FTF222 Being Prepared to Wing It: Workshop Wizardry with Dr. Jason Fox
Welcome to an enchanting episode of our podcast! In this captivating conversation, we bring you a first-time wizard on the show—Dr. Jason Fox—a wizard-philosopher disguised as a motivational speaker and leadership advisor. His expertise lies in guiding clever teams through the complexities of their quests.
Welcome to an enchanting episode of our podcast! In this captivating conversation, we bring you a first-time wizard on the show—Dr. Jason Fox—a wizard-philosopher disguised as a motivational speaker and leadership advisor. His expertise lies in guiding clever teams through the complexities of their quests.
With an impressive list of clients that includes Fortune 500 companies such as Microsoft, HP, Novartis, Red Bull, Cisco, Johnson & Johnson, Toyota, and Honda, Dr. Fox has established himself as a trusted advisor to senior leadership teams worldwide.
What You Will Learn:
During our discussion, we embark on a magical journey through various topics. We explore the delicate balance between nurturing ideas and valuing individuals, the importance of holding space for emergent insights, and the personal rituals and preparations that enhance facilitation sessions.
We also delve into the struggle with titles and labels, seeking more meaningful and playful ways to communicate one's role and expertise. Moreover, we uncover the concept of channeling the muse, allowing intuitive insights to guide conversations and workshops, resulting in transformative experiences.
Dr. Fox has shared his wisdom as a lecturer at three universities and is the bestselling author of "The Game Changer" and "How to Lead a Quest." His remarkable ability to engage skeptical audiences and senior leaders who have "seen it all before" has made him a sought-after keynote speaker.
When not liberating the world from the delusion of progress, you'll find Dr. Fox residing in an old chocolate factory in Melbourne, Australia, alongside an illustrator-veterinarian and a feline companion. His passions outside of his work include extreme sports like reading, sun-avoidance, and indulging in the art of coffee snobbery.
Prepare to be captivated by this thought-provoking conversation filled with enchanting insights and practical wisdom. Join us as we uncover the secrets of working with groups, gaining clarity, embracing the power of intuition, and unleashing your own magical potential.
Episode Links:
Check out Dr Jason’s work: Dr Jason Fox or FoxWizard
Choose One Word: Jason Fox's program focused on finding one word to serve as a fuzzy contextual beacon. Choose One Word
"Awakening from the Meaning Crisis" by John Vervaeke: A 50-part YouTube series exploring the concept of meaning and its implications in society. Awakening from the Meaning Crisis
Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication: A philosophy and communication method emphasizing empathic listening and effective dialogue. Nonviolent Communication
Flip Chart Facebook Group: Join the community of facilitators at https://www.facebook.com/groups/flipchart/
My new book is out: The 2-Hour Workshop Blueprint: Design Fast. Deliver Strong. Without Stress.
Write an Amazon review, and I'll invite you to two webinars (value $299 each).
FTF 221: Bringing a Bigger YOU 2.0 Into Your Workshops with Mel Loy
In this episode, host Leanne Hughes welcomes Mel Loy, the founder and host of Hey, Mel Comms and Training, a small agency fueled by boundless energy. Mel has over 20 years of experience in communications across various sectors and specializes in building communication capability through coaching workshops and creative thinking. She is also a co-owner of a gym and the president of the Queensland chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators.
In this episode, host Leanne Hughes welcomes Mel Loy, the founder and host of Hey, Mel Comms and Training, a small agency fueled by boundless energy. Mel has over 20 years of experience in communications across various sectors and specializes in building communication capability through coaching workshops and creative thinking. She is also a co-owner of a gym and the president of the Queensland chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators.
What You Will Learn:
In this far-ranging conversation, Mel shares her journey from working in corporate communications to becoming a freelance consultant and workshop facilitator.
You’ll also hear us discuss:
The importance of staying calm in crisis communication and workshop facilitation, and how to manage unpredictable situations effectively.
Insights into building communication capability through coaching workshops and creative thinking, based on over 20 years of experience in the field.
The parallels between crisis communication and facilitating sessions, including the need for composure, problem-solving, and quick adaptation.
How being a group fitness instructor can enhance facilitation skills, including the ability to energise participants, create connections, and handle unexpected challenges.
Tips for preparing for workshops and managing the tension between designing content and ensuring a smooth, confident delivery, including time-blocking, creating run sheets, and prioritising self-care.
About the Guest: Mel Loy
Mel Loy is an expert in change, crisis, and internal communications, demonstrating a strong passion for fostering capability within teams and organisations. With a focus on creating better stakeholder experiences through effective communication, trust-building, and reputation management, Mel, along with the team at Hey Mel! Communications & Training, has collaborated with numerous prominent corporate and non-profit brands in Australia. Their extensive experience involves supporting change initiatives, enhancing internal and change communication capabilities, and addressing various crises.
Mel brings over 20 years of experience in the communications and public relations sector, having worked in the UK and Australia across diverse corporate, non-profit, and government organisations.
Episode Links:
Instagram: @
Website: Hey Mel! Comms and Training
Podcast: Less Chatter, More Matter
Flip Chart Facebook Group: Join the community of facilitators at https://www.facebook.com/groups/flipchart/
My new book is out: The 2-Hour Workshop Blueprint: Design Fast. Deliver Strong. Without Stress.
Write an Amazon review, and I'll invite you to two webinars (value $299 each).
FTF 220: Becoming an Opportunity Creator with Dr. Mechelle Roberthon
In this episode of the First Time Facilitator podcast, host Leanne Hughes interviews Dr. Mechelle Roberton, a self-confessed talent development nerd and certified professional in talent development.
Leanne met Mechelle at a conference and was drawn to her energy and expertise in organisational culture. Mechelle shares her journey of creating opportunities in the talent development field, emphasizing the importance of passion and preparation in workshop delivery.
She also discusses the need for organisations to engage frontline employees by seeking their input and addressing their most innate needs.
In this episode of the First Time Facilitator podcast, host Leanne Hughes interviews Dr. Mechelle Roberton, a self-confessed talent development nerd and certified professional in talent development.
Leanne met Mechelle at a conference and was drawn to her energy and expertise in organisational culture. Mechelle shares her journey of creating opportunities in the talent development field, emphasizing the importance of passion and preparation in workshop delivery.
She also discusses the need for organisations to engage frontline employees by seeking their input and addressing their most innate needs.
Mechelle's career history includes leading an L&D team for a financial institution, working in talent development roles in healthcare, and teaching over 500 corporate courses. She is an experienced speaker and workshop facilitator, passionate about helping organisations and people achieve effective learning and teaching for adults.
What You Will Learn:
Mechelle emphasizes the importance of creating opportunities rather than just finding them, sharing examples of how she got her start in delivering workshops by volunteering her services.
Mechelle prepares for workshops by immersing herself in the topic and finding ways to fall in love with it, regardless of the content.
The need for organisations to engage frontline employees by seeking their input and addressing their most innate needs, rather than focusing solely on superficial engagement activities.
Mechelle's journey in talent development includes leading an L&D team for a financial institution, working in talent development roles in healthcare, and teaching over 500 corporate courses.
About the Guest:
Dr. Mechelle Roberthon is a certified professional in talent development and an experienced career and professional development instructor. She holds a doctorate in education and a master's degree in education with a specialization in training and performance improvement. Mechelle is passionate about effective learning and teaching for adults and has a wealth of experience in the talent development field.
To connect with Michelle and learn more about her work, visit her website at drmechellerob.com.
Episode Links:
Flip Chart Facebook Group: Join the community of facilitators at https://www.facebook.com/groups/flipchart/
My new book is out: The 2-Hour Workshop Blueprint: Design Fast. Deliver Strong. Without Stress.
Purchase the Kindle version or paperback by 6 July to get the audiobook for free (when it's out on 31 July).
Write an Amazon review, and I'll invite you to two webinars (value $299 each).
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.
Episode 39: Discover your facilitator zone of genius (and monetise your facilitation skills) with Sarah McVanel
Sarah McVanel is a recognition expert, author, an experienced and dynamic speaker and coach. She helps leaders leverage the exponential power of recognition to retain top talent and sustain healthy bottom-lines. She helps organisations by curating healthy workplace cultures through her FROG methodology (Forever Recognize Others' Greatness), as well as through speaking, training, coaching and mentoring others.
Sarah McVanel is a recognition expert, author, an experienced and dynamic speaker and coach. She helps leaders leverage the exponential power of recognition to retain top talent and sustain healthy bottom-lines. She helps organisations by curating healthy workplace cultures through her FROG methodology (Forever Recognize Others' Greatness), as well as through speaking, training, coaching and mentoring others.
Her philosophy is that once we rediscover that understanding of our own greatness, we can use it to recognize that greatness all around us and improve ourselves, our workplace and the organization’s bottom line.Sarah also helps intrapreneurs to shake off the golden handcuffs, like she did, and launch successful six to seven figure businesses they love.
In this episode you’ll learn:
Tips on how to magnify your own greatness as a facilitator
Her thoughts on being a generalist vs being an expert in one field
How to monetise your skills as a facilitator and steps to develop your side hustle
How external consultants can help internal presenters when used in organisations
The impact of recognition in an organisation (and how the FROG model helps)
About our guest
Sarah McVanel is a recognition expert based in Ontario, Canada. She holds a Master’s Degree in Family Therapy and research, as well as an Honours BA in Psychology. She has excelled in the field of organisational development, training, and communications for over 15 years. She offers the business evidence to back up how recognizing greatness in ourselves and others is key to sustained business success through improved morale, increased top talent retention, and generating a positive corporate culture.
Her book "Forever Recognize Others Greatness: Solution Focused Strategies to Satisfied Staff, High Performing Teams and Healthy Bottom Lines" and other practical tools leave audiences with the process and insights needed to take action and make a positive difference.
Sarah McVanel has inspired, challenged, and focused her audiences, leaving them with a powerful new understanding of their work, their colleagues and their lives!
A gift for First Time Facilitator listeners
Click here to book a free 15 minute call with Sarah McVanel, to talk through your facilitation ideas.
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.
Tweet Leanne know about your number one takeaway from this episode!
Quotes of the show:
“If you have one core area of expertise then you don't have to be up on the literature in a hundred different places.”
“Your amazingness as a facilitator; that goes with you, no matter your area of expertise.”
“No organisation has enough bank (even Google) to have people around who are not fulfilling an important function.”
“There's no one straight way to becoming a facilitator - I think we can be proud of that because that's how we bring our genius and our authentic greatness to whatever group were working with. It’s a combination of all of our unique experiences.”
Episode transcript
View the episode transcript of my conversation with Sarah McVanel.
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.
Episode 35: Shift your focus: Be with your audience (not just in front of them) with Hadiya Nuriddin
In today’s episode, I talk to Hadiya Nuriddin. Hadiya is a speaker, a learning strategist, instructional designer and an e-Learning Developer based in Chicago. She has nearly 20 years' experience in all levels of learning and development and has extensive experience in designing, developing, and delivering both technical and professional development courses.
In today’s episode, I talk to Hadiya Nuriddin. Hadiya is a speaker, a learning strategist, instructional designer and an e-Learning Developer based in Chicago. She has nearly 20 years' experience in all levels of learning and development and has extensive experience in designing, developing, and delivering both technical and professional development courses.
Hadiya is extremely enthusiastic about ensuring her messages stick. In this episode, we not only talk about using stories to engage your audience, but she also shares how you can use them in your interactions with clients -which is so helpful if you’re starting a side business, or going out all on your own and trying to drum up business.
In this episode you’ll learn:
How story sharing helps to build rapport with potential clients
Tips on finding the right story to tell
How she pivoted from a tech support role; into instructional design; and discovered the world of facilitation
How the developed her confidence as a facilitator by shifting her focus
Hadiya's explanation of the 'story spine' and how this can apply to you as a facilitator
About our guest: Hadiya Nuriddin
Hadiya Nuriddin is the owner of Focus Learning Solutions. She has a MEd in Curriculum Design, an MA in Writing, and a BA in English. She holds the Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP), and is MBTI certified. She designs and develops eLearning courses using Articulate Studio, Articulate Storyline, and Captivate. Hadiya is the author of the book StoryTraining: Selecting and Shaping Stories That Connect.
When she is not working with clients, she consults with other self-employed L&D professionals to help them start and build their own businesses. Hadiya also facilitates courses nationwide on instructional design and development for the Association for Talent Development. She has a Master’s degree in both education (M.Ed.) and writing and publishing (M.A.). She is also a Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP).
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.
Let Leanne know about your number one takeaway from this episode!
Quotes of the show:
“You may be nervous and scared and trust me; If you begin to change your thinking and realise this journey is “for them” not “for me” then, you will put more on the onus and more of the focus on them and less on yourself.”
“Don’t think that one event only has one lesson.”
“The point is not just for you to tell stories. The point is to make them, the learners, feel comfortable enough to share their own stories with each other.”
Episode transcript
View the First Time Facilitator episode transcript with Hadiya Nuriddin.
Episode 34: How a chemical engineer is changing the way academics present (because life is too short for bad presentations) with Toon Verlinden
In today’s episode, I talk to Toon Verlinden. Toon is an international presentation coach and expert in scientific communication. He is a freelance science and travel journalist and a Biochemical Engineer by profession.
In today’s episode, I talk to Toon Verlinden. Toon is an international presentation coach and expert in scientific communication. He is a freelance science and travel journalist and a Biochemical Engineer by profession. Together with Hans Van de Water, they started a blog and wrote a book called 'The Floor is Yours: Because Life is too Short for Bad Presentations', and now train thousands of researchers in the techniques necessary to prepare and give effective presentations.
Listen in when I ask about the coolest and craziest thing he has done in a presentation.
In this episode you’ll learn:
How one presentation provided the opportunity for a career pivot
Tips on how to make slides more compelling with your audience.
Tips on creating engaging presentations as first time facilitators.
The importance of PowerPoint slide design for a workshop (and how a second version can help with your handouts)
About our guest
Toon Verlinden is a freelance science and travel journalist and a Biochemical Engineer by profession. His expertise as an engineer lies in subjects such as water purification, food safety, climate and biochemistry. Emerged with a joint purpose, he wrote the book 'The Floor is Yours: Because Life is too Short for Bad Presentations' along with his good friend, Hans Van de Water,to support researchers at universities, university colleges and organisations in bringing clear and attractive research presentations.
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:
“If you are presenting, you are important; not your PowerPoint.”
“I think as a facilitator, you need to be very honest with yourself and with your audience.”
“Don’t go too broad with your audience. It may also makes it more easier to focus your workshops towards your audience.”
Episode transcript
View the First Time Facilitator episode transcript with Toon Verlinden.
Episode 33: The pre-workshop questions you can use to drive a great outcome with Steph Clarke
On today’s show, I chat to Steph Clarke. Steph is originally from the UK and is now based in Melbourne, Australia. She runs her own business, using her experience in learning, leadership development and executive coaching to develop courses to help organisations develop and professionals become more confident, productive and effective leaders.
On today’s show, I chat to Steph Clarke. Steph is originally from the UK and is now based in Melbourne, Australia. She runs her own business, using her experience in learning, leadership development and executive coaching to develop courses to help organisations develop and professionals become more confident, productive and effective leaders.
We cover topics in this episode, ranging from how she pivoted from being an accountant into the world of Learning and Development, and how she grappled with being a First Time Facilitator. She also shares why she’s decided to focus her business on leadership and creating effective teams; and how she’s created a very unique and cool personal brand.
Listen in when she shares a book recommendation that's really influenced the way she sets up her learning environment, and gives her the language to challenge clients on some of their decisions in the lead-up to delivering a workshop or meeting.
In this episode you'll learn
Why it's important to challenge decisions made prior to a workshop
How Steph changed careers and entered the world of Learning and Developments
How Steph uses self-discovery techniques to keep her participants engaged
Why she decided to focus her business on teaching leadership skills for emerging managers/technical experts
Her Venn diagram process for leadership (and how she created this model)
Her book recommendation and how it changes her outlook on why we bring people together
About our guest
Steph Clarke is a learning and development professional and pommy (that’s a Brit living in Australia for the uninitiated) based in Melbourne.After starting life as an accountant she realised she enjoyed developing others more than deciphering technical accounting standards. Cue a career pivot and for the last nine years she has worked in learning and development in a global professional services organisation. Steph runs her own business, using her experience in learning, leadership development and executive coaching to develop courses to help organisations develop and professionals become more confident, productive and effective leaders.She also hosts the 'Future Leaders Collective'; a meetup in Melbourne for emerging leaders across industries to come together and learn, collaborate and hear from other successful professionals.When she's not creating and curating killer content, you’ll find her in the pilates studio, in the kitchen, on a plane or hiding somewhere with a podcast, book or a great Spotify playlist
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!
Episode transcript
View the First Time Facilitator transcript of my conversation with Steph Clarke.
Episode 31: It’s time to stop recreating content: How to be a more productive facilitator with Sally Foley-Lewis
When you're asked to deliver another workshop, do you find you’re having to recreate content, or dig around different folders, trying to find that one slide or activity that worked really well all those years ago? This happens to me. It drives me crazy. I wish I had a better way, or system to store these resources.
When you're asked to deliver another workshop, do you find you’re having to recreate content, or dig around different folders, trying to find that one slide or activity that worked really well all those years ago? This happens to me. It drives me crazy. I wish I had a better way, or system to store these resources.
If you listen in our guest today, Sally Foley-Lewis has a solution for you.
Sally is obsessed with productive leadership, helping dedicated professionals (like you), achieve more, reduce your stress and take back two hours per day!
Listen in to her when I ask about her tips on how she embeds learning on her workshop.
In this episode you’ll learn:
Valuable and time-saving hacks for first-time facilitators
Coping mechanism on dealing with feedback
The three big elements of productivity: personal productivity, professional productivity and people productivity.
Essential questions you need to to ask yourself before standing in front of your audience.
Skills needed as a first-time facilitator.
About our guest
Sally Foley-Lewis is a dynamic and interactive presenter, MC, and much sought after facilitator and executive coach. Blending 20+ years of working with a diverse range of people and industries, in Germany, the UAE, Asia, and even outback Australia, with exceptional qualifications; a wicked sense of humour and an ability to make people feel at ease, she’s your first choice for mastering skills and achieving results. Obsessed with productive leadership, Sally helps you achieve more, reduce stress and take back two hours per day!
She has written three books, her latest is The Productive Leader and she gives presentations and runs workshops to help people become Productive Leaders. Sally's clients rave about her because she leaves the audience equipped to take immediate positive action.
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 Sally.
Quotes of the show:
“The goods are good; don't devalue good. It's good and that's a positive word.”
“I think for facilitators, it's being okay to play, be flexible and adaptive and to continue trying to work things out because your audience wants to get it".
“The more content you shove in; the more shallow you're going to be. I think that's that balancing act that makes it very hard for facilitators sometimes.”
Transcript
View the transcript of my conversation with Sally Foley-Lewis.
First Time Facilitator podcast transcript with Joshua John (Episode 28)
This is a transcript of Episode 28 of the First Time Facilitator podcast, with Joshua John.
Leanne: I'd like to welcome to the First Time Facilitator podcast, my former colleague and good mate, Joshua John.
Joshua: Good morning, Leanne.
Leanne: Welcome to the show. Thanks for your time. It's great being in beautiful Broome.
Joshua: I'm glad to have you back for a short holiday back in Broome.
Leanne: Now, Josh, I'd like to start off with you sharing with the audience what you currently do and what you did in your past which enabled you to be in the role that you're in today.
Joshua: At the moment, I'm working at North Regional TAFE. I'm a literacy and numeracy lecturer. I work across a range of industries. That's my daytime job. I've just recently, this year, started an events business called Rise Entertainment and that's mainly around event managing, emceeing, and DJing. In 2007, I was holidaying across in Broome, as a lot of the stories always are, and I was out on a remote community and met with their school principal. I heard there was a job going, working in the school as a tutor and I put my hand up and he gave me a call back. That was my entry into the Kimberley.
From there, that was back in 2007, I've worked communities, in the towns, and all over the shop.
Leanne: That first foray into tutoring, prior to that, what role were you doing? Did you have the education backing to become a tutor or you just knew a lot about the industry, what was going on, a bit about literacy and numeracy at the time that enabled you to make that transition?
Joshua: I was doing some volunteer tutoring in Brisbane just after uni, just to get my experience up once I finished my arts degree. Surprise, surprise there, the offers weren't coming in thick and fast for a Bachelor of Arts in Brisbane with possibly not the best results. I was just volunteering, doing some tutoring for high school students. Then I moved to Darwin where I was just temping. Temping in different offices doing office work. I just found that there were just-- A lot more doors were opening, being in a more regional area, moving from Brisbane to Darwin.
Then I knew that a possible move was also going to happen, moving from Darwin to a more regional center. Like I said, that did happen but by chance, being on holiday in Broome and that's how I fell into education. I then started my grad dip in education to become a qualified teacher as I was working in the school. That's how I got, formally, into education. Then after that, I have moved into the TAFE system, into more training.
Leanne: The interesting thing about this show is it's called First Time Facilitator and facilitation is really about getting the experience in the room, getting people to share that knowledge and training a unique skill set because you're actually there to pass on information. It appears to be more structured, but I know that in the Kimberley and especially working in communities, things don't always go to plan. I'd love you to tell us any stories or some challenges or opportunities you've had while working remotely. What you've had to do a bit differently and the cohort that you're training.
Joshua: It's the more remote you get, the-- You have a lot more freedom to do what you want to do because people aren't watching over your shoulder, so you have a lot more freedom to get into what the clients demand or what works well for the client, rather than going out there and running off-the-shelf product. You can go into a community or with a different group and, working overtime, work out what their needs are and really adapt and modify a program that suits them.
Probably the best example of this was, I was working at a local cattle station, doing some literacy and numeracy work, and then that evolved from essentially the literacy and numeracy tuition into leadership skills and management skills. The station themselves really keen to get the station workers skilled up and exposed to some of these ideas that you might get if you walk into a business course or a management course. I was bringing those out to this remote station and delivering it to these station guys. It was-- Like I said, I had a few years to develop a program which looks completely different at the end from at the start.
It was interesting, they'd come in the morning. First class was at six o'clock in the morning, that'd be the first group. The second group would come in from doing the station work, they'd come in covered in dust and blood and all this stuff and we'd get stuck into it. They were quite keen because obviously, they got to sit in an air-conditioned room for a bit rather than fighting cattle. We went on with a lot of different concepts which wasn't my mandate going in, but that's what I'd work with the group. These station managers were keen to see, saw the progress, their staff enjoyed it, and they just kept on evolving from there,, and a lot of freedom and opportunities to do that.
Leanne: Fantastic. With these guys on the cattle station, guys and girls, I should say, what's interesting sometimes when I have workshops with people that are used to being out on the floor or being active during the day, they actually struggle when they're sitting in a classroom. They're not used to the lack of movement. What kind of activities or-- How did you actually-- You talk about tailoring your content to suit this type of audience, did you play any games? What kind of things did you do with these students to keep them engaged and motivated?
Joshua: That's right. Absolutely, lack of movement's an issue. We have it here with a lot of trades guys. They come into the classroom and then-- It's difficult. What happens is, the facilitator or the lecturer is on their feet. They're walking from the computer to the whiteboard, they're walking around the room and it's all the students, essentially, who are sitting in their seat. As that facilitator, you don't actually realize that you're moving around, so your energy levels are staying up, the blood is flowing in your body. For the people sitting down, that's right, their energy levels are going to go down, so I ensure that I place simple things just to get them to move.
One of the simple ones I do a bit is, rather than handing out maybe the worksheet or something like that and walk around to them, I'll leave them at the front say, "Okay, when you're ready, go up and get that worksheet." It's not because I'm lazy, it's more just to get them walking and moving, and they don't really realize that. You have to keep on doing it otherwise, that's right, people start to nod off, regardless. Everyone knows if you sit down through a three-hour lecture, it's really hard to keep it going, so you have to incorporate movement.
Absolutely, playing team building activities where people are on their feet and working things out together, that's definitely where I-- This type of training programs I like to design because if you're training someone who's in a certain vocation-- If you're training someone whose job is not to sit down and essentially do office work, if you're training someone who's on their feet, then it's good to train them doing those type of tasks. I've designed a few activities where people are on their feet working in a team environment and, essentially, team-based problem solving and really getting into communication.
One of the most important things across every industry is that ability to communicate. Where my training ended up really revolving around was communication and teamwork. Now, with the skills, we're able to run these activities in the classroom. I designed them to be hard and people would fail, then we'd reflect on it, discuss what went wrong and then we'd run it through again and saying, "These are the skills we need to develop." Have a bit of a laugh along the way in a space where people aren't being judged and they're not being stressed out about stuffing something up or obviously getting injured on the job.
Having that classroom is that place where no negative talking and if someone can't do something, that's okay. We're all working together and we're all, obviously, always learning and trying to get better.
Leanne: Fantastic. Did you find that you have to do a bit of rebranding of the classroom? Some people associate a classroom with school. The way schooling's taught, it's very structured and there's right and wrong answers and you must follow this script. When you go in there and you're being flexible, you're getting people up and moving, is that something that you do to move away from the connotation of, this isn't school, this is an adult learning environment?
Joshua: Absolutely. If you walk into a classroom, or a setting, and you hand out, essentially, assessments or workbooks and it's all very literally black and white on the page, people, they get taken back to possibly negative times when they were at school. They would switch off so you've really going to shake that up at the start. The first activities, I ensure you're not asking them to write anything down, you're asking them to engage in the classroom. The first thing I'll always try and do is get everyone to speak, which I know it sounds a bit daunting for some people training, saying, "Oh, it's really difficult to get my students to speak."
It's difficult because they're used to not speaking so they're not going to start halfway through the week or something like that. You need to break that straightaway. The method to do that is, allow them to speak about something that they're not having to rely on their knowledge about the subject and being found out that they're not an expert. I have activities based around like, "Let's have a look at the difference between these two pitches. Circle the difference," and then we'll go around, "Okay, everyone has to say one thing which is different." Everyone can point and say, "Oh, look. This object is in this first picture but it's not in the second."
Just by something as simple as that, the individual has engaged, they've broken that-- No one's laughed at them, they haven't got it wrong. From that, that's the tempo of the class and everyone's keen to go along like that. In saying that, you've got to be careful to ensure that the first person you ask to speak is that individual who's showing a bit more confidence. You're not going to show that-- The kid at the back of the room who's trying to shy away, they'll be last.
What that individual will see is, every other person in the class has spoken, no one's laughed. It gets to their turn, they're able to say something and it's more part of that desire to be part of the group, that no individual is then going to go against it and not speak, that they're like, "Okay, everyone's doing it. I'm going to be part of the group. There's no repercussions." They're engaged, and then from there, the classroom environment is working well.
Leanne: Wow. I really liked you talking about creating a safe environment where everyone feels like it's okay to speak up. I like that you mentioned tempo as well. It's the first time someone on this podcast has mentioned tempo. A lot of facilitation and training is really about, how do you mix that up? At the beginning, you're setting a nice, safe tempo, but there'll be times where you're putting people and challenging people, increasing that rhythm then bringing it back when you reflect, so I like that you brought that into it.
I also want to touch on your time, I think it was in Darwin or was it in Brisbane, when you were doing stand-up comedy. Can you please tell us a bit about that experience? Why did you start doing that and what did you learn from it?
Joshua: It's a very short-lived career of stand-up, but I do enjoy-- I grew up performing on stage. I grew up playing musical instruments, my mother's a musician. From a very early age, I was just on stage tapping a drum or something behind a group of people which you just get so used to it being on stage.
Leanne: Josh loves the microphone.
Joshua: Yes, I don't shy away from it. It's something that's just always been there. Then in school, my eldest brother, when I was in year 8, he was in year 12, he actually wrote the school musical. I just always found myself performing on stage to some extent. I entered a comedy competition, RAW Comedy, in Darwin. Then I was the finalist there, so I traveled to the Melbourne comedy show and performed there. That was probably the biggest performance I've done inside of an audience.
One of the interesting takeaways from that was, right before I went on stage, as I was sitting, essentially, behind the curtain as they're introducing me, I just remember thinking of-- completely forgotten my first line. My mind went blank, and I was like-- In those situations, it's just good to stay calm because that's how the body works. I knew I delivered these lines before, I was well prepared, but it was a massive audience, there was camera crews, et cetera. Mind went blank.
The takeaway there is, that's how the mind works before you do something new, before you get on stage. Even for myself who’s someone who's been on stage a lot, I still get nervous. Particularly when it's something I'm doing for the first time, I still get those nerves and jitters. Maybe the difference is I, not embrace them, but I put up with them and know that's part of the gig and you go through with it.
That would be my advice to people who are presenting for the first time. If you're feeling nervous, well, everyone feels nervous. It's only when you're doing the same gig or the same facilitation to the same clientèle group after about three times, you'll realize, "Oh," then the body just starts to relax and you don't get that heightened state of awareness before, you don't get that adrenalin shot before. Like I said, if I do a different type of gig, then yes, I'll be nervous before I go on stage. It's something I think is always going to happen to individuals. Don't let that be a barrier for you to think you're not cut out for being a facilitator. I'd be surprised if there was an individual who didn't feel like that. It's the case for most people.
Leanne: Yes, I agree. It is the case. I thought it would be easy as well and that every time, I still get nervous. I have have spoken to facilitators and trainers on this podcast that have been doing it for 20 to 30 years and the second that you change up the content, it always comes back. Then what drives you to appear on stages or appear in front of workshop rooms and teach people?
Joshua: It's one of those things most related to my emcee work. Some people say, "You’re emceeing, you like to be on stage, you like to have that microphone." The real skill of a good facilitator or an emcee is someone who can get the event rolling and functioning well. Often that means doing less on the mic and not being up there to listen to your own voice, it's about being effective in your timing and what you're saying, and the tempo of the night. While it's counterintuitive, while I don’t mind being on stage, that's not the draw. The draw for me is the excitement in facilitating, is getting the event rolling well.
Nothing is more annoying or frustrating as seeing a facilitator or an emcee who's up there, who likes the sound of their own voice and they're showboating around. That turns everyone off instinctively. The skill of a real facilitator or an emcee is to be able to make it seem natural for the audience and make the whole event fluid. A lot of the time that's not spending time on the mic but actually getting other people up there and kicking things along, keeping that pace going.
Leanne: Fantastic. Let's talk about emceeing an event. What kind of prep work do you do prior to that night, that big day?
Joshua: The number one thing you can't go without is having a list of the names and checking you can pronounce them correctly. As I said before, often you can go up and then everything just disappears out of your mind. That's just the nerves kicking in and that's when you'll forget the individual's name or their position. I always have a list of the key people and in a really simple running list. From there, it's just a bit of adlibbing, but essentially, you're able to refer what's coming up next and what needs to be said at that point in time.
Just having those. Obviously, you can't stand up and read a list of notes, so your notes are very simple, and you're able to get those key points across. Then the rest is just adlibbing on the night.
Leanne: You've got an uncanny talent. You're very lucky that you can actually I have never [unintelligible 00:17:55] around you, but you can bring in these jokes just in the right moment, at the right time. Where does that come from? Is that just something that Josh has in his personality or did you have these jokes in the back your mind before you got on stage? Where does it come from?
Joshua: Humor is an interesting one. Like I said before, it's good to be prepared, possibly with a few jokes, but nothing would be set in stone where it's like, "Oh, at this point, I'm going to say this gag." A lot of the time I'll skip over them. You need some content, it's not all just ad-libbed, you need some content there but it's all about reading the room. Humor sometimes, like I said, it can seem very lame if an individual's up there and and they're telling a joke that they think is funny. If the room's not ready for that or it's not the right point, you need to restrict the humor.
In other times, that's right. You can just feel the audience. It's just building and everyone's listening to every word you say, so then it's a lot easier to drop a little word in there or a look or a glance which is funny, but that's only because at that stage, at that point of the night, that works. You need to be-- Like I said, I've definitely skipped over jokes or things I've written out just because it just wasn't the right time. It's about reading the room and just doing what's right at the right time.
Leanne: Excellent. Let's skip and go back to the remote training environment. I'd love to hear what you pack, what you find is essential when you're training people in a remote area. What do you put in your car?
Joshua: Some of the most important things I take out, it would be a-- You've obviously got to think about how many people you're training, but usually with me, it's around the 10 mark so it's not a massive audience. Obviously, if it was bigger, I’d have to take more activities. In saying that, I'd take a projector if I had more clients, but if it's smaller groups, I'll just have a laptop there. Definitely like a portable whiteboard, quality speakers. In most of my facilitation, I'll always have short clips of videos that I can put up there because you need to break up who’s speaking and the content, rather than me driving all these information and content.
It's great to go, "Here's a little two-minute clip of an individual," maybe introducing a topic for the first time or just an interesting little activity, because like I said before, it's easy then for the individuals and for everyone in the room, if we watch a-- For example, you could put on a short clip of people arguing in a customer service environment. Then it's very easy to go, "Hey. What went wrong here?" It's quite easy and people feel confident saying, "Hey. That person was rude to that person," or "This person did that," et cetera." It's very easy for everyone. It's not confronting, because you're talking about people on the computer, you're talking about people who aren't there.
It's easy to identify that behavior, and then from that we can say, "Okay. Take those points out," rather than me standing in front of a room for a number of hour saying, "Don't be rude to customers. It's bad and they'll have an argument." Always taking visual short videos, like I said, quality speakers to get all around the room. It's something that the person sitting at the back of the room needs to be able to hear or they'll completely switch off.
It's always good, no matter where you're delivering, is to get a sense of the room that you're going to be delivering in. Reorganize that room, so it's efficient. You might be pushing all the tables to the side, having a big open space, put all the desks in circles, et cetera, et cetera. It's important to just be well prepared.
Leanne: Fantastic. That's great. You had some advice for first time facilitators and that was about keeping calm and just making sure that your preparation enables you to deliver when it's the big moment. Do you have any other advice for those starting out their facilitation journey?
Joshua: Advise for first time facilitators. It's all preparation. Give yourself enough time to get your presentation ready. Run that past someone who can give you that feedback, and then it'd probably be, don't try and squeeze too much information into any presentation. Sometimes I chair a meeting here and we have multiple presenters all the time. People have a 3-minute slot and they'll have 15 points that they're trying to make to tell people.
What you need to think about is, "Where is my presentation? Where is that in the sequence of events for that day?" Because if it's all morning and there is 10-minute slots and you're one of those 10-minute slots but there's 5 before you and 5 after, no one has the capacity to remember the 15 points you want them to remember. Write your presentation first, but then go back and clearly be able to define, "What are your key takeaways?" You need to be able to explain those things very simply, and they need to be very obvious from people going away.
Like I said, after, if you are doing a professional development week or professional development day, at the end of the day, how many things can you remember from that day? If you can be really clear and succinct and explain your concepts well and easily, people will remember that, "I can remember, yes. That guy was talking about behavior management," or whatever it was. It's good to really break it down, and don't try and add more information in to make it appear that you're right for the job.
People try to stick in so much content and it's too much. It's like a tsunami of information. It just overwhelms people and it's hard. The brain kind of turns off. It's like "Well, there's too much information here, I can't handle all this. Even if I'm writing down a few notes, it's too much. It's coming too quick." Less is more. Break it down, introduce the key concepts very simply. Then like I said, show a short little video of that concept, maybe in action. Break that video down and talk about it in a more complex way, but then also bring it back into a more simplistic way that, like I said, everyone can understand.
That's the way to get your point across, and then people will walk out of your session going, "That made sense." [laughs]
Leanne: That's really interesting, talking about the order of proceedings and where you're in, say, over day and if you've given a short period of time. What it's really about there is being memorable, is what you said, but also think about what everyone else is doing. They'll be doing what you think you should be doing, which is cramming information down. To be remembered, what you have to do is something that's a bit different. It could be just telling a story for three minutes, bringing in that video, something that no one else has done. Immediately, if your key takeaways are obvious, people will remember. That's just the key for everyone is, when you're in a day and you're one part of that, try and forecast ahead and go, "All right. Well, this is the agenda. This person will be talking about ABC. Where can I come in? What can I do to bring it to life so that my three minutes, everyone remembers that at the end of the day?" That's critical.
Joshua: Absolutely. That's right.
Leanne: Josh, where can people find you if they want to talk to you and find out more?
Joshua: I'm on the world wide web.
[laughter]
Joshua: I'm on Facebook, Broome MC & Wedding DJ. That's my events business. It's called Rise Entertainment, but that's the search you put in. I'm up here in Broome delivering training to North West Australia. That's probably the main contact.
Leanne: You can find the links to Josh's website and his LinkedIn profile and other details on the show notes for this episode. Josh, thank you so much for your time. It's great to reconnect. I love that you have this side hustle of emceeing because you've always asked us to do it within the workplace, so it's great that you're doing it for the public as well.
Joshua: Absolutely. Leanne, thinking back on knowing I'll come in today and talk about some of my things I have been doing with emceeing and event management. A lot of those things that I've actually got into is because of yourself. We've work together. You were the creative driving force in a lot of those activities. You got me a lot of those gigs, you put my name forward, so I'd like to thank you for-- It was your creativity a lot of the time which opened some of those doors to going, "Hey, geez, these things needs to happen. Someone needs to do it. Well, I'll do it." You created the opportunities, so on behalf of myself and everyone in Broome, I've just got you a little token of appreciation.
Leanne: That's lovely.
Joshua: Got you a little Broome Cycles hat, the local cycling shop. It just says "Broome" on it, with a nice sunset. You can take that back to Brisbane and all your travels overseas and just show people beautiful little Broome.
Leanne: I will. We'll have to get a selfie after we've recorded this and pop it on the show notes. You can see the hat there and a photo of Josh and I on the show notes. Thanks for that lovely compliment, and I'm proud to be part of your career development. Let's check in in a couple of years and see where we've both gone.
Joshua: Looking forward to it.
Leanne: Cool. Thanks, Josh.
Joshua: See you, mate.
Episode 27: Being comfortable (with feeling uncomfortable) with Leanne Hughes
Usually on the show I interview amazing facilitators, speakers and leaders but I’m going solo for today’s episode. This is the third solo episode I’ve recorded and these ones are usually spurred on by questions I receive from listeners. The question this week was from a colleague and it was this, “Leanne, how did you get the confidence to speak in front of large groups?”There's a bit to unpack in that question. Its different for everyone. Interestingly, this question is about confidence; not about developing the skill.
Usually on the show I interview amazing facilitators, speakers and leaders but I’m going solo for today’s episode. This is the third solo episode I’ve recorded and these ones are usually spurred on by questions I receive from listeners. The question this week was from a colleague and it was this, “Leanne, how did you get the confidence to speak in front of large groups?”There's a bit to unpack in that question. Its different for everyone. Interestingly, this question is about confidence; not about developing the skill.
In this episode you’ll learn:
The real opportunities I had that lead me to feel more confident speaking in front of large groups.
How I compare training for a marathon with becoming a better public speaker
How I found opportunities within roles I held to practise speaking in public more often
Why time on your feet matters (and how you find those opportunities)
My driver for doing things differently in front of an audience
The joys of being a wedding MC
About our guest
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.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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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 First Time Facilitator podcast transcript of Episode 27.
First Time Facilitator podcast transcript with Neen James (Episode 26)
Here's the episode transcript with Neen James. Alternatively, you can listen to my First Time Facilitator conversation with Neen.
Leanne: Okay, I'd like to welcome to the First Time Facilitator Podcast on the line in Pennsylvania, Neen James.
Neen: G'day! What a treat to be able to serve your listeners today, Leanne.
Leanne: Oh, that's a lovely attitude to have Neen. Thank you so much for your time. As I mentioned you're on the line in Pennsylvania however, you're from Sydney I believe.
Neen: True story. So I live halfway between Philadelphia and New York City on the East Coast and so I didn't even know where Pennsylvania was to be honest with you. But if you look at a map of the U.S., it's the squarest State on kind of the right-hand side of the map. If you're trying to look for where I am, so imagine moving from Sydney City so we lived on the water, we had a beautiful apartment look at the Sydney Opera House and the bridge and then I moved to Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
Now let me just give your listeners a bit of a picture of what that is. That is like perfect Suburbia. I'm talking 2.4 children, a truck a minivan and people even mow their lawn with stripes in it. I mean I moved out to Suburbia and yet I loved it. It's such a different way of life but I absolutely love it.
Leanne: I can see already how impactful you are as a speaker. I love it you launched and tell a story and we're very descriptive about the differences between those two locations and I don't know if I could give up the view of the Opera House to be honest but I'm so glad it did great transition for you.
Neen: Yes, exactly. I fix that by coming back to Australia because I still call Australia home obviously. I fix that by coming back at least once or twice a year. I was recently back there, my baby sister moved to Sydney with her two little ones so I have the privilege of just being able to hang out in all my local spots. To me, there is nothing more amazing than being able to run across the Harbour Bridge and then grab breakfast at my favourite little place and I'm sure people listening when you think about whether it's your original hometown or things you love about your hometown.
Now, there's so many ways you can engage people by using things like story and sharing personal observations or letting your audience know just a little bit about you that peek behind the curtain that every audience remember once and it's just another engagement strategy as a facilitator.
Leanne: That's brilliant. Thank you so much. Wow, we would try in there. I think that's a really great advice for our audience. I'd like to ask you, I've seen on Instagram your hashtag which is #happylittleozzy. How did you how did you end up coming from Sydney and absolutely just killing it on stages in the US which I hear is a very sort of competitive market when it comes to corporate speaking and training.
Neen: I followed the love of my life. So I have been married just we recently celebrated 29 years married. Now, I know that your listeners I sound like I'm five. But I promise I have been married pretty much my entire life and I followed my darling here and we created a life here about 14 years ago now. And what was interesting was in Australia I had a corporate career so I worked in retail, banking, telecommunications, and the oil industry and as you probably know Leanne, not a lot chicks in oil in ours and then I set up my own company just before I left to move to the US.
So I guess I'd been sort of playing with being an entrepreneur and I set up a training company when I left corporate and so I did that for maybe two years. So I didn't really have a very established successful business but I was doing okay and then I moved to the US. Now, what's interesting about Australia versus US in the corporate speaking market is the Australian market is so small, so you've got to be really good because it being that there is only so many events that are occurring and every meeting planner talks to each other, that's the beauty of the Australian market, right? So you've got to be good.
What was fascinating to me is when I moved to the US is that the market was so big, so how on earth do you stand out in an environment where there are literally hundreds of choices. I mean there's literally hundreds of conferences in Vegas alone on a weekly basis and so what I realized was that this whole idea of being Australian was actually a novelty.
Now, as an Australian that was really challenging for me to actually promote that I was Australian and I'm sure Australians listening to this will understand it but for your US listeners Leanne they might think I'm a little crazy. But I always get called like something that people remember, my audiences remember and so I had a very dear speaker friend his name is Scott McKain. Someone I look up to, definitely one of my dear friends and speaker role models and Scott McKain was one of the people who said to me, “You have to play up the Australianness of you.” and I was like, “Like tell people how to seek a day?” and he was like, “Exactly.”
So it's really funny that sometimes these things as facilitators or speakers they’re so a part of your core being that you don't actually realize how much your audience loves them and so whether you're in the mining industry, whether you're in HR, whether you are in a corporate, whether you're in non-profit, all the different facilitators that listen to your podcast. It doesn't matter what industry you're in. People want to know who you are and when they have the privilege of being in your training room, you want to create an environment where they get to have a little conversation with you. So I followed my honey and I'm so glad I did because we have the time of our life here and working in the U.S. is amazing but I also make sure that I keep my Australianness in my work as well.
Leanne: Yes. I think it's really true what you say about I guess because we're on our own head so it's really hard for us to see what is unique and different about us all the time and sometimes does take a conversation with someone else to say, “Do you really think that this is what sets me apart?” Just a sort of reflect on that and clarify what makes you unique. Really great point about that.
Neen: Yes.
Leanne: Yes. So what are the differences between because of your Australianness in the U.S. you mentioned that I guess in the States that's not really a problem with kind of finding or talking about what sets you apart. What about the audiences over there, is there a bit of a difference between the audiences in the US and the Australian market?
Neen: I think there definitely is. If you think about Australians and the way that we have a very, I think our core belief is very different to America and let me explain what I mean by that. As an American, and I became an American citizen as well so we have dual citizenship. It was very important to me that I honour both countries that I loved. But in America our core value is freedom and by that I mean, freedom of speech, freedom to bear arms and even if someone says something stupid beside you they have freedom of speech and so you need to be able to listen to that and so the core value in America is my belief is freedom. The core value in Australia, I believe is equality and that is that we want everyone to be treated equally. We have public health, we have public education, and we love the Aussie battler who pulls themselves up by the bootstraps and then make something of themselves.
In the U.S. they are very confident in the way that they promote themselves, their activities, where they live, the car they drive, they even have stickers on their cars of where they send their kids to school. I mean there is such a wonderful pride that they have. In America, if you do a great job you'll get a standing ovation and that's a fairly as a keynote speaker, that's a common and delightful wonderful thing that audiences do here.
In Australia, I don't see that as much and so I often mourn U.S. because we're going to Australia. Hey, don't be surprised if you don't get a standing ovation from Australians. They think you did your job and you did it well but they're not going to necessarily show you that in the same way because we value equality in Australia versus freedom. Does that make sense, Leanne?
Leanne: Yes.
Neen: So I think knowing that the core values are different, it means that you approach audiences differently. So for example, here in the US I might really emphasize how when they in my case my body of work is all about attention. So how do they grab people's attention, how do they keep attention, how do they pay attention and so I would be talking about, how that's going to make them better at their work, in their home, in their community. That same message would resonate in Australia of course but the stories I would use for the engagement would be different. The audience interaction I would use would be different. The exercises I would use would be different. Australian audiences and US audiences have different core values and belief systems. They both want to make an impact on the world, they both want to be great at their work but the way you might deliver to those audiences is different.
Leanne: Yes. I really like talking about this sort of cultural mix as well. Recently, I was in Indonesia and I was sort of watching a workshop pilot over there for the company I work for. At the beginning of the workshop it is like 8 o'clock in the morning, we've got these people in high-vis mining gear doing a bit of a war-cry in Indonesia and I just thought there is no way that anyone and Aussie bloke in Australia would be doing a war-cry about the company 8 o'clock in the morning which I thought. So yes, it's fascinating and some of the activity that didn't think would work over there worked because of the audience in their beliefs. So I think it's a really great point that you bring out.
I love to find out, this is a question that you've just inspired me to ask. How did you feel when you had that first standing ovation in the States was it a bit surprising for you and overwhelming then and also bloody amazing?
Neen: Yes. I think that it's so amazing to me that people share their recognition in different ways and so I'm always honoured when I receive a standing ovation but I also think that people express how they appreciate you differently, right? So some people might complete those smiley sheets in the evaluation, right? and they might give you a 5 out of 5 and that's their way of experiencing that they think you did a great job. I have other audiences where they will line up for literally hours to talk to me and have me sign their books and that to me is like truly one of the coolest, most amazing experiences ever. The people are literally willing to stand in line and wait to have a fantastic conversation with you and take a photo with you and that to me, I don't find it as much overwhelming as I find it totally fills my heart. Like I'm just I am absolutely astounded that people would do that but I also believe that my approach to those situations is my only job Leanne is to stand in service of that room of people, of that line of people, of the person I'm standing and talking to.
So because attention is so important to me, I want to make sure that every person that I have the privilege to serve is feels like they're the most important person to me in that moment whether it's the audience or the individual or the client or the sound engineer that's putting on my microphone. I want to make sure that every interaction they have they feel like they are getting the attention that they want and need and deserve. So I think it's an amazing opportunity when you get a standing ovation it literally does blow your mind and that's incredible but it's never expected. I've never ever expected that and I think for me, what's more impressive is when someone tells me what they're going to do as a result of my keynote.
When someone says, “When you said this, when you told this story, when you challenged us in this way, it made me do this, it made me think this, I want to do that.” and that's the kind of impact you can have as a facilitator of a conversation when people are making behavioural shifts that's far more important to me than a standing ovation.
Leanne: I agree. I think that's the most rewarding part of what I do as well is definitely getting that feedback months later saying, “Hey, I remember this point that you said and as a result this has happened to me.” and you think, “Wow, what a position we're in that we can do that.” and hopefully we're using it to drive positive change. Now, you talk about attention, I'd like to talk about your book Attention Pays and in this, you mentioned that there are three types of attention- personal, professional and global. I was wondering if you could explain to our audience what those three types are and how they can help us or just knowing that can help us when we're building up our facilitation work.
Neen: Absolutely. So the idea of Attention Pays is that when you pay attention it's going to drive profitability, productivity and accountability and when you think about us facilitators people who are doing training sessions and consulting in the world. One of the things that I want you to write down is that these three ways you pay attention, there's something important questions around them. When you think about personal attention that's about who deserves your attention and for many of the people listening to this that's the people in the room that you're training and facilitating, it might be the people you share your life with. If you want to accelerate your personal attention, you've got to understand who deserves your attention and that's about being thoughtful, we're going to come back to that one.
Professional is about what deserves your attention, what are the activities, the events, the projects, the key performance indicators, what deserves your attention, that's about being productive. And the third way we pay attention is global attention and global is about how you pay attention in the world and that's about being responsible and being a contributor. So it's personal about who deserves your attention and being thoughtful. Professional about what deserves your attention and being productive and global about how you pay attention in the world and being responsible.
And when you think about this in the context of someone who is working in consulting or facilitation, what you want to consider is that personal attention is often those one-on-one conversations, it's their conversations in the break. It’s you making sure that you are treating every person who's in the room as your most important event, your most important speech. I remember when I first started in the U.S., I drove for like six hours to a job, it was a three-day job, I had two people in the training room, there was a whole comedy of errors that occurred with this client and for three days I work with two people.
Leanne: Oh, my gosh.
Neen: But I had a curriculum that I had agreed to deliver, I wanted to stand in service of those people. We had an amazing time, it was really hard work but I turned it into more of a coaching-consulting conversation.
Now, I understand if we thought that they were actually going to be 52 people in the room and there are only two people in the room, imagine the adjustments we had to make. But what I've always believed to be true is whoever is in the room, is meant to be in the room. So when you think about personal attention it extends into your personal life as well so who in your personal life does deserve your attention. One of the challenges of choosing a career like consulting facilitation or training or in my case keynote speaking, you are traveling the world literally which means you have a lot of days away from home from people that you care about. So when you are home, are you giving those people that you care about your attention? Are you making sure they know they're a priority?
When it comes to professional attention as a consultant, as a facilitator, you want to think about what's going to really help you move your business forward, move your skills forward, move the day forward because one of the things I realized, Leanne, is you can't manage time. Time is going to happen whether you like it or not but you can manage your attention. So understanding where you're putting your attention and how it's going to move your audience's objectives forward, how it's going to move the business forward, they're the things you want to focus on.
And then global because I'm Australian, I obviously had to have that in there because it may not everyone is environmentally aware, not everyone is caring so much about what's happening in the world. But many people care about what happens in their community, in their local community, in their church, their temple, wherever it is. So global attention is about how you're really showing up in the world, how you're paying attention in the world and making sure you're being responsible and contributing to your community or to the greater planet.
Leanne: Great. So with these three types of attention is there kind of like a ratio of how we should spend our time? What do you find that say when you're starting out in your facilitation or a speaking journey that you focus a lot more time first on your personal attention and then look at deep down the track then start building at more professional skills or do you need to have a balance of all three at all times?
Neen: I don't think you can prescribe anything for anyone because I think the people that are listening to a podcast have such diverse experiences and backgrounds, right? I was so fortunate that in Australia I was privileged to have been on my feet and delivered training and spoken at best practice conferences and spoken at the leadership retreats and updated the board. So I had time on my feet not as much as I needed to be a professional speaker but I had an experience in that regard.
But I was also so fortunate that I work for companies who are willing to invest in me and send me to training programs and allow me to do my MBA and so it's a really hard question to ask as far as how you're going to split it. What I do believe though is you can be a phenomenal facilitator, you can be a fantastic trainer but if you choose to go out on your own and deliver it and have a business of your own doesn't matter how good you are on your feet, doesn't matter how engaged your audience is, if you don't know how to run a business then you don't have a business.
So I learned as a professional speaker, it didn't matter how great I was on stage even though I get fantastic opportunities where people audience members would walk up and say, “Hey, can you come and speak it out of them?” I still have to sell a speech, right? My product is a speech and the people listening your product is maybe the training program if you're out on your own. Now, if you work with a corporation that's a little bit different in that someone is paying your salary on a regular basis and so you're very fortunate to have that opportunity but for people who are listening who might be going out on their own, who might be running their own business or in practice then you have to also be good at focusing your attention on building the business and building your skill set.
Every year I invest heavily in my own development, I'm part of the National Speakers Association, I serve on several boards, I attend programs, I work with a performance coach for two days every single month on my speeches, I have a business coach who helps me with the actual running of my business. So I'm very specific in my own development because if we're going to ask others to invest in themselves, I believe we need to role model that too.
Leanne: Oh, my gosh. I want to give you a virtual high five. That's a 100% agree. I love that you're not resting on your laurels because you've really made it to an exceptional stage over there and to hear that you're still investing all this time on a monthly basis to improve your skill. I think that's very inspiring. So thanks for sharing that.
Neen: Oh, my gosh. I’m in working progress like everyone who’s listening to this episode. So let's just say there are no laurels for this little Ozzy, okay? I think what happens is we often watch other people, we see their lifestyle, we see what they've accomplished and we think, “Oh man, how am I going to do that, I'll never be able to do that.” and by the way, I have people in my life that I look up to in that same way.
But what I've realized is that it's those daily decisions that you make that affect your week, which impact your month, which then add up to your quarter, which then add up to your twelve months. I mean, I think it's those daily decisions we make, I don't feel like I will ever make it here, I don't know what that means. Do you know what I mean? I think that's a crazy thought because there's always the next opportunity, the next level performance, the next skill to develop, the next way to challenge an audience and what's fascinating that everyone listening to this is every audience is so different.
So it doesn't matter how good you are, you can have an audience that blows you away and there fun and they're amazing and engaged and then you can have an audience the next day and nobody wants to talk, nobody wants to play, no one wants to respond to your games, no one wants to do Q&A. I mean, everyone listening to this call and I believe me, I've had them those audiences can be so diverse. I don't know if I can ever make it in this business but I can really try to get better every day.
Leanne: Yes. I think that's what makes it such a really great industry to be in and it was that variety because when I started this podcast I thought I was unusual and that every time that I was running a workshop, even though it might have been the fourth or fifth time and I was confidently content. The second that the audience changed, I just got extremely nervous again and thought I really need to start reinventing this and focusing on who this audience is and is that normal and I found out through the conversation with really experienced people along with what you've just said that is normal. So we just have to keep using our craft and keep reinventing ourselves and I was hoping for that sort of magic potion but doesn't seem to be the case.
Neen: Yes. Oh, my God. It’s so true. Oh, honey when you find it please tell me about that. But I remember there is a phenomenal speaker, one of the top 25 speakers in the world, his name is Matt Church and he's based in Australia out of Sydney and Matt Church gave me advice very early in my speaking career and he said, “The reason that we get nervous is the centre of our thought is wrong.” Meaning what we're focused on, right? And he said, “Often people get nervous because they're thinking about themselves.” right? We think about, “Oh, my God. Are they going to like me? Have I done enough preparation? What if they ask me a question I can't answer? right? So we get nervous because the centre of our thought processes ourselves. Sometimes we get nervous and we move on a little bit and we think, “Oh, my gosh. These people are so qualified like 600 PhD people. What am I going to be able to teach them?” right? And so we get intimidated by the audience or maybe we get nervous because our boss is in the room or people with super big fancy titles are in the room and that's still wrong because the centre of our focus is wrong and if it's not about you and it's not about them.
What Matt explained to me was, it's really about us, it's really about creating a conversation not doing a presentation and when I learned that amazing ninja trick, it totally changed my nervous energy, right? So if you think about it as a facilitator, it's not about you and it's not about them, it's simply about a conversation you're going to create in the room and that's very liberating and I've relied on that many times when I get into my head and I think, “Oh, my gosh. I'm nervous.” and then I think, “Huh, I'm only nervous because I'm worried about myself and I'm not standing in service of this room.” And so it's my belief that when you stand in service, you can't be nervous and that is something that I've had to remind myself of so many times Leanne.
Leanne: I think I'm going to have something like that printed on a poster and pop it up. I think they'll be useful for everyone “When you stand in service, you won't be nervous.” I love that. Thanks for sharing that quote from Matt. Are there any other sort of who are your other speaker role models, you spoke about Scott and Matt. Anyone else that you can share with that our audience might get some inspiration from?
Neen: You know what's interesting to me is my role models at a very big variety of people and some are known in the US and some are known in Australia and Matt Church would be my number one. I had the privilege of learning from him earlier in my career until to this day, he still remains one of my favourite people to sit in the audience and watch not just because he the way he thinks and his brilliance. The way that he is so strategic and very clever in audience interaction and keynote speaking but because he's such a great human and adores his children and loves his wife and runs a successful practice. I feel like he's the whole package and so for me my role models for a variety of reasons.
I love people like Mark Sanborn, who was a brilliant leadership speaker because he's so eloquent on stage. He’s brilliant at what he does, he has longevity in the business. He’s built a very successful speaking practice and he has quality books that he publishes. So he's someone else that I really admire.
Jay Baer is a marketing speaker that I would encourage people to investigate. Jay has a wonderful energy about him, a high energy, he has great sound bites, he has fantastic social media presence and his quality of product is fantastic too.
So when I think about some of these people that I love, Tami Evans is a fantastic, hilarious speaker in the US. She is loved by audiences, she's always getting standing ovations and she's one of the funniest humans I know and Tami Evans is brilliant at audience engagement.
Judson Laipply is also one of my most favourite role models and Judson people may want to, they want to Google, Evolution of Dance. He was the very first YouTube viral video when YouTube was just starting and I think he remained the highest viewed video until that Gangnam Style video came out or something like that but Judson, I am constantly asking his advice on more audience engagement techniques, more interaction. He's a brilliant at that and so I have so many different role models for so many different reasons.
Connie Podesta is a phenomenal speaker in the US who speaks in front of thousands of people, no slides, just her in her microphone and she is hysterical, she's brilliant at bringing in people up on stage and having fun with them all at once. So for so many reasons I have so many different role models, Leanne and I think often what I'm looking for is “What do they do that is different? What is their mad genius? What is their one thing that they're doing phenomenally well?
I have a dear friend, Tamsen Webster and she has a product called the Red Thread Process and watching her break down someone's ideas so eloquently and presenting it back to them in a way that the world will understand it is phenomenal and she was the executive producer of one of the most successful TEDx franchises here in the U.S.
So all these people that I'm listening, I encourage your listeners to go and check them out and what you'll find is they're all brilliant at their area of expertise and that's how I look for role models. Are they good humans? Are they great on stage? Are they the kind of people who walk their talk who are the same on stage as off stage? That's my kind of role model.
Leanne: Wow. Thank you so much for all those names and we'll definitely link to all of them in the show notes as well. When you're watching someone that's just killing it and doing something a bit different on stage and you think, “Oh, I like what they're doing. I wonder if that will work for me.” What's your process then, do you try it yourself launch it in a workshop is as a, you just practice it out or how do you incorporate some of what they're doing into your work?
Neen: My first step is always to ask them what they were thinking when they did it. So I would say to someone like to Jay, “When you did this particular thing, tell me about that.” I would say to Tami, “When you set up that joke and then did the call-back, explain to me that process.” So I'm always looking at it from a process point of view. I will never attempt to replicate anything that my friends do on stage because it is their crazy genius, it's their brand, and it’s what they're known for. But what I'm really keen to understand is why do they do it and what process do they follow to achieve it.
And for someone like Tami Evans who was a professional actress so her training is in acting and she understands the power of that and she knows in prove and she has that ability on her fate to be so wishy. I’m not funny but I have the benefit of being an Australian so I am self-deprecating humour until the cows come and so that's my only form of humour. Does that make sense to you, Leanne? And whereas she can actually tell the jokes, she can tell a funny story, she can tell a story the exact same way with the rhythm and the beats and the laugh lines because she can remember lines because she was an actress. I can't remember things to that point, that's not something that I'm gifted with and so what I'm always looking at is not what I can do that they do but why do they do it and what's the process that sits behind it. Because then what I can do is go, “Okay, my version of that might be this.”
Now, the other thing that I would say to people who are listening from a facilitator point of view is there's so many great facilitators out in the world. Sometimes there are things you can replicate. Judson Laipply that I mentioned earlier, he has this really fun icebreaker and I was never a big fan of icebreakers, I'll be honest with you and I used to cringe a little bit every time someone would say, “Oh, we're doing an icebreaker.” But I saw just this one thing and I was like, “That is so freaking brilliant.” and he said “Use it, just use it, just make it yours.” and he said it wasn't his original material we couldn't find the source of it but it was so fun and the first time I did it was felt clunky like I was like, “Well, this Judson did it so much better than me.” But he'd been doing it probably 20, 30 times before I ever saw it. Does that make sense to you, Leanne?
So I think sometimes there are some exercises out in the world that others do better than you might but sometimes it's just giving it a try and doing it in a safe environment where people feel like you've created an environment that they can trust you and that it is safe to try things. Because my role as a keynote speaker is I am paid by the client to deliver a key message, that's not my training ground, that's not my opportunity to try new things. I'm going to try new material when I'm not speaking for a fee, when I'm speaking for free or when I'm with some friends. I'm going to test a story out as opposed to testing it on a main stage where I'm being paid to deliver.
Leanne: Yes. Absolutely. Totally get that. I've got to ask you, can you share what Judson's icebreaker was, I'm sure our listeners I'm hanging out for it.
Neen: So you know a term a scary story, right? So when people tell a scary story, Judson asks people to share a scarry story. Tell us about the scar that you have and if it didn’t reply to the removal of course, show us your scar and tell us about it and I have watched hundreds of people I mean very intelligent people just crack up telling their stories and so I loved it so it's called a scarry story instead of a scary story.
Leanne: I love that too, gosh! I'd be scared to share mine if it goes back to university days but---
Neen: But isn’t it funny that maybe at least you could think of something. Isn’t that amazing to you?
Leanne: Oh, yes. I had that, the second---
Neen: Everyone has a story like that.
Leanne: Oh, it's brilliant. That's great. Neen, I just want to go back to the attention and the professional attention because I went onto your website and I opened your speaker kit and I just love the colour, I love the words, I love the testimonials, everything about it was fantastic. How long did it take you to get to that stage? I mean how many versions are we talking here? It's just a beautifully put together kit that I think would be a great template for people to sort of use as a base but how did you sort of craft this and what version is this?
Neen: Oh, gosh. I want to say it’s like version 50,000. I think what happens is, one of the challenges with having the career that I have is that I speak about attention. Now what you are probably sitting there thinking, “Well, why is it a big deal?” Well, because people pay attention to the way I do things and so in my world I need to make sure I'm always doing things a little differently or the best version I can humanly afford and so I have a designer that I pay a bazillion dollars to and I say, “Here's my vision for this. I need it to be different to anything that is out there. I need to make sure it is better than anything I've ever seen before and I need to make sure that it quickly grabs the attention of my meeting planner or my bureau partner who is considering hiring a keynote speaker. It also has to represent my fee level.” I'm at a certain fee level in my career now where I can't just have a one-page word document with a logo on it because if they're going to pay a premium, they also want to make sure there's a consistency in all of my collaterals and so I've always invested very heavily in the marketing side of my business because my fears reflect that.
So one of the things people need to consider is not that they would copy that but they would look to say, “What's my best version of that? What's something that I can do that is really great?” Some people that have phenomenal speaker kits, Matt Church is one of them, Mark Sanborn is another one, Sally Hogshead is another one, where they had created something very different but unique to them and so when you're creating your own facilitator kit whatever it looks like. You want to think about what is the best representation of you.
Now, my brand colours were always pink and purple and the purple was very much to offset the pink and it was a hot pink and I stayed very true to that colour palette for many years and when I published my book folding time. I went with a red and grey colour scheme and started to move out of the pink and purple colour palette but what I've done with attention is really driven home the red colour palette. So my website has that throughout the red and the grey a very consistent colours and so what I wanted my speaker kit to do was combine the pink and purple of the past with the grey and red of the future that's what you have that you've seen.
Leanne: Got it. Yes, it look very impressive and interesting you hear that you still invest all those dollars to I guess now that you talk about the level that you're at as a speaker. You have to build everything else up around it as well. Particularly like you said as you are in that field of attention and branding and being out there so that's important.
Neen: And I was just talking to my designer today and I said, “Look, I need an industry-specific version of this particular one sheet for this person.” and because I work in media I do a lot of work with the large some of the movie studios and the television side of the business here in the US and so when you think about the business they're in, they are in the business of attention and so I needed something very quick but there was very elegant that would grab their attention and so I have a different version of media kit for the actual media that I work with. I also have a media kit for my book because I do obviously some TV and radio work and things like when I do a podcast I can just send my media kit to someone which says, “Here's some questions we could talk about, here's some things about the book.” So this level of collaterals all needs to be very consistent and so what I do is I then customize it for industry.
I work with credit unions they have a different budget than my pharmaceutical clients which have a very different budget to my media clients, which have a different budget to my hospital clients and because the industries are so different they're looking for different variations of my messaging. They have different challenges whether they have members or patients or clients or customers, they call them all very different things and so my one page is that I sent them the speaker kit conversions I have for them have their language in it not my language and so that's another thing you can consider if you want to customize is having templates that are customizable based on the type of industry that you serve.
Leanne: Yes and I think that a lot of our facilitators we do that when it comes to the training content. We can make sure that we contextualize the images and everything that we're using but I don't really think anyone's thought about contextualizing the collateral that we present, so thanks for sharing that. Now, with the range of clients that you work with, you must have presented at some pretty amazing locations around the world. What's the best conference venue that you've presented in personally?
Neen: Oh, my gosh. You know it's so hard to compare, right? And I'll tell you why I like different kinds of stages. In Vegas you know the stages are beautiful, they're often full production events where you have an amazing crew and the staging is beautiful, right? So those are those great times where you hope you have a videographer who's capturing like how kind of impressive it all looks, right? And then I have these clients who have boardrooms on like the 50th floor of a sky rise in a magnificent city like New York or Philadelphia and that's a very different kind of location for me and yet one that I love.
One of my very senior leadership teams for a media company that I work with. They took their team on a retreat, I was this speaker and invited me to stay with them. It was literally in the woods, it was one of the most exquisite Spas I've ever been in my entire life. That was my venue so it's really hard for me to say like what my favourite kind of location is. Sometimes I'll be like speaking in a beautiful boardroom in Seattle and looking out over the skyline in the water and then other times I might be in a tiny little room of the FBI where someone's following me to the bathroom where I'm not allowed to be on my own. Do you know what I'm saying? Like so it's really hard for me to choose a location.
You know I once spoke on a navy shipyard where they built submarines and so I had a handler that basically went absolutely everywhere with me and I got to speak to everyone from the person who runs the entire shipyard and their leadership team all the way through to people that were building the submarines that were welding the submarines. I mean it was such a privilege to be there and do that. So no day is the same, no conference location is the same, sometimes the hotels all start to look like. I don't have a particular favourite but what I do love is that every audience is so different, every venue is so different, and every sound crew that I get to work with is very different. That's to your point that you made earlier today Leanne, that's the beauty of this profession.
Leanne: It is. I would love to hear that FBI story sometime but will leave that for another day. Just incredible and I think you do place some of these images or locations that you're at on your Instagram account too. So encourage listeners to follow you there, it's always exciting to see what you're up to and what time zone you're in every day of the week. Now, we've spoken a lot about tools and tricks for first-time facilitators and how they can gain attention, some speakers to watch out for, even some great icebreakers and really it's all about being of service to your audience and to build a great conversation on the day. Do you have any other tips for our first-time facilitator audience that you'd be happy to share?
Neen: Yes. I mean I love to facilitate a conversation, doesn't matter if there's 10 or 5,000 people in a room. I will always default to the role of facilitator because it's what I know it's in my DNA and it’s how I love to have a conversation. So some of my favourite techniques are things like doing hot seats bringing people out and I've done this in front of a thousand people. You choose someone out of the audience, you put them on a chair and you play with a flipchart, you ask them some questions and present them back as brilliant. I love doing town hall type events where I would interview a leader from the company and as a result I would get the audience to also share particular questions, things that are on their mind but I'm controlling it as the facilitator. I love doing Q&A in a very different way, instead of going around the table or around the room. I like to make sure that there's some alternative ways to do that. I love getting people to help me co-create the agenda. So the beginning of sessions, I love to ask them what they want to achieve today and create an agenda in front of them.
Now, 9 times out of 10, Leanne I have the same agenda items they do but when you can talk in their language and they're requesting the things that are most important to them by co-creating an agenda, it's a really powerful way to make sure that you customized that particular training. I love setting up accountability partners in the room so that people have to declare what they're going to do as a result of the training. I ask people to share with their accountability partner something they can't stop doing, something they can start doing and then I encourage them to check in with their accountability partner in 30 days. There's so many different ways I love to engage audiences. I get them to take photos and share them with each other. I get them to do all kinds of things where they feel safe that they're sharing with someone else so sharing with a room or sharing with a group of people but they feel like they can apply everything as soon as they leave. One of the best engagement techniques is to keep it really practical so as soon as they leave your workshop, they can share with someone else what they learned and they can implement it in their everyday life.
Leanne: Oh, wow! Just tons of useful information there so thank you for that. I agree with the accountability partners, big time! I think we all need one of those in our lives, if not a few to cover all the different aspects of what we do. But personally, I just love your passion for this field and everything that you've shared with our audience today. We could have spoken for hours, I think there's so much to cover. I want to know what systems do you use and how you make all this happen and how you actually do all this every day, it's incredible. But time is life sink. So I’d like to ask and where can people find you, Neen?
Neen: I believe the easiest thing is if you just search me on social media. I'm so fortunate there is only one Neen James and so one of the things that you'll find is Twitter is where I have a lot of conversations with my clients and my audiences. Instagram is the peek behind the curtain of my life. Neenjames.com you will find hundreds of articles you can download for free and some of the resources that you have mentioned to your listeners today and you'll also see that if you go to my blog, you'll find there's a lot of articles written there for people who want to be professional speakers and so whether you choose that career or not you might do a search for that and you'll find some of these amazing people that I've talked to you about and you'll see resources there that I believe in as well. So hopefully that's just some places you can start. You may also want to see get your hands on a copy of Attention Pays and see if you enjoy it as well.
Leanne: Absolutely. We'll pop a link to your book and all those resources in the show notes but I also want to share with the audience. So I heard about name through Michael Ports Steal the Show Podcast and you've been on and introduced with him.
Neen: Oh. I love him.
Leanne: Yes. I can tell you guys love each other. The conversation, like I'm cracking up in the car listening to you brave talk. I've got a lot of value, a lot of value out of it. There's one episode in particular where you talk about conceptual models and you guys do a deep dive on that and I'd love to share that with our audience I think that's really useful too. Didn't have time to talk about it on our show but that's fine because there's so many other resources that our listeners can access and Neen I'm just so grateful for your time and your energy and all the information you've provided today and just through your book and your blog and all your conversations. It's just wonderful to see an Australian doing so well over there and thank you so much for your time.
Neen: It's my privilege and the great thing is Americans love an accent. So if you come over and do any work in Australia you have a huge advantage. Leanne, thank you for what you're doing in the world and being able to serve those first-time facilitators and whether the people are starting out in their career or they've been doing this a long time. It feels like you have so many great resources that can help everyone no matter what stage in their career they’re in. Thank you for what you do.
Leanne: Oh, thanks again Neen, love your work.
[END OF AUDIO] 43:23
First Time Facilitator podcast transcript with Mark McKeon (Episode 25)
Here’s the episode transcript for Episode 25 with Mark McKeon. Alternatively you can listen to my conversation with Mark.
Leanne: Welcome to the First Time Facilitator Podcast, Mark McKeon.
Mark McKeon: Hello Leanne
Leanne: Hi Mark, thanks so much for your time. Mark to start, I'd really love you to share with our listeners your career journey, it's a bit different from any other facilitator that we've had on the show. You started out playing in a high performing footy team and then transitioned to a high performing coach, and now you work with businesses as well. You've pivoted your skills through sport and business, can you share with our listeners a little bit about your career journey and how you wound up in the world of speaking and facilitating?
Mark: It's certainly not a stayed journey, it was really serendipity 101 because, as you mentioned I was involved with footy as a player, and then as a high performance coach my original training was in biomechanics and human movement. While I was doing the high performance coaching, because in those days it wasn't a full time role, I also set up corporate gyms for clients, and one of the clients actually asked me to do a talk to the staff to try to get more people to join the camp.
I did that and I had a call couple of days later from an agent, a speakers bureau rep asking me to- when I was doing another talk I had let him know because he wanted to come and watch. I said, "Well, I'm not doing anymore, that was the only one. That was a one off." He actually then organized a job, a freebie came along, I guess he liked what we saw and asked if I'd want him to represent me.
It was purely by accident and then slowly over the next five years that took over from my corporate work and then another 10 years later from my coaching work, and for the last, I guess 20 years, it's been an absolute full time role.
Leanne: Congratulations. That first stage, can you remember that was over say 20 years ago, what kind of preparation had you had before that, had you had any kind of media training through your footy career or was this just something that you learnt on your own?
Mark: Look, no, to be honest, I think it's maybe just a skill that I've managed to have, and it was obviously very raw at the time and I've hopefully improved it since then, but I just try to do it in as honest and as natural way as I could. I still try to do that now maybe I think it's like 1,400 presentations later I still try to bring that same honesty to my presentations when I can.
Leanne: Wow. Let's talk about those parallels between I guess high performance. Also, I used to play netball, not at the level that you did, but at a pretty high level. I've often said in the Podcast the way that I prepare for a big workshop or a speech is the same way that I prepare for a netball game in terms of my morning routine, the music I listen to when I'm on the drive in. Do you find that there are some parallels between playing in a high performing game like a footy final as opposed to presenting in front of thousands of people?
Mark: Yes, definitely. It's one of the things that really drew me towards it because after I played for a little while, but then coached for a lot longer, you do everything you can and you do your role to your highest level but come game day, the players would run out, not watch from the sidelines and whether that's a ego thing or a desire to have the most influence you can, really restores the fact that if you are on stage, if you are facilitating it, it was you, it was your performance, it was your ability to affect the outcome, so I think that's a really strong parallel from a broader point of view of the AFL environment and a corporate environment.
I think it's also amazing how much impact leaders have, coaches or business leaders have in getting that discretionary effort, in getting that high level of performance out of their teams is amazingly close parallels there.
Leanne: Let's talk about that discretionary effort, what does that look like for you in terms of your preparation for a big- say for a big workshop? Say you got a new client, they want something, let's talk about you guys are in training a bit later, but you are approached and you haven't worked in an industry before, what kind of effort do you put in to making that a really great experience for the people that show up?
Mark: That's where the rubber hits the road. That's just one thing you can't [unintelligible 00:04:30] regardless of whether you have been traveling or you have been busy with other roles, you have to do that, you have to do that research. I always would want to have that absolutely done at least the day before the event, if not well before that. Certainly, that starts with your web search, you're checking their website and getting a close understanding of what the industry does, what their product or service is, if you haven't had previous experience with that company or with that industry.
Then most importantly, when you're getting a brief from the clients, often the clients don't really know what it is they want or you might be working with a committee and there are [chuckles] differing views on what should and what shouldn't happen. One of the great dangers especially in a facilitation role is it becomes vague and you don't have clear idea of what you are trying to achieve.
When I do that brief I'm always starting with the end in mind and I often ask the people if you had a magic wand in this day or this say could go as well as they possibly could, what would be the three outcomes? For them that can be a really challenging question that they need to go away and think about and discuss. Once you know as a facilitator what those three outcomes are, then you can work back and do your preparation about your discussion groups or what content you might provide yourself and you can structure your day.
I'm quite a casual person but that's one thing that I'm not casual about, I can be quite painful about that and the only other thing is room set up. I'm very pedantic about room set up to make sure that you've got the best opportunity for people to be involved.
Leanne: Great, so in terms of room set up, what does that look like for you?
Mark: Every room is different, but I would certainly, and it depends on the size of the group and so on. The worst rooms are long, skinny rooms like corridor type rooms where you are at one end and there can be a long distance between you and the last person. That makes it much harder. A room that was like that, I would try to have that configured, so that I was in the side in the middle so people are only half as far away from you as they would be to have it the other way.
If it's more of a presentation thing and it is a large audience, you have to have a stage. Often, organizers won't provide a stage, but you have to have a stage. I'm about 183 centimeters, I'm reasonably tall, but if people are sitting down and they might be 10,15 meters away from you, it's very hard for them to see you. I also would never have a lectern because a lectern is a barrier between you and the audience and you need to be open and in control, so I'd absolutely get rid of that.
In terms of seating with a small group where it may be a facilitation where there's 30 or 40 people, I think round tables open at the front, so people aren't sitting with their back to you, are much more preferable rather than a U-shaped- most are U-shaped depending on the number of people in the room can work, but it tends to be very formal and very back to school because people are sitting next to each other almost like they are back in school.
If it's a large audience but in a bigger auditorium that might hold a few hundred or even more people to block off the back and have the people more towards the front, so they are closer to you.
Leanne: Yes, you always find a nice big sort of room set up. When you invite people to come in, they always linger towards the back and it's a bit of effort to rally them up the front. That's really good practical advice.
Mark: Pleasure. Just in regard to that too for people who haven't facilitated so many times before, if you are ever in doubt as to whether you should or shouldn't use a microphone, always, in my opinion, use it because you might have a strong voice, but you could be speaking all day and the extra amplification that you get through a mic makes your voice much deeper, much more resonant and it just really adds to quality.
Sometimes people say, "Why did you use a mic? There wasn't that many people there." It actually, it's one of those subtle thing that helps. My preference is for a lapel mic because it means both hands are free. When you have a hand held mic unless you have it in the right spot as it very easy to get that popping peep all the time. If it's a directional mic one other thing that sometimes people may not be aware of, if you hold the mic a hand held mic vertically just in front of your chin, you don't get nearly as good a sound as if you hold it at an angle so the top of the microphone is directly in front of your mouth, but of course, when you do that you are actually partially hiding your face. [chuckles]
Whichever way you go with a hand held mic you lose a little bit, so my preference is the lapel mic. Of course, I wouldn't use a lectern mic because to use the lectern mic you need to stand behind the lectern, and as I mentioned that could be a block between you and the audience, but just to add to that all these things or opinions and people have their own preference.
Leanne: That's true, but I agree with you on all of those, especially the having a lectern up there. I think there's nothing worse, it creates a block. I guess people use it because it's a bit of a safety net for them, because they can have their notes there and everything else. I do challenge all of our listeners too, if given the option go the lapel, it's definitely more free. Just remember to have it switched off when you're offstage. [chuckles]
Mark: Yes. Also, I'm sorry to interrupt there Leanne, also, be pedantic about the battery. If there's an AV take there, they'll often say, "Just had a new battery yesterday", but I would actually respectfully ask for a new battery before your session because I've been on stage in front of quite a few 100 people when the battery's gone, just fails and you're mute. It's embarrassing for someone have to run up on stage and fiddle around with the battery pack while you're trying to do your presentation.
Leanne: Is that one of the worst things that happened to you onstage or have you had any other experiences that you can share?
Mark: Look, things are going to happen, that certainly happened a couple of times. There's been malfunctions in the warning system, you'll get alarms as if there's been a fire and so on. Once at a presentation at the MCG they were testing a siren, so they rang the siren every 15 seconds for about 10 minutes. There's been malfunctions of equipment where stages have collapsed, not in a dangerous way where anyone's got hurt or anything like that, but things are going to happen and that's when it does the audience will take the lead from you.
If you show that it's not really worrying you or you're pretending that's it's not really worrying you, they'll come along for the ride. Expect the unexpected.
Leanne: That's really good advice, to expect the unexpected, I think it's key for all facilitators to be extremely flexible, which is difficult if you want to control where it's going and those outcomes that you spoke about, your top three and waving that magic wand, I think that's a really great question. What other in terms of your delivery style, what do you think that you bring to a show or to an event. What does Mark bring?
Mark: Well, hopefully some knowledge and some expertise and some enthusiasm. When I was thinking about the chat we were going to have, and this is my number one tip if you like, it's something that even quite a few people in the industry with a lot of experience, to be honest I think don't do. It's what I call being audience centric. What I mean by that is, if you're at the front whether it's a keynote presentation or a facilitation, you've been given the privilege because either you know something that the audience don't know or you're trying to get the audience to do something that they may not be doing.
You're in a really important center of influence there. A lot of people when they're in that situation, they're thinking of themselves, "What will I say? How will I go? I hope I don't run out of time, I hope they can see my slides, I hope I get an eight out of 10." They're thinking about themselves. Even to the point where sometimes when I actually help teach presentation skills, when people are putting a practice, I'll put a plant in the audience who will actually get out their phone and pretend to send a text message or even lift up a newspaper, full tabloid newspaper and hide their head behind the newspaper in the front row.
After the person has done this practice presentation you'll say of them, "Who do you think wasn't quite engaged?" Very often they won't know.
Leanne: Wow. Okay. Because I weren't paying attention, I was more absorbed in-[crosstalk]
Mark: Exactly. By audience centric, what I mean by that is you're a servant for the audience. The more you think about the audience, how can I help the audience in your preparation phase, and then in the actual presentation or facilitation phase, it makes you look at the audience, it makes you aware if a particular person maybe isn't quite engaged or if you've really hit a note that you need to keep going on, whether it's time to pause and ask questions.
The cues are always there from the audience and I think it's the most important thing. In addition to that, audiences love it, they love it, they can sense it, they can smell it when you've got their best interests at heart. I think it enriches the experience for everyone. If as a presenter you get a bit nervous or unsure, it tends to take away all that anxiety because your focus is away from yourself and towards the audience.
I often say to people, some people present with a easier solution, "Now, what we should problem again, mentality." As a facilitator you need to have the opposite, you need to dig and find and listen and watch. I think that's the magic, I really do think that's the magic.
Leanne: That is the magic. I love audience-centric approach. What you were explaining in terms of your presentation skills training, I think that everyone's worst fears is they're out there talking and someone will pull out to find that it's very real. I think instead of seeing it as something to be fearful about, it's really a sign to you to say, instead of continuing what you're doing, why don't you break it up? Why don't you ask your question and use this as a cue to make the workshop a better impact?
I think that's a really great practical tool for all of our learners. Don't take it as a personal hit to what you're doing, take it as a sign to switch things around.
Mark: What happens from that and if you using a slide deck and where that session has gone means that the next couple of slides are no longer valid or not at that time. Then I don't think there's anything wrong with acknowledging that because of the way the session's gone. Going to slide mode, fast forwarding through to where you want to go and just bring up the next slide.
You don't have to be a prisoner to the structure that you've set. A lot of people are worried about running out of content, they'll prepare four hours worth for an hour presentation.
I find it's always different, if certainly in a facilitation, a keynote it's a little bit different but a facilitation is always different and on forever swapping slides around and stopping and accelerating and changing the times and the breaks and so on, all really hopefully, to the benefit of the audience rather than my own comfort level.
Leanne: Wow. Yes, very challenging, great information there. You talked about people do have this fear of running out of content before the times allocated is over. What do you do in that situation if you have run out of time or do you throughout the day recognize, "We've gone quickly here, we have more time for a discussion here." Do you pace it a bit more or do you wait until the end and go, "Well, here are some other things I've thought about, let's do this now." How did you approach it?
Mark: It's a good question. To be honest, I've been doing this a long time now, I have a lot of blocks of different information and I think maybe one of the indicators that you maybe have reached a certain level of competence or beyond is that you've always got more than you have time for. That's one thing so I guess you'd say fundamentally. The second thing is I will always have more ready in the preparation phase than I think I'm going to need.
Sometimes those later ones that I wasn't going to get to because of the way the session goes, maybe will come forward and something else we wont to get to. I'm always going back to that thinking with the end in mind, "What's going to be the best thing to actually get to those outcomes we want?" That's the other, maybe a really important thing that's a little bit different to sport, to be honest.
When you were playing netball or if any of your listeners are playing sport, I found I would always perform better when I was just in a moment, I wasn't really thinking about it too much. I wasn't conscious of how many kicks I'd had, I was just doing it. As a facilitator you almost need another part of your brain because while you might even be speaking, listening and be part of discussion, part of your brain has got to be thinking, 'Where do I go next? What does that person mean? What's the context, how do I move towards that outcome?"
You almost need to split your brain to the one that's actively there, to the one that's thinking about where do I go next. That's something that probably does come from experience. When people come to me and say they want to be a facilitator, I actually [inaudible 00:19:02] focus on that audience centricity I spoke. I mentioned about the split brain and then I'll tell them, "Go away and do it a 100 times and come back", because that's what it takes I think. That's a [unintelligible 00:19:14] -
Leanne: It is. It's really, really difficult to stay in the moment and stay completely present, which as we know is really important. Then also I think, "where is this moving to? What do I need to do next?" You don't need to split your brain, but I've never heard of it being compartmentalized that. I think by doing this Podcast as well, when I first started I think this is episode 25.
When I first started I was keeping to script a lot, but I think through the journey I'm listening to what you're saying, but I'm thinking where is this conversation leading to, and directing it that way. I think live questions and interviewing is very similar to the whole and split brain in terms of facilitation too.
Mark: I agree, absolutely agree. There's a lot of synergy there and sometimes when you're being interviewed from someone and the discussion is headed in a certain direction, [chuckles] it can tell you that they're just asking you the next question that's on their run so just not no longer [unintelligible 00:20:06] relevant or is congruent. A good thing for facilitators to do is to listen to skilled interviewers. You're doing a great job.
I think the morning DJs who interview a lot of people get really skilled at-- [unintelligible 00:20:26] and really getting to the core of whatever the issue is really quickly, because they only have a short amount of time to interview someone. They maybe not get so much time for preparation. I find that terrific and sometimes when I'm listening to them I'm thinking to myself, "what question would I ask next?" Then they ask a better one than the one I have in mind and I think that's-- you always got to try to keep learning if you can.
Leanne: That's right. I think my favorite, I've got two favorites. Richard Fidler from ABC Conversations is one of mine and Andrew Denton is a bit of a legend in Australian journalism. He really gets the core, he gets a lot of emotion right there in a longest space of time. Mark, I guess being present is and then having to forecast ahead and being standing up all day, it can be pretty exhausting. You do this full time. How do you manage your energy levels through the day and through the week and make sure that you set to go and full of energy every time that you're out onstage?
Mark: That's a good question because it can be extremely draining. You might have heard the saying, it's a hard way to make an easy living. I think anyone who's been on stage for six to eight hours in a day can certainly attest to how mentally draining it is. On the day, I do get there early to make sure the room set up is right, the sound is right and so on and everything's ready to go.
Then I disappear until about five minutes before the session is going to start and I don't mean to be disrespectful to people. As soon as people know you're the facilitator, you're the speaker and they see you, they want to engage, they want to start and it's almost like your work has started little early. During the breaks, I disappear during break. Sometimes I think many people may take the wrong inference from that. I'm not trying to be arrogant at all. I'm just trying to freshen myself up to the next session.
Even to the point sometimes where I'll say, "look, sorry, but I have a quick phone call I needed to make." Just to get away and get that space.
If at all possible I try to get some fresh air. Have one coffee during the morning break. Then just really chill out even to the point where at lunchtime if I can, if there's a green room or something like that, I will actually lie down and just breathe or do a bit of meditation, that sort of stuff. Just give myself as much space and as much rest as I can. Then at the end of the day I will always stay back and talk to people and answer any questions they may have.
I absolutely try to be quite selfish during the day. I never drink alcohol the night before I'm going to present. Usually, I will fly in the night before rather than the morning for there's a few reasons for that, because you never know if you're going to get a flight delay, but then you can get a good night's sleep, be up, ready to go. Usually do a little bit of exercise on the morning of a presentation to to be ready.
I also just mentally prepare too, done all of the actual preparation the day or the days before. The actual morning of the event, I don't say that loud, but I do say to myself how great this is going to be, how much fun it's going to be.
Leanne: Fantastic.
Mark: How it's a privilege for you to be there. You're really going to help people, you really do. Pump myself up on the morning of a session.
Leanne: That's really great to hear that tip. Especially about being selfish, I think because you want to be of service to people and help everyone, but I think you do have to protect yourself particularly, when you haven't done the days workshop. I really like your excuse of just going to make a phone call because I want to get away, but I don't think people pick up on that cue sometime, so I'm going to use that one. I think some of our listeners will too, so thanks.
Now, I was wondering if you could explain, I really found that your concept of the Go Zone, that I saw on your website. I find that really interesting. I think it would be useful for you to explain that to our listeners. What that Go Zone is really about?
Mark: Yes, sure. Truly, I guess you'd say it's my signature program. It's one of those things it's been like 20 years in the making. It's really an evolution of all of the work I've done in the past because my passion is for what I call sustainable peak performance that people in corporate life achieving to a high level, but being able to maintain that level for five, 10, 20 years as opposed to someone who can reach a level of sales goals or be a good effective leader or manager, but they just can't maintain that pace.
It's also part of the issue is when I was a young footy player, the training that we actually went through was quite barbaric. I think I spent five years just being tired every day and just enduring my career rather than really enjoying it. All those things really set up a passion for me about this whole sustainable peak performance. The Go Zone is a structure in a system where you shift between keys or zones as I call them between a Go Zone, a slow zone and a no zone.
Go zone is for corporate people are usually two hours, their periods if they're at their desk where they are having the door shut. They've switched off their email arrival times and they just power through tasks. A task is anything that's up to an hour, anything beyond an a hour is a project and you break it down into smaller tasks. You have a task list, you have everything you need.
The task could be a phone call, it could be an email, it could be working on the spreadsheet, it could be writing a report, it could be doing a 101. When you're in this Go Zone, there the most important tasks for your business that day and there's no excuses, there's no distractions. You actually have a buzzer that tells you when the Go Zone is up and you just power through them. You're not trying to do five or 10. You're just trying to do one at a time to the best of your ability till the time is complete.
There's a lot of blood chemistry that sits under that the way adrenaline, cortisol work in your body and the neurotransmitters of serotonin and melatonin to balance them out because you can't be this Go Zone state all day, every day. For most people, it's a couple of hours. The slow zone is a longer zone where you're still working, it's still productive, but you do a bit of this, you do a bit of that. You maybe make a call, go out grab a coffee, check the paper, listen to another conversation. You're just going from one task to another which is fine as long as it's not your only level of performance, because a lot of people are in this slows zone, all day, every day.
Leanne: Yes.
Mark: It's like a groove that they can't get out of it. In the third zone is the recovery zone, that's what I call the no zone. This is away from work times, when you're not at work, but crucially you're not thinking about work, where you're investing in a passion or hobby, a pastime. You take it easy on yourself, your phone's off, you just do something you really enjoy.
You're trying to do these Go Zone to no zone on a two to one ratio. In the course of a week, if you had eight hours in the Go Zone, you'll be four hours in the no zone, not necessarily same day, just by [unintelligible 00:28:01] over the week. You had some structure of changing levels of intensity upwards and downwards and everything else is asleep or the slow zone. A lot of people use that to really create some rigor and structure around their performance and to get a little bit of mental toughness into their daily routine.
Leanne: What a great concept because I know that all the rage now is high intensity interval training which is the difference between doing something at a really fast rate and then recovery as well. I think what you're doing here just aligning that to the workplace. I think when you were talking about the slow zone, I was thinking, "yes, that's exactly what I'm sitting in most of the time." I'd love to share this with my colleagues and just go, "look, can we make a commitment to looking at creating a ratio like this and respecting each other's time and getting to the Go Zone two hours every day." I think that would be really-- you churn up so much work, you could- not coast, but I can imagine those two hours are high impact.
Mark: You're right, it's important. What you said it's true, there especially if you're working in an open plane environment or something like that where respecting each other's time. There's quite a few companies who do Go Zones and during the Go Zone time, it's not okay to go and interrupt someone or ask them about something or play music or have loud conversations. There's certainly that element of it.
I think the two major benefits are certainly the productivity, I think that's pretty well proven. Also, the liberation, the control of your blood chemistry. I love doing Go Zones in the morning. I usually do mine 10:30 to 12:30, lunch is the reward. I'm still working in the afternoon. [chuckles] It feels like I'm cruising a bit. It just feels like the end of the day, it's like, "wow, that's just-- how easy was that."
I don't feel comfortable doing slow zones unless I've either had a Go Zone or I've got one scheduled. That's the other thing I always schedule these things in advance, I always know when my next Go Zone is going to be, when my no zone is going be. If I have to move them because of flight changes or something like that, you tend to move it, but you don't lose it, and that's really important because a lot of people, the thing that they will neglect will be the no zones.
They'll do the work part because there's always extra work to do, but when they get busier, they won't do the no zone, the fun zone, the recovery zone, and I often [unintelligible 00:30:26] stresses and the problem, the problem is like a recovery and when people don't have recovery, it's virtually impossible long-term to get that sustainable level of peak performance. They can do it for a while with work ethic or they just grind it out, but long-term that just doesn't work like that. You'll know from your athlete days, you have to have the rest in order to get that level of performance.
Leanne: Yes, for sure. What I like that you said in the recovery zone, the no zone is to stay away from your phones because I think a lot of people think they do relax by looking at their phones, [chuckles] but I do think it's counter-intuitive, and you need to give yourself a break, so thanks for raising that. Mark, this is not even a segue but I really wanted to bring it up before our time lapses, but I loved-- on your website you got a video of you entering a stage, it's like 007 style.
I mean that's a really cool idea, kind of x-factor, what kind of other things that are x-factors that you bring into leading your workshops or all these keynotes? I do encourage, on a side note, for all our listeners to hop on there, we'll link to that video in our show notes of this episode, because I thought it was really funny and cool.
Mark: That's an interesting point you raise. It's a fine line, so that video you're talking about, that was for a company I had already presented to, I think six years in a row. In one sense, you're looking for something different, but also the people remember stories and they remember images, so I was dressed as 007 and the content of that message was O-O-7, so 'O' for organization, 'O' for optimism, and it's seven daily habits.
The whole idea of that imagery of me in a James Bond mask was meant to remind people and to create a bit of an entrance, so another time all done for a sales group, I actually dressed in a crocodile outfit to make the point that in sales you had to have a thick skin and people remembered that image. Once as a caveman with a big wooden "Why?" about finding your strong "Why" because a caveman had a very obvious "why", they just needed to eat and stay warm, so helping people remember that image.
You also have to be careful that you don't go too far, because I have a little bit of a hobby to do illusions like magic tricks and I used to do them on stage and make things disappear and so on, but you have to be really careful that the gimmicks don't take over and that audience would start waiting for the next trick because I wouldn't introduce it, I'd just do it and something funny would happen, and then you can lose the impact of the key message you're trying to convey.
You have to be clear for the audience, what is this? Is it a keynote or a magic show? I actually don't do that much anymore because the imagery and the gimmick taken too far actually detracts from the session, and I did have to learn that lesson. But stories and images, as long as they're congruent to the message, so the James Bond OO7, the crocodile skin, you've got to have a thick skin, you've got to be strong, the caveman, the strong "why?", they were congruent to the message, so it works, but if you just do a gimmick without a reason, without a link, then the people won't get it and it'll detract.
Leanne: Yes. Just a question, how did you get these ideas of the caveman and the "why?" Was that something that you thought of straight away or were you in the shower one day and thought that this was a great costume, how did you link those two kind of seemingly disparate things together?
Mark: I suppose you say it's imagination, but I think it's one of the great things if you -what we're talking about the Go Zone before, I've done the Go Zone presentation of a book, at least 300 or 400 times, I think, and most of the time it's pretty much the same and I love doing it, but as a facilitator, it's also great to have these other challenges that get thrown at you.
It's a client you've worked with before or there's a specific really strong theme, and to go away and think of something that's going to make that work, and if you can make it a lot of fun for the audience and also fun for yourself, it's an absolute winner, so I think that really comes back to the imagination, but for me it's not so much the idea that comes during the shower, it's a time when you do a Go Zone and lock yourself in the door and you just think to yourself, "right, what are we going to do in this session?"
It might take you 20-30 minutes of grinding out ideas till you come up with something, so that's that whole thing about, it's more about perspiration than inspiration. I think it's a great thing for facilitators to do to keep themselves on edge.
Leanne: Yes, I agree too. On that note, finally, what is your advice to a first time facilitator?
Mark: I think a couple things. Certainly, the audience centricity. Certainly, do your preparation beforehand. Certainly, work on splitting your brain, so that you can think about what's coming next, all those things. Certainly get every job you can, get ever [unintelligible 00:35:52], it a rotary club, do meetings, local sporting clubs, even if it means you're not getting paid for those jobs, there's no substitute for being up the front.
Also, don't be put off if you think that it's a crowded field and, "how am I going to get work?" From a marketing point of view, the absolute best way to get jobs is to do a good job, and it might be hard to break in, but there's always room for a quality facilitator in the industry. Personally, I think it's just a fantastic career because it gives you a lot of challenge, the opportunity to travel, meet great people, but it also gives you personal freedom, so you're not working a 9 to 5 job, not that there's anything wrong with that, but I love the ability to be free, almost be a performer in a way because it all comes down to your level of performance.
For people who've maybe got that aspiration or do a bit or like to do more, work on your craft, just work on your craft, look for every opportunity because it can create a - and I've been so lucky that it's created such a fantastic lifestyle and provided for my family and so on. Don't give up if it's a bit hard because there are opportunities there, more and more.
Leanne: I've got to say Mark, that's probably been one of the most inspiring responses I've heard to that question on the show today, so thank you so much. We've covered, just in these 40 minutes, there's so much that we've covered and a lot more that we could cover. We've covered everything from your tips in terms of even the detail of getting a new battery for your microphone and the type of microphone that you should use, through to the questions that you ask to clarify with the clients and the research that you do and why that's so important.
As well as how to structure your day, so you are more productive and can be the best facilitator that you can be, so Mark, thank you so much for all your insight and wisdom, it's been really great talking to you today.
Mark: My pleasure, thanks a lot, Leanne.
The Flipchart (August 2018)
The FlipchartA resource for First Time Facilitators |
Hello friends,Welcome to The Flipchart, your monthly First Time Facilitator highlights reel.This monthly (ish) email is includes a curated list of tools and resources to help you make a bigger impact at the next workshop you deliver.
Recent First Time Facilitator podcast episodes
- When facilitating a workshop, how do you balance being present, with forecasting ahead to drive an outcome? This is one of the topics I explore this week with Mark McKeon, who spent 16 years as the high performance coach for the Collingwood AFL club. He's also an accomplished author, speaker and facilitator. In Episode 25, we talk about about the parallels between creating high performance on the footy pitch; and high stake situations in a group workshop facilitation environment.
- In Episode 24, I'm delighted to introduce listeners to my colleague, Sean Lavin. We both recently gained Team Management Profile (TMP) accreditation, so this was a great opportunity to reflect on that experience, how powerful the TMP can be and learn more about Sean’s journey leading workshops. I've started to profile tools like TMP as there was a great response from my conversation with Adam Mustoe in Episode 16 about the Gallup Strengths Finder tool.
- In Episode 23 I talk to one of the masters of facilitation, Lynne Cazaly. This one is full of facilitation gold. We talk about the power of visuals, strategies to retain attention, and we share opinions on the type of icebreakers they should have thrown out in the early ‘90s.
Energiser of the month: Drawing Twins
Time: 20-30 minutes
Objective: This should illustrate how hard it is to give clear instructions as well as how hard it is to listen, and can also show how things are easily misunderstood and misinterpreted.
Equipment: Pen, paper and simple line drawn pictures (eg. house, face, spider, various shapes on a page, tent, car)
Instructions
Divide participants into pairs.
Round 1:
- Give one member of the pair a picture which must not be shown to their partner.
- The person with the picture must give instructions to their partner so that they can draw it, but must not say what it is, eg, ‘draw a circle, draw two more circles inside the circle about half way up’. The person with the picture cannot watch the person draw it.
- Compare the drawing with the original.
Round 2:
- Hand out more pictures and ask participants to swap roles.
- The person with the picture can give instructions in a similar manner as in Round 1 but this time the person drawing can ask yes/no questions and the person with the picture can watch as they draw.
- Half the group can begin by telling the person what the object is.
Debrief questions:
Round 1:
- Why don't many of the pictures look like the original? (Interpretation: everyone has a different interpretation, directions were not clear, not able to give or get feedback).
- What were your frustrations as the source of the message (giving instructions), as the receiver of the message.
Round 2
- Did it help to be able to watch the person drawing?
- Did it help to be able to ask questions?
- Did it help to know what the object is …your clear goal?
Relate this process back to communicating with your employees. Is your message always clear? Is there a channel to give and receive feedback? What noise is present that affects the message?
Let me know if you use this in your next workshop and how it goes!
Reading and listening
- Have you ever thought 'I'm not creative?' I believe everyone has the ability to channel their inner creative genius and this was confirmed when I listened to this podcast on the Jordan Harbinger show. Listen to his interview (and share it with someone you overhear saying 'I'm not creative': Allen Gannett | You Don’t Have to Be a Genius to Be Creative
- First Time Facilitator was recently named in the Ultimate L&D Podcast list for 2018. Unreal! Thanks for all of your support. This is a list of all the active, English-language, Learning & Development podcasts that there are, all in one place for your own learning & development.
- Speaking of podcasts, I'm co-MC at this year's 'We Are Podcast' conference on October 18-20 in Brisbane, Australia. If you've ever thought about starting your own podcast, or meeting your podcast heroes, check out the page - tickets went on sale this week.
One more productivity hack...
I am sticking with the iPhone 6 for the moment as it's the latest version with a headphone jack - yes I'm a traditionalist in some ways! I wanted to share this tool from one of my favourite authors/thought leaders, Jenny Blake:
- With my iPhone 6 now losing it's charge within the day, this lipstick-sized (a slight exaggeration - let's call it a jumbo lip gloss) Anker PowerCore+ mini portable phone charger is a must-have. I also put my phone in "low battery mode" every morning by default (you can add this as a quick "button" in the iPhone's Settings —> Control Center so that it's quickly accessible when you swipe up from the bottom). By doing this, the charge lasts all day (faaaaaar longer than when in regular mode).
Til next month,Leanne
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