Leanne Hughes Leanne Hughes

198: Igniting the genius in the room with Shannon Dean Hughes

Leanne Hughes interviews Shannon Dean Hughes about her experience using improv in her workshops to help her clients dream big.

Something I'm pondering right now is how often our ideas are cemented in reality ("How would this actually work?") which can limit our capacity to dream big.

My guest today inspires her guests to go against that inclination, and to start exploring possibilities. We often go through a live role-play on this call to see how we can bring this approach to exploration in our workshops.

My guest today is Shannon Hughes. Yes, you can never have enough Hughes’ in your life!

In this conversation, Shannon shares how she incorporates improv techniques into her work to enliven creativity and collaboration - I like her ideas around making your partner look good. She shares some activities she’s delivered on virtual calls as well - listen in for the activity she delivers using SILENCE.

Shannon’s also offering her free download to you: Tips and Tricks to Enlivened your Virtual Gatherings

About our guest: Shannon Dean Hughes

Shannon  is an experiential trainer with a calling to enliven the innate genius, creative resourcefulness and easeful collaboration in businesses of all shapes and sizes. In her practice, Enlivened Studios, she brings strategic business mentorship and experiential teaching practices to break down cross-team silos and embolden transformational leadership.

With 20+ years of corporate marketing and HR strategy experience, plus a lifetime of proven leadership, performance and creative devotion, her work combines skill + heart into every Enlivened Studios session. Through this work, she’s on a mission to help people live fully, lead consciously and impact the world with joy and collective aliveness.

In this episode you will learn:

  • The value of using AND instead of BUT

  • How you can design your workshop to build psychological safety (and avoid resistance)

  • How to create exercises for workshops that energise and connect your participants quickly

Questions Leanne asked Shannon during the interview

  • How did you discover and bring in your performance side in the facilitation space?

  • How do you get that thinking going, your improvisation?

  • How do you deal with some type of resistance?

  • Have you had those moments where you feel you’re being tested?

Resources mentioned:

Watch the episode here!

About your host: Leanne Hughes

Leanne Hughes is an international facilitator, speaker and coach who loves creating unpredictable workshop experiences, that predictably work.

She combines her experience in Marketing, with her education in Human Resources and Psychology, to help leaders create engaging everyday experiences - that are so contagious they scale across teams, functions and regions.

Leanne has facilitated leadership, onboarding and team-development workshops across Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, and Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development.  She has over 14 years’ of experience across a range of industries including mining, government and tourism sectors.

She’s the host of the First Time Facilitator podcast and is the Winner (External) in the 2021 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.

Social Media

Thoughts on the episode? Share your comments below!

Read More
Leanne Hughes Leanne Hughes

197: A reflection extravaganza: What happens when you’re no longer a First Time Facilitator? Jan Szmanda interviews Leanne Hughes

Big announcement for the show! In this episode, Jan Szmanda takes over the host seat, to interview Leanne Hughes on her own show where she reflects on 3 years of podcasting and facilitation.

Oooh… this episode is a watershed moment. I make a big announcement.

Back in episode 50, I gave the podcast microphone to my colleague and friend Sean Lavin to interview on the show, to reflect on what i’d learnt both personally and professionally from the show.

It’s now 147 episodes (and weeks!) later. I think I’ve grown up a little. My perspective has changed, so I thought it was a fitting moment to sit back into the guest seat and reflect on that journey, while also sharing a pretty massive update (from my perspective!) about the First Time Facilitator podcast.

This time, I invited a listener to jump into the host seat.

When I was planning this episode and releasing “the news”, I wanted to pull it back to my intention of starting the podcast in February 2018. Back then, I really was a first time facilitator, working in Organisational Development but pulled in to lead workshops with little experience - desperately wanting to get better at creating engaging experiences and group dialogue.

So, I handed the microphone to a listener who demonstrates the values of this show: An energy and willingness to reach out, a growth mindset, someone willing to say yes, accept opportunities..

I’m delighted to announce your host for today’s episode is Jan Szmanda. Jan is based out of Madison WI in the US, he currently has the privilege of running workshops on leadership development and team effectiveness and is excited to continue growing in the field of organizational development.

You can find him most active on Twitter and LinkedIn and he'd love to connect with you!

Jan’s enthusiasm about this podcast shines through, he’s listened to the show since 2019 and taken great notes over the years. Most importantly, he’s taken ideas from this show, tried things out.

As I mentioned, there’s a big announcement in this podcast and if you’d like to help me in celebrating 200 episodes of First Time Facilitator, I’d really love to get your voice on the show.

To share what First Time Facilitator has taught you, has inspired from you, or anything really - head on over to leannehguhes.com/200 to share what the show has done for you!


About today’s host: Jan Szmanda

Jan Szmanda is a facilitator, L&D geek, board gamer, new puppy parent, and long time FTF listener. Based out of Madison WI in the US, he currently has the privilege of running workshops on leadership development and team effectiveness and is excited to continue growing in the field of organizational development.

You can find him most active on Twitter and LinkedIn and he'd love to connect with our listeners.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Watch the episode here!

About your host: Leanne Hughes

Leanne Hughes is an international facilitator, speaker and coach who loves creating unpredictable workshop experiences, that predictably work.

She combines her experience in Marketing, with her education in Human Resources and Psychology, to help leaders create engaging everyday experiences - that are so contagious they scale across teams, functions and regions.

Leanne has facilitated leadership, onboarding and team-development workshops across Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, and Singapore and believes in a strengths-centred approach to learning and development.  She has over 14 years’ of experience across a range of industries including mining, government and tourism sectors.

She’s the host of the First Time Facilitator podcast and is the Winner (External) in the 2021 Australian Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year.

Social Media

Thoughts on the episode? Share your comments below!

Read More