerning individuals interested in living life to its fullest.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Steve Sims Website
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Click here to let Leanne know your number one takeaway from this episode!
Quotes of the show:
“I'm a great believer in keeping liability low.”
“The greatest growth comes from the greatest accidents.”
“It’s incredible to have people just be able to realize the rich people are poor people with a lot of money; things don't change, just that bank account.”
“I'm a great believer that perfection is a blue unicorn with three testicles; it doesn't exist.”
“I don't believe speakers should give speeches. I think speakers should have conversations with thousands of people or hundreds of people.”
Episode transcript
View the First Time Facilitator episode transcript with Steve Sims.
Episode 49: Great facilitators notice patterns in the room with Oscar Trimboli
There’s really common theme when I ask facilitators what skills they think are necessary for facilitation. The answer? It’s about the ability to listen. Not only to the words, but listening in to what’s happening in the room, listening to what’s not being said, listening into the nonverbal cues. Knowing this, I brought on a listening expert for today’s episode, to hear his perspective on ‘Deep Listening’, and also his tips for First Time Facilitators.
There’s really common theme when I ask facilitators what skills they think are necessary for facilitation. The answer? It’s about the ability to listen. Not only to the words, but listening in to what’s happening in the room, listening to what’s not being said, listening into the nonverbal cues. Knowing this, I brought on a listening expert for today’s episode, to hear his perspective on ‘Deep Listening’, and also his tips for First Time Facilitators.
On this episode you’ll learn
When and how he realised he had a knack for listening
What he describes as Deep Listening, and his definition of the five levels of listening (hint: Great facilitators need to be at the third level of listening)
His Big Hairy Audacious Goal for changing 2% of the world’s population
The 125:400 rule (and how this can be used to explain why we get so distracted)
Why breathing can help you listen at a deeper level
His never-fail pen for post-it notes in workshops
How he uses a colour scheme for sticky note activities
About Oscar Trimboli
Oscar Trimboli is a coach supervisor, speaker and author of Deep Listening: Impact beyond words, The 125/400 Rule: The Art and Science of Listening and Breakthroughs: How to confront your assumptions.
Through his work with chairs, boards of directors and executive teams in local, regional and global organisations, Oscar has experienced firsthand the impact leaders and organisations can have when they listen beyond the words.
He consults to organisations including Cisco, Google, News Corp, PayPal, Qantas and TripAdvisor helping executives and their teams listen to what’s unsaid by the customers and employees.
Giveaway alert!
If you’re interested reading a copy of Oscar’s book, Deep Listening, we have an awesome surprise for listeners. Oscar is kind enough to have donated 5 books for a First Time Facilitator giveaway.
To go in the draw to win, I’d like you to upload a screenshot of this podcast episode into either your Instagram feed, or Instagram stories, and tag both @leannehughes and @oscartrimboli.
I’ll give you util Friday 8 February to be in the run to win a copy!
Resources mentioned in this episode
What’s on in First Time Facilitator land?
The 50th episode celebration is on this week, Friday 18 January. Find out the details on the First Time Facilitator 50th evepisode Facebook event page.
Finally, if you want to connect with listeners following the show, join our community on Facebook it’s called ‘The Flipchart’. Once you’re in, please introduce yourself, where you’re from!
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 your thanks to Oscar
Episode 42: Edutainment: How to combine knowledge, wit and interaction in your presentations with Dave Jackson
In this episode, I chat to 2018 Podcast Hall of Fame inductee, Dave Jackson. He’s been podcasting since April 2005, and has been the host of nearly a dozen different podcasts over the last decade.Most people chat to Dave about creating or improving their podcast but I wanted to focus on the fact that he’s been a technical trainer for over 20 years. I also like how he says in his bio that this means that he not only understands technology, but he can explain it in a plain English “geek-speak free” environment.We explore why it’s important to get out of your comfort zone, how Dave has brought his experience playing on bands on stages into the way he presents, what he does to make his presentations more engaging, how he handles his nerves before he presents, and why he is so damn funny.
In this episode you’ll learn:
How having water-cooler type conversations lead him down a new career path
Why it’s important to attend conferences and meet your target market
How he mixes education and entertainment to help make learning stick
How he prepares to speak at conferences
Why it’s important to challenge yourself to get out of your comfort zone
Why it’s important to tailor your content and use analogies that fit your audience
About our guest: Dave Jackson
Dave is not only an award-winning podcaster, but he’s a podcasting consultant, teacher, and the founder of the School of Podcasting. A corporate trainer for more than 20+ years, Dave has a Bachelor's Degree in Education and was one of the early early early adopters of podcasting. Starting back in the primordial mist of 2005, Dave began the School of Podcasting, a podcast to teach other people how to podcast.Dave’s show has been described by many as the most entertaining and unique of all the “Podcast About Podcasting” offerings out there. Dave is a master at “edutainment” and has been using analogies to quickly help people understand the nuances of podcasting for over a decade. He has that rare ability to explain complicated concepts and processes in an easy to comprehend way.
Resources mentioned on this show
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 know about your number one takeaway from this episode!
Episode transcript
Episode 37: Announcement: Facebook Group is finally here (p.s. It's called 'The Flipchart')
This week’s episode is a bit unusual, it’s a lot shorter than others and it’s really an announcement episode. For a while, like more than six weeks, I’ve promised to launch a Facebook group for the First Time Facilitator audience, or really, anyone that wants to become a better facilitator, trainer or workshop content developer.
This week’s episode is a bit unusual, it’s a lot shorter than others and it’s really an announcement episode. For a while, like more than six weeks, I’ve promised to launch a Facebook group for the First Time Facilitator audience, or really, anyone that wants to become a better facilitator, trainer or workshop content developer.
Where can I find The Flipchart group on Facebook?
The Facebook group is called ‘The Flipchart’, like the name of my e-newsletter. email newsletter.You may be wondering why it's called The Flipchart and not First Time Facilitator. The reason is that I know many of you are beginning your side hustles, or consultancy, business in this space, and you probably don’t want to be seen in a Facebook group called ‘First Time Facilitator’,as it may create an incorrect assumption.The reason I started this group is because, as a facilitator, I spend a lot of time scouring the internet and YouTube, trying to find a perfect activity, exercise, game, video, image to support my learning material. I'm sure there's a few of you out there who are doing the same thing! Let's make it easier for each other. This is a global community for facilitators who want to get better at their craft, and also more efficient at developing their workshop content. In this group, we share awesome training tips, hacks and recommendations to help you with the next workshop you deliver. I haven’t gone too prescriptive on what this page really looks like but to give it a bit of guidance, here are some of the daily hashtags - but don’t worry if you want to post something and it’s not related to the daily hashtag, just go ahead and post it!
Group daily Hashtags are:
And then at anytime,
I’d love for you to join the group. Just head on over to The Flipchart on Facebook
Episode 36: 7 attributes of a superhero facilitator (and how to rescue a workshop from a fate worse than death) with Leanne Hughes
What does it take to get to get to superhero status in the facilitation game?In this solo episode, Leanne Hughes explores and explains the 7 key attributes she thinks are critical to becoming a superhero facilitator.So, how does a facilitator carry out the responsibilities of a facilitator like a superhero (Lycra optional)? Listen in!
What does it take to get to get to superhero status in the facilitation game?In this solo episode, Leanne Hughes explores and explains the 7 key attributes she thinks are critical to becoming a superhero facilitator.So, how does a facilitator carry out the responsibilities of a facilitator like a superhero (Lycra optional)? Listen in!
In this episode you'll learn
The seven key attributes that First Time Facilitators should consider when wanting to level up their game
Key questions/statements facilitators can use in their next workshop
The APPLE technique, and how you can employ this the next time you're in front of a group
About your host
Leanne Hughes is the host of the First Time Facilitator podcast and is based in Brisbane, Australia. She works in the field of Organisational Development. She loves to shake up expectations and create unpredictable experiences and brings over 12 years’ of experience across a variety of industries including mining, tourism, and vocational education and training and believes anyone can develop the skills to deliver engaging group workshops.
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally!Let Leanne know about your number one takeaway from this episode! (or, leave a comment below)
Episode transcript
View the transcript of Episode 36 with Leanne Hughes.
Your thoughts
What do you think? Did Leanne miss any? Do you think any of these attributes are more important than others? Let us know! Comment below.
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.
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
Episode 30: A hostage, a hard-worker and a holiday maker walk into a workshop… with Murray Guest
Murray Guest is a coach, consultant, facilitator and speaker based out of Newcastle, Australia. His consultancy is called ‘Inspire my business’ which is apt, because as you will be able to tell from the conversation, he’s an inspirational bloke.
Murray Guest is a coach, consultant, facilitator and speaker based out of Newcastle, Australia. His consultancy is called ‘Inspire my business’ which is apt, because as you will be able to tell from the conversation, he’s an inspirational bloke.
After over 20 years in corporate roles which included roles as a QA Manager, L&D Manager, BD Manager and Facilitator, Murray followed his heart and started his own business as a business coach, facilitator and consultant.
We cover a range of topics in this conversation, ranging from the importance of professionalism as a facilitator; to the questions he uses to get people to start talking to each other at the beginning of a workshop; through to behaviour management.
Listen in when we also talk about teams in organisations and reasons why they may not be performing as effectively as they could/should.
In this episode you’ll learn:
How Murray got his break into the world of facilitation
His philosophy around TGIF
The importance of professionalism and what that means for facilitators
What you can do when you have participants who demonstrate resistance in your workshops
The three types of audience members in your workshop
How he uses the Gallup Strengths Finder tool everyday; in both his personal and professional life
Why it’s important to create foundations in a workshop (and how long Murray spends doing this)
How to survive (and keep your energy and sanity) during consecutive days of facilitation and
Ideas on when you should start reflecting on a workshop you’ve just run (hint: Don’t reflect immediately!)
His advice for First Time Facilitators
About our guest
Murray Guest is one of Australia’s leading Strengths coaches, helping over 1,000 people unlock and apply their strengths to achieve their professional and personal goals. As a Gallup certified Strengths coach he partners with organisations to build strengths-based cultures and realise the benefits a strengths-based approach brings.
The founding director of Inspire My Business, he combines his diverse experience in HR, QA and Business Development to inspire leaders and their teams along the pathway of change and continuous improvement.
His recognition includes one of only two coaches to speak at all three of the Gallup Strengths Summits in Omaha and receiving the HMA Excellence in Training Award for leading significant improvements as the Learning and Development Manager of Tomago Aluminum.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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Episode transcript
View the First Time Facilitator episode transcript with Murray Guest.
Episode 25; Split brain workshop facilitation: How to balance the now with the ‘What’s next?' with Mark McKeon
In today’s episode, I talk to Mark McKeon about the parallels between creating high performance on the footy pitch; and high stake situations in a group workshop facilitation environment.
In today’s episode, I talk to Mark McKeon about the parallels between creating high performance on the footy pitch; and high stake situations in a group workshop facilitation environment.
Need some inspiration and motivation? Mark provides that in this episode, along with some extremely practical tips which you can start implementing in your facilitation game. We talk about the practicalities of workshop room setup, how to balance being in the moment with forecasting ahead to drive your workshop outcomes, maintaining energy levels and the key question he asks from client's to determine workshop outcomes.
Listen in to him when he talks about ways you can structure your day to be more productive using his Go Zone methodology.
In this episode you’ll learn:
How Mark pivoted from professional footballer, to high performance coach and facilitation/speaking
Parallels between playing and coaching in high performing footy matches/game day and preparing for a big workshop/stage
His requirements in terms of rooms setup and audiovisual setup (including practical takeaways for keeping your voice in check over a day’s workshop)
Why it’s important to be a little selfish during the day to maintain peak performance
The key question he asks clients to clarify the outcomes of a workshop (and why this is critical)
How to structure your day to get the most sustainable performance (and how we under-estimate the importance of recovery)
Why he channelled his inner James Bond to create a memorable message
What you need to know about using gimmicks and props in your workshops
About our guest
Mark McKeon is one of Australia’s leading experts on leadership, efficiency, productivity, work life balance and team cohesion. His latest book "Go Zone" reinforces all these factors.
He spent 16 years as the high performance coach at Collingwood, with the team also outsourcing their entire fitness and training function to Mark’s team. He was also Club Runner for more than 250 games, an AFL record, and worked with Victoria’s State of Origin Team on five occasions.
Mark previously played football in the VFL with the Melbourne team, and represented Victoria in the VFA. He presents keynotes and tailored sessions, and along with his team, conducts workshops and conference programs in lifestyle, team building and leadership. Mark consistently rates as, ‘exceedingly funny with a great message’ or ‘best conference speaker’. He spends time with delegates, and can MC or facilitate as well as present keynotes and workshops.
Mark has an insightful and engaging style and his uplifting presentations have been a conference highlight with lasting impacts for many years.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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Quotes of the show:
“You don’t have to be a prisoner to the structure you’ve set for your workshop…I’m forever swapping slides around and stopping, accelerating and changing the times, all hopefully to the benefit of the audience”
“The best clues are always in the audience”
“The best facilitators approach their workshops with an audience-centric mindset’
“Start with the end in mind. One of the great dangers is that your outcomes are vague and you don’t know what you’re trying to achieve.
“Work on your craft. Look for every opportunity to speak in front of a room”
Video: Mark channelling his inner 007
Episode 23: Facilitation is the act of making something easier with Lynne Cazaly
In today’s episode, I talk to Lynne Cazaly. Lynne is a communication and engagement expert. She is obsessed with helping leaders lead their teams through transformation and change. She helps people distil their thinking, apply ideas and innovation and boost the engagement and collaboration effectiveness of teams. She believes that having the ability to build rapport and connect with people is essential in a facilitation workshop.
In today’s episode, I talk to Lynne Cazaly. Lynne is a communication and engagement expert. She is obsessed with helping leaders lead their teams through transformation and change. She helps people distil their thinking, apply ideas and innovation and boost the engagement and collaboration effectiveness of teams. She believes that having the ability to build rapport and connect with people is essential in a facilitation workshop.
Listen in to when I ask her about what her thinking or her strategies were going into on the first day of her facilitation workshop.
In this episode you’ll learn:
How you can use visuals to explain complex activity instructions
Strategies to get your audience attention and get them engaged in a workshop.
Strategies on how to embed learning in a workshop.
Essentials of creating safe environment in a workshop.
About our guest
Lynne Cazaly is a keynote speaker, a master workshop facilitator, an experienced board director and a partner with Thought Leaders and on faculty of Thought Leaders Business School. She is a published author and delivered keynotes, workshops and sessions for leaders globally including Europe, USA, Asia & NZ. Her published books are:• Agile-ish: How to create a culture of agility• Leader as Facilitator: How to engage, inspire and get work done• Making Sense: A Handbook for the Future of Work• Create Change: How to apply innovation in an era of uncertainty, and• Visual Mojo: How to capture thinking, convey information and collaborate using visuals.
Her programs in Sensemaking, Facilitation and Change are remarkable, impactful and innovative.
Send Lynne an email, say that you listen to the show and she'll share a great visual resource with you!
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Like this show? Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally!
Click here to let Leanne know about your number one takeaway from this episode!
Click here to tweet your thanks to Lynne.
Quotes of the show:
“So you've got to have this ability to rapidly build rapport and connect with people because you need them to be on your side."
“Engaging with people when it's all talk is very difficult. But as soon as you've got visuals there. Bang! Engagement goes up.”
“So, if facilitation means to make ease, to make easier- visuals do that. They instantly help make engagement easier, communication easier, collaboration easier, impact easier."
Episode transcript
View the First Time Facilitator episode transcript with Lynne Cazaly.
First Time Facilitator podcast transcript with Lynne Cazaly (Episode 23)
Here is the episode transcript from my interview with Lynne Cazaly on Episode 23 of the podcast.
Leanne: Welcome to the First Time Facilitator Podcast, Lynne Cazaly.
Lynne: Great to be here.
Leanne: It's so great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for giving us your time. I really appreciate it.
I'd love to start just by asking you the question on how you found your feet in the world of training and facilitation. Was it always something that you aspire to or is it something that you fell into?
Lynne: It's definitely something I fell into so my sense is a lot of people don't kind of leave school or during school girl. I'm going to be a facilitator. I think that they've got some capabilities that kind of lend themselves to being great facilitators.
So my background was as a Communications Specialist so I had a background in public relations, I worked in health, sports, art, media government and I did some lecturing at university and communications and consulting and communications and so I was learning a lot about what people think and how they communicate with each other. But the constant theme through all of those roles that I had was that I was playing this interpreter role, I was kind of working for a company, listening to what the management and leadership and the board and directors and everything was saying and then interpreting that for their community and their stakeholders and then I'd be listening to the community and stakeholders and interpreting that for the organization so I became this what I think you could call a boundary rider like in sports, you know it's a person who's got one leg on either side of the boundary lot.
Leanne: Yeah, it’s really a cool time.
Lynne: So yeah, there I was really what I was doing was facilitating communication between different parties and different stakeholders and groups as well as working with communication. And people started asking me, “Oh, will you facilitate our strategy day or our comms plan or our sales plan?” and I thought, “Oh, I'll be able to do that. I’ll have a crack at that.” and that's what I did.
And then in early 2000s, I did an Advanced Diploma in facilitation with the Groupwork Institute here in Victoria and I kind of just topped off my experience with some of the great theory around facilitation. So yeah, it certainly wasn't a planned journey or a planned process but yeah I'm happy I found it. I wish I did know about it in those years when you're trying to make a decision about “What am I going to study? What am I going to be?”
Leanne: Yeah, you’re right because I think a lot of the facilitators that I've spoken to have been launched from different careers and it could be Project Management Communications like you said my background is in marketing as well.
Lynne: Right.
Leanne: We've got people that are Software Engineers.
Lynne: Yeah.
Leanne: And I think, one of the thing is the theme is within their organizations or their own context they are being asked to explain what they know and so they want to become really good at explaining it to people which is why they find facilitation and realize, “Hey, I actually really enjoy this.”
Lynne: Yes. So it becomes less about their subject matter knowledge and more about the act of helping people and helping people get their work done or helping people understand something.
Leanne: That's right. So when you ask to facilitate your first strategy day, we're talking all these years ago because you're very experienced now. I don't know if you can reflect on that time and sort of share what you were thinking or what your strategies were going into that day because it would have been pretty daunting if you had that experience.
Lynne: Yes, it was. Yeah, I was really nervous and you know just the thumping heart most of the day and couldn't sleep well the night before and wondering you know, “Will I stuff this up?” and “What will I do if they don't know what to do?” and “Is my agenda good?” So all of this self-doubt and so I think this is one of the things that is the biggest challenge is that this confidence and we end up being too much worried about ourselves and we forget about actually helping the people that were there to help. So yeah, I had the classic doubt, you know, paranoia- “I'm not good at this.” “I'll crash and burn.” “This will ruin my career.” Okay, I still have some of those thoughts.
Leanne: I was just going to ask you that question. I mean, are there nights where you've got some workshops there and keynote speeches that you've sort of refined over the years. Even with refined content to new audiences do you still sort of think the night before? Like, “Oh, gosh. How am I going to go…?”
Lynne: Yeah.
Leanne: Ah.
Lynne: Yeah and even if I'm not using much content that is I've crafted an agenda with them and so it's about them the participants contributing the content. Yeah I'm still thinking, “Gee, I don't even know these people and I'm going to walk into this room.” and every time I walk into a room to facilitate, a bunch of strangers, every time. So you've got to have this ability to rapidly build rapport and connect with people because you need them to be on your side to trust you really quickly that you're there to help them. Not to tell them what to do but to work with them and I don't think that just comes from cockiness like, “I'll be out of do this.” That gets you into a lot of trouble whereas more of the humility of going “Gee!” and curiosity of “Wow! I wonder what they need help with today.”
Leanne: Yeah.
Lynne: I wonder what I'll be able to help them do rather than “Gee, I hope it all goes well.” It may not go well you know and I'm hanging on to “Oh, it better go well.” Well, it's going to go, it's going to go.
Leanne: So coming from the place of curiosity is what we're experienced.
Lynne: Yeah, definitely! I wonder why that person said that. I wonder where they're going with that rather than “Gee, what a douche.” like “What's he doing and why she being such a…” No! Just going “That's really interesting. Hmm...” So that's some stuff I think that comes from the Groupwork Institute and their philosophy around facilitation which was you know just slowing things down and really being more of service to the room rather than thinking you've got to control everything.
Leanne: I think that's kind of difference between when you're delivering a speech which is a very it's kind of like a solo event and you definitely want to engage people and not want to be arrogant. The facilitation is about drawing people in and like you said make them feel comfortable and I think it is you need to show that authentically you are curious about what's going on for them especially I guess people come into your room from all walks of life and they come in with all different attitudes as well and sometimes it's very noticeable when someone just doesn't want to be there.
Lynne: Yeah.
Leanne: It's that something, how do you cope with that? It's like, I know from my experience when I first started it was my worst nightmare when I knew that someone wasn't interested I felt instantly a little bit anxious but now sought after talking to facilitator it's interesting finding out what their strategies are so how do you cope with that?
Lynne: Well, it happens all the time. Even last week I was facilitating a session and there was someone in the room and they're doing niche most of the time and then they're eating their lunch at the time that wasn’t lunchtime and in and out of the room, kind of going, “Yeah, do they not want to be here?” or you know “What's going on?” and I remember facilitating some workshops for a Logistics Firm and we had a lot of the drivers of the vehicles that would you know they had to come along to the sessions and a lot of the other team you know people working in the warehouse and mechanical people and admin, a customer service. A lot of them were very keen but the people who were driving the vehicles were just, it was totally this every time. They're like “What's…?” They'd look around the room that I'd set up with you know nice post-it notes and markers and stuff and they go, “What's this shit?” Literally what they would say. “This looks like my kid's room. What's this crap, what are we doing today?” and I never engaged in an “Oh, you're here to do blah blah blah…” You know I never went into that parental or teacher mode. I just zip it and think, “Yeah of course, they're going to come in here.” and wonder “What this is? I just want to be in their truck delivering, you know delivering the products and doing that sort of work. I don't want to be in a workshop.”
Leanne: No.
Lynne: So again, I think I'm not here to fix them but I'm here to again build trust as quickly as I can and build engagement throughout the session and time and time again in those sessions around changed. Some of those drivers would come up to me at the end and they shake my hand they go, “Yes, thanks. That was good I didn't fall asleep, yeah it was really good.” So kind of thinking I don't have to win them over at all and I don't have to win them over in the first five minutes but just carry on you know.
Leanne: Steady-steady.
Lynne: Yeah, steady-steady and time and again they kind of came on board throughout the workshop and participated in activities and contributed and yeah we were able to draw them out.
Leanne: Awe, that is a bit of a win. I know you’re not winning them over but you would have been pretty happy.
Lynne: Oh, I look at- Yes!
Leanne: Got a smile!
Lynne: Yeah and as soon as they're contributing you know and participating. Even tiny things like what's your name or how long have you worked here or gee you must have seen a lot of change in the organization you know as soon as someone contributes a story about what they do or what they've seen. I just think, “Yes, great you know, I've got them now contributing to something that this whole groups going to be working on. That's good, it’s safe for them to speak up here.”
Leanne: Yeah, fantastic. So let's just say I'm in a workshop of say 20 people and there is like that one or two to people that aren't engaging at all. Do you try to cook them in it anyway like pay special attention to them or you do you sort of focus on the 18 other people that are engaging? Well, does it depend on the context environment? These are one of the variables here.
Lynne: Yeah, it does. It does depend on that. But I like to look at people's behaviour and think of their behavioural styles not their characteristics or personality but what's the behaviour they're exhibiting at the moment. And if they're quiet and not actively participating then my thinking is “Well, maybe they're thinking. Maybe they're not disengaged.” and I use visuals all the time in my workshops. So you know, here’s a flip chart, you see my office at the moment what's always here but I'll always be using flip charts in my workshops and the effect that visuals have on people, on their eyes, their mind, they can't help but look and engagement naturally, automatically goes up. So yeah, engaging with people when it's all talk is very difficult, can be very difficult. But as soon as you've got visuals there. Bang! Engagement goes up. “I can't help but look at the stuff that you're capturing from around the room.”
Leanne: Yeah. I was just on the back of what you’ve been showing me is a flipchart. Saw your website and a light bulb and like you said “You just can't unsee that, you've seen it, it's in your head.” You've sort of thinking, “What’s that about?” I'm seeing some really beautiful handwriting which I also saw on your website and the way that you draw is its really simple but it's effective and I know what you're trying to convey. Have you always been interested in drawing or as again just a tool that you've brought into your facilitation toolkit because you think yeah visuals are so important?
Lynne: Yeah. I have no art training at all. This is not about art, I say, it’s smart not art. So it's how we’re capturing and reflecting back to people the stuff that they're saying. I don't like the idea of someone sitting in the corner you know typing into a laptop “Oh, you know, I'm the scribe. I'm capturing what's happening today.” I think we don't know what you're capturing and its useless going into a computer so let's make it visible and then people can see and because using the tools of a visual is facilitation. So if facilitation means to make ease, to make easier, visuals do that. They instantly help make engagement easier, communication easier, collaboration easier, impact easier. It makes it easier to get to outcomes by about 25%, recall is easier by about 33%. So if we're not using visuals and we're facilitators we're really pushing sinopia. We're making it harder for us and for the group.
Leanne: Yeah, really good point and then you've written a book about this called Visual Mojo. In that book do you actually explain how we can use visual cues as a facilitator? What’s involved in that book?
Lynne: Yeah. It's Visual Mojo, so that's around the confidence of using visuals because most of us think we're crap at drawing.
Leanne: Yup.
Lynne: So this is about how to capture your thinking, convey information and collaborate using visuals. So I go through how to draw simple shapes and use lines. How to draw people because I think the sooner you put people in some of the pictures and charts you know anytime we capture anything on a flip chart or a whiteboard. Don't just write words.
Leanne: Yeah.
Lynne: We have to work too hard to digest that. So some words and visuals will really help get the message across. So whether you're you know capturing, you're eliciting information from the group and you write some of that up there with an anchor image as I call it. Something that helps people attach that those words with an icon or whether you're explaining something you know you might be explaining, “Okay, now we're going to break into three groups.” and you know those long-winded instructions that facilitators sometimes have. And sure enough someone in the room will go, “What? What’ll we have to do?” So I find that if I sketch out you know groups of three and I'll draw three people, draw a clock fifteen minutes and then a speech bubble and I'll put the keywords what we're going to talk about in groups of three for 15 minutes then that flip chart is there and no one asks you “What are we doing?” They’ll just look at it and you explain it and point to it, break into groups of three, talk for 15 minutes on this topic and I'll remind you know when it's time to wrap up and that just works every time.
Leanne: Where has that information been all my life? Our colleague and I just ran a workshop this morning and it was yeah I was trying to make this very complicated instruction very simple so I was staging it and checking in every now and then. But if I had just drawn it. The time limit and this is where you go. I guess that is something I'm going to start implementing straightaway and I’ll iterate drawing skill if they can draw a circle and letters and numbers.
Lynne: Exactly, that's it. Even keywords if there are three steps to this activity and go, “Here's the first step on the first chart, and we’re doing this. The second steps on the next chart, the third steps on the next chart.”
Leanne: Yeah, fantastic.
Lynne: You can have all three charts pinned up at once. So those that need to see the big picture can see everything and you know compartmentalizes information so we've got information in chunks. All of this is making it easier, that's facilitation. How do we make this thing easier and breaking down something like complicated instructions for an activity is you know we need to be really good at that. We need to have great clarity when we're delivering information.
Leanne: Yeah, that’s right.
Lynne: Yeah. Don't just rely on words for that.
Leanne: No. Thank you. That's excellent! I just wanted to share a quote that you said. So you mentioned that “Every time you're working with more than one other person, it's time to put facilitation skills to work.” So why do you think is the case and I guess the flip side of that, do you think people in organizations recognize that because I think, I mean I'm going to give you my opinion here. I think people think that facilitation is a skill that somewhere else is that the trainer or facilitator needs to have it, that it's not a role of a leader?
Lynne: Yeah.
Leanne: What I'm saying in here is every meeting if you've got more than one person you're going to have to draw on these skills so can you explain that a bit further?
Lynne: Yeah. Well, this is coming from the book called Leader as Facilitator which is about how to inspire, engage and get work done. So this book I wrote in 2016 and this is exactly that point which is helping leaders realize that every time they get the team together or even just have a one-on-one or one-on-two, one-on-three conversation, they need to just switch into the role of facilitator because they've got to make that little meeting easier. We know how much meeting suck so bad, right? They're run badly and that's the main problem, they're run badly. We can talk about lots of other things about them but mainly meetings are run really poorly. So with some facilitation skill, a leader cannot become a full-time facilitator but just swing into that role and think “Okay, how do I need to make this environment safe for these people to speak?” which probably means they need to shut up more. You know, “What are the questions? What’s the topic? What are they actually bringing this group together for?” And every time there's more than one person, they've now got the opportunity to draw that information out of those people because I see it a lot you'll have one loudmouth in a small group meeting and two other people don't feel like speaking. Well, it's the leaders job to you know just quiet in the loudmouth down and help lift up and encourage the other to not shut the loudmouth down and not expect those quieter people like, “Now come on, lean in and speak up!” No, it's not their job. It’s the leader’s job to make the environment great and elicit that information. So yeah I'm seeing more and more workplaces wanting to do this because they realize leadership's changing and they have to create more collaborative, co-created environments.
Leanne: Yeah. I'm looking at leadership in the aspirational requirements of a leader and it's sometimes it seems like it is this unicorn. They've got to be just great people but also have some technical capability, be a great role model listen to people, coach them. It's like wow and especially in the world we're living in now which is just subject to so much change and I was on your website before and I loved there's a workshop that really caught my eye and it was called The Sensemaking Workshop. I'd love to talk to you about that. So you said that the Institute for the future predicts it since making it to be the number one skill we need for 2020 which is only a couple years away. What is the skill of sense-making? I'm sure our audience, it may be the first time I've heard that term.
Lynne: Yeah. It kind of sounds a bit my lab tease the word “wanky”?
Leanne: Of course, this is an Australian podcast.
Lynne: Okay. I’ll probably say that instead of the other swear words that I probably get in trouble for and you know in the States. But since making can sound like “Oh, it's a made-up word or don't you mean making sense?” So sensemaking is when you connect the dots with information and try and work out what the hell's going on and we're often trying to do that in teams and groups. We get people together particularly in meetings and workshops, we're trying to make sense of what's going on, make some decisions and some plans and put stuff into practice and I think challenges come when we bring people together and we just expect that they're going to start collaborating and working well. But if we do some sensemaking, we give them some skills about how to maybe map out their ideas or think or talk together and the facilitator can be a sense makeup. So you can very much use visual skills, you can be a sensemaker using visuals. So it's kind of creating a map you know, whenever we're traveling somewhere or we're looking for a coffee shop, we get our phone out, we're great cartographers, you know we're great users of maps and in sensemaking, maps really are the visual charts it is showing, “This is where we are.” “This is where we want to go to.” and this is “Let's talk about now how we're going to get there.” Because that's kind of the overriding model that most workplaces and meetings are following. “This is where we are.” “This is where we need to get to know how we're going to get there.” So sensemaking helps people connect the dots and see, “What's really going on here?” and then it helps us make better decisions.
Leanne: Yeah, cool. A lot of the time I guess in meetings because we are so time poor and there's a something that's thrust upon us and we need to solve it and nobody goes straight into solution mode.
Lynne: Oh, really?
Leanne: You never really step out and talk about the process of how we're going to solve it because we have no time it needs to be solved and you think but by going through that process, it's very easy to clear and clear to see you know “What are the risks?, What's going on here?”, “Do we agree with that?”, “Okay, this is what will inform our decision process then.”
Lynne: Yes. So now you're uncovering a better process which great facilitation is having a really good process underlying. The work that the team's going to do and you're going to help them you know get through that work easier than if you weren't there in the room or if they had someone else to believe.
Leanne: You made with yourself redundant.
Lynne: Yeah.
Leanne: So you love the variety of workshops that you do offer. I'd like to hear a bit about let's just say you get approached by a client and they want something that's not off-the-shelf not within your range but you know that you can deliver it. I’d like to know, what is your process of putting together a package or a course for someone? They'll give you their objectives. What’s then, what do you do next?
Lynne: So this is probably a little bit more like a training design or learning design which is one of my earlier roles was working in a sales team and we helped all of the business development team that were out there on the road selling. We designed and delivered all of their professional development so I was constantly having to create new programs. So this happened a lot in one of these consulting roles that I had. But what we do is kind of find out those similar questions, “Where's the team at now?”, “Where do we need to get them to?” So what's that gap of performance and until we can identify that gap I think it's all just waffle. You know, if we start saying, “Oh let's run an activity about this and let's get them to read Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why”. Let's get them to watch that TED talk where there's a single guy dancing at the festival.”
Leanne: Oh, the second follower. Yeah, I've seen that everywhere.
Lynne: So I think there's a lot of biggest kind of I'd say cliched tools that we might throw into a training program thinking, “That'll do. That'll make them learn.” But I'd come back and go so, “Where's this team or group at now?, “What are the main things they're doing really well and what's the stuff we need them to either do better?” or “Where's the new capability?, “What's the new thing that we need them to do?” And often I see teams or groups trying to achieve and consultants learning and development consultants trying to fit too much into one day and so we've got “Okay, today here's 15, you know learning at home.”
Leanne: I know.
Lynne: It's crazy. It's not going to happen. So if you can blow that down and go, “Let's just focus on one or two, maximum three.” You know “What are the absolute must-haves?” and then maybe some of those other ones. If you're following that 70-20-10 model of learning on the job and learning through coaching and then for more face-to-face learning then use that as some of the on the job or the coaching like you've pushed some of those other modules or learning outcomes or topics off to other ways that people are going to learn. Not in that 10% when you're doing face to face. So that's how I do, I find out what this gap is that we're closing and try and narrow and get this gap as specific and as miserable as possible rather than you know, “Come and teach us conflict resolution.”
Leanne: We won’t training on communication.
Lynne: So you want to go, “What's going on in communication?”, “Where are the problems?”, “What are the issues?”, “Are these two people aren't talking well to each other?” Okay, well that's not to be covered in the workshop. you know we want something that's going to be and value to the whole group and not just be of value to them but it’s delivered in a way that they actually we've got some chance at making some sort of shift. We're not going to totally change them but some but some chance and that's the visual mojo or sensemaking workshop. I've refined that over a number of years and I just keep the elements that work and that people like and I keep getting rid of the stuff that doesn't work and that people don't like. So every time I run that visual session, I know I'm closing a gap around confidence in people's ability to think and communicate visually.
Leanne: Yeah fantastic. You do, you iterate it over and over again.
Lynne: Yeah. Keep that gap as narrow as possible. Here’s the thing that these sessions going to address. Not all of these 15 things.
Leanne: Yes, it's too confusing, too ambitious. Yes.
Lynne: So if you fluff up for failure like failure sexy. But not that sort of failure.
Leanne: No. I've never had fairly been described as sexy before.
Lynne: Oh, it’s everywhere now. That’s the right thing to do.
Leanne: Oh, I must have been in the cave. Okay. So when you are designing these programs are there any particular ice-breakers or energisers that lean on that you know yet this works every time?
Lynne: Oh, well I could be you know speaking an unpopular opinion here but I don't use icebreakers. So I don't have a go-to icebreaker. I think my view is they’re a little bit dated and a little cliched and lots of people have seen and coached and work with use quite dated and tacky activities that have elements.
Leanne: The “Two lies and one truth”.
Lynne: Oh, please. I am about to just go off my mind about this. Why would you get people together and you're trying to work with them for the day. Why would you encourage them to lie to each other and you’re trying to let things passed.
Leanne: I don’t know. I’ve sat through 15 workshops so that's been…
Lynne: It must be stopped immediately that activity is not good unless you're training for ACO and you're trying to work out, you're trying to catch liars, right? That's a great activity for them. But I think generally in the business world, get rid of stupid activities and anything that involves a blindfold. No! Just don't put blindfolds on people, stupid! We're trying to build trust.
Leanne: I think hopefully. I think that was stamped out in the 90’s because I don’t remember in my adult years. How safe we were in legislation and...
Lynne: Oh no. People still suggest it.
Leanne: Yeah and with big markers trying to people to try out to trust exercise.
Lynne: No. It's not. That is not how you build trust.
Leanne: Setting people up to trust you. Yes.
Lynne: I'm always saying you know “For what purpose, for this activity. Why am I running this?” If I'm trying to break the ice then there are ways to break the ice. The best way to get people to break the ice is to get them start working on something. Like they're probably there for work so let's get them to start working on something. Why make them play some silly game?
Leanne: Yeah.
Lynne: What issue that people have about actually starting some of the work? There are some pieces of work that you could begin working on. The best way to get people working together is to get them to start working together.
Leanne: It sounds so simple.
Lynne: It does, though I think Ben's icebreakers and games are kind of hang overs from the 50’s 60’s and 70’s and they were probably the ways that our teachers were taught and then that's carried on we think, “Oh, that's what you do.” or the training and assessment certificate says you must conduct an icebreaker. But I would say “Well, who decided that?” you know, so there's some of my views on icebreakers. I think it can cause more damage to people by making them feel embarrassed, socially awkward and I think you've got to keep a very safe environment and very low risk early on in a workshop yeah and icebreakers to me most of them are too they're too risky and I think what's the most socially awkward, socially anxious, introverted person going to think about this?
Leanne: Yeah. Completely shut off. Yeah.
Lynne: It's not good. So yeah, a lot of experiencing engagement challenges in teams and at workshops and maybe it could be because we've done some things that are negatively impacting how we're building engagement and building trust.
Leanne: Yeah. I spoke to a guy called Sean D'Souza on the podcast last week and he pretty much said: “No one cares about your bullet points, nobody cares about your content until they feel safe.”
Lynne: Yeah.
Leanne: I was like, “That is such a good point.”
Lynne: Yeah, it's so true. It's like…
Leanne: Yeah, because they're seeing where they are in the workshop, what's comfortable, what's going to happen to them. So, it's all about them. They're not actually looking and seeing what the information is because they don't feel that they can trust the environment yet.
Lynne: Yes, exactly. And some by the end of the day are still going, “No. I still can't trust the environment.” and that's why they've set their arms crossed you know disengaged-looking face. However, they might still be thinking. We think you know we can't lie consumption that someone's disengaged simply on how they look.
Leanne: Yes. I love that mindset. So let's just say when you've gone in, you've identified the gaps, you've written the most amazing content, everyone's engaged, thinking about it taking action. They walk out. How then can you in some way, how can you embed the learning from that day's workshop or what strategies do you have so that when they leave that day feeling inspired and motivated, fantastic that they do something. Well, they change some behaviour following that. So, in three months’ time, I mean this such a tough thing to do and I'm just curious what are your thoughts around that?
Lynne: Yes so three months for me is a long time.
Leanne: Yeah.
Lynne: But how do I get a behaviour change in a lot shorter time? So I'm looking for behaviour change on the day in the workshop. So I'm wanting to see people particularly with my visual thinking, visual mojo, and visual sensemaking workshop. I'm checking and testing throughout the day to see are these people shifting like “Are they getting a new behaviour?” Not waiting till the end and then trying to do some follow-up webinar two weeks later to check in with learning.
I'm looking for little points throughout the day like probably thirty of them and I'm checking have they got that did they get that and then the beautiful task of reincorporation. So then I'll be running some activities later on in the day, “Are they reincorporating stuff we covered in the morning?” So now they're starting to put this stuff to practice and is there thinking shifting, is their behaviour in their team or their group whatever the topic is, is that starting to change? Now they're trying it out, you know they're trying it on. I think we expect a lot that you know “Watch on my PowerPoint slides and now go behave differently.” and it just isn't like that. So what opportunities are you giving people throughout the day to try some new behaviours on.
Leanne: Yeah fantastic. That's so embedding it in the terms of the content and the way that you structured the course of learning.
Lynne: Absolutely, yes.
Leanne: Awe, that's really good. Yep love that.
Lynne: So if you come back to going, well the gap now is a very narrow gap that we've defined now. I can make some really good stuff happen to close that narrow gap rather than having this broad topic of communication. Maybe you know the much narrower gap, I'm covering is delivering 90 second explanations in meetings maybe that's the narrow gap and now I can deliver skill around that and we can practice it and they can by the end of the day they will have new behaviours and they will not want to let those behaviours go because I'll have tried them on they'll go “Yeah, actually that feels pretty good. I've now seen it in other people in the room. I'm seeing how effective it is.” And one of my favourite tasks is just to give people some homework just within 72 hours. So I give them a task that they have to come back to me with just individually. So safe, just come back to me, doesn't support cast to the whole team or group, you just straight back to me. Here’s a demonstration of one of their skills or behaviours connected with the workshop.
Leanne: Oh cool. Yeah.
Lynne: Yeah.
Leanne: Yeah that sounds really fair, 72 hours, a non-confrontational, yeah.
Lynne: Yeah and I found the people who do that go on and do really good stuff with the program and the people who are still don't quite have the confidence. I've got an online program then that I send people in enrolment to and I find that the people who haven't sent me their homework are the ones that go straight in to the online program because they want to learn a bit more or they want to feel it out a bit more and they'll take a little bit longer and then their homework will come through.
Leanne: Awe, that's good at least they’re still completing the homework.
Lynne: Yeah.
Leanne: That’s fantastic.
Lynne: Yeah and majority of people do, “Because I want some feedback.” or “How am I going?” or you know maybe they feel like “Oh, this is looking pretty crappy.” and I’d go, “No, it looks really good.” you know. So you would come back to this mojo, all this confidence not only does the facilitator need it but in a training situation you kind of have to confirm or affirm that when people have got that competency like let them know, you know let them know that they're going well or I might say give them that social proof or I'll go “Look, I've seen you know three and a half thousand people do this program and I can tell you, you're doing really well.” and they'll go, “Oh, okay so compared to others, I'm doing okay.” “Oh, yeah. Yeah you've got this.”
Leanne: Oh that's so, yeah great strategy.
Lynne: With some feedback.
Leanne: Yeah.
Lynne: You know direct feedback to them. “I can see you're doing well with this.” So some of that growth mindset stuff. “I can see you've worked really hard on this.”
Leanne: Yeah.
Lynne: Yeah, it’s like acknowledgement.
Leanne: Yeah. Look we're getting so many practical tips from you Lynne. What is one piece of a practical advice that you could offer to a first-time facilitator or to yourself say you know 15, 20 years ago whenever you started that one-day strategy session. If you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice what would that be?
Lynne: As a facilitator I'd say, don't go in thinking that you know the answer and some of the best ways to build engagement in a team or group is to push what we say, “Push the work into the room or push the questions out into the groups.” So rather than you’re playing consultant or subject matter expert or teacher as in “I have the answers to this. I know, I'm going to share.” That that you put the challenge or the questions out to the group and that's the work that they're going to start doing. You know have I said don't play silly icebreakers maybe some of the icebreaking years get them to answer some of the initial questions about this topic: What are their thoughts? What do they know about it? And this get them participating, contributing and you've been more of the facilitator not the person who has all the answers.
Leanne: That's fantastic advice and on that Lynne, I like to thank you so much for all of your time, your insight. I don't know if you've noticed but I've been like scribbling, you can’t read my writing, it's not as good as yours.
Lynne: Did you use any shapes or icon?
Leanne: I did use some circles and I've used some arrows that would sort of link things together
Lynne: Oh, good.
Leanne: Yeah. So some kind of taking some baby steps on what you recommended in terms of your visual mojo. I'm not a mojo level yet.
Lynne: Yeah, but with some, the podcast if you want to put a link there for people to shoot me an email and if they just say, “Look, I heard about, I heard you on this podcast.” Oh, I'll send back. I've got like a PDF with some icons on it that people can follow and draw and practice. So I couldn't send that right on back to them for now you know just a little gift or something.
Leanne: Oh, well gift for the audience. That's the first time we've had a gift from what about. Actually, now sorry, we had a template sent through back in Episode Eight. So Lynne, your website is a lynnecazaly.com and we’ll write that on the show notes as well and you've also got a huge following on Twitter so we'll put your Twitter account on there if anyone starts using questions on that.
Lynne: Thank you. Yes.
Leanne: Thank you so much for your time and all your insight. The stuff that you're rattling off is just it's so yeah, I mean some of the stuff I've kind of heard before but majority of things are just simple tweaks in terms of the way that you can explain an instruction using symbols that's going to improve my game like by 10% straightaway. So I really appreciate that.
Lynne: Yes. You’ll save time. The message will land and they'll go “Wow, she is a smooth facilitator.”
Leanne: Yeah. I love that. Thanks again, Lynne. I'm sure you'll get a bit of a feedback from this one.
Lynne: All right. Thanks. Great to speak to you.
Leanne: Thank you.
Episode 22: What clients really want from a workshop (and no, it’s not information) with Sean D’Souza
In today’s episode, I talk to Sean D’Souza. Sean is a cartoonist, author, online marketing strategist, a pretty good cook (judging from his social media photos) and an energetic facilitator who applies his skills in creating a different kind of workshop. He reads on average 100 books a year. Teaching runs in his blood, as his father, mother and grandmother were teachers too. He's that good, I flew to Singapore to attend one of his three-day workshops.
In today’s episode, I talk to Sean D’Souza. Sean is a cartoonist, author, online marketing strategist, a pretty good cook (judging from his social media photos) and an energetic facilitator who applies his skills in creating a different kind of workshop. He reads on average 100 books a year. Teaching runs in his blood, as his father, mother and grandmother were teachers too. He's that good, I flew to Singapore to attend one of his three-day workshops.
In this episode, we talk about the motivation of the people coming to your workshops… are they really there for the information, or are they there for another reason? We explore workshop design and giving your participants time to reflect on content. We also discuss creating a safe workshop environment - not only for the people in the room, but for you as well…because, as the facilitator - it’s important that you feel safe, too.
In this episode you’ll learn:
Sean’s ratio for instructing vs group discussions and activities
The power of frequent breaks
Why it’s important to create a safe space for your participants
Why he shares his learning materials prior to a workshop
What clients really want out of a workshop (and it’s not information)
A winning formula that features energy, confidence and skill
The importance of feedbacks and testimonials in a workshop.
Tips for facilitators starting their journey in facilitating and leading workshops in their own context.
About our guest
Sean D’ Souza is a cartoonist and an online marketing strategist who runs a zany online marketing site named PsychoTactics. He is also the author of “The Brain Audit” which is about how customers make decisions.
Originally working as a freelance cartoonist, Sean somehow found himself indulging his talent for marketing and understanding consumer psychology by helping out others with their marketing efforts. It wasn’t long before he started writing about his own experiences with marketing and slowly but surely, he began to gather an audience hungry to learn more.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Sean’s online home Psychotactics
Sean's book, The Brain Audit
We Are Podcast conference
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Click here to tweet your thanks to Sean. https://twitter.com/seandsouza?lang=en
Quotes of the show:
“What you have to really work on when you're teaching people is you have to get their confidence up, because when you get their confidence up, they use less energy.”
“You have to understand what causes people to be motivated in the first place and it's not your stupid bullet points; it’s not your content.”
What clients really want in a workshop and that is they want to leave the room and you say, “That's not possible!” Well, do this the next time you're having a workshop tell them, “Look, all of you are here for the information, right? And they'll all say “Yes!” and you go “Okay, so we're going to do this workshop until 9:00 p.m. tonight.” and then watch their faces.
“You have to be comfortable that you're going to goof up 50 to 60 percent of your early days before you start getting comfortable But breaking it up is always good because once you're confident, then you don't have to overcompensate. You don't have to be, ‘“I’m the boss here and you're just minions.’”
Episode transcript
View the First Time Facilitator episode transcript with Sean D’ Souza.
Episode 21: Crafting your (remarkable) facilitator brand with Jane Anderson
I chat with Jane Anderson on her experience delivering workshops and content to over 50,000 people. She shares why personal branding is so important, how you can craft your own (remarkable) facilitator brand and how she developed the courage to share her brand with the world.
I chat with Jane Anderson on her experience delivering workshops and content to over 50,000 people. She shares why personal branding is so important, how you can craft your own (remarkable) facilitator brand and how she developed the courage to share her brand with the world.
Jane is passionate about helping industry experts to be fully self-expressed and bring their authentic personality to life in their interactions with their customers to create influence and impact. She is best known for her ability to bring out the best in people in a pragmatic, resourceful and authentically inspiring way. She believes that being connected with the audience, getting their energy in connection and at the same time changing the room while she’s in there is the essence of a great facilitation.
Listen in to her when I ask her about the tactics she uses beforehand to find out what the audience needs from their workshop.
In this episode you’ll learn:
Great ways to hone your skills as a facilitator
How to craft your own facilitator brand and stand out in a saturated market
What it takes to be a remarkable facilitator
The difference between trust and credibility
The three key big things that you need to be able to do to build trust
About our guest
Jane Anderson is a Business Growth expert specialising in Personally Branded businesses since the age of 14. She has worked with over 50,000 personal brands to build more trust and influence for revenue and market growth. Her clients include Virgin Australia, Lego, Ikea, Rio Tinto and Origin Energy. Jane’s blog was recently voted in the top 25 branding blogs globally. She is the host of the iTunes podcast "The Jane Anderson Brand You Show" and has been featured in Business Insider, Sky Business, Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Jane has been nominated for the Telstra Business Women’s Awards in 2014, 2016 and 2018, and the author of five books including her latest “EXPERT to INFLUENCER: 12 Key Skills to Attract New Clients, Increase Sales and Leverage your Personal Brand to Become an Industry Leader.”
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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Quotes of the show:
“If you can solve people's problems and you can help them have the insights and have the empathy to help them understand their own challenges and you're able to care. If you know how to care and run a tribe, if you know how to do that and you can solve problems, you don't need an MBA, that's just not needed anymore.”
“I've always been a cheerleader in someone else's corner but you know one day the time comes where you've got to do it for yourself and you just got to step-up and say to yourself, let's do it!”
“Find your tribe, get around with the right people and get a mentor.”
“You've got to connect with the audience, my job is to change the room while I'm there so you just got to do everything you can to get that energy in connection.”
Episode transcript
View the First Time Facilitator episode transcript with Jane Anderson.
First Time Facilitator podcast transcript with Sean D'Souza (Episode 22)
Here is the episode transcript from my interview with Sean D'Souza on Episode 22 of the podcast.
You can listen to my interview with Sean D'Souza on the First Time Facilitator podcast.
Leanne: Welcome to the show from across the ditch, Sean D'Souza.
Sean: Hello. Hi, Leanne.
Leanne: Hi Sean. Sean, I really want to get into it because I've given you a really fantastic introduction to who you are and what you do. But I want to talk about the time and a lot of these days when we run workshops and organizations or you know even outside. We're really limited with the amount of time that we have so in the two days we try and cram as much information into our participants heads as we can. But when I went to Singapore and went to your workshop it was a three-day workshop and in that you spent I think it was the first five minutes of the workshop explaining that “Hey we can cover all this content in half a day.” So I really like to hear your philosophy around embedding information in people's heads and guaranteeing a skill by using time a bit more differently to everyone else.
Sean: Yeah. First of all the reason why I say that at the start of a workshop is because of the objection that comes up you know it's like we seem to be loitering around a lot we have lots of breaks but the point is “Why do you go to a workshop?” and it depends on why you go to a workshop. If you're with a corporate you go there to waste time, right? But if you're a small business for instance, the chances are that you're looking for a skill. But even if you're in a corporate, there is a pretty good chance that you're looking for a skill and what the person needs to do, the person conducting the workshop is they need to understand that whatever they understand is not easily assimilated by the participant and then once they assimilate that they still have to practice it and so there's lots of this breaking down that goes on. So the formula that I have is like one-fifth or one-sixth of the time needs to be spent by me you know with slides and stuff like but the rest of the time is for them to work on the assignments that I give them and the group assignments and individual assignments in you know breaking it down to the point where they walk away with the elk notes and they know what to do. That is very crucial because if you need to go back and read a whole bunch of notes just to get something done that's like you know having to drive a car and going, “Oh, where are my notes?”
Leanne: Yeah absolutely. So on that, how do you confidently say then that you do guaranteed this skill and why do you think time giving people a space to reflect and talk about it? Why is that more effective than just saying than just throwing that information at someone? Why is that sort of group engagement giving them the space so effective?
Sean: Because information is very tiring. So what we do is we look at 4:00 p.m. and you look at 4:00 p.m. on day 1, 4:00 p.m. on day 2, 4 p.m. on day 3. You look at people's faces and they get very tired and if at 4 p.m. they are all bubbly and stuff and they're not exhausted that tells you that the volume of information is not too great and that means that they're able to assimilate it. Just like you would on a normal day, you have tasks to do and 4 p.m. doesn't necessarily tire you out but when you're at a workshop people just give you more and more information thinking that is the most important thing but it's not it's. What you really want from the workshop is you go in there not to get more information. You could sit at home, you go there specifically to come back after 3:00 so if I go to say a Photoshop workshop, when I come back from the Photoshop workshop I can have a 200 page book, I can have all of these slides I can have the notes and videos and stuff but can I do masking in Photoshop? - That’s the goal. So as a presenter, you have to go “Wait! How am I going to design this stuff?” so that everyone and this is without exception, everyone can do masking in Photoshop and it might well be that masking involves seven days. So in that case you go, “Okay, we won't do everything in masking, we'll do something that we can manage in five days.” and then maybe you can't do in five days and so you have to almost break it down to the point where you go, “Okay, if we do A, B and C then in three days it's guaranteed that everyone in the room will be able to do it.”
Leanne: I like how you said talked about A B and C and chunking it down because I've noticed something very similar in your podcasts you really talk about three things in every episode over the space of say 20 to 30 minutes. It is the number three something special to you or am I just reading too much into that?
Sean: The first thing is what I tend to do is I tend to say “Okay, I'll tell you three things about why you need to make workshops really safe.” and then I usually can think of one thing or the second thing and then ask to force myself to put the tether third thing in so from my perspective it's good because it forces me to elaborate on a specific point. But from a client's point of view as well, it's not that hard to focus or to work on three things you know if I do A B and C, they can kind of remember that. I don't think there's any science to it. We seem to like three things but I'm at the moment you go to 4 and 5 and 6, it's much harder because you have to remember these are not things these are concepts so when I say “Okay, safety in workshops.” Well, that's not a thing that looks like a bullet point but it's really, it could be a whole workshop in itself. That's what you know facilitators and presenters don't understand that one little bullet point that you just made. If you could just go deeper into that, that would be so much, I mean that would be useful to me rather than you jumping to point two and point three and point four and onwards.
Leanne: Yeah and you brought up a really good point about all those notes from a Photoshop workshop, we could take away a 200 page guide but how often do we really go back to our desks and refer to it? I think you know, let's put it on the shelf and think “Yeah. One day I'll read that but five years later it's still gathering dust.” So it's a very good point.
Sean: Yeah, because that should be the purpose of the workshop. The purpose of a workshop is to get people out of their house, out of their office space and you know give them time to travel because the travel to the workshop gets you to think, the travel after the workshop gets you to think. So those are very crucial but also in the workshop, because we give them so many breaks so you say, well, people often ask me, well, “How do you know that people aren't checking their email during the workshop?” Well, if you have like 12 breaks or 6 breaks and they have enough time to do all that stuff. So they're not going to do it in the workshop, in the workshop they're participating so this design of something is very crucial.
Leanne: And I think, if you're an external consultant going into a company I think you really want to guarantee that output but at the same time if it may be difficult extremely explaining to your client “Hey, I do need to give these people frequent breaks.” The first the client may be thinking, “What the hell are you doing?” you know it actually earning your hourly rate. So I guess it's important to convince that these kind of concepts are really important to guarantee that skill.
You've brought up the concept of creating a safe environment for your workshop. Is that something that you, I know you have Renuka in the corner there that helps you and with preparing and setting all of that up? How do you create a safe space with people that aren't really confident in asking questions or speaking out? How do you ensure that you guarantee them the skill by creating a safe place where they do feel safe to raise issues and questions?
Sean: Yes, so one of the things that people don't realize is that people don't care about your content. They don't care about your slides and they don't care about anything.
Leanne: Okay.
Sean: Yeah, they don’t. They only care until they feel safe. So they're not going to do anything if they end up looking like a fool or they end up, whatever! You have to think of them almost like five-year-old kids like you know, the five-year-old kid in the house is bouncing around laughing and stuff and then you take her out and then she's wiggling between the father's toes trying to stay away from your gaze because the father just said “Sing a song, come on Emily. Sing a song!” No, not going to sing a song, right? But you give Emily enough space and enough time and she will do that. So what we do is we set it up so that people are safe. Now, one of the things now, I don't know people have you know multiple questions to this and this becomes a whole workshop in itself but essentially what we do is for most workshops and not the one you did but for most workshops, what we do is we create the notes and we send it to them a month in advance. You’ll say “Well, if you're going to send them all a notes a month in advance then why are you going to show up to the workshop, as in the presenter, what's the point?” and the point is that I feel safe as a person reading the notes. Now there's no shock and awe, there's no “Oh, I have to come and I have to see all these slides for the first time.” and after you assimilate all the stuff- No! You're there, you’ve read the notes, you understand it, and so what's the job of the presenter? Well, the presenter has to show up there and now explain the same concept with different examples. So now you're getting a much deeper understanding of the same thing, different angles- same concept!
So if I say safety and I send you a book with several examples of how you create safety in workshops or how you create a safe zone then when you come to the workshop I show you different examples. How does it work in a corporate environment? How does it work if you're having a course online and you can't see anybody? So now you're getting depth in it. Now that creates one level of safety, the second level of safety and it depends on who's having the workshop. But what we do is we get people to show up before the workshop as in the day before. Now, in Singapore you know the workshop you attended, we landed just the night before. It doesn't usually happen but we tend to have a meet and greet the previous night. In Brussels, we went to the Tintin Museum.
Leanne: Oh, great.
Sean: Yeah. Yeah I know you missed out.
Leanne: I know. I got all the photos, thanks for that while I was sitting in my cubicle.
Sean: So all of this stuff is done as a preparation then we have soft toys that people chuck around. We have sometimes when you come to the workshop you'll get maybe a little postcard with your name written on it. These are all these little things that enable people to go “Oh, this is a fun environment. This is not a place where I'm going to be put down and made a fool of.” and this takes a long time. When you get to a Psychotactics workshop you don't realize it but until about 11 o'clock you're doing nothing.
Leanne: Ah yeah.
Sean: Yeah absolutely nothing. You just had a bunch of introductions which are also engineered for you not to introduce yourself but to introduce somebody else. You’re doing a whole bunch of stuff until you finish the first coffee break which is at 10:30 and then at 11 o'clock that's when you're actually doing the first assignment.
Leanne: Yeah, you're right. I'm actually just sort of reflecting on our days in Singapore and yeah there is a bit of a science behind it, good to hear.
Sean: Yeah. So this just goes on through the days and then as people you know they get to know so we put them in groups but of course we've had really bad examples in groups. So the point is how do you make that safe as well which is you know on Day 1, we'll have a group and it's random it's not even like necessarily the same groups and then sometimes if we find that we need to change the groups the next day we change the groups and what that does is now you say, “Well, that's uncomfortable.” but it is safe at some level because you feel “Okay, I don't have to be with this person all the time.”
Leanne: Yeah, absolutely.
Sean: And so, there are lots of very small things but essentially if you start thinking of it as an adult workshop and going, “I've got a whole bunch of 10-year-olds. How do I keep them comfortable and happy?” then yeah, lots of breaks, stuff toys. Think of it as a ten-year-old party and I think you'll have a formula out there.
Leanne: That it sounds really fun. Interesting point that you said that “No one really cares about the presenter, all the slides until you make them feel safe.” It's the first time I've heard anyone say that. A lot of people talk about the importance of getting everyone to know each other and feel comfortable but no one's said it like in those words which is really great.
You talked about the levels of safety so giving up the notes in advance again that's another new concept I've never heard and a lot of people would think “Hang on! Well yeah, what is the point of me showing up here?” and I think that challenge on the facilitator to start figuring out more examples or then putting more emphasis on how we're going to make this more relevant for the people in the room at the time especially if they've read their notes prior. And then I like the idea of the meet and greet beforehand, it takes that mystery away of who's in the room because like you said when you're rocking up to a workshop you could be pretty apprehensive of who's going to be in there, how I even get there, all these thoughts going through your head before you even see the first slide.
Now, I want to talk about the way that you introduce topics as well and you always start from a high level overview. So in Singapore you spoke about the Manhattan Skyline and then you're really just teaching us the importance of foundations. Sorry, is that the way that you introduce the concepts a lot of the time, is it through using stories and looking at things that are going out in the world and then trying to make that relevant to the concept you're exploring?
Sean: Yep, because that's what you remember. So information again is very tiring and most of us thinking that that's what the clients want. The clients don't actually want that, if you know, we know how, what clients really want in a workshop and that is they want to leave the room and you say, “That's not possible!” Well, do this the next time you're having a workshop tell them, “Look, all of you are here for the information, right? And they'll all say “Yes!” and you go “Okay, so we're going to do this workshop until 9:00 p.m. tonight.” and then watch their faces. Yeah, it's the same thing as school, right? So you know, if you tell a bunch of 10-year-olds “Hey, school ends at 4 o'clock every day but if we do all stuff really well, we can all go at 3 o'clock.” and they go “Okay, yes!” and if you take 30-year-olds in a room or 50-year-olds in the room and you do that it's exactly the same. I've gone away from your question but the point is that people are looking for the exit sign and so if you design your workshop around an exit sign which is, “How can I get people moving all the time?” then that's the way they learn because they don't really learn sitting down there while you're droning on forever. That's not when they're learning. That's when they're just hearing not even listening to you, that's when they're checking their email. But once you've given them stuff to do, once they're starting to move, once they're starting to discuss stuff, once they're going to the cafe and back and you know how many trips we did to the cafe and back. I mean, we pretty much spent an hour and a half just going back and forth.
Leanne: And I don't think anyone was looking at their watch thinking “We need to get back, we're enjoying all of our time away.” as well.
Sean: Right.
Leanne: I think what we're talking about, what we were learning as part of that drinking great coffee.
Sean: Yeah, but in that section, that's where you're doing all your learning where you're doing all your assimilating and your question was “the concepts”. So if you give people like a whole bunch of bullet points, it's very hard to remember but if I tell you a story like for instance, we have this book called “The Brain Audit” and in that I talked about how you land at an airport and you have seven red bags and stuff and then if I meet that person six years later and they go “Hey, you know I still remember that story.” So finding that story at the top of your presentation and then in the different sections of your presentation that makes a big difference because I can remember the stories and yeah after that and like for instance, you did the Sales Page Workshop and now you know that to build the Sales Page, you don't start, see, tell me, I'm putting you on the spot now. How do you build a Sales Page?
Leanne: Well, we started by writing all the bullet points.
Sean: Yeah, but where do you start from the headline?
Leanne: No.
Sean: Yeah, exactly!
Leanne: The benefits and features and you bullet points.
Sean: So what effectively, what are you saying is you're starting at the bottom?
Leanne: We are.
Sean: And that's where the Manhattan example comes in. You build a building a skyscraper from the bottom up not from the top down. So the concept stays in your head and then you don't have to refer, you don't even have notes until now but if I gave you that assignment to do, you could do it, right?
Leanne: Yep, absolutely.
Sean: And it needs to be something that you can fit on the back of a postcard. If you can do that then you've said too much.
Leanne: I have to upload an image of the postcard to the show notes for this episode because they're beautiful. So Sean hand drawn these- the postcards, which had all the important points and the process for writing a sales page and yeah I could look at that right now and write a sales page just from looking at the artwork on that.
Sean: And this is the interesting part that you know anyone listening to this will go, “Okay, I got the whole workshop. I don't have to go to the workshop.” See? That's the beauty of it. That all those three days are encapsulated in their postcard and in your head you can expand all of it.
Leanne: Yep.
Sean: But the person looking at it has no idea, I mean they have some idea but they don't have the same idea that you have.
Leanne: Yeah like the real substance and experience, yeah that's right.
Sean: Right and it's important to note that you still don't have notes or slides or anything and you can still do it, that's important!
Leanne: Hmm yeah, that is important. Yeah. So, do you use the same concept? I'm trying to, I'm trying to draw parallels now, so you put your DaVinci course out for sale, so what is Sean and his team can teach anyone how to cartoon which is just a skill that everyone thinks that they can't do. Everyone I know is, “Oh, I can't draw!” so cartooning is a bit of a stretch. You teach this to all system made, it create a structure so you can teach people around the world that are online not even in the same room or in the same time zone. How do you take to school like cartooning to an audience that's all around the world?
Sean: Okay, so one of the things that you went through and most people go through is what we call a “layering system”. So a layer consists of A then AB then AB and C then AB and C and D. So every time you're doing, you're always still doing A and then you're always adding B and then you're always adding, so what most training does is they go A B C D E and that's overload. But if you do A, AB, AC, AD, ABCD sorry then every time you're going back to the original, you're going back and practicing that and you're getting better at A, getting better at A, getting better at A and that's what we call tiny increments. So we increased it but all the time you're repeating it and I'm repeating myself here. So that is one of the things that we do.
The second thing that is even more crucial is this whole factor of getting people in the safe zone. So almost everyone who joins a course like we teach different skills like writing or presentations or whatever. And cartooning is so from left field because people say “I could never do that.” So the first point is to get them to the point where they're not making fools of themselves because everyone who draws like a six-year-old stop drawing when they were six years old which is why they draw like six-year-old. But having now been you know and now they're 35 or 55 or 75, it doesn't mean that they have to do 69 years more of drawing to get to a 75-year-old. Because a very fluent artist is like a very fluent speaker of a language. It takes about six to nine months to get very fluent in any language and what we do is instead of going “Okay, you have to practice every day you have to…” You just build this in tiny increments and then that builds a huge amount of confidence.
In fact, the first assignment for the cartooning course is to draw circles just random circle what we call “circly circles”. So it's just it's like a two-year-old could do so you get your first gold star as it were for doing stuff that any two-year-old could do very easily. And you know what? A lot of people struggle on that one, they try to draw a perfect circles and then we have to break that to the point where you go, “I want you to take a crayon with your thumb with your fist or whatever and how you draw it on the wall.” So you have to break those patterns and then very quickly within a few weeks they're drawing Snoopy, within a few weeks they're drawing complex stuff like stuff from Ice Age and they go, “Wait a second, this is what animators do. How am I doing this in five weeks?” So the confidence is what we're working on. We're now working on the skill because they don't have the skill and they don't have the practice. The main thing is they don't have that volume of cartoons in their head. They don't know how the finger goes, how the hand goes, how the legs go and then we get them to another level of practice which is copying.
Now, in almost every age, copying was the way to go about stuff. So Van Gogh, he copied all of Hokusai’s work from Japan. All of the Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, all, they're not sitting there and going, “Oh, what's in my brain?” –No! They have this model in front of them and they're copying and in our age we have confused copying with plagiarism. Like taking credit for somebody else's work but this is not taking credit and this is copying, as a kid you trace. So anyway, to answer the question in a briefer manner, what do you have to really work on when you're teaching people is you have to get their confidence up. Because when you get their confidence up then they use less energy thinking, “Oh, am I doing the wrong thing? Am I doing the, you know, am I a fool?” Because they burn up all of this energy trying to be so smart and you're giving them tasks that don't require so much energy and that boosts the skill level because now they go, “Okay I can do this.”
Leanne: Yeah. I mean because you taught us how to draw the whale as part of the workshop and when you said that “Draw a whale.” and I just draw any whale. Yeah mine looked like a of six-year-old’s whale and then you broke it down and said “Draw a rectangle and do this.” and the confidence I guess of all of us was we thought it was excellent because you broke it down into those layered steps and made it really easy and yeah while all the whale is just a combination of all different strokes.
Sean: Yeah and this is the problem that a lot of facilitators do. So the facilitator is also not in the safe zone. They're also feeling like they're being judged, right? So they're always in that safe zone themselves and so they try to be smarter than the audience and that kind of comes across. The audience figures it out that you're smarter, you're standing there on this pedestal as it were. So when you bring the audience, so often a client will tell you, “Oh, it's so easy for you to do that.” So now if you go, “Okay, wait a second, how do we get rid of this objection? It's so easy for you to do that and how do we get you to do it? Now you go, “Wow! If I can do this, what else can I do?” All the time you're working between these factors of: “How am I going to increase their confidence? How are they going to feel more safe? How are they going to use less energy?” Puff! We get skill. So skill is really…What people think, skill is “I'll just practice and practice.” but practice, it gets you there but it takes very long.
Leanne: Yeah. Would you say it's like a transfer of confidence?
Sean: The first thing is, it's a factor of energy so if it takes you a long time or it's a complex thing to do then you're going to use up a lot of energy and if you lose up a lot of energy, you lose confidence and then you never acquire the skill.
Essentially it's an equation, which is an equation is “this plus this equals to this”, right? So energy plus confidence is equal to skill. That's what it is! It's not “I will practice, practice, practice, practice and get skilled.” No! If you have continuously difficult tasks like “Okay, now go build a computer. Okay, now go destroy the building.” It’s like “This is really hard!” But if you say “Okay, go get me a glass of water.” Then you say, “Okay, go and make some noodles.” as in you know, the two-minute noodles. You can accomplish all of those things and now this is again you go back to a 10-year-old and the 10-year-old goes, “I'm so smart. I brought water today. You know at home I don't get to bring water but in school I did bring water today.” - Okay fine! So now they're excited about that activity because it requires a little energy and then you can say “Okay now we're going to chop onions with a chef's knife.” right? And you go “How am I going to give a nine-year-old to chop onions with a chef's knife.”
This is all the task of energy. The reason why people grow up and go “I can't cook. I can't draw.” it's because the first time they're given a recipe, it's like, “Okay, here are 30 ingredients go make a great Indian dish.” Sure! I mean it doesn't work like that.
So the facilitation process is the same thing which is if you give me tiny increments I don't have to burn up so much energy to learn it. I don't have to burn up so much energy to wonder if I'm a fool or whatever and I know that you're not trying to show off as a facilitator. So now because I have that energy, I can put it to use and gain more confidence and then as I gain more confidence I get more skill and in that whole formula you have all these brakes so you're like, you're confused you speak with someone else, you speak to the presenter. You have space to get rid of all the objections and the problems and stuff which otherwise it's like, “Ah I got stuck at five, at 10:30 and now it's 12 o'clock and now it's 2 o'clock.” and you know the biggest problem is that clients will not stop you, they will say, “I'm sure, he'll cover this on Day 2.”
Leanne: Yes.
Sean: And you never covered that on Day 2 because you have no idea that they have that problem and they're waiting for Day 2 by which point they're completely confused. So there are all of this and I'm not saying our system is perfect. In fact, we have to keep tweaking it for this very reason which is we want people to have that skill and they still have all of these obstructions that they put in their way and so we have to keep tweaking that, it's just how it is.
Leanne: Yeah, so you're actually writing a book on talent, aren’t you?
Sean: Yes.
Leanne: I know you've been talking about it for a while but I think you're getting momentum which is really great.
Sean: Yeah, we have to pre-sell it. Yeah that’s the only one I’m going to write.
Leanne: Oh, this a great podcast to talk about talent man. This can over-the-line build up momentum even more. So do you believe that you can teach anyone anything? Or do you think the person coming in to learn the skill has to have some degree of motivation to want to learn the skill depending on the complexity of that skill?
Sean: I'll give you an example of my niece, Marsha and I'll give you an example of the other niece Cara. So one was 8 in the other was 13 when we started this exercise. Now both of them were not motivated, as in Cara point-blank told me. We said we're going to have these Friday sessions and both of you can draw and paint like with real watercolours and in real watercolour books and stuff. Cara point-blank at 8 has decided, “I can't draw.” and “Okay, I come to paint because I can just throw colour on the paper.” right? – So, I can't draw. Then we have Marsha and Marsha is like “Okay, I'll do whatever you want but swimming, I rated it as a ten and painting or drawing is five.” So there's really no motivation on the part of both of these kids and what we decided was “Look! It's not about the content, it's about the energy.” and so we got them there and we give them Cola and they have you know they dance, they run around, they eat chips, they listen to music and stuff and in the last half an hour that's when they're drawing and painting.
Leanne: Ah.
Sean: If you see their work, you will be astounded. So what's really driving their stuff is first of all, its “Oh, this is so much fun!” So they would put up with the pain of drawing because 70% of it is fun. So okay, I'll humour you. But what happens is in the process that we teach them in tiny increments so it's like “Let's draw a snowman today.” or “Tomorrow, let's draw something.” We're starting to build it up and then you only figure out what it is right at the end, right? So it's still all this fun, fun, fun, fun and their drawings are superb. So now Marsha looks at her paintings and goes “Wow, that's so good.” and she's a teenager and you know pretty much like a teenager looks in front of a mirror and goes “Oh, I look so great.” or whatever they spend time in front of the mirror. Marsha does that with her paintings and Cara's like “What are you looking at your painting for so long?”
But Cara, if her parents say “Oh, do you want to go for painting class?” and she's like “Yeah.” and what she did was she said “I have these photos on my iPad.” and I let her draw on the iPad as well and she said “Where's my work?” because she did like three or four drawings and I said it's in this folder and she says “That folders called I can’t draw.” and I said “Yeah, because you said you couldn't draw so I put them in the ‘I can’t draw’ folder and she said “But that was two months ago.” So this is the level, this is how you start to get into this factor of talent which is you have to understand what causes people to be motivated in the first place and it's not your stupid bullet points, it's not your content, it's not all of that stuff. They are motivated by fun, if you want to teach spelling get the kids out on the playground and you say, “How do we spell appetizer? You’re A, your P, your P, your E.” and then move them around and then you say ,“Okay, now can we break up appetizer, so you’re the letter T, right? so you go and find other kids and you make a letter so you make a letter like taser, T, A, S, E, R or a sitter and now the kids are running around they're learning spellings but they're having fun. If you say “Tomorrow, who wants to learn spellings?” Well, everyone is like, “Yay, spelling time, what is wrong with this school?”
Leanne: That sounds really fun.
Sean: I know but that's the whole point. The point is that if I'm having fun, I'm not burning up energy. If I'm not burning up energy, I'm getting confident and I know that I'm learning. It's not like I'm saying “Oh, I'm just having fun I'm not learning anything.” So it’s a fun designed in a way that gets people to understand or to learn it. That builds the confidence all the time and then that leads to skill, well that's how we do it.
Leanne: Yeah, so that's how you do it and that's something that you've refined say over the last what 15 to 20 years, so it didn't start out this way?
Sean: Yep.
Leanne: I'd love to hear about a time where, was there a time that you can think, reflect on where things didn't go so well in a workshop or some of your Peterson's participants were still scratching their heads afterwards? Like we're going back quite a few years, I'd imagine and then when you started to think, “Hey, I actually really need to start thinking about how I deliver this now.” or have you always been this good as a teacher?
Sean: No one's, I mean, one of the things that we do is we always ask for feedback like not praise. We interview everyone for testimonials that's for sure but we also ask for specific feedback. So when I left Singapore after your workshop, I had like 25 points. 25 things that I had to fix from that workshop to the next workshop.
Leanne: Really? 25?
Sean: Yes, I can send you the list.
Leanne: Okay.
Sean: And you know, you thought, “Oh, that was a pretty good workshop.” but there are 25 and then the Brussels workshop, there are 25 and then when we do the same workshop. So we've been doing the article writing course for instance online since 2006 and at the end of the course people are expected to write a thousand words on what was wrong with the course. So now, say let's say 250 people have written what was wrong with the course, we have 250,000 words of feedback. This is how you fix things. It's not helpful, you need a stiff drink at the end of the day because they all sound very ungrateful.
Leanne: Yes. So you need to get yourself into a safe space before you rave in. Wow! 250,000 words.
Sean: Yeah but the good thing is what we do is we have that mix. So we have, “Okay, you give us your feedback, what you can…?” and it's not just feedback is like, “What do you suggest? How do we go about it?” and I have this conversation with them. “How do we fix it? What do we do? But what if I have this problem?” and then the clients come up with the solution.
The next stage is the testimonials where they talk about how much. So the client looks at feedback as, “Look. I really am giving you feedback not because I hate you but because I love your stuff and I want to see.” So they're trying to fix something that they see is broken. But you see it as, “Oh goodness, I gave everything and they want all of this more.” So that is a definite problem, you have to get yourself into loving feedback and if you can't do that, then do the feedback first and the very next thing you do is the testimonials. Because the energy that comes from the testimonial will kind of reduce the impact or the brutality of that feedback.
The problems that we've had in the past have really stemmed from me getting exhausted. So when I used to do any workshops or presentations before, I had to literally rest for a week. And I thought “Why am I having to rest for a week? I already know this stuff, I'm so exhausted. These guys must be really exhausted.” So started to think about this whole topic about what people want and it's to do with marketing rather than, because people, they say one thing and then they mean something else but it's not like they know what they mean. A good example of this is Weight Watchers and if you say, “What is Weight Watchers slogan?” Well, when they started out it was eat all the food you want and you think, “That doesn't make any sense?”
Leanne: No.
Sean: Yes, it does! It makes perfect sense. The people that get in trouble and go to Weight Watchers are people who eat all the food they want.
Leanne: Yes.
Sean: The people who don't have the problem don't have to go to Weight Watchers. So Weight Watchers is effectively saying is, “You can eat all the food you want, we'll show you how to eat it.” right?
Leanne: Yeah.
Sean: So that's the one factor, that is. I can't express that, I can't express that I want to eat everything in sight. I can't express that, I don't want to admit that. But when I see the slogan, I just go “Oh yeah, that's the right place.” So we had to look at our workshops and go “What do people really want?” and the answer is they want to have fun. Whether you look at a corporate event or you look at a small business event or any event. Everybody who comes there says, “I want to have fun.” So then you know you speak to your partner, you speak to your accountant and they say, “You're going to a three day workshop, you're going to spend all this money what are you going to do?” and you go, “I'm going to have fun!” No! That's not going to work, it's not going to work for you, it’s not going to work for them, and they aren't fun. You can have fun here, why spending all this money? So I can't admit that to myself but that doesn't mean as a facilitator that you can't teach while letting them have a blast.
Leanne: No.
Sean: Yeah.
Leanne: That's what I'm finding. I find the most effective facilitators are the ones that bring in the most fun and then learning is kind of like the side effect of having a great time.
Sean: Yes and the worst facilitators always said at the start they say, “Okay, are you guys ready to have fun?” and then you sit through three days of complete agony.
Leanne: It's like, yeah my husband says if he meets anyone that ever says that introduces themselves as easy going but you've got to watch out!
Sean: Yeah, it's overcompensation.
Leanne: It is overcompensation.
Sean: Yeah.
Leanne: So what is some advice that you could give to people that are starting their journey in facilitating and leading workshops in their own context? What would you tell them Sean?
Sean: Well, I think the main thing is that they have to get very comfortable with themselves and that's quite a journey. It's got nothing to do with the audience, it's got everything to do with how much authority you have in that space. And so if you look at say Photoshop, well, no one has the authority in everything in Photoshop but maybe in masking and then maybe in the sub subset of masking. So what you want to do is you want to be comfortable, you feel like you're in a safe space and any questions that come within that space you can talk about it.
Then the second thing that you want to do is you want to take that little subset or sub subset and then expand that so that say, you could cover that material I don't know half a day. Well, you don't have to go for three days, you have to be really confident to take a half day material for three days but let's say you said, “Okay, we'll do this in one day or one and a half days.” Well, now what you have to do is you have to go, “Okay, I have to explain in one third of the space. I have to get them to work in half one third of the space and then I have to get them to build exercises or do something like that in one third of the space.” and then the clients go, “Yeah. So I learnt it, I practiced it, I made mistakes and I fixed it.” and now you have one and a half days. When you get more proficient at it, well, now you can go “Okay, we've got three days I've got more examples for you. I've got more activity for you.” and I don't feel any fear that our tea break is going for 45 minutes.
Leanne: Yeah. That's a black belt status for facilitators being that comfortable and confident to do that.
Sean: Right. Because you also have to know like when we went to Brussels for instance. The stuff that you guys covered in the first day, they hadn't covered in the first day but they were a much larger group and it seems like, “Oh damn, I haven't covered. I'm going to get into trouble.” And you have to be I think as a facilitator, you have to be comfortable in your own skin. So you have to be comfortable that you're going to goof up 50 to 60 percent of your early days before you start getting to do the comfort level. But breaking it up is always a good way because once you're confident then you don't have to overcompensate and you don't have to be “I'm the boss here and you're just minions.”
Leanne: Yeah, that's right and just “Respect me because I'm the one that's standing up in front of the room.” It's actually the respects coming from what you're giving them in terms of the skill and your authority.
Sean: The best way to do that is to get them to tell you what you've already told them and if they can do that, well, now you've given them slides.
Leanne: Yeah. That's an excellent point to finish on. Sean, thank you so much for your time and I know that you're known as “the online marketing” kind of Guru. We've spoken about a topic though that I think you're going to grow through in terms of bringing out your book and you're going to be another expert on talent as well. So you've got three hats. Yeah, I talked about your Singapore workshop in a previous podcast and told everyone I'd bring you one so I'm sure they're all looking forward to this. Where can people find you if they want to sort of follow up and see what else that you do?
Sean: Well, we're at PsychoTactics, I don't know if you can spell it but Google can so look up PsychoTactics and that PsychoTactics outcome, that's where we are.
Leanne: Fantastic. Thank you so much, Sean. It’s been great having you on the show.
Sean: You're welcome.