First Time Facilitator podcast transcript with Adam Mustoe (Episode 16)
Leanne: Our guest today is on a mission to guide people to the place where they are gifted and called. He uses that assessment tool called Clifton strengths to help people find the intersection of their unique talents and rewarding work. He first discovered his strength in 2009 and it changed his life. He holds masters of divinity degree and is a Gallup certified strength coach. Welcome to the show, all the way from Kansas City Missouri. Adam Mustoe.
Adam Mustoe: Leanne, thank you so much, happy to be with you.
Leanne: It's great to have you on the show. Now, Adam, that's a very bold statement about finding your strength in 2009, changed your life. Can you tell us that story?
Adam: Sure. I was on staff at a church and we took the-- at the time it was called strength finder. There is a book called strength finder 2.0, and I was in my early 20s starting off being an employee for the first time, really being an adult for the first time and a lot of stuff was falling through the cracks. I kept thinking, ‘Oh, my gosh. I have such a long way to go.’ What Clifton Strengths helped me do was start with what's right, like take a look as opposed to the things I knew I was terrible at. It reminded me of the unique talents I do bring. Just starting from that place really changed everything for me.
I found out for instance that I have really low discipline, but I have really high strategy, and so I came up with a system or a strategy to be disciplined, in order to cover my gap. A lot of that just really changed how I operated as an employee, and just went from there. I had a huge impact on my life. Again that idea that, let's start with what's right and find people to partner with on maybe the places where I do have some gaps.
Leanne: Did you feel like you were kind of floundering around before you found the strength tool, and now you like, ah that all makes sense, now I can approach things more systematically, or I can build up my weaknesses somehow by complementing them with optimizing by strengths of yours.
Adam: Absolutely that's a great word is optimizing. Yes, what it did was it gave me a vocabulary for some things I already knew to be true, but could never really name. It made me be like, oh wait I'm not weird or I am weird in my own unique way, and so let me work with what I got as opposed to trying to work really hard to be not so bad at some things. I knew and everyone else knew that I just wasn't going to be good at.
It made it safe to admit those things and just to concentrate on the unique gifts you bring because that's going to be your greatest potential for growth. Is getting even better at the things you're already great at, and focusing there as opposed to trying really hard to be at best mediocre.
Leanne: That's absolutely why I love the tool as well, and I know found it probably about a year and a half ago when I was reading a book, it was called pivot by Jenny Blake, she used to run the coaching program over at Google. We thought of using it now organization as well. I think it takes a lot of people some time to think about it-- because a lot of times with development we focus on boosting those weaknesses. You said optimization is the key.
Adam: In the sense that we pretend those don't exist, by the way. That we don't have weaknesses, this is not where we start. Do you mind telling me the top five? Can I put you on the spot?
Leanne: Sure, we actually shared two of the top five.
Adam: I like it, tell me.
Leanne: My number one is ideation, maximizer, futuristic, activator, and positivity. So we share positivity and activator.
Adam: Very good, that's great. I love it you speak the language too.
Leanne: Am I normal?
Adam: You're totally normal.
Leanne: I love-- I think it's one in – you got one in 33 million chance of having the same combination of strengths with anyone else in the world.
Adam: That's right. There's a one in 278 thousand chance of meeting someone with the same top five in a different order. Last month I was working with a team from Detroit, and one of the guys was a strength squad of mine.
Leanne: No way.
Adam: Yes, we took a picture and I came home it was like Christmas day or something. It was it was a lot of fun. That's right.
Leanne: That's interesting, so you did the tool and you loved the tool. What actually prompted you to then get accreditation in it?
Adam: Sure. I was on staff at a church. I'm a pastor, that's what I do for my actual job. I had had a project in grad school to put together some type of development event. I thought okay, I have some interns I work with, and some senior is in high school and college-age people, and thought well, most people I know love learning about themselves. How can we leverage that and help people discover their gifts especially at that really opportune time, when in that kind of young adult range. We just had a blast and said, okay, there may be something to this.
We put together a class from my church and out of 600 people like 20% of them signed up for the class, and we thought, okay there's something here. Did that and then I came over to Kansas City? I used to live in St. Louis and offered it here and had a great response here. So, I put together some things like I guess one tip I would say to anybody wanted to get started, is if you're willing to work for free. Most people will open the door for you. I let some workshops for some teams in Kansas City, some people I trusted and I knew they would tell me if it was bad and went from there.
So, my goal is to use strength's to get to get beyond the walls of my church. So often the model for church is, hey you should come to us, or you need to come be like us. I just wanted to break out from the mindset of the church being like a fortress, and go into my community and bring them something of value that I thought really made a difference to me, whether or not they show up to my church or not. I've worked with my wife’s school and some other companies here in Kansas City. I wanted to get accredited so that I wasn't just the guy who likes this a lot, but rather the expertise you get and the commitment that it shows really was important to me to have that legitimacy. That's why I decided to go. And I'm so glad I did. It was amazing.
Leanne: Yes that’s how we sort of actually met. Was through there is a strength scallop community on Facebook. I love it; Were your positivity and activated strength, plus communication I think within a minute to posting you were straight on there. Messaging saying, hey I'm really came for this.
Adam: That’s right I said, ‘Hey, holla at me,’ I think was what I said. Am glad you did.
Leanne: I did. Let's talk about your top five. Ben how have they helped you and your career? Because as a pastor, you're up the front. You're actually leading sermons and you're leading groups all the time. Plus it this day brief as well. You've actually day brief for over 1,200, that's incredible. How are your top five strength? Firstly, what are they and how have they helped you in a public facing role?
Adam: Sure. My first one is strategic, and that means when I go to the grocery store I make my list in order of the different sections that I will encounter. First is produce, then meat, then cereal or whatever. My second one is positivity; I tend to be quick with praise. I was going to compliment your website but I didn't have the chance to do so. My wife we joke that that's not something she shares. When I ask her, hey how is such and such? Her default is, fine. But with positivity-- if you asked me how something went. My default is, it was good. Yes, it was good.
My third is communication, so I'm watching the clock to make sure I don't take up this entire time with just me blabbing. I love turning things into stories. I think that makes things memorable. Communication is also about trying to make information survive. How can I get things down to the absolute essential thing that needs to be communicated, and it makes me happy to make those type of things and memorable. My fourth one is activator. Activators can often be impatient, they like to get things going. I'm the guy at my office that thinks we have too many meetings. Everyone's very well aware of that. I'm a guy who's always like, all right, what are we going to do about this? Every sermon I give, oh gosh I hope there's an action step at the end, or also it is just a nice talk.
Then finally my last one is called woo. That stands for winning others over. Probably the most fun strength to say. That means I really don't go through life-- there's no strangers, they're just friends I haven't met yet. It's like I was excited to meet you and learn about you. My family will get annoyed because I will talk to the person at the grocery checkout or the waitress like 10 minutes after everyone's ready to leave. Those are my top five, and it's been really helpful to see how those kind of pair up and complement the staff of the people around me.
Just knowing those things about myself, like for instance, if I have a new initiative or a new project, I need to sit down and do some strategy time and to give myself ample time to think through the different options and to select the best path forward. Knowing that about myself is helpful, because I'm often reminded that not everybody is. I tend to have a bias for action which can make me helpful, but sometimes you need other folks to kind of pump the brakes so you don't fire away on maybe the wrong thing.
Leanne: Yes, that's probably something that I do and I can very much relate to your call about meetings. I do my best to try and get out of them or just try what's the outcome here, can drive it any other way rather than sitting down for an hour or so. I love your comment about Woo - a colleague of mine has Woo in her top five and she always says about these conversations she has with strangers on the train. It works for her and I always can’t think of anything worse. I love people but I'm not very good at, just talking to that stranger on the train.
Adam: If you stood by me on a plane you better look out.
Leanne: [laughs] The other thing about positivity, it was obviously now interactions because both of us just dropped a lot of exclamation marks. I know I have to - I have to hone it back when I know the people don't share the same positivity strength. You talked about your wife as well and her response to how's your day. Strengths we talk about it, some talk about it in organization context, but can use it outside of work in things like your relationships with people. Is it helpful then?
Adam: Yes. The applications are outstanding. In fact, last month, my [unintelligible 00:11:13] Sarah and my wife helps me. We call it, strengthening your marriage workshop and It was amazing. What we did was we actually got our-- you can pay extra money to find out all 34 of years, so we compared ours together and four of my top five are in her bottom five. It's just about pretty close to vice versa.
It was encouraging because it's not that we're not compatible, I like to think it was just being complimentary and that's what draws us to each other. She's different than me and I'm different than her and our gap would say that those differences are advantages they're not things that you should feel bad about that's what makes your relationship what it is.
You know that and complement each other. You have the applications for strengths are so wide so wide from the corporate world to the religious realm to like you said talking about in the context of a marriage. I use it with people that I'm going to do their wedding so they'll come in and for some kind of pre-marital counseling stuff and we'll just have absolute blast talking about strength, because they've known these things about each other but never had a name for it. All I do is facilitate, set the table and then just watch the light bulbs go off and it's so fun.
Leanne: That would be so much fun. My husband and I don't share any of the top five. I have futuristic and he has context.
[crosstalk]
Adam: Oh, thats good. It's not paradoxical. Actually, there was a guy at that event that had both of them. He had both futuristic and context in this top five so we enjoyed him that he was omnipotent. That he was all-seeing.
Leanne: Have you talked about these activities each day with married couples or that workshop you ran last week. Do you have like a template for what is the right session with the clock for tame context when you are debriefing it, but you them contextualize or do you approach it quite differently depending on the group?
Adam: Sure. I would say there's rarely a time while I would just run the template back. One of the things Gallup taught at the certification was, you need to meet with the leadership to understand before the session to understand what their outcomes are. Does the activator appreciate it and you tailor it to what their needs are?
Maybe there's a lot of new stuff that has just come on board or maybe there's some shallowing between the different layers of the organization. You can do some things in your content to scratch, that different hitches that they may have in terms of when I do it for churches staff teams. I've got, I would call them modules. I've got five or six modules and say, "Okay, these are the options you can pick from."
One thing that's always vital and this is again from Gallup, is this threefold process called Name, Claim, and Aim. What are your strengths, what does Gallup even mean by these words? Some of your listeners will be like, "What are they talking about who you’re? What about context? Input for example but doesn't mean you love to give a lot of input, it means you like to receive, you're going to research a television for two weeks before you actually buy one.
That's not what it may look like it at first glance. They want you to understand how to define then you need to claim them and think how are these actually showing up in my life and then finally self-awareness and self-discovery is great, but what I'm actually going to do with them and how can aim them at the things expected of me as an employer, as a spouse or as a friend.
No matter what I do, especially in what I do for the most part which is come in the first time, those three elements name, aim and claim are always part of it whether its marriage or faith-based anything or in the corporate space. That always remains.
Leanne: Excellent. Like I said over 1,200 people that you've day briefed and I can still hear that you're very enthusiastic about the tool. Is that what keeps you motivated and keeps you going, because you love the tool so much and you love sharing it with people?
Adam: Honestly, people want to know that you're smoking what you're selling. For me, this will be my second drug metaphor here in two sentences but, when I turn people loose and they turn and talk to their partners in these workshops and you hear the harm of conversation and you start seeing the light bulbs go off. The end is like a drug. It's so fun to watch people think, ‘Oh my gosh. I knew about 15% of that or I knew a part of this can name it’ That's why and then they start filling in the blanks with their friends or they think like, "Okay, just yesterday my buddy here at church and our other buddy's to other pastors here, Gallup was running a special on finding all your 34 strengths. So we called it Strength Christmas. I've like whistle coupon platform and everything.
Brian, his literal last two strengths are the same as our other pastors top two. So we just laughed them like no wonder they cross the streams so much in meetings, but again that's part of what makes them unique and that makes our team here what it is and we love that. Just the strength in these conversations, whether it's around a workshop or here at home base, because I do a ton of stuff with our church here, it's like music to my ears. So that feeling is really what keeps you going.
My number six strength is belief and when I have a conviction about something that's what drives me to get it done.I'll drive across the state of Missouri and back in one day sometimes because it's the motivation of these people discovering this amazing thing that is helped me so much.
Leanne: I agree. That's why I want to encourage people out there that are listening that haven't yet had the confidence to step up in front of a room to listen in to some of the tips and tools at all that that the facilitator is sharing and then try to take that way, because it is an incredible feeling when you hit that white ball moment. You can't beat that.
Adam: Yes. I think as a facilitator you have this advantage, you can swoop in, do your deal and swoop out which for me means I can be just super authentic and super honest because of they don't like, I'm still cashing the check. I don't mean to sound crass. What I mean is a lot of times and your experiences as a pastor my old pastor used to call it the 50-mile rule.
If you bring in an expert from more than 50 miles away and they say the same thing you said you must have everyone's like, "Oh my gosh, that was so profound," just because they're this outside voice. So, being able to be privileged to be that outside voice to other folks is a big deal and for me especially in the corporate space, there's a big difference between people opting into a workshop like a class at church or being told by their boss, you will come to this workshop.
That's for me where the rule comes in because I know a lot of these people are sitting there, crossing their arms and rolling their eyes thinking, here's one more thing. You've got the element of surprise. If you really nail it and you bring the energy and sincerity, it can really make a difference to people and that to me is a lot of fun.
Leanne: I'd love to ask you, what kind of things do you do to bring in that element of surprise? You can share.
Adam: If you connect well and teach well but don't apply it well, then it's irrelevant.
If you connect well, your content is weak and then you apply it, then it ends up being shallow, because the actual content wasn’t really there, you didn’t have a firm foundation. If you teach great content and apply it really well but you never connect with the audience, it’s going to be boring and they're never going to give you a shot. I try to have those things in mind, "How can I connect with folks, how can I be authentic, how can I not take myself too seriously?"
I think people want to just experience a real person, so how can I connect with them usually through some self-effacing story or something. How can I deliver this content with energy and precision? Finally, what’s the value in actually doing something about this and how can we lead them with concrete mixed steps. All this three of those things are vital not all of us are great at all of them, so if you can at least be-- I don’t want to say mediocre. If you can be at least adequate in all of those areas, and really do one of them well, I think that’s what leads to success.
Leanne: Yes, fantastic, and I guess most people differentiate on if at least you got the baseline for all three. Some people I’ve sometimes differentiate on the content and that is the expert in that field.
Adam: Yes, and just blow people's minds.
Leanne: Yes, they are an entertainer but they can still hit the mark with content and the application, but they differentiate on their ability to bring the fun in to that. Yes, that’s interesting.
Adam: It makes them memorable in its own way.
Leanne: Yes, for sure. So your communications rank has been with you, were you a great storyteller when you were a kid? Is this some new skill that you've developed because you've become a pastor and leading teams and you've realized it’s an effective way of connecting with people?
Adam: Sure, that’s a great question, I’ve always loved good stories, and my dad was a great storyteller. I'm a second-generation pastor, so listening to him practice on Saturday nights and watching how a well-placed and well-delivered narrative can speak to people and touch people in a meaningful way. I saw light growing up. I out of college did a lot of youth ministry and what I loved about middle school and high school kids is, when you’re trying to talk to them. When you are facilitating or presenting, they let you know if it wasn’t going very well, because they would look at their phone. Their lights would be evident and it would be like, "Guys I can see your phones," and I think that was a great way to cut my teeth because instant feedback.
To me it was about, "Okay if I’ve got a limited amount of time with people’s attention, how can I really capitalize on the time that I do get, and how can I maximize the impact of the point of whatever we're gathered around." I was a shy kid but I moved around a little bit and I figured out, "Wait if I don’t make any friends myself I won’t have any," I think that’s partially where it came from, it’s just necessity.
Leanne: I love that you talk about the brutality of middle school kids and their phones, because you work with a lot of older audiences, their poker faces are good. Actually, we've got to be intuitive to find out are their eyes glazing over of are they just faking their interest, what’s going on.
Adam: Yes, that’s right, as adults we fake it in the name of being polite, I’d rather they give it to me straight. Play candy crush or whatever and I’ll know how I really seem.
Leanne: I also get it interesting that you observed your dad practicing his sermon on a Saturday night. That obviously provided the really great role model for you in terms of rehearsal being important. Is rehearsal an important element for you, or are you just so confident now that you can wing it?
Adam: That’s a good question. What I do is, any time I’m going to preach, I have a manuscript and I read it a bunch. Some of that is so I don’t make some off colored joke that sounds funny to me in the moment and then I realize after I said it, it’s not appropriate. That’s like gag rails for me, I probably should practice more if I’m being honest, I will say, I’m never not nervous. Not necessarily nervous when I’m doing it but Saturday night I sleep great all the time and that’s when I’m doing a sermon or a Strengths workshop. In the morning I always feel a little nauseous, have some stomach stuff going on, so my nerves occur more before the event than during the event, which I’m thankful for in an odd way.
I have a regime of I try and get everything done on Tuesday and then read over during the week and run through it on Sunday morning. Yes, I never want to do a Saturday night special, that’s what they call it in the business where you haven’t prepped, because people can tell and you’re not giving your best, which is what you owe them. It’s important to me to not do the Saturday night special and it’s important to me to do what Andrew Stanley who's our very influential pastor in Southern America, which is different than South America. The Southern portion of the United States of America, it’s all right, he says, "What I try to work for," is what he calls, "Internalizing the message," I think that’s applicable to what type of facilitator you are.
People know if you’re just reading stuff, it seems weird, but if you’re speaking from a place of sincerity and this content is coming from you not just being an expert, but from you believing it. That makes it compelling to people.
Leanne: Audiences can detect if the message is inauthentic but you can’t actually tell what’s different about it. Only that the heart was in it the second time as an example.
Adam: Yes, it’s just more of a feeling.
Leanne: You can’t actually put your finger on it; you can’t go all out because their voice was at this level. It’s more like "No I actually can tell I believed it was something that I heard that just triggered that response.
Adam: Yes, there is a conviction that speaks, even without seeing them just in the audio. If you ask me a question I have a wooden paragraph answer, the audience would be like, "What are we doing here?"
Leanne: That’s right. Now, tell us a bit about, so delivering a sermon is very different to running an interactive workshop. What do you think the skills are required for someone to be a good facilitator or a trainer in that group workshop environment?
Adam: I actually looked around your website and I was like, "Those were some of the things I was going to say." I think one of the best tips is to-- I think great facilitators ask great questions, in a Socratic way if I try and sound like I have a Master’s degree. Socrates would ask his pupils questions until they arrived at the answers themselves. As a Strengths Finder, Clifton Strengths Finder facilitator my job isn’t just to tell them information, it’s to help lead them to their own self-discoveries, and you do that through great questions. That’s one thing I would say, is ask great questions.
The second thing I would say is get them talking within the first few minutes in under five minutes for sure, even under two or three. That sets the pace for the rest of the session, “This person isn’t here to give us the big information down, they want us to interact and have some conversation around these ideas." I think that really sets the tone and it changes the environment when people understand, "Okay this is participatory and not just audible.
Leanne: Yes, and they're so grateful, the audience is so grateful like, "Thank you for making it interactive."
Adam: Yes, not just another-- in church we call that sit and get, not just a sit and get. The other thing is-- I have discovered people are really willing to turn and talk to each other in a group of two or three. After that’s over if you ask for feedback or some type of answer or call out to the general group, oh, its crickets. Sometimes if I hear somebody overhear something like a great nugget, I will go to the individual and say, "Hey would you mind sharing that with the group?" I've stopped doing the, "Hey, who wants to share a great thing they said," because if you’re in a group of even as few as 10 people, it takes on a different dynamic, from when it’s just you and a partner to the whole group.
I guess that’s what I would say is, getting them talking quick, ask great questions, and don’t necessarily surprise people by asking to talk in front of the whole group. You may not mind that as the facilitator, but it turns out a lot of people do.
Leanne: Yes, so you hover around, wait for something good and then target them, that’s fantastic. I get the same thing, I’ve actually gone the group approach and you’re lucky when there is one or two extroverts in the room, they are usually the ones answering every question anyway. It would be good to go, "Hey," and then give them the time to think about it, so they have time to prepare their response when they do end up sharing it.
Adam: That’s right, most people don’t mind if they know what to expect, people don’t like being caught off guard. That’s another sharing space thing is I assume everyone is like me and has no problem; I can’t wait for someone to ask me my opinion of something. Not everybody is like that, that's been a good discovery, I’m glad to hear you’ve had the same experience.
Leanne: Yes, absolutely. I'm interested in hearing, have you had any situations when running strengths that have not gone the way that you planned. Maybe someone says, "This aren’t my strengths, I don’t agree," or there's been a conflict in the room or something’s derailed your workshop. Has anything like that happened in your experiences?
Adam: Sure. The first thing that I thought of when you were talking about that is, some of my stuff has been technical. Like the HDMI cable wasn't present, or they told me to bring X adapter and I did, but it was really something else. Slides aren't a big deal. You can certainly survive without then but, sometimes I think that visual aspect is important. It helps people understand, "Oh, I should write this down, it's on the slide." Not having those kind of threw me off a little bit once. But it wasn't anything that irrecoverable.
One of the first things I do in my workshops is what someone coined, "uncovering resistance". I actually try and ask--That's the first thing I ask is, "What questions do you all have?", or I invite their questions and even skepticism to some degree. I always begin my workshop establishing the sociological research about strengths, and I try and head off some of those things that they pass. I talk about, "Sometimes you may not feel like this on you, that's alright." I have a little deal I go through where I check the boxes on four or five different objections people might have. So, I try and take a proactive approach. Probably my biggest bomb, this is something I use in my workshops is, "It wasn't a workshop facilitation, it was a public workshop service."
My first year in Kansas City we had big outdoor Christmas service at one of our shopping centers, it’s like this outdoor mall, where there's a big Christmas tree and very scenic, and all of that. There was like 200 something folks there. As it was starting, our music leader was playing some Christmas songs and her guitar wasn't on. I was like, "Oh, man. What happened?" Well, her cord had fell out. So later on as a part of the gathering I'm going to talk for about 10 minutes, and as I go out to pick up her guitar plug, I bend down and rip my pants.
[laughter]
Like split them wide open, and it's like, "Oh my gosh. This is the stuff nightmares are made of." You know what I mean? In December, in Kansas City, Missouri, it is not like real warm. So the cold breeze was a blow I’m like. I just had to gut it out. I just-- For the rest of the time I just waddled around like a father penguin, trying not to let anybody know that, "Here's this guy with his pants that have ripped." That was terrible. That was my one gory story of having to power through, yes. Yikes.
Leanne: Yikes, yes. I like-- We could all-- I could probably relate to the technology one. That always hurts, when you can't project those slides up, even though you don't rely on them, but it's just like you said, something extra for-- That stimulation for your audience. I can relate to situations where in the workshop things haven't worked out so well, and-- But not the pants one, that hasn't happened to me yet.
Adam: Well, okay-.
Leanne: Hopefully never.
Adam: Knock on wood, my friend. That's right. That's right.
Leanne: Now, what's some practical advice that you could offer to our listeners, those who are first-time facilitators?
Adam: I would say-- Again, people can tell when you're being yourself or not. Whatever it is that makes you authentically you, again going back to those three areas of teaching, connecting and applying, just do--- Use your strengths. Do your workshop in a way that's natural to you. Don't try and be like, Leanne, or whoever you've seen on TED, or whatever, because people can tell if you're trying to play a part. I would say, "Be yourself, and don't take yourself too seriously." People will find it energizing and compelling and maybe even fun, when they can tell that you're energized and compelled by the subject matter. You can have a little fun. That doesn't mean you've got to stand up and tell stories about ripping your pants or whatever.
However it is, you can make it evident to people, "Hey, I didn't ride in here on my high horse." I think that's really, really good. Again, I would say, get them talking early. Early, and often.
Leanne: I love that, yes. Early and often is a great note to end on. Now Adam, I've loved talking to you, and I can very much see clearly your top five strengths in everything that you've just mentioned. Just in the way that you present and talk about things, and how you actually make that extra effort to make sure that your audience are connected. It looks like you got to spend a lot of time figuring out your own strategies, that works for you. Thanks for sharing that with our audience. Where can people find you?
Adam: Sure. You can find my strengths consulting website at www.findyourwaypoint.com. I'm on Twitter and my handle is my last name, which is just @mustoe, M-U-S-T-O-E.
Leanne: Fantastic. We will link to all of Adam's Twitter account and his website on our show notes, as well as the Clifton Strengths assessment tool. Because I-- If you haven't done it yet, you probably-- I don't know if you're driving a car listening to this but, pull over now and sign up. It's like, I think-
Adam: That's right.
Leanne: -it's one of the better assessment tools out there. I love, I love it.
Adam: Leanne, thank you so much. This was great to meet you, and I really enjoyed our time. Thank you.
Leanne: Thanks Adam, loved having you on the show.
Episode 15: Facilitating and leading with your head and heart with Therese Lardner
In this First Time Facilitator episode, you’ll hear from Therese Lardner, a psychologist, leadership coach, speaker and workshop facilitator. She shares how being thrown into the deep end helped build her confidence in public speaking, and why your choice of words matter as a facilitator.
In this First Time Facilitator episode, you’ll hear from Therese Lardner, a psychologist, leadership coach, speaker and workshop facilitator. She shares how being thrown into the deep end helped build her confidence in public speaking, and why your choice of words matter as a facilitator.This is why Therese dedicates her career to teaching people how to use their vocabulary more effectively.
We also talk about employee engagement and creating strong work cultures; and discover what organisations need to consider to improve the employee experience.
About our guest
Therese is a leadership and engagement coach, workshop facilitator, speaker, executive coach and psychologist with a simple, no-nonsense approach to building leaders and businesses. Her natural way of engaging with people means that she is just as comfortable in the boardroom as she is on the factory floor. For Therese, connection at work is the key to success, developed through personal insight, alignment with company culture and cohesive teams.
What you’ll learn
How she adjusted her academic language to connect with diverse audiences
Some advice she was given that took the weight off her shoulders when she was a first time facilitator
Why it’s important to develop your vocabulary (and your emotions) as a leader and how you can do that
How she landed a speaking gig at a positive psychology conference in New York City
Resources
Therese speaking at Disrupt HR Brisbane - below
Desperately Seeking Emotional Vocabulary | Therese Lardner | DisruptHR Talks from DisruptHR on Vimeo.
Episode transcript
Click here to view the episode transcript with Therese Lardner
First Time Facilitator podcast transcript (Episode 15)
Leanne: Our guest today is a leadership and engagement coach, workshop facilitator, speaker, executive coach, and psychologist with a simple no-nonsense approach to building leaders and businesses. Her natural way of engaging with people means that she's just as comfortable in the boardroom as she is on the factory floor. That's a fantastic description. Welcome to the show Therese Lardner.
Therese Lardner: Thank you so much for having me.
Leanne: It's great to have you here. Now, Therese and I met each other as we were both speakers at Disrupt HR last year. I completely agree the way that she comes across is effortless and completely natural. Now, Therese that's I know a bit about you, but I'd love you to share with our listeners. How did you enter the world of this career in terms of training facilitating and working with businesses?
Therese: Sure. I started out straight from school, going into psychology. Not really knowing exactly what it is that that meant, and what that was going to entail, but knew that I always wanted to work with people and loved working with people. Fast forward through my degree and getting out into the workplace as an organizational development consultant, one of the first things that I was tasked with doing as a recent graduate was facilitating workshops and training. Which for a new grad was completely nerve-wracking, but I was still talking about topics that I really enjoyed.
Things like change management and leadership. Back then it was the multi-generational workforce, which is gained a lot of pace these days, but 10 years ago that was a really big topic. I was thrust into the world of facilitation you could say, [laughs] but have always enjoyed being with people and being in front of people as well. I don't mind being on a stage that's for sure.
[laughter]
Leanne: That would have been very daunting. Did anything in university prepare you for actually stepping up in front of corporate people and trying to communicate, or change their opinion, shift their behavior?
Therese: In small ways, yes. What I really learned in terms of the transition from university into the workplace is that I almost had to forget all of my academic training, how we would structure arguments. It was all around what will happen as opposed to what may happen. May is a big word in psychology.
[laughter]
We like to catch all kinds of things, but the language that you use presenting to a corporate audience is very different. As I said, how you structure the argument is quite different. I really had to navigate my way through that vocabulary and that structure to be able to connect with the corporate audience. I think one of the best pieces of advice I was given when I was starting out and facilitating, rightly or wrongly, was that you know more about this topic than your audience will. If you use a wrong word here or there, if you mark up the order that the content is meant to be in and you revised version three instead of version two, they're not really going to know.
What they're going to remember are the key objectives that you were going to take them through. The key elements that they had to walk away with, as opposed to a misstep here and there. That really took the weight off my shoulders as I was starting out.
Leanne: That's really good advice. It's all about what's the end goal here, and the journey, you might have an idea of what that map looks like, but I think you do find in facilitation depending on where the conversation goes or what stories are brought up with your group, instead of going from ABC, you might go AC through to B and--
Therese: It's absolutely okay. [laughs]
Leanne: I'd love to talk about the language. Coming from an academic background you talk a lot, might use some big words or talk about statistic. I really need to back up a lot of what you say with facts and evidence. It's a very evidence-based approach being a science. How did you lose that, not armor, but that vocabulary and switch over to more of the corporate talk where you could relate to more people?
Therese: I think you hit the nail on the head earlier when you were talking about outcomes. It really is about what is it that this person will walk away with, as opposed to what will make me as the facilitator seeing the smartest person in the room, and what's the biggest word I could use to possibly describe that. In terms of what problem you're solving and the outcome that they need to walk away with, that's what you really focus in on when you're shifting that language away from the very scientific or the very academic.
Leanne: I love it. You've come from this background and now you travel quite interstate, to mine sites, construction sites, but you're also very comfortable in boardrooms. When preparing for the different types of audiences. Do you do anything--? How do you prepare for that? Do you dress differently? Do you come in with different approaches? What does that look like for you?
Therese: It will vary depending on the client and what it is that I'm doing. Sometimes I will dress differently. Particularly if I'm out on site if I'm out in a rural or remote area. If I'm wearing PPE, there's no use wearing high heels, it's just not going to work. [laughs] Sometimes I do dress differently. It's really about understanding what the drivers and motivators of my audience are?
What's important to them? What drives, what motivates them? What do they need out of the communication? Then, going from there. Sometimes that might mean me using slightly different language, different ways of explaining things, and sometimes in multiple ways of explaining things if I've got a wide variety of people in the room. It would just depend on who I'm speaking with.
Leanne: Now, you mentioned earlier that you're very comfortable on stage. That came across with your speech last year. You absolutely killed it. laughs]
Therese: Thank you.
Leanne: Have you always had that confidence? Have you always felt comfortable presenting in front of people growing up, or is it something that now that you're doing more of it, it's just evolved and now over the course of the years you've got this great experience under your belt?
Therese: A bit of both. As a fairly young child, I was involved in lots of choral work. Lots of choirs and voice work and singing. That just gave me a natural level of comfort with being in front of potentially thousands of people and that being okay. As a young kid I heard that, but then moving into the workplace you have this extra pressure of judgment that you don't necessarily have outside of that environment.
I certainly had to overcome what do they think of me or I've said the wrong word or I'm losing track of this. Certainly had to overcome that but have always had that level of confidence in terms of being in front of people to fall back on. There's always been a bit of a performer and me. [laughs]
Leanne: That is so cool. I never knew that about you. It's just fascinating.
Therese: There you go.
Leanne: I think the best thing about this is that it doesn't matter what industry you're from, there's always something to take away that will give you that confidence. Love that, Now, I'd love to talk about an upcoming trip that you have on. Would you like to share that with the audience?
Therese: I'm off to New York shortly to speak at a World Summit on positive psychology, mindfulness and psychotherapy. It's a very long title.
Leanne: Tell us, how did you score that gig? I'd love to hear that. Also, what are you sharing with the audience over there?
Therese: Sure. The story behind this is very serendipitous. I had started out in the land of Twitter, which I don't still really understand. I'm not big on tech, but I'm getting there. I had accidentally followed a conference. Then, they got in touch with me, obviously having seen my website and looked at some of my work on LinkedIn externally and said, "Would you like to present?" I submitted an abstract, they loved it and the rest is history. [laughs]
Leanne: Congratulations.
Therese: Thank you.
Leanne: I could virtually give you a high five now. Love to hear what you're sharing with them.
Therese: One of my biggest areas of passion is around employee engagement. I'll be talking through the future of employee engagement and how what we'll be doing for the last decade or so really isn't working and some different ways forward. I've done some very cool research and partnered with an organization here in Australia to do that and to trial an awesome app that has just come onto the market as well, based on my research so yes.
Leanne: Nice. Now, a lot of our listeners, they aren't actually full-time speakers, they all work in-- Well, the most of them that I've heard from, work in organizations, a lot of them and are in HR roles. I'd love to hear what's one take away regarding employee engagement? I guess that we've done wrong. That we can change for the future.
Therese: Yes. I don't know that we've done it wrong, but it's not working. If we keep on doing the same old thing, we're going to get the same old results. In my mind, the biggest thing is that we're focusing on head engagement. We're focusing on are we giving people interesting work? Are we giving them the right salary, the right benefits? Have I communicated a compelling vision? Which is all very important, but what the research is telling us and what we know from our experience as well, is that we need to engage people's hearts. We need to provide that inspiration.
We need to make sure that the work they're doing is energizing. That they have that sense of flow and connection to what they're doing in their team. That's the future of engagement is head and heart engagement. In the context of leading from an area of growth. Making sure that we're investing in our people. My real passion is that head and heart engagement.
Leanne: That is such great terminology. Head and heart. From what you're saying, I think you're absolutely right in terms of creating that flow in your work because you can work on some assignments and it plays to your strengths. If something isn't-- You're not losing time involved when you're actually working through it and time just seems like it goes on. It's gone so quickly. You're not actually structuring that work in the right way. That's really interesting. Are there any sort of practical takeaways that a leader, who's out at say a project or at a site knowing that, what's something that they could do to start bringing in the hearts of their staff?
Therese: It might sound very simple, but the simplest things are often the most powerful. It's having real conversations with people. Not the superficial stuff. Not the, "Hi. How are you going?" It's, "What's going on for you at the moment?" Really getting to understand some terminology that I used earlier. Understanding what drives and motivates them. What gets them out of bed? What puts fire in their belly? Because it might be their work or it might be something else.
Even if it's something else, you can't hope to connect someone to their work unless you understand what drives and motivates them. I think that's the essential part that's missing from engagement as well. There's real conversations that backs up all the surveys and all the steps that we do to really understand what makes people tick. How we can connect what they love into what we would love them to do.
Leanne: That sounds very similar. You recommended a book to me when I last saw you. That was Simon Sinek's, Find Your Why, the workbook. I have started reading that. It's very similar. I think he starts off with everyone has the right to wake up in the morning and feel motivated to do something that means something for them. Links it all really nicely. Now, you spoke about the practical tool which is shifting the language and saying-- Instead of asking, "Hey, how are you going?" You think something a bit more substantial.
That leads into the talk that you did at Disrupt HR last year which was amazing. We'll link to your video as part of the show nights for this episode. Can you share with our audience why you're so passionate about this topic? Why leaders of today need to really work on their emotional vocab?
Therese: Yes. At Disrupt HR, I spoke on this topic of leaders needing emotional vocabulary. The reason I'm so passionate about that is I see so many leaders who have the internal drive to have conversations with people. They know that they need to have these great conversations, but they don't necessarily have the vocabulary to have those conversations. They don't have the words to use. What I spoke about at Disrupt HR is if you track that back, it can go back to childhood. Not from Sigmund Freud, "Let's lie down on a couch" type thing.
We don't encourage even babies to express how they feel. We shush them up. We tell them that we don't want to hear they have to say. As kids grow, we're not, again, encouraging them to use nuanced language. Does a child know the difference between being angry and frustrated? A simple example, but that then translates in to schooling. That translates into the workplace. If we're not encouraging people to express themselves and we haven't given them the tools to do it, then they pop out the other end of high school, go into uni, go into the workplace and, all of a sudden, we're expecting them to have these amazing human conversations and they struggle.
I also know that the HR systems and trends of the '90s had a lot to do with that as well. When we're telling people to leave their baggage at the door, and not to speak about themselves at work, then we've created this whole-- Well, a range of generations who are in the workforce who can't be themselves. They can't be whole human beings at work. It's compacting in terms of not being able to express yourself. Not knowing how to express yourself. Then, it not being appropriate when you go into the workplace.
Leanne: Wow. Let's just say an organization has recognized the need for this and they've called on Therese to come in and help them, what is your approach to helping leaders and managers develop this vocabulary and really recognize how their feeling and how they should communicate?
Therese: Yes. I think a lot of it is actually breaking down the barriers that are there to having the conversations to begin with. That's the most uncomfortable part. [laughs] It's the part that lots of people like to skip over and "Let's just go and do the workshop. Let's get on with it." Unfortunately, you need to unpack some of that stuff and understand how it is that you've arrived at this spot of not being able to feel comfortable having those conversations. There is a certain element in--
That's done 101 because it needs to be done in a very safe, sensitive environment because folks are pretty vulnerable having those conversations. What you can then do is back that up with some group work or small team work around pure vocab. Introducing people to new phrases, new terms, new perspectives on situations. You also need to back that up with giving people an understanding of the physiological reactions and feelings that they have that connect to those words, so that when they start to actually experience them in their body, they have this new nuanced, subtle, lots of detailed language they can use to describe what they're actually feeling because again, one without the other is useless.
If you have the words without actually knowing what that attaches to, it's useless. If you go, "I'm feeling that my heart rate is going up. I've got a frog in my throat. I'm starting to get a headache, but I can't describe that." Again, useless. They need to go together.
Leanne: Wow. That's so fascinating. You do this 101 first, then-- That makes so much sense. Because it is, it's quite a delicate topic. You possibly are uncovering some things that have happened in their past which have led to that. Then, do you start to get-- I'm not too sure what you do. Do you get them to start thinking like, "If I was angry, how would I react?" Or getting them to think of a time where they think they were frustrated and what that felt like?
Therese: Yes. It needs to be very relatable because otherwise, again it's too theoretical and people just don't understand it. Emotional vocabulary is one very specific part emotional intelligence. It's a tiny subset of it. Recognizing that if you start then to increase emotional self-awareness, that has a flow-on effect to the other parts of emotional intelligence which is exactly what you're talking about. Now that I know this about myself, how does this relate to how I regulate my emotions? How do I manage the ups and downs as part of my day?
How do I use that information in decision making really effectively, in a way that makes sense for me and my organization and my team? How do I manage very strong emotions like excitement, passion, anger, in a way, that again, is appropriate? Because I've got this awareness to fall back on, it's the first building block that has to go down before the tower can start getting stacked on top of that.
Leanne: Such a fascinating topic. Your organizational psychology is also huge. It covers so many different things. What really attracted you to the emotional intelligence space when you could be working on motivation or team dynamics? What was it about this in particular for you?
Therese: I was introduced to emotional intelligence fairly early on in my consulting career. Number one, just found it fascinating. I find feelings and emotions fascinating. Another area that I had been involved in more recently though is working with the fly-in fly-out workforce. A lot around mental health in that type of workforce. Again, given that it's a male-dominated environment, one of the things that is really predominant in that type of work is helping, particularly males, to identify what it is they are going through and be able to have conversations around that, so they can either support each other or seek support for themselves.
That really prompted that passion again. Even more recently because I have two children, my first is a girl and my second was a boy. Lord help them both, they have a psychologist for a mother. I've recognized that how people were interacting with him and his emotional expression was different because he was a boy. I thought, "There’s something here." Then, I started to really look into, again, emotional expression as a child, and how we foster that as a society or we don’t foster it as a society. Then, it built from there, or in the last two, three years.
Leanne: That bit of a merger between what you're noticing in the workplace as well as family life. You could bring into the niche that you're now doing really well in and presenting in New York on. I love how that all integrates together.
Let’s just say, you come in, you’ve done some intervention work one on one, then in little groups. Let's just say then you have to lead the organization. How do you feel, how is learning transferred or embedded into their behavior change once they get back to work? Are there any great strategies that you could recommend or--?
Therese: Because as you and I know, the transfer of knowledge from pure classroom learning to the workplace is pretty ordinary if you don’t manage it really well. One of the things that I really like to do, again depending on the culture of the organization, is sustainability sessions. After the one on one coaching is finished and the small group work is finished, actually going back on a regular basis and holding sessions to allow people to brief and then debrief on what it is they are implementing.
They have an action plan. How are you going to implement that? How have you implemented that so that there's this ongoing check-in supporting their learning back in their workplace? As opposed to, "Here's an action plan. See you later." Best of luck.
[laughter]
Leanne: I love that action plans keeping everyone accountable, especially if you’ve got peer support and you've made these commitments to check-in following that. Nice idea. Love it. In your observation, what are the skills that every good facilitator needs?
Therese: That’s a big question, Leanne.
Leanne: It is.
Therese: Funnily enough, I think that one of the first things to cover off is the capacity to listen because folks think that particularly facilitation, which is quite different to presenting, facilitation is just talking. It’s not just covering off content because you need to be able to facilitate those back and forth group discussions. You need to be able to pick up on the cues of all the different people in that group to see number one, "Are they getting it? Are they engaged in the content? Is there a different way that I can explain something? Do I need to draw someone out a little bit more?"
The only way that you can recognize that is by listening and observing because if you just talk at them, it's about you and not about them. It’s a presentation and not a facilitation.
Leanne: That is such a great point. I think it really relates to what you’re doing in the terms of emotional intelligence space. Actually being aware of firstly, that you need to hold back and listen but also observe and say, "Okay, that person, their physiological response is this. I feel like they might be getting a bit nervous about the subject." As a facilitator, you really need to be aware yourself.
Therese: Yes. I think the other element of being a facilitator is just being switched on the whole time which can be exhausting if you’re doing lots of facilitation, which I have been recently. You do need to be present. You need to be switched on because the group or the team is relying on you to connect dots for them. Again, if you're just throwing content out there and you’re not connecting what Sue said in this morning's discussion with the piece of content that we're discussing this afternoon, then you’re not drawing them in and engaging them in that discussion.
You're not connecting the dots for them and helping them to understand how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. Being present and being checked in, I think is super important for facilitators. That’s where I see some fall down is that they just don’t understand the need to just be in the room and not thinking about everything else that's going on.
Leanne: It’s so hard but it’s also a relief to hear that other people are getting really tired after running a workshop because I thought it was just me. It really is. At the end of the day, you're like, "I need a glass of wine, I need to put my feet up, and reflect back on what could I have done there?" Every time it’s a learning opportunity, every time you’re in the room, I think.
Therese: Absolutely. I’ve had periods just recently where I’ve done a number of workshops, I’ve done recently four days of facilitation in a row. You’re right, the only way that I was able to stay present and mindful through that time is, as soon as I've finished, I put on my running shoes and went for a run. Even though I was exhausted, it still allowed me to disconnect from what had happened during the day, get some fresh air. Then, later on, come back, circle back and reflect, as you said, "What could I have done differently? What do I need to focus on tomorrow knowing what I’ve seen and heard today?"
If you don’t allow yourself that space and you just keep on pushing through and chugging through, you can’t be present. It’s just not physically possible.
Leanne: It is. It really is. A fellow facilitator I spoke a couple episodes ago said, "It is actually a really physical job." We can’t just remember it’s all just a brain, we actually have to prep ourselves. Physically, we're walking around, we're listening, we're focusing. It can be exhausting. Not to put any facilitators off because it's a great career field to head down. [laughs]
Did you find in those four days that you were actually modifying some content, like shaping it because you heard some things, or was it just quite structured approach?
Therese: A bit of both actually. It was two two-day workshops back-to-back. I had two different groups. I was delivering the same content twice to summarize. There was a certain level of needing to be able to get a certain amount of content across to both groups because there needed to be quite a lot of overlapping similarity in terms of what the two groups were hearing. I subtly took the learnings from previous workshops because I think that was the fifth time that I had run that particular workshop for that organization.
I was subtly taking the learnings from each one, and modifying as I went depending on who was in the room. How they were feeling. Were they very chatty? Were they quiet reserved? Skipping over content that I knew wouldn’t draw them out. Focusing on content a little bit more if I thought it'd be more engaging. That type of thing.
Leanne: That’s great. Great advice for facilitators on how to modify, or what you need to do to modify some of the content. Especially when you’re delivering to the same company’s similar workshop material. You’re just learning every time and going, "Okay, I think they know this, so the next group will.” Nice one. You've offered a lot of practical advice for first-time facilitators. Is there anything else you’d like to add as a piece of advice for them?
Therese: I wouldn’t downplay some of the fear that folks have around facilitating because not everybody feels as comfortable with public speaking as we do. What I would say is if you’re able to prep yourself, be mindful and in the room, what you might get out of facilitation can be quiet amazing.
You get such a buzz from being in a room with a group of people getting a message across and them just really getting it. No matter how scared you are, no matter how underprepared you think you might be, just give it a red hot go because odds are on the other end of that will be such an amazing feeling for you and a group of people who have learned something they've never known before.
Leanne: That’s very powerful. In fact, if I wasn’t a facilitator-- I'm already like, “Yes, I want to go and facilitate again.” It’s so true that amazing feeling that you get, the adrenaline, but also to know that you’re actually on that one-to-many ratio, just impacting so many people. When the lights switch on in their eyes, and they brighten up, and they start using the language through the workshop, there's nothing better.
Therese: Absolutely.
Leanne: That’s great advice to finish on. Now, Therese, where can our listeners find you?
Therese: Sure. You can find me by my website mindsetcoachconsult.com.au, or places like LinkedIn and Facebook, Mindset Coaching and Consulting or Therese Lardner on LinkedIn.
Leanne: Fantastic. Therese posts up some incredible words of advice, some wisdom on her LinkedIn page. I do recommend that all our listeners follow her on that. I love seeing all your updates. Therese, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you today. I've learned so much from you. I can't wait to share this chat with our listeners. I also wish you the best of luck. You're flying out to New York on Saturday morning. I can't wait to hear how that goes.
I think they've done really well getting you on the speaker card. This is going to be such a huge gig for you. Congratulations.
Therese: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a wonderful experience.
Episode 14: Q&A: Share some of the amazing facilitation tricks you’ve seen, Leanne!
This is the first solo episode I’m recording and it’s come in response to some feedback I received from a listener, Aminata N’Doye from Toronto, Canada. She asked me if I could incorporate listener questions periodically. I think it’s great suggestion, it allows variety for the show and typically, we’ll keep these ones short -they won’t run for longer than 15mins.
Hello fellow first time facilitators and welcome to the show this week.
This is the first solo episode I’m recording and it’s come in response to some feedback I received from a listener, Aminata N’Doye from Toronto, Canada. She asked me if I could incorporate listener questions periodically. I think it’s great suggestion, it allows variety for the show and typically, we’ll keep these ones short -they won’t run for longer than 15mins.
From time to time I’ll incorporate these episodes, either as an add-on feature for the week (I’d originally planned to call this Workshop Weds) ; or a standalone episode, depending on the length of my response!
Would you like your question answered on the show?
You can email me: hello@firsttimefacilitator.com
Send me a tweet @leannehughes
Message me your question on Instagram @firsttimefacilitator
Given Aminata had the idea for this segment, I threw it over to her to ask the first question, and her question is this:
“Along the way, you've seen a number of tricks from fantastic facilitators. What were some of the amazing tricks where you thought, "Wow! I need to add this to my facilitation!"?
Listen to the show to find out the facilitator tricks that have stunned me (in a good way)!
Resources mentioned in this episode
The Air-dropped workshop notes from Sean DeSouza's workshop: Andrew Tarvin's Walk/Stop icebreaker or energiser: Create your own game show using Kahoot.
First Time Facilitator podcast transcript (Episode 14)
Hello fellow first time facilitators and welcome to the show this week.
This is the first solo episode I’m recording and it’s come in response to some feedback I received from a listener, Aminata N’Doye from Toronto, Canada. She asked if I could incorporate listener questions periodically. I think it’s great suggestion, it allows variety for the show and typically, we’ll keep these ones short -they won’t run for longer than 15mins.
If you have a question you’d like answered, there are a few ways you can submit it:
You can email me: hello@firsttimefacilitator.com
Send me a tweet @leannehughes
Message me your question on Instagram and that’s @ firsttimefacilitator
Given Aminata had the idea for this segment, I threw it over to her to ask the first question, and her question is this:
“Along the way, you've seen a number of tricks from fantastic facilitators. What were some of the amazing tricks where you thought, "Wow! I need to add this to my facilitation!"?
Aminata, thanks for your terrific question. It’s a good one, as it forces me to really reflect back on all those years of sitting in group workshops and taking the best pieces of what they do, into the training room if it resonates with me.
I have put together my six tricks for now. I’m pretty sure I’ll publish this episode and think ‘Ahh!’ I forgot that one time that a facilitator did x, y, z…so we may need a part 2 to this response sometime down the track.
Trick #1: Airdropping notes
The first trick I’ll start with requires a bit of skill and it’s not something I’ve personally used YET… But I’m pretty sure my jaw dropped when this happened in the workshop, in a good way!
I recently attended a three day course on how to write a website landing page. This course was held in Singapore. It was run by a guy called Sean De’Souza. He has a podcast called the ‘Three Month Vacation’, is an internet marketing legend, teacher, author and a cartoonist.
On the first day, we worked as a group to brainstorm benefits and features related to selling a public speaking course.
There were two groups; and after our brain dump, we shared our ideas - a representative from each group spoke through the points. Nothing new, right?
Sean was listening to each point; and questioning any points he wanted clarified further. Again, nothing new.
After the exercise, he asked if we all had iPhones (which, surprisingly, everyone in class did) and then he asked us to turn on our Bluetooth so he could AirDrop an image to us.
It was the coolest drawing of all the points our group had just brainstormed! It was so cool - we immediately had the notes but they were drawn beautifully and a fantastic souvenir of the conversation.
I will link to a couple of these images in the Show Notes for this episode - at firsttimefacilitator.com/episode14.
So, how did he do this? He was using the latest iPad which you can draw on. Plus he’s an amazing artist.
But let’s just say you aren’t a great artist, it’s still something you can do. Your end product may not look as good as Sean’s, however your participants will have real-time access to your workshop notes.
If you’re like me, you may be thinking, well hang on - I can’t listen to what my participants are saying; and draw at the same time!
Well, maybe you can ask your participants to draw notes on the iPad and share them at the end of each topic.
This also double as an engagement strategy; and everyone has access to the notes. To be inclusive though, each participant will need an iPhone for the airdrop feature and if not, you can share via a Dropbox link or email at worst.
Tip #2: Frequent Breaks
My next tip is also from Sean’s Singapore workshop (I think I’ll have to interview him on an upcoming show). That tip is that we took frequent breaks. Now, this is more relevant if you’re in the training mode for a workshop that runs over a few days and really building a new skill with your group. So, as an example the workshop ran from 9am to 4.30pm, we broke at 10.30am for around 40mins; broke at lunch at 12.30 for 75mins and then had 30mins for afternoon tea.
This was a tactic from Sean. He believes it’s important to have a break, let the information seep into your subconscious, and attack the topic after the break with a fresh head.
I hadn’t seen this as a strategy used before and I liked it, it worked. I was not tired at any stage over the three day program, even though everything I learnt was all new. We also developed a really strong bond within our group, because we were interacting so frequently. Frequent breaks people - it’s the new black!
Trick #3: Explain before standing
What’s another trick? Well, on Episode 3 of the podcast, Nikki McMurray shared an awesome tip that I have starting using… the tips is this: When you’re going to break out into an activity and you need to explain what to do; explain it when your participants are sitting down.
Don’t ever say the words ‘Stand up’ and then try to explain what’s going on, because you’ll lose them. The second they stand up, they’ll be checking their phones, off to the toilet, off to grab a second cup of coffee. She said your instructions should go along the lines of ‘In a moment, I’m going to ask you to stand up for an activity…’ THEN you explain how the activity works. If there are any questions, answer them, and then ask them to get into their groups. It’s such a simple, effective hack.
Trick #4: Walk/Stop
Another facilitator I had on Episode 5, our Humour Engineer Andrew Tarvin also runs an excellent icebreaker or energiser if you’re working with a big group of people. I ran this recently for a group of 80 people as part of a leadership day. It also works well for smaller groups.
We did this after lunch. It’s called ‘Walk/Stop’. The instructions are really simple, so I’ll explain them now and also link to Andrew’s video explanation in the show notes.
So you need to be in a room, everyone is standing up; scattered around the room. The rules are - when you, the facilitator says walk, the participants should walk; when you say ‘Stop’, they stop walking.
Do this a few times. It’s pretty simple.
Then explain the rules are changing - now walk means stop; and stop means walk; try that combination a few more times.
The, add the words ‘Name’ and ‘clap’. Name means you yell your name out; clap means you clap. Then reverse the order. So now, Walk means Stop; Stop means Walk; Name means Clap; Clap means Name.
Experiment with those four words and yell out a combination of words.
Then it’s time to add the final two words - ‘Dance’ and Jump; then you reverse all of them. It’s fun, makes everyone move around, listen in closely and laugh. Like I said, I’ve used it before and it works a treat.
Trick #5: Think, pair, share
When I was working for a TAFE in the Northwest of Australia (for those of you who don’t know what TAFE is, it’s vocational education, similar to Community Colleges in the US). One of our principal lecturers, Carol Howe wanted to encourage our first time facilitators to stop presenting material all the time and create more interaction in their workshops.
And this trick is an oldie but a goodie. It’s the very simple ‘Think. Pair. Share’ exercise. It takes little or no energy from you and it creates excellent engagement.
How simple is it? Well, you may present content, either through a story, powerpoint, diagram, video, news article etc. Then you pause, and ask each person on their top takeaways from that information; or what it means for them. You can ask them to write it down if you like. That’s the ‘Think’ part.
Then you ask them to pair up and discuss your thoughts. That’s the ‘Pair’ part.
The ‘Share’ part is bringing it back as a group and discussing.
By using think-pair-share; you’re giving everyone time to reflect on the question and also the confidence to share their responses to the group, as they’ve had a chance to verify their thoughts with their partner.
It’s simple - quick word of warning, don’t user-use it. You don’t want an entire workshop run on the back of think-pair-share, it could get exhausting for everyone!
Trick #6: Game Show
And finally, a colleague of mine, Phil Woods listens in to the show. Last year he wanted to participate in a welcome day I was hosting. The agenda was full. So I issued him a challenge - I said, ‘Phil, if you can create a fun, amazing, engaging activity that helps pass on information, I’ll let you have 30mins.
Phil was up for the challenge and he delivered. He used an online tool called Kahoot to run a game-show type quiz for the group. And they lapped it up.
How it works, is you create your free quiz on their website at kahoot.it. You write questions with 4 multiple responses, similar to the ‘Who wants to be a millionaire’ type format. There’s a 20 second time limit.
When you play it, you project the Kahoot website on the big screen; and the answer options simultaneously display on their participants phone; they need to select the right answer within 20 seconds.
It’s super fun, gets that inter-group competition happening and is also a great way to test knowledge.
Great stuff Phil - I did steal this idea for a recent workshop, and the participants loved it, so thank you!
—
So Aminata, those are some neat things I’ve seen quite recently that are cool. There’s a variety of simple techniques, and also ones that rely on technology.
So, just to recap they are:
Writing real time notes on an iPad and airdropping it to your participants
Giving time for your participants to reflect and absorb information by having regular breaks
Explaining activity instructions and then asking your participants to stand up and move (not the other way around)
Think, pair, share
A fun icebreaker for large groups called Walk/Stop
Using technology, like kahoot.it to create an interactive, competitive element.
Catch you next time!
Episode 13: A facilitator is an entertainer (even if you think it’s all about the content) with Greg Mitchell
Greg Mitchell is a bit of a superstar in the education world. He does many things - cartooning, MCing, consulting and of course, facilitating. In this episode, we talk about some band-aid fixes you can use when participants threaten to de-rail your workshop, why you need to treat facilitation like entertainment, why unpredictability can also help hook your audience and to notice and realise that facilitation is an emotional job.
Greg Mitchell is a bit of a superstar in the education world. He does many things - cartooning, MCing, consulting and of course, facilitating. In this episode, we talk about some band-aid fixes you can use when participants threaten to de-rail your workshop, why you need to treat facilitation like entertainment, why unpredictability can also help hook your audience and to notice and realise that facilitation is an emotional job.
In this episode, you’ll learn
Why it’s important to snap your participants out of their constant way of thinking
The lowest common denominator for engagement (hint: It’s our favourite topic)
Some incredible, simple activities you can throw-in to a workshop to create variety
What to do when you have a spare 30mins left at the end of your workshop
What he perceives the error of focus is for first time facilitators and how you can direct your energy to create more engagement
Why you need to keep your participants moving (literally!).
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!
About our guest
Greg Mitchell has been engaged with the world of education since he was four years old. Since them, he has been a student, a parent, a teacher, a writer, a cartoonist, an assistance principal, a university lecturer and a consultant. He has worked for both the Catholic and Government education systems and is currently enjoying being self-employed, having finally found a boss that he really likes.
Greg suffers from enthusiasm, a condition which helps him deal happily with issues such as Stress Management, Positive Intelligence, Multiple Intelligences, Boys’ in Education, Conflict Resolution, Resilience, Values Education and Building Collaborative Communities.
Resources
Episode transcript
Click here to view the episode transcript for Episode 13 with Greg Mitchell.
First Time Facilitator podcast transcript with Greg Mitchell (Episode 13)
This is the show transcript for Episode 13 of the First Time Facilitator podcast.
Leanne : Our guest today suffers from the same affliction that I do and that's enthusiasm. This is a condition which helps him deal happily with issues such as stress management, positive intelligence, conflict resolution, resilience among many others. He's worked with organizations at all levels and is adept at creating entertaining workshops that are practical for people working in high-stress situations. He's enjoying being self-employed having finally found a boss that he really likes, lucky you, Greg. Welcome to the show, Greg Mitchell.
Greg Mitchell: Thank you for having me. It's a joy to be here honestly.
Leanne : It's good to reconnect.
Greg: It's lovely.
Leanne : Yes. You've held many roles from Auto picker and toaster salesman through to cartoonist and education consultant. How did you end up working in the world of training and facilitation?
Greg: This is actually about the 18th year of my 3-month trial of working for myself. I've been in the gig economy a long time. I used to be a consultant for Catholic ed. I looked after science for about 250 schools all over Western Australia. That got me into the training mode where I was working with teachers and also administrators and teacher assistants. Also demonstrating stuff with kids. Even now, I still do work where I hop into a classroom of kindergarten kids. I've got my own theory on child development with a whole range of stuff which ends up in a mindset called the benefit or the global mindset with kids. It's very practical hands-on doing stuff like that.
What organizations are like, politics got the best of me. I had a three-month break for a long service leave. Basically, I said well I wonder if I could earn enough money to keep me going just by being an end consultant. The point of difference always is it's entertaining, it's engaging but you come away learning stuff at the end because I'm still a teacher. I force people to learn in the nicest possible way. You won't learn my workshop unless you've told me what you've learned on the way out, or been engaged with it and things like that. Also, I would do what I said I would do if you gave me your students or your kids or your admin team. I would show you how to do it because I've been around a while.
I started that. Now 18 years later, I still haven't got a plan. The plan is always let's get the next job. I've been doing that for ages at the moment. I'm writing a book. That will give me at least 10 years working organizations and schools on basically behavior management, how to get the best out of the most difficult groups. I'm just writing a book called the Behavior Ambulance for Emergencies. It's got sections on band-aid stitches, operations and defibrillate. I can't even say the word, defibrillating--
Leanne : Defibrillator.
Greg: Yes, including my favorite one is CPPR which is for your crazy, paranoid, psycho, resuscitation. Most people under stress have two voices. You have one really logical voice which tells you what the job is and what I'm going to do next and I can parrot those, but in the background there's this crazy, paranoid, psycho voice who's telling you I'm no good at this, this is stupid, they read politics where there's no politics.
They see problems where there are no problems. It's why 80% of their kids are suffering from anxiety and 40% have got depression. We've never learned how to resuscitate, how to just trying how to do simple stuff like breathe and question whether it's actually real or you can do something about it. It's amazing how just teaching those simple skills to teams and groups of people totally changes the way they do stuff.
I just suffer from enthusiasm. I do all sorts of things like conferences to talking to four-year-old kids. If anybody rings up and says will you craft a message for me, I'll even draw it. I've just got good at doing.
Leanne : Anything you're asked to do.
Greg: You name it. I've done everything from community meetings in large amount with the police constable writing the decisions on the board and taking photos so it's evidence, to corporate boardrooms and stuff like that. I'm not so good at corporate. I tend to be honest and I don't think money ever comes first which is often a problem. Most of the time, I'm just amazed of what will come through the door, on the phone, or from an email. I'd hate to tell you how many new ideas I've got at the head at the moment.
Leanne : That's true. I'd heard about you through recommendation, through someone else, through the TAFE Network. It's all really word-of-mouth. When people, this is a few years ago, were introducing hey Greg is a really great guy. I should take him up to run training for your trades staff because you are entertaining and you can relate to those guys.
Greg: Yes. The interesting thing is because I've had a really diverse background. I come from a really stuffed-up family. When you tell people your parents couldn't look after you from when you were two or all of those sort of things. It's not the typical teaching background. You name it, I've failed at it. I've got a degree in complete failure in everything. I'm dyslexic.
I'm lousy at all sorts of stuff, but I'm persistently positive. I just keep going. I got a degree in education and a post-degree in education being dyslexic. I even managed to win the Literature Prize for the University along the way and I still can't spell. I've never written one sentence that hasn't needed fixing. It takes me four times longer to read than anybody else.
All I do is just think well if I was you sitting there in that workshop, what would I want? How many people have walked out of a workshop thinking I've had bowel movements which are more entertaining than this. I can't even remember what they've ever learned or didn't know how this was going to happen. I see people in meetings constantly who sit there going, "Oh yes terrific, great, walk out, what did you learn?" Nothing. Basically, when I met you, it was through most of my work is wrapped around instructional intelligence.
What do you do to make people learn? It's as simple as that. Because I've had so many learning difficulties, I really understand what it is that when you're working particularly with tough kids and particularly in remote situations and stuff like that, what do you do to get it across? And of each, mining would be exactly the same. These guys have been trained up their wazoo, but none of it sticks. I do that because they've got to tick a box to say I've done that. Now I can go on start but my job is to go make.
I'm going to make you laugh, make you cry. I'm going to change your life. Guess what when you walk out, you're going to know this stuff. If you don't, we're going to have to stay back until you do. I'll do it in the nicest possible way. I make them cheat, ask other people, copy, whatever. I hate it but they come back to you years later and go, I remember you. You taught me these five steps, or you did this to me or you did that to me. You threw a bloody flying monkey at me and made me answer a question. Sure did loved it. I bet you loved it too. I hated it at the time, but it's that sort of stuff.
Leanne : Let's talk about that. I think that is your point of difference is you'll be memorable because he comes across as an entertainer. Is that something that you had to hone over a few years or has that always been the way that Greg's always been? He's always been a guy at a party or in a team?
Greg: No, I don't go to parties, I suffer from enthusiasm. I don't drink, I don't use drugs. I don't even drink coffee. I've got cultural ADHD. The problem is I'm basically a quiet person, but I think that most people really like to engage with the world. It's kind of funny how many people these days are sort of like thought leaders in Australia like stand up comedians. It's because humor breaks people. If you want people to learn, you've got to get them out of their constant way of thinking. When, for example, I work a lot with year 10 to 12 students. Now, year 10 students should be just given a gap year.
They shouldn't be at school for a year. Just go away, find out what the world's like, they know it all. They've already divorced their parents, they know everything they want to learn. But their trouble is that they never pay attention because everybody hates teaching. It's just let's get Scott through the motions. You've got to do this princess, move on. Whereas my point is, if they're not learning anything. Let's have fun teaching them something. Any audience you've got, you've got to wake them up. You've got to get them to pay attention. The easiest way to pay attention I get is dropping something that they're not expecting.
Like humor. I walk into year 10's and 12's, so our tough audience. Never want to pay attention. They've seen every speaker, they're bored out of their brain, why are we doing this is? There's usually no context except this guy's here to tell you how to get through this year. I got them for 50 minutes. You're going, what do I do? Well, first I've got to get their attention. I tell them the story that whenever you turn up in Australia, you can tell how good someone's going to be at learning by whether they smile at you or not.
I show them how I walk in and smile at people and I cracked this really sick smile that I've got. As I look at people and see if they smile back. The great people always smile back. They always go, Oh, good day, how are you? Even kids do that. Great kids do that. There are some people who just go, avoid your eyes and sigh or walking. Big Men do it. They stretch faster and make you try to feel like he's scary. I have to watch out for him. I'll just know that I'm not the big dog here.
I do this in schools all over the place. I can just about tell kids how they're going to succeed this year by how well they smile. They look at me and go, I just give them an example and go, "I walked into a year 10 class once, year 10 girls admittedly. I walked in, I smile at this girl beautifully. I'm all dressed up, got my suit on, got my tie on. She doesn't even look at me. She just turns to the girl next to her and goes. He's got pink on his tie. Must be gay.
I thought, "Gee, she's got a big mess, she must be a bitch." And suddenly, every kid in the room's listening to me. Kids are really impressed by bad role models. If you put somebody at the front who says everything nice and sweet and nice, drop in that little story. Every kid at the time, they're already listening at you. Gee, he swore, oh my God. Stand up if you've ever used that word and every kid stands up. Yes, point made.
The difference is is that they're entertained. They're engaged but I don't stop and go, "Oh, I just said a rude word, it was no funny joke." I just keep talking. That means oh, they're awake and they're listening, then I use visuals. In all of my presentations, I've got big visuals involved, big photos, everything like that, and they're stunning photos. I don't put a photo in unless it's great. Then I make a move. I do things like my job is to make you awesome. Just have a look at the person next to you to see if they're awesome.
Pat him on the back, say it's good to see you today. Shake hands, welcome them to the show. Suddenly, they're moving and instead of doing hands up, if you ever have because hands up so. Stand up if you've ever done this, stand up if-- So now they're physically engaged with it. I can tell you 10 minutes in, they are in a different world. The humor is there, but it's not just there for the humor's sake. You need a hook, you need something when you come in to say to any audience who you are, this is who I am.
I'm not eye candy or anything like that. I'm in my extreme 30's, 66 this year, but no chance of retirement. I got 30 years more work to do easy. Imagine how awesome I'm going to be at this when I'm 95. The key with it is that it doesn't matter what you look like or who you are, it's about the message. The message when I start I've got a pretty good understand of what my KUDOs is. KUDOS, Know, Understand, DO, what I want them to know, understand and do is my KUDOs. It's what gives me meaning and will get me that accolade at the end.
If I know what I want them to know, understand and do at the beginning. My point is I use a lot of fun structures around that. Good visuals, nice connections to what I'm working on. Not a lot of words because I'm dyslexic. Other words, you won't ever get me reading off what's on the screen, because most of the time, I can't read it in the time allotted anyway, but I'll pop it up there. I'll have the picture up there. I can talk from the photo. What I'm looking at is any time I see those eyes switch off, I've got to re-engage. That means physicality so either it's time to move them.
You will know in my workshops, I'm moving people all the time. Boys hide it because men like territory. The two biggest drives, sex and territory. When you get to my age, it's been shit. What they do is you've got to move their bodies. You've got to go, "Okay, stand up and find a new partner. Stand up if you know the answer to this question. Stand up if this has ever happened to you. Stand up. If that's ever happened to you."
Stand up if you've ever gone to your bedroom and slammed the door. Those sorts of questions where you getting them emotionally engaged. But also physically engaged with them. Go and find a partner, tell them this. I'm always going, even if I'm looking at them and I've put a lot of talking, and it's fairly technical or it's got a lot of work in it, then I'll go, oh, they're all just standing. Yes, I'm losing them.
Turn to your partner and tell them what you learned out of that. Then I pick on one of them. You're going. I always pick on the worst ones first. What happens is when you get hands up, you get all the smart ones, the genetic celebrities take over and the other people just back off. In so many cultures, people don't talk out because it's culturally not right. Quite often, I'll be picking on the granny or the artie who I know knows everything, but wouldn't put himself forward.
But because I've asked her, we get out of the shy effect there and that sort of stuff. Then they'll go, "Oh yes, I know this." Because I know they're wise, and I know they've learned it I want to engage them as a thought leader in years. By doing that, they've shared with someone else. Even if they don't know the answer. I go, "I don't know." I celebrate when someone says, I don't know. They just made those steps unconsciously incompetent to consciously competent. Yes, a bit of pain, excellent. Who you're going to find out from.
Find out from someone else because I see this as a collaborative effort that everybody's engaged in learning here, not just the presenter or the facilitator. What I'm trying to do is just to develop that skill of if I'm losing them, how do I engage them. You've got a myriad of things these days to do it. You've got stories, you've got video clips these days, it's just grand because you can just drop in a two-second video of anything awesome that you want.
I got a file of probably 350 clips, but all they are is just somebody sends me something good. I just save it. What was this week's? What's the guy's name? The guy has done the thing on secrets where he asked people, he sent them a postcard and send me a secret that nobody else knows about you. Frank-- Forgot the last name, but he's got all these little postcards.
What I've done, and they're great. There's one of a Starbucks cup, half a Starbucks cup flattened out and written on it is if people are rude to me, I give them decaf. There's one of 20 famous men on this. That's why this is-- One of these people is the father of my child and he pays me a lot of money to be quiet. You got, "They're just brilliant." There was one other side of it was everyone who knew me before September 11 thinks that I'm dead.
They're the sort of things that you can slip into a presentation. I just scan them up and they're just in the pile. If I'm thinking about telling a secret or getting so the secret is try those secrets. You can slip that into almost anything. All it is is one slide, that's all you need, but if you say I got a stack of these. They're going to come later in your presentation.
There's your signal to wake up and really be involved. I muck around a lot. The key thing is inside of there, there could be a training package. I'm still a teacher. I know what I want them to know, understand and do. These things just fit around the outside. If you want me to talk about assertiveness to my notes, there will be strategies that I have, but in the gaps in between like, you've got to figure out how much can they assimilate quickly.
They're going to forget 80% of what they read so keep the reading to a minimum. They're going to forget 90% of what you say unless they have to process that to somebody else. That's why the turn to your partner and-- is really important. I could call it TTYPA because I just use it too often, but TTYPA and shake their hand. Find out if they got a pulse, ask them if they'll marry you.
The other side is just turn to your partner and tell them the five steps that I just went through. Then they can get recap. Those little structures, you can use again and again and again to break up the big chunks, whilst most people remember the fun, there's a point that I'm trying to teach. I'm pretty darn serious about that too. I tell jokes and loosen them up a bit, I also hit really big points about life. It's about how to stay married forever and still be in love.
Leanne : It's beautiful.
Greg: I've been married for 43 years to a beautiful woman. I still love her with all my heart. Kate is the superstar. She works with Anglicare with the people at high risk. She knows everything that I don't know.
Leanne : That's nice and complementary. The title of your book is really impressive, The Behavior Ambulance. Do clients come to you? I'm talking more about adult learners now. Do they come to you and go we've got a situation now where we need more resilient leaders or we've got really disruptive behaviors at the office. They come to you, not for prevention but it's mainly to come for a cure for this behavior ambulance. Is this why you've created this book?
Greg: There's two elements before it, it's really weird. I've been looking around in Australia. I work with a group in Geelong who do a lot of professional development for schools and teachers. They do conferences. They do about six conferences a year. I get to entertainingly and see them and do workshops. I usually fill in the gaps in the conference. They'll say we've got good speakers on this. Is there a gap that you can see and I fill that in. I go off and break my brain and come up with something good. I say that there were not missing stuff. They end up with beautiful conferences out of them, often quite boutique sometimes only about a hundred or so people up to 500 or thousand.
This year, they decided to do something on behavior management. They've always wanted to do a behavior management conference. They've never had the right people in the right place to do it. We went out looking for a guru. There's usually going to be a guru. You need a keynote speaker in which to do it, who's talking about how to get the best out of people.
It wouldn't matter what level it was on, whether it was on the corporate hype. How to get your school functioning well so they can deal with difficult kids, or that sort of stuff or whether it was just the practice of dealing with difficult kids and what can they do, couldn't find anybody. There were academics doing stuff, but they weren't talking at the practical level. There were people who had written books on this, but they hadn't worked with schools for the last however many years.
I said to them, somebody ought to write a book about this because it's really important. When you start doing that-- I do do workshops on working with difficult kids. I do do workshops on middle leadership and I how to get the best which we were talking about before the podcast. Somebody's got to write a book on this and somebody's got to do a good thing so I started writing this book, and I came up with my formula of it called the behavior agenda which was really big.
I started doing workshops with schools in the little bit of spare time I have when I'm away. If I was in Melbourne, I might do a two-hour one with the school who wanted to work with me after I done a workshop that day or that sort of stuff. I said what do you want me to work on? Most of them said we wanted behavior management, have you got anything on behavior management?
When you've only got an hour or two hours with the school, you can't go through the whole freaking behavior agenda, it's boring. It's not boring, but it's not what teachers want. Beginning of this year, I do a conference for beginning teachers. I tested a thing with my beginning teacher daughter called 10 strategies in 15 minutes where I just stood up and went, "Here's 10 things that I know work."
Bonnie, my daughter, helped me. It was a freaking success. The kids were raving about it. No real, this is the theory behind it and this is why it works. This is just the strategies. Then I said to a couple of schools, "We've got two hours, would you like to--" I got 10 strategies in half an hour. You can get 20 strategies or 30 strategies in an hour. I went yes, I would love that. I did it and in both cases, the two of the cases were really difficult ethnic schools.
They were just raving for it so I thought I'm writing this book, it's got all the good stuff, all the theory and stuff like that. I should make it more accessible for teachers. We ended up with the Behavior Ambulance. The Behavior Ambulance has got strategies basically and it's written in a different way. I love doing different stuff. You know how you got two pages left-hand, right-hand page, nobody reads the left-hand page usually.
They usually read the right-hand page because when you look at it, that's the one that's facing you. What I've done is that I've written it two sides. On one side, it's the words, like this is explaining it, but when you turn the left page around, this has got the activity like in basically PowerPoint slides, but not like normal PowerPoint slides. It's got not photos, but they're graphics, they're easy, they're infographics of that strategy so you could read it in two minutes. That's sort of stuff, so you read the book two different ways and then somebody said what about parents?
Now I've tacked a bit on the backlight, the LD catalog. If you turn the book upside down and write the front, there's just 10 strategies on the back for parents. It covers all bases and it's got things in it like band-aids, stuff that you can do just to stop the bleeding, stitches to stitch up the gaping wounds but they involve a bit of pain and a bit of time in healing. Then operations which are really quite simple strategies, but if you really look at them, they would solve a lot of problems but they're a big operation which involves more than just you.
Simple things like the good feedback we were talking about earlier, really should become a whole school or a whole business strategy that everybody learns how to do. You could do it with a bunch of friends, but it would be better if the whole operation was working with it. There's the defibrillation, can't say the word, but the defib thing that they stick on your heart for when there's a crisis. When someone's losing it. How do you handle it, what do you do. Having simple things like having a place where you can go and sit is really important. If you've got people who lose it, you need to have thought in advance of where can they go and sit.
How do you talk about them, what do you physically do particularly if it's in an office or a group of people, and how you don't move away from them, you move towards them not to confront them, but so that you could guide them to that quiet place and deal with it quietly instead of it involving everybody else in the organization and give them a chance to save face. It's really practical stuff like that. The written bit gives me a chance to tell jokes and write stories.
Leanne : Taking every opportunity to weave those jokes in. I'm thinking about listeners who are first-time facilitators. They'd probably be curious in hearing one or maybe two of your band-aid solutions that you have. I think the fear that most people have facilitating isn't in delivering the content or being engaging, it's what do I do if someone in the room isn't engaging or gives me, throws me response that throws the whole room into disarray. It's like one thing that can happen in a workshop that can derail it. There's one little strategy that we can use, that'll be great.
Greg: The turn to your partner and-- is a brilliant strategy. Turn to your partner and what would you do with this problem is great. The no hands up is brilliant, don't have hands up, get people to stand up, ask a question if they don't know it, get a cheat and teach the same thing works. If somebody doesn't know an answer, they're allowed to cheat. You ask the person next to you. If they don't know the answer, they ask the person next to them, but the key with that is they've all got to say it on the chain on the way back.
If one kid goes, Oh Chinese whiskers which is wrong on so many levels, but it's like talk it back, talk it back, talk it back. This person gets three or four different chances at it. Those little things can make a huge difference. The best one that I've ever used though full stop and it's so simple is if you think you're losing a group, just get them to turn to each other.
Put them in pairs, just quickly put them in pairs, you two you two, you two.
Figure out who's going to go first, who's not. Give them 30 seconds, person who's first tells the other person a story of their life in 30 seconds. You don't want to tell them the whole story of your life, you don't need. I was born on the 13th of December 1952 in paren Road Glen Huntly. It's the Star of Bethlehem Hospital, it's on the right-hand side of the railroad. [unintelligible 00:35:54] Mom was in the third bed on the left, dad was drunk. No, you don't need all that stuff, just the biggest chunk. The big chunks in it. You only got 30 seconds, but then you train them to listen so you got to look at the other person.
Don't speak, keep your hand still and remember what was said because I might just pick on you. Then you finished the first one, stop it and say that was pretty interesting, anybody learn anything from each other? Yes, that's good. Okay, swap out the other way, do that and then do things like tell me something about your partner. They say things like oh, typical one, about 200 people in the room.
Tell me about your partners. They've been working together for 20 years. Tell me about your partner, her name's Maria. She was born in Malta, she's got four sisters. Who knew that Maria was born in Malta and about four people, five people put up their hand. Maria, how long you been working with this team? She went 20 years. And I went, What happens? We get so busy doing the busyness, we forget the business. The business is always people.
After you've done that, you bring them, turn back they're with you. Now you've changed the whole dynamic. The whole thing takes five minutes maximum. If I've got a group who's not engaged or when guys are sitting there with their arms folded and they're listening tack are pointed towards you. The how men man spread that, but get them to go and find somebody else and tell them the story of your life, five minutes, they're back with you.
Then you've got something to relate with. This will relate with you or that'll relate with you. Totally changes the dynamic in the room particularly if you move them to find a partner and it puts you back in charge, but you haven't added any content. All you've added is that we're acknowledging everybody in the room. Then you can get back on with what you're doing very simply because we're building a team.
The biggest thing I find with most beginning facilitators is they've got content and they've got a delivery system. The delivery system usually is technology these days, it's going to be variations on PowerPoint, Prezi, whatever thing that you've got. They've got their message, how they're going to deliver it. It's always word based. It's always talking, that sort of stuff, but what they don't realize is that if you sit there and listen to me, you don't learn.
You've got to engage people in it. If they're not engaged, get them engaged in the lowest common denominator which is themselves. What you really want to do is be telling these people the story of your life one-on-one with them. That's what you're saying, this will affect your lives. Now you've owned your life, now you're part of this. I want to be part of your life, I'm going to work it through. The reason why that simple little strategy, that think-pair-share works and it's great band-aid.
It stitches up a whole lot of bleed in any most organizations. We don't do anywhere near as much work as we need to on creating teams and groups of people who have got the third mindset. Most people know about the first and the second mindset, but not the third one. The first mindset is the fixed mindset. I know what I know. Seeing two-thirds of men think they're the smartest person in the room, that's a problem and two-thirds of women know that they're smarter, but are too scared to say it. I want women to be braver. I want men to be vulnerable. Both of them have got to get out of fixed mindset switch, lock them into false beliefs about their capabilities.
The second mindset is the growth mindsets. That's the Carol Dweck one. It's been all over the place. Everybody knows about it that if you overpraise kids, they end up in the fixed mindset because they're either praise junkies. Tell me I'm good, tell me I'm good or else they praise cynics.
Leanne : Because I get it all the time.
Greg: Yes. I'm being manipulated here, I hate it. The third mindset actually comes from a guy called Ash Buchanan from Melbourne who's a designer. He found that they were designing these brilliant open space offices for teams to work in because there's so much pressure on so many organizations to work as teams but they don't know how to do it. They know it in the sense that they've got open spaces because they've seen Google do it.
They've seen Facebook, they've seen Amazon, they've all got open spaces and that should fix up the team bit, no. They're going to learn how to work in that open space. He started using the growth mindset to say to them well if you're in this space, you've got to grow into this space and it's not your area.
This is our area. Then he realized that it wasn't the growth mindset, it was actually another level which was called the benefit mindset. All he did was basically put it on one slide, all right. Then people kept saying, that's really important. Then he started doing benefit mindset strategies. He's got one for the next three weeks in this organization, you've got to do a random act of kindness every day for one other person.
It's weird because for the first week, they do what they're good at, but they're not allowed to repeat it after they've used it. They've got to do a different one each day. By the third week, it's getting really creative. People are starting to plot how they're going to do something totally different which is going to blow somebody else away. The whole place transforms because they get this global mindset.
We teach kids how to share a part. We give them one thing and break it in half and say that's your half and that's my half and sometimes I got the bigger half and you got the smaller half and that sort of stuff, but that doesn't teach sharing. I'd like to get something out of that. What we're sharing is here's my chocolate bar, here's your chocolate bar. We're going to put it together and we're going to make this awesome chocolate bar for everybody else because we live in a world and we keep taking, taking, taking instead of putting, putting, putting.
If we give, most of the problems that you've got in your organization require somebody to give something up, so that the problem will be solved. That's the global mindset. Shall we teach that? That's the benefit mindset. Most of the stuff I do is just looking at how can I get towards that fixed mindset. In fact, I've got a whole bunch of that's the stuff that I do with the four-year-olds, so I can predict kid's academic success at four years old based upon how well they share. I can show it to you with kids and one pencil and a piece of paper.
Leanne : It's incredible.
Greg: Yes. All it needs is between two kids, this is another band-aid, great band-aid, simple band-aid, two on a crayon. You want people to learn something. I've just taught you this I want you to write it down. Get one piece of paper between the two of you, one pen between the two of you. When I say go, start writing down what the five steps were. One person picks it up, then start, they'll start doing, you got to change give it to the other person. Change, give it to the other person so that they got to take turns to do it. They've got to tell each other what they know and work it together.
Leanne : I can see that working really well.
Greg: Suddenly they're flying, they're absolutely flying. And you go, "What's going on?" I use it with kids for telling a story. I even do two on an Elvis impression at some really good conferences, but just those simple little band-aids in a workshop that's struggling, changes everything. You don't need more content, you've got content coming out of everywhere. You don't need better presentation stuff. How can you get much better than a video screen and things that move on there? You need strategies that teach people the global mindset, that we're all in this together. It's not about whether you know, it's about whether we can do it. That's the big point. Those are the things that really works.
Leanne : You got hundreds of strategies.
Greg: I got thousands of them. It comes to the point where I've got to stop. I'm going to have to put in a book. We'll get it printed. The trouble is that I've stolen it from everywhere so anytime I see something good, I knock it off and it kind of becomes mine, but I can never remember where I got it from in the first place. I've got some because great learners always add to what's going on. If you give them a good idea, your learners should take it and improve on it.
Leanne : Yes. Absolutely. I do the same as well. Whenever there's something that's really engaging or fun, I kind of steal it and then I've got this bucket of things that I can rely on as well, not as big as the bucket that you must have.
Greg: That's only because I'm older so what happens is that you put those in. You don't really remember that you know this until you're under pressure, until you're thinking, oh god this isn't working. Oh, yes, I remember I've got that. Simple ones. You've told them everything, they're tired, it's getting towards the end of the workshop but you still got half an hour to go. You're thinking, oh god what am I going to do?
Get a piece of paper, fold it into eight squares. I've got the Greg Mitchell fast food paper folding method which takes an A4 paper folding into a hot dog fold, you'll figure it out and they get it in half and then fold it into a hamburger bun that gets into the half again, fold it into a hash brown, that gets in half again. Unwrap it, you've got eight rectangles on it.
Now, I want you to get eight different people in the room and find out a different thing from each one of them that they learned today, but you're not allowed to write on your piece of paper.
Write your name in big letters on the back and you give it to them, they write on yours, you write on theirs, swap it over, swap it over, swap it over until you've got eight. But every time you write on someone else's, make sure you leave your name on there so they know who they got it from. They go and do that and you try and make it quick like six minutes that's it, go and do it nice and quick, they sit down. Now they've got a summary of the day and you pick on someone. Tell me one thing you learned today. I got this from--
Leanne : Yes, rather than having gone around--
Greg: Whoever they said, it goes to that person.
Leanne : That's cool.
Greg: And then that passes around the corner, it was called popcorn. There's stuff that you pull out of your butt from who knows where, but when you do it, you go, okay that is so cool.
Leanne : Yes. That is so cool.
Greg: They're the sort of things that you can do in meetings and in groups and in facilitations which just make it fun, and also give them for kids. I say fold it up, now put that into your pocket when you go home and mom says what did you learn today, take it out, open it up and say these are the eight things I learned, you get teams that you with that.
Leanne : That's a really good embedding strategy, but I also liked your analogy of just folding the paper and the fast-food because most people say fold it in half, fold it in half again.
Greg: Folding paper is one of God's [unintelligible 00:50:47] to spiritual development, there are some people who just can't do it. Put it in fast-food terms. Everybody knows the food [crosstalk] fast food
Leanne : We do, unfortunately.
Greg: If you want to get down to 16, you can get in into fish fingers, and then if you want to get to 32, you can get a french fries, that's pretty cool to.
Leanne : Yes, that's cool, it just works.
Greg: You can get chicken packets and sausage rolls in there if you wanted to.
Leanne : Or meat pies.
Greg: They all depends on how you fold.
Leanne : Yes. Greg if you had to only give one piece of advice to a first-time facilitator, we've gone through many different strategies and ideas in this interview, but what would be the one piece of advice that you would offer to someone starting out?
Greg: Have fun, have fun. There's nothing so serious that you can't smile and enjoy yourself. If you're not enjoying yourself, they're not enjoying themselves. I usually start out looking fairly seriously, but I don't want to do a job that's serious all the time. Even the toughest groups that I've worked with and I've worked with St. John's ambos, emergency nurses, whole stack of other things.
They've got the best gallows humor in the world because they need that stuff. Prison officers, all of those things. They've all got a sense of gallows humor, they've all got that stuff that loosens up the load and just find ways to have little bits of whimsy in it. You don't have to be a stand-up comic. You don't have to make it all serious though. You've got to just figure out how can I show them that I'm actually enjoying this. When you're a first up presenter, one, you always doubt whether you know enough, or two you think you know a lot. The truth is somewhere in between. You probably know a lot because you're a facilitator because you know this stuff and you want to do it, but you don't know at all.
You've got to know your limits and what do you work on and that sort of stuff. The whole thing is with it is don't let the serious takes over too much because that's where the crazy, paranoid, psycho lives who will tell you constantly, "I didn't get that point covered." Because the other main point I was seeing is that they don't know whoever you're delivering, doesn't know what you don't deliver.
You can be driving home and I always do, because I'm driving, oh, I could have done-- Gee, I wished I had a-- They don't know what I haven't taught them. The other one that I would say is know that it's an emotional job. When you finish, beware in the hour or two afterwards, you will feel bad at some stage. I don't care how awesome that presentation was or how fabulously successful you are, there's usually a sugar dip in your physicality somewhere in the next hour or two.
Leanne : Really? So that's what happens to you?
Greg: Yes, I've been driving home. I've been flying back from the most successful conferences ever where I've got bookings and pats on the back and all of this sort of stuff and I'll be on the plane thinking oh God I wish I was dead. Then I go, let's just eat some.
Leanne : Yes, because it is exhausting.
Greg: Just drink some water, not alcohol. Alcohol doesn't help, although you live in the land of catered lunches when you do this job, but [unintelligible 00:55:19] always wants to give you grog, but just relax yourself all of those things, but know that it takes its emotional toll. I know a lot of people who are burnt out and have had brilliant ideas are much smarter than me and much more talented than I am but who get caught by the voices in their head after a while because they think they're failing when really it's just that physical toll.
Look after yourself, be physically fit but be aware that it's an emotional rollercoaster. If you get highs, you're going to get lows. Be aware of that, and remember that I love you, that's the other thing. There's always someone else who cares for you.
Leanne : There is, yes. That's brilliant advice. We could talk all day, Greg.
Greg: I too. I suffer from enthusiasm, I warned you, this could go for days and days.
Leanne : It's bad when you got someone else that's enthusiastic. It's like, I just want to go more and more.
Greg: Yes, there's always another idea, I'm always thinking about-- Oh there you go, there's the phone. I'm always talking about great things to work on. I'll ignore that one. I can't turn that one off.
Leanne : That's all right. Finally Greg, where can people find you if they want to connect with you or find out more about what you do?
Greg: Simple, just go on the email. I'll give you the email which is mitch@space.net.au. This answering machine.
Leanne : It's all happening at the Mitchell residence.
Greg: Yes, mitch@space.net.au. That email comes through to the business here, and usually, it'll be Kate who follows it up. Kate knows who I am when I don't know where I am and she's really good at making that work, but there's a whole ton of stuff that I'd love to talk with and work with. Many for this audience, it's the instructional intelligence stuff that most people are after. I'm happy to share that with anybody anytime, that's the global mindset. What I've got is yours. I don't have copyright, there won't be copyright on any of my books or anything like that, just simply because I've stolen it from someone else who knows about it too. That's what we do.
Leanne : That's what we do. It's a sharing economy now. That's right. Thank you so much for everything that you've spoken about today and for being so open as well. I can see exactly why your workshops are so entertaining. I've had a really entertaining conversation with you. I'm excited about listening to it again. I've taken notes personally about everything that you've said because those are things that I can put straight into my back pocket for the next time. I deliver a workshop. Thank you so much for your time.
Greg: Terrific, thank you, you have a great day and stay wonderful. I hope we keep in touch. We'll see if we can keep more good things coming.
Leanne : Perfect, thanks, Greg.
Greg: Thank you.
[00:58:38] [END OF AUDIO]
Episode 12: The two hats: Switching your mode between facilitating and presenting with Paul Hellman
On Episode 12 of the First Time Facilitator podcast, I interview Paul Hellman from Express Potential about his secrets for communication in a distracted world.Paul believes presenters only have 8 seconds to grab their audience’s attention.
On Episode 12 of the First Time Facilitator podcast, I interview Paul Hellman from Express Potential about his secrets for communication in a distracted world.Paul believes presenters only have 8 seconds to grab their audience’s attention.
In this show you’ll learn
How you can break through to ensure your message is heard (even in a distracted world)
How he likens facilitation to conducting a job interview
The great advice he received when he started leading workshops about wearing two hats (and why it's dangerous if you mix them up)
Why you need to use stories and analogies in your workshops to add more colour (even if you're just presenting facts)
How to create a stronger, more confident presence (even though most of us think that presence is a mythical beast)
How he has personally developed his communication skills (and how you can do it too
Why there is a performance element in every interaction, including email and why warm-ups help to create a positive mood.
Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider using your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
About our guest
Paul Hellman consults and speaks internationally. He has advised thousands of executives and professionals during his career. Companies hire Paul to get faster results from presentations, meetings, emails. His latest book is You've got 8 Seconds: Communication Secrets for a Distracted World. His columns have appeared in leading newspapers like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
Resources
First Time Facilitator podcast transcript with Paul Hellman (Episode 12)
Leanne: Our guest today consults and speaks internationally about effective behaviour at work, and has worked with thousands of executives, managers, and employees in leading companies. He has a master's in management and several degrees in psychology and has taught graduate courses in organizational psychology. Companies hire him to get faster results from presentations, meetings, and emails. He's written columns for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, as well as television commentaries for CNN's Financial Network.His latest book is You've Got 8 Seconds: Communication Secrets for a Distracted World. Welcome to the show Paul Hellman.Paul Hellman: Well, wonderful to be here. Thank you for having me.Leanne: Thanks so much for coming on the show. Wow, you got a lot of career history there, quite a few degrees, you also teach and have worked a bit in the media. Your mission is to get heard and get results with fast focused communication. What moments in your career led you to this?Paul: Well, actually throughout my career, I've done any number of different things, but I've always been very interested in leadership development and professional development. What that means is, I'm in rooms with executives and managers and so forth. Of course, if you're in a room like that in the last while, you can't help noticing how rare it is for people to really connect. What I mean by connect is you're speaking and somebody else is really listening, and your message is getting through.I think that's becoming more and more of a rarity. What I see is very commonplace is what I describe as airplane mode. Airplane mode is when you get on an airplane and you sit in your seat and you buckle up and then the flight attendants have to get up and they have to review the safety information which it turns out is really critical but to which we, the passengers, could care less. Frequently at meetings, someone will be talking but that doesn't mean that anybody else is actually paying attention. That's the problem that I am committed to trying to help people solve.Leanne: That's a really great example. We use that analogy a lot of the airplane. In my current role work in a really high-risk industry where at the beginning of every day, there's some safety messages that are given out, but like the safety briefing on the airplane, it becomes a bit like Groundhog Day. You do look around the room and some people have switched off to what is there an important message. Do you think the accountability is on the speaker or the listener to get the attention?Paul: When I'm working with people, I tell the people that I work with, "The accountability is completely on you." If you're speaking, it's your responsibility to figure out how to crack the code. What I mean by that is, how do you make sure that your message gets heard and that it gets remembered and that it gets the results that you're intending. The fact that I think we can agree that attention spans keep getting shorter and shorter and shorter, that is just one of many constraints. We all live in that world. That's the given.Leanne: It is a given. This is, I guess, the main premise of your book, 8 Seconds: Communication Secrets for a Distracted World. You speak about three things that we should focus on, some critical skills as the presenter. Could you share that with our listeners?Paul: Well, what I've discovered Leanne, is that there are three major strategies for how you can break through and make sure that your message, again, is heard and remembered and that it leads to the result that you're hoping for. The three strategies very simply are number one, focus, number two, variety, and number three, presence. If you'd like, we can certainly drill down on all three. If you'd like, I can say a quick sentence on each one now.Leanne: Yes, that would be fantastic, yes.Paul: Focus, the first strategy, focus is partially about how can you say it concisely, but focus is also about how can you craft a message which is going to have audience interest. That's what goes. It's really about message design. Variety is about being slightly different. The word slightly is really important, because slightly different is enough and we don't want people to do things that are outrageously different which would certainly gather attention but might be career risky. What can you do that is slightly different?Again, we can talk later about some examples. Then, presence is the mysterious one, because it turns out that there are people that you and I just listen to you and we're not even sure why. It's not really about their title, that they just seem to have some presence that draws us. In the book, one of the things that I do in the book is to try to take presence and demystify it.I do that by looking at here are 10 things, it's not meant to be an exhaustive list, but here are 10 things that I believe, again, based on about 30 years of consulting experience, contribute to somebody, being perceived because it really is about being perceived, as having this quality called presence. Focus, variety, presence, I can really explain if I'm in a room and somebody is either getting listened to or the opposite, I can almost always explain it by some combination of one or more of those three factors.Leanne: Yes, and if they're really not performing well at all, you think, "Well, they haven't ticked any of those boxes really."Paul: They haven't checked any of the boxes so their message is long and rambling. It's not focused. Their message makes them sound like everybody else so when you use the phrase earlier, Groundhog Day, that's spot-on. Consciously or unconsciously, they're doing things that subtract from their power or their presence.Leanne: That's really powerful. Let's talk about the first one, crafting a message. In the world of facilitation, a lot of the time, training and facilitation are quite different. Training is giving instructions and being quite prescriptive, whereas facilitation is engaging with your audience and ensuring that their learning experiences are shared with the room and you're sort of controlling the direction of the conversation. How do you use focus then to prepare as a facilitator for running say a group workshop?Paul: I do actually all the time both those things and sometimes in the same event. If I'm doing a workshop, let's say that's three hours or a full day, it's certainly not me talking for that length of time. I'm talking and then I'm facilitating other people talking, because I do believe that the more people talk and the more people are engaged, the less likely of course they are to space out. What focus means for a facilitator is being clear about the roadmap. I'll give you an analogy.It would be like if you were interviewing somebody for a job. If you're a good interviewer Leanne, you're not going to do most of the talking. The interviewee is going to do most of the talking but you have a roadmap for where you want to leave that person. Your roadmap is the series of questions that you ask. Those questions need to be smart questions and they need to be sequenced in a smart way. I think focus for a facilitator really means the same thing.How are you going to leave the discussion a lot through the questions you ask, how do you sequenced those questions, and have you focused the questions on the right thing, because the art of asking questions is itself I think something that people can do well or not well. In fact, I have a whole section in the book, the You've Got 8 Seconds, book just about the art of asking questions. It belongs in the second strategy-- Actually, in the book, I put it in the second strategy variety.It's in variety because it's more interesting in a conversation to have different voices than to have just you speaking and your monologue. If I can get somebody else speaking, that adds variety. One of the things I'm always telling people is that one of the most interesting things you can do when you're speaking, stop speaking. Stop speaking doesn't just mean- it does, of course, mean that there's rhetorical value to pause them, but it also means that there's tremendous value in getting other people in the conversation, therefore, being able to ask smart questions and really think through those questions often in advance in the way that you have is a skill.Leanne: I love that you're telling people to stop talking. Do you think that when you're asked to present something and be at the front of the room, that you immediately think that you do have to do all the talking, do you think that's still a perception of a lot of trainers these days?Paul: I want to be careful about generalizing across a category of people, but certainly I think it's a lot that trap that you are flagging is an important one because it is alive and well and we fall into it. There is that sense that when you're up in front of the room that you should be the expert. Again, that's a trap, you don't have to be the expert, you just have to be an expert facilitator.When I was starting in my career I got this great advice about leading workshops, what the person told me was you really want to think about yourself as wearing two different hats. There is one hat when you're presenting, that's one mode and there is a certain body language and there is a certain set of behaviours that accompany that mode. There's a second hat which is you facilitate it and that's a different mode and there's a different body language and there's a different set of behaviour that ought to accompany that.Leanne: That's excellent quote that we can share, thank you for sharing that with us. I can see why it had such an impact on you, because I've never heard that quote, but I think it's true, and that I'm reflecting very quickly on the things that I run. When you need to show someone a new model you are in that, not teacher, kind of a teacher state. Then when you're moving to role playing and getting groups to try it out it does feel a bit relaxed and the questions start flowing a bit more as well.Paul: Again, I've got something in the book on this again under variety because it goes even beyond facilitation to management. What I mean by that is those two modes that we're flagging, you're presenting or you're facilitating. If you are a manager, one way that shows up is every time you make a decision. If you're presenting what that means, and this is the language I used in the book, if you're presenting a decision you're in the announcement mode. If you are facilitating a decision you are in the discuss mode.It's really striking and dangerous how many managers mix those two modes up, and what that looks like is, you might have a manager who wants to appear to be participative, meaning facilitative, and she might call everybody into the room and say, "We've got this problem I'm so glad you are here, we'd love to get all of your input." Then a robust discussion follows at the end of which she says, "That was just great, let me tell you now what we're going to do."Leanne: [laughs]Paul: You're sitting there thinking, wait a minute, if you already knew what we were going to do why did we go through this whole, what now seems like a shred of a discussion. It's fine to announce a decision and it's fine to discuss a decision, but just like for a facilitator, knowing which mode you're in is the critical thing and also being able to have the flexibility to move across the modes, so that you can do both, you're not a one trick pony. If you're a facilitator you can present and you can facilitate, if you're a manager you can announce and you can discuss, but you're very clear, and more importantly your audience is very clear what the mode is.Leanne: You talk about flexibility being a really important skill which leads into that second topic of variety. Already in our conversation I've noticed that you've brought in a couple of different analogies, is that another way that you can make things slightly different in the way that you deliver a message, by bringing in stories and other things?Paul: Absolutely, because what stories and analogies do is that they add colour. What that means is that, I'm always working with business executives and business leaders and business professionals, and the language of business it is just is what is. The language of business is facts, figures, numbers and data and one more thing which is business abstractions. What I mean by that is, an abstraction is anything that you really can't visualize.An example from the book, and from one of my workshops, I was working with a woman one day and she had a presentation and her topic was the quality maturity model, that was the topic. There is nothing wrong with that topic especially if it resonates with her audience, but it's a very good example of what [inaudible 00:15:15] abstractions, because if you look at each of those three words, quality, maturity, model, not any of them, none of them are you able to visualize.If I say on the other hand, imagine being at the beach, notice how easy that is immediately even if you don't like the beach and immediately what comes to mind is a beach, you either see a picture or you hear the waves or you can feel the sun, these are all concrete sensory experiences. If the language of business is facts and figures, numbers, data but also business abstractions, then one way to be slightly different and as appropriate is to colour whatever your message is with an analogy or with a story, because that takes your audience immediately into something that they can visualize, which means that they are much more engaged and much more attentive.Leanne: This has been a common theme with previous guests that I've interviewed on the show. We had a guy, he was a project manager now, he's a humor engineer, more recently Matthew Dicks has written another book about story telling as well. What they say is they start collecting some examples of stories just through their day-to-day lives, and when they do need to lean on an example in a workshop they've got a big repository of information they can refer to, which is really-Paul: Which is very useful and it's a great habit, and I think the trick with all that is to realize that the idea of whole workshop just on stories. What I'm always trying to get people to realize is that everyday your life and my life are filled with stories, and anecdote and examples. They don't have to be anything, they're usually not anything large or big or melodramatic, they're these small human moments. What makes the common thread surprisingly is that they tend to be negative emotional experiences. They tend to be these small human moments where you were feeling frustrated or disappointed or surprised or anxious, then the story becomes how was that negative emotional experience resolved.Leanne: That's good, I'm just thinking if I have any colleagues or friends come to me with a negative story I'll just tell them to write it down. [laughs]Paul: Yes, just tell them to write it down or to say it out loud. That's a variety, but then if we go back to focus the issue with the story is that number one, you need to make sure that it's going to capture people's attention, which is why negative, believe it or not, negative emotional situations work best. We are as humans usually more interested in hearing about things that have gone wrong than things that have gone right.You need to find a story that's going to hook people's attention, but then you also because we are talking about a business context, you also need to make sure your story lands on a business relevant point. You need to tell the story as concisely as you possibly can, and that's how we get back to focus, because the question with focus is always, what's the right amount of detail? With your story that's the question of the story, what's the right amount of detail? We need enough detail so that the story has a here and now scene that would hook us, but we don't want so much detail that we lose the thread of the story and that we lose the point of the story.Leanne: I can think of examples of both people that have told me stories that have had little detail so you can't really connect or understand or visualize what was going on, then too much that you end up just tuning out and your eyes glaze over. It's not easy but a bit interesting you write in your book how you actually decide on that detail.Paul: Yes.Leanne: We got to talk about focus and variety. The third one which is it's quite interesting, you talked about presence. How do we, I guess, break down that myth of what it is to create a great presence and why some people will naturally gravitate towards them and others, we don't? What is it? How do we explore that?Paul: Yes, I think it's really important. I want to say two things about presence. One is I do think it's a useful idea. Again, I have a whole workshop just on presence but also, it's got a mystique and it creates the sense that this is another one of those things that you're either born with or not. I think it's really important to try to make presence more concrete and to say, "Here are some of the things that contribute to other people's perception that you have presence." Let's just stay on that for a minute.I want to argue that presence ultimately is nothing more than an inference, that is somebody infers about you based on a number of data points. They saw you do this, they heard you say that and so on and so forth. They had a number of concrete experiences with you. From those concrete experiences, which could be very, very fast, they then infer Leanne either has presence or she doesn't have presence.Presence lives as an inference, but what's within our control are those moments, those data points, those things that we did or didn't do, said or we didn't say, that led other people to the conclusion, to the inference that we have this mystical thing called presence. I'll give you an example. I've got 10 things in the book, but the one that's probably the easiest to remember, one of the 10 is non-verbals. How do you present yourself non-verbally? Now, let's say I'm giving a presentation or let's say I'm facilitating something.Well, how do I walk in the room? Do I stand straight? Am I slouched? Do I speak with volume or is my voice harder to hear? Do I have appropriate eye contact? Let's say that we're supposed to start the meeting at nine o'clock, but maybe half the room hasn't arrived yet. Do I say, "What should we do?" Half the room isn't here and I know there was bad traffic. Do you think we should just wait?All that's kind of [unintelligible 00:23:10] as opposed to, "Good morning. It's nine o'clock. Let's start. Thank you all for coming. I realized there may be some people straggling in but we've got a lot to cover. Here we go." That's an example of saying something with authority that would communicate presence although presence, again, is just an inference. I am acting. Another way of saying that is, I'm going to say the same thing a different way, I can act with confidence in these nonverbal ways.Stand straight, have good eye contact, speak with volume. I can act with confidence, but I don't need the feeling of confidence to do any of that. If I act with confidence enough times, that would be one thing that might lead people to the perception that I have this mystical thing called presence.Leanne: [chuckles] Yes. That reminds me just this week, I was asked to present something to our global executive team. I speak all the time in front of people, but I was pretty nervous about this audience. Went in there, delivered it, prepared for it, walked out, and wasn't too sure how it went but I spoke to one of our executive assistants afterwards and she said, "Oh my gosh, your presence, you were just so welcoming. It was fantastic," and all the sort of stuff. I was trying to think, "What was it about that?"I think what you said, I've been faking it until I made it. I answered questions in a focused way instead of [unintelligible 00:24:54] around it. That's just because I was prepared. I think little tweaks like that, even if you don't have the confidence just yet, you can actually pretend that you do through yes, pulling your shoulders back and answering questions quite directly like that. Those are fantastic examples.Paul: Yes, and when you said you were perceived as being welcoming, what that made me think about is smiling. Really like almost all nonverbal behaviour, smiling is a really good example of something that you and I want to do in moderation. Meaning, if we go back to flexibility, you want to be able to smile and you want to be able to not smile. They're both really important.If I'm up in front of let's say the kind of audience that you were confronting, I want to show a certain amount of seriousness so I'm not going to be smiling the entire time I'm up in front of the room, but on the other hand, to smile at the beginning is very welcoming and it makes it look like I'm happy to be there, and if I'm happy to be there, then I must have a certain level of being relaxed and confident. Just in that smiling, you're sending all sorts of signals.I just I think as human beings, we have a long history of reading other people's body language. We're very attuned. We're not always accurate about it but we're very attuned. I've worked with people. I've worked with executives who never smile and they just scare everybody who particularly are people that report to them and then, I've worked with other people are smiling 24/7 and they get the feedback, "You don't seem to really have a seriousness that we're looking for." It's, again, this flexibility, the ability to do both.I think we could take almost any nonverbal behaviour. Again, non-verbals are just 1 of 10 ways that you can create the perception of presence, but if we're focused on non-verbals, you can take almost anything, smiling, eye contact, moving versus stillness. We're looking for that middle ground.Leanne: Yes, and the ability to flex when required.Paul: Yes.Leanne: We spoke about focus, variety, and presence. I've got to say, this conversation, you've just demonstrated all three things through the way that you personally communicate. How did you become so good at the art of communicating in general?Paul: Well, I will take the compliment. [chuckles] Although I'm sure we could find people that would argue, "Really? You think he's good?"[laughter]Paul: We could get that. I think let's just say it's debatable how good or not good, but I'm certainly better and I'm also committed to continuously improving. I think that's the secret. It's about I do think it really, this won't shock anybody, but it really is about practice and feedback and practice and feedback and practice and feedback. I've had, again, years and years of that. I continue to do that. I will make sure that on a regular basis, if somebody hasn't videotaped me for something, I'll videotape myself and I'll watch it.I almost always have the exact same experience every time I videotape myself and watch it, I have the exact same experience over and over and over again which is one, I'm grateful that I have gotten rid of a bad habit that somebody flagged and number two, I'm dismayed that there's a new bad habit that I was completely unaware of up until I saw the video. I think these good habits, trying to build on good habits, trying to eliminate bad habits, you never, ever, ever get to a point where you're done.There's always room for improvement. There's always room for improvement. I think it's the staying interested and committed to how can I do this thing to my very best ability all the time. Of course, you can't ever do it perfectly but when I'm working with speakers, one of the things that I tell speakers, because this is a hard one, is every time you speak, immediately after, before you seek feedback, you want to give yourself feedback.Where you want to go is you first want to try to figure out, and this is the one that's hard, you want to try to figure out what one, two, three things did I do well. Even if you didn't think the whole thing was up to par, what one, two, or three things did you do well? Then, on the other side, what one, two, or three things could I do better, and if you do that honestly and regularly then you're done and that is fine, and you will continuously improve and then of course it is useful, it is very useful to not limit yourself to your own perception but to seek feedback in all sorts of ways from other people, friends, family, colleagues.Leanne: That's actually a really good habit that you could just use in your day-to-day work life as well or just life in general, reflect on the day and say what one, two or three things went well overall in my day and what are few things I could improve up on, good little skills to bring in. In terms of advice for facilitators that are starting their journey, I really want to talk about the point you raised before about video and you're the first facilitator Ive interviewed that has recommended that as an option for getting feedback. Most of the time it's talking to your colleague or whoever is in the room about that. I think we all know why video is good, we can see ourselves, is it that the reason that we can just, it's very obvious when we see ourselves on the screen that, oh gosh I'm putting my hands on my pocket so I'm looking this way a lot. Is that why it's so effective?Paul: Yes, and because a lot of what we're doing non-verbally we are unaware of. In poker they would call that a tale, a tale meaning that you are doing something unconsciously that is signalling other people what kind of a poker hand you have. We're very aware most of the time of other people's nonverbal behaviours, we're not so aware of our own behaviours. We know what our intention is when we're communicating, what we don't know is actually, how we're coming across. For example, one thing that I do and I've been doing this for years, I do it regularly every single week I never miss, it takes two minutes and it's very simple, at the end of any week, I can do work fairly late on Friday, I rerecord my outgoing office message.It's a fairly easy thing to do. If you called me you would get, "Hi, this is Paul Hellman at Express Potential," whatever the week happened to be, the week of April whatever. The reason I do it is primarily practice. I have a message of course because I'm all about focus so my message is probably 15, 20 seconds at most, it's a short message. The point is after I record it I get to hear it before I save it. That's the really interesting moment, I get to play it back and hear it, and what might surprise you is that I would say at least half the time I go, huh, that's not exactly how I want to come across, then I rerecord it.Sometimes I rerecord it once or twice or three times, but the point is for me that is weekly vocal practice. You asked about video but voice is also really important, and a lot of us don't know how we're coming across. It's that experience that you had maybe when you were really little and first time you hear your voice on a recording machine and you're absolutely horrified because it doesn't sound like the voice that you knew, you and I want to make friends with that voice and with that image so that we are recognizable to ourselves, but also that we are getting feedback on a regular basis.Leanne: You're really challenging me here, I hate recording those messages, but that is such a great way to what you've said to practice every week. I'm not [unintelligible 00:33:49] great service for your colleagues and people calling you, but it's quite practice. I'm relating to this really well because I've discovered this by starting this podcast, on the first couple of episodes I found it really hard to listen to myself and record and do all those things but now it's becoming a lot easier. I think every time I listen to an episode I pick up on things that I need to improve for the next one, and I've got little notes written around the room as well to send me reminders.Paul: I love what you're saying because I think the takeaway for people listening is hard at first and then gets easier, not only does it get easier, but also, I'm sure your performance keeps getting better and better and better, based on those things that you're posting, those reminders.Leanne: For sure. You just mentioned that voice it's something that you need to get used to and I've read one of your articles on your website about speaking and how you say that speaking in itself is a very physical event. Prior to this call we were talking about how we travel, we get up pretty early and go for a jog and things like that, are there any other pre-presentation rituals that you have?Paul: I do find that having a ritual is really, really, really important, and I want to just come back to that. Whether you're speaking or you're facilitating, if you're up in front of an audience that is a physical event. In the same way if you were to go running you would probably do some kind of a warm-up. I think it's just so critical to do some kind of a warm-up. My own preference is to do a physical warm-up. In that article that you're mentioning on my website, I think there is the line that I'm always telling people, the more you sweat before an event the less you'll sweat during the event.I find that if I do a 45-minute intense aerobic workout before a workshop or before a keynote speech, and I can't tell you the last time I did a workshop or did a keynote speech without doing that. I will get up at crazy early hours in the morning just to exercise. I'm not suggesting that that's the only way to warm up, I do mostly want to say that you need to find some way to warm up, to warm up your voice, to warm up your body and also to get into the right mood. I'm not assuming that you and I wake up every single day in the right mood to bring our best self to work.I would really stretch those and get people thinking about everyday at work, even if you're working at home to the extent to which you're interacting with other people on the phone or even in email, there is a performance element and warm-up is really important. Being in the right mood is not something that happens by accident. This doesn't have to be complicated, for some people it might be listening to a certain piece of music. What is the piece of music that gets your heart beating a little bit and that gets you feeling more upbeat? Well, listen to that. There's even a way to do that, so if you had a favorite piece of music you listen to it enough times in real time, so that then you could walk into a room and that music could be playing in your mind.Leanne: I've recently on Spotify I started the first time facilitative playlist and it's just the music that I listen to before workshops and I thought I've been asked if listeners could collaborate that with theirs as well, it's all-Paul: I think that's excellent.Leanne: Songs that you can really sing to and warm up your voice which is fun. Who are your speaker role models and who did you look up to when you were starting your journey in this or do you still look up to them?Paul: There's no one person that I could name that would I think be recognizable to the audience here. I want to say the question that you're asking is a really important question. I could think in my mind of any number of colleagues that I've worked with that I've learnt from. In fact, what I usually counsel people to do is learn from everybody. I don't mean that in a facile way, what I mean by that is every time you're in a room listening to somebody, a presenter, a facilitator, that's an opportunity.We can keep this very simple, it's very simple which is, the way I put it is, just notice when are you tuned in and when are you tuned out, and blame it all on the person in the front of the room. Anytime that you're tuned in that's a moment for you to be asking, wow what is that person upfront doing that caught my attention? Then of course the opposite for when you find your mind distracted.Leanne: I think we can all find examples of both.[laughter]Leanne: That's excellent.Paul: Yes.Leanne: Finally Paul, where can people find you?Paul: I really appreciate you asking that Leanne. The easiest way to find me is to visit my website, and I would love for people to do that because it's a totally as of last week a completely newly revamped website that I'm very, very excited about. There are all sorts of free things there. There are fast video tips that are two minutes. There are fast print tips that are 30 seconds. If you go to the website which is expresspotential.com. That would be the easiest way and that's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-P-O-T-E-N-T-I-A-L.com, expresspotential.com. If you like fast tips, and we're talking about 30-second tips, I've been doing these for about 10 years, cnbc.com for about a five-year period, they were posting these regularly so they ran over a hundred of them on their website, but I continue to write these.That might be something that your listeners might be interested in trying. The promise of that is it takes no time to read them. There's no spam and no cost. People can also reach me by email and the email is paul@expresspotential.com.Leanne: Fantastic, and congratulations on your new website as well. We might have to get you back in a future episode to see how you manage all your time and fit all this in. I know creating website and content, it's very time-consuming.Paul: It's time-consuming, but I think if you're in the space that you're in and that I'm in and that your listeners are in, it's time well spent. The reason is that it gives you something to say. It gives you new intellectual property. It makes you an object of interest. It also is a way to discover your voice and what it is that you really want to say.Leanne: Absolutely. Thank you so much for being on the show. I guess the reason why I started this podcast is because I'm continuing my journey as a facilitator. I really wanted to find out from superstars who were good at it and what they were doing and just to share that with other people. I personally just from our conversation now, 40-minute conversation of what, so much that I can do and implement straight away. There was a speech I did last year that has been recorded that I have not watched yet because I was scared of watching it. I will watch that today. [chuckles]Paul: Very good. I want to say that just based on this last 40 minutes, you really have excellent facilitation skills. It's really been a pleasure and a privilege to speak with you Leanne.Leanne: Wonderful. Thank you so much. It's wonderful connecting with people from around the world. We will link to all the resources in your website and your email address on our show notes too, so our listeners can get in touch. Maybe yes, one day, look after say the 50th or 60th episode, we'll have to get you back because I think there's so much more we could have explored here.Paul: I'll look forward to that day.Leanne: Wonderful. Thanks so much Paul.Paul: Thank you Leanne.
Episode 11: Losing your voice when delivering a workshop? You’re doing it wrong with Emmanuella Grace
In this First Time Facilitator episode, Emmanuella Grace from Find Your Voice Australia explains what your voice is telling people. After running full-day workshops, she shares her ideas on preventing voice loss, and the fundamental things you can do to look after your voice. We explore longer-term approaches to creating stronger voice presence, which involves exploring your mindset.
In this First Time Facilitator episode, Emmanuella Grace from Find Your Voice Australia explains what your voice is telling people. After running full-day workshops, she shares her ideas on preventing voice loss, and the fundamental things you can do to look after your voice. We explore longer-term approaches to creating stronger voice presence, which involves exploring your mindset.
In this episode you’ll learn
How to look after the instrument that matters the most in your facilitation
What to do when the adrenaline is high before a big presentation (and how to avoid your vocal chords from closing over)
The secret of the three second pause and how you can use it at your next meeting
Why you need to talk out loud before preparing for a workshop (rather than just reading your notes)
Why you hate hearing your voice when it’s played back to you
About our guest
Emmanuella is the founder of Find Your Voice, a vocal training organisation of voice and performance experts dedicated to training people from all walks of life to master their voice and give strong performances. With almost 2 decades of performance and coaching experience in Australia, the UK, Europe and the USA Emmanuella Grace has helped 1000’s of people overcome the obstacles that limit their performances.
Resources
Read the First Time Facilitator episode transcript with Emmanuella Grace.
First Time Facilitator podcast transcript (Episode 11)
Leanne : Our guest today helps their client's to overcome the physiological, psychological, and creative barriers to expressing themselves with poise and clarity. She's performed both as a soloist and in choirs at venues including the Sydney Opera House, the Royal Albert Hall and BBC Radio in the UK. She's the founder of Find Your Voice, a vocal training organization dedicated to training people from all walks of life to master their voice and give strong performances. Welcome to the show Emmanuella Grace.
Emmanuella Grace: Thank you for having me.
Leanne : Thanks so much for coming on the show nice and early at 7:30 in the morning, and we're talking about voices.
Emmanuella: It's the best time of day [laughs].
Leanne : It is. It is. I'd love for you to tell our listeners your story, how you wound up as a voice coach and leading this company Find Your Voice.
Emmanuella: Yes. I'll give you the abbreviated version because one piece of advice I was given by a mentor of mine, James Morrison, was that I was at a camp and someone asked him what was your big break, and he said, "I didn't get a big break. There were lots of little breaks". I think that's something really important to consider when you have a big picture in mind, or certainly in the performing industry, people have these ideals that they will sign a record deal and their life is made. What they're receiving is that message that your voice doesn't belong here; your voice doesn't have validity here. We don't want to hear you because we don't like how it sounds.
I was lucky enough to have some people back me over the years later on where I was stubbornly determined to become a singer irrespective, so I found the people to train me and the resources to help me become that because nothing makes me want to do something like being told I can't. I think not everyone has that determination because they don't have the vision.
One of the first things I work on with clients and people often feel like it's a really strange thing; they don't really see how it fits is the first session is always working out where are you going with this. What do you actually want? What do you actually want from your life? Because how are you ever going to be determined to go up against those challenges and keep going and survive the discouragements, survive the setbacks if you don't have a really clear vision of where you're going. It's impossible.
Leanne : Yes.
Emmanuella: Because you will just be taken out at the first barrier.
Leanne : That's right. I think it's true when you mention the subliminal messages. You don't really pick those up and respond to it. At least you take it on over time if it's reinforced. We develop that mindset about ourselves which has been given to us by other people.
Emmanuella: It's heartbreaking especially in Anglo-Saxon coaches where singing has been relegated to a part of our culture that only belongs to crazy people or talented people [laughs]. Singing is one of those liberating things. It's so good for your health, but you can only have that if you're crazy or if you're talented because otherwise, you should really keep that to the shower.
Leanne : True. I was living in Ireland for about six to eight months, and I went to a house party one night. It was two in the morning, and everyone's bringing out their musical instruments. Everyone was singing and had this amazing voice. I was like, "This would never happen in Australia", and it was amazing.
Emmanuella: No, exactly. You don't go to indigenous cultures where the whole village is singing, and then one guy sits in the corner and claps his sticks because we don't like his voice. I think it's really important to make the differentiation between having a good voice and it being someone's aesthetic bias. I talk a lot with my clients about aesthetic bias which means what I think sounds good. When I first started out coaching, I worked with a massive range of voices, everything from people in screamo having metal bands through to folk singers because I was predominantly coaching singers initially.
I don't have to like the sound of your voice. I don't have to like what you do with it. My job is to help you do what you want to do with it in a way that's healthy and free. If it's healthy and if you are doing what it is you want to do in a way that's technically correct, I don't have to like your voice. There's a lot of teachers or people calling themselves coaches out there that what they're saying is "I don't like the sound of your voice. Therefore, your voice is bad". That is heartbreaking to me because our job is not to inflict our opinions on our clients. It's to help our clients get to where they want to go and be objective.
Leanne : Fantastic. That really makes sense when your business is called Find Your Voice Australia. It's finding your own voice. What do you say to people-- I know even through the process of recording this podcast and listening to myself, a lot of people- I do it myself too -say, "I hate my voice". What do you say to people that--
Emmanuella: I love that you ask me that question actually because I would have the same impulse if I were to listen to what I'm hearing which is actually not my voice. It is sound waves that have come out of my mouth, being through ambiance space in a room have been picked up by a digital machine, compressed, transmitted somewhere, fed back through a really cheap bit of recording material and then ended up back through some really poor quality speakers back in my ears. Actually, I'm not hearing my voice. What I'm hearing is digital impulses that have been transformed into something that represents my voice.
It's a little bit like if you had a really bad photo of you taken one day drunkenly at a birthday party on your 20th, and then when you're 40, you're like, "No, that's what I still look like, and that's what I look like all the time". It's a snapshot of you in that moment from a not very flattering angle, and this recording equipment will never give you a flattering angle.
Leanne : That's very reassuring. Thank you.
Emmanuella: [laughs] Yes.
Leanne : Why is voice so important? We understand for performances. We go to the opera, or you hear someone sing the national anthem. It's super important, but why is voice important just in our day to day interactions?
Emmanuella: It's a good question. There's a few reasons. Firstly, it's often in contemporary culture when we speak on phones and things the first point of contact we have with people. What is your voice telling people? Think about the messages that you're giving that are not just verbal because verbally the messages you give, the words you choose, the tone of your voice, these are all things that are conveying information as well not just how you sound. You have all this information being conveyed to a person, but all you're thinking about probably are the words that you're saying if that.
The second reason voice is important-- Tone of voice we don't just coach the voice. We coach the whole body, and we also coach mindset. The reason for that is when you walk into a room, even before you speak you have conveyed an awful lot of information, and people have often made an assessment of you in the first few seconds. If you walk in and you're the best-looking person in the room that stands up straight and makes eye contact, you're already assumed- there's research that shows this- you're already assumed to be smarter than everyone else in the room.
With that bias, how does that affect how people are going to relate to you if they have already come from an assumption that you know more than they do because you stand up straight; you make eye contact, and you look confident. You haven't even opened your mouth yet. Then imagine that this person who appeared to be so confident has this whiny, tiny insignificant little voice. They've immediately undermined all that gain that they have just from their appearance. If they can reinforce that with a really confident voice, I'm sure they can tell you that there are pink elephants in Spain, and you might just have a moment where you believe them because they've come to you with such authority.
Leanne : Yes.
Emmanuella: This is something that the extroverts know post Industrial Revolution. A little bit of a rant of mine, I have a passion of coaching introverts because let's be honest, they're the deep thinkers that have that process, but they're losing out in contemporary culture in terms of how we employ people because they don't have the natural hotspur that extroverts have. The extrovert will walk into the room with his head high and with a confident voice. They may not have that deep thought process, but people are going to believe them.
Post Industrial Revolution, the most powerful people, the people that were promoted were the ones that could sell the best. You sell the best units, you must be the best, and if you're the confident one, you will sell better. Whereas a lot of today's problems need to be resolved by thinkers, the introverts, but they don't have the natural skill set that's acquired as part of their personality type to walk into the room with their head high and their shoulders squared and make eye contact and convey those thoughts. They get lost in the details. When they are speaking to people, they don't sound confident, so the information they're giving- I see it in boardrooms all the time -is being passed over.
Actually, they might have some absolutely brilliant, lateral thoughts or insightful things to share that could really resolve problems, but they're speaking in a way that undermines their credibility. I have a special passion for working with introverts to help them sit up at that table and present with the confidence of an extrovert but share the information of an introvert. It's amazing, and I've seen careers just launch, just absolutely skyrocket.
The thing is sometimes people say, "I don't want to be fake. I don't want to come across as someone I'm not". That's a really legitimate concern, but the thing is if those thoughts are yours, it's like learning to dress a little better, learning to wear jeans that fit well or clothes that are tailored well. You're still choosing the clothes. You're still choosing things that suit you and doing it your way. You're doing it in a way where you will feel confident, and you will present yourself better. You're kind of giving yourself a super power.
Leanne : That is really an interesting approach that you spoke about: mindset and even the way that you move and the way that you present your body. When you have your client come in for the first meeting or one-on-one and you start doing that, you said that they are a bit confused and not too sure what was happening. I thought they'll just be warming up their voices and doing all those sort of things.
Emmanuella: Correct. There's a lot of people out there training short term solutions. Find Your Voice is a passion project for me. I didn't start this company because I needed the money. I started this because when I started coaching-- I put an ad in the paper in London-- not the paper, in Gumtree for voice lessons instead of singing lessons. I started getting people coming to me from the city. I got doctors and bankers and things, but the only thing I knew to do was teach them to sing initially.
I wasn't a singing teacher. I'd gotten into coaching because someone had asked me to coach them. I'd said, "I'm not a singing teacher". She said, "No, I want a coach. I want you to teach me what it is you do". Because there's lots of people who can teach you how to sing but to get up on stage and have that poise and that control of an audience and that control of yourself and your band and be able to have an awareness of everything that's happening in the environment and be able to lead that with confidence, that's what she wanted to learn how to do.
When I put this note in Gumtree that I was going to teach, the people I was attracting weren't only singers. That made me start to realize there is a lot of people out there that don't have ownership of their voice. There's nothing wrong with their voices. Their voices are healthy. What's wrong is their attitude towards their voices, and then that's being manifest through their body. Their voice is the sound that comes out of your body. You wouldn't take a trumpet and beat it up and fill it with mud and be like, "Why doesn't this play well?"
You have to look after the instrument. You have to think about how is the instrument that is creating this sound being used, so I started working with their bodies.
I had one guy. I was working with a medical organization in a collaboration where he'd been to every doctor there was. It was when they were having the recession. Everything was just crashing down in London. This guy had been to every doctor there was, and he still couldn't breathe. This guy was worth millions, just could have had anything he wanted, and he hadn't been able to breathe in six months. He was terrified. They'd send him home from work. They called me, and they are like, "Look, someone had suggested singing lessons. You seem a little left of field. Will you see this guy?" I was like, "Yes, sure. Send him over". Probably not my most professional moment but he came in.
He was sitting on the couch in the corner of my studio just like huddled up, completely scrunched up. If he could have disappeared into the corner of that couch in the corner of that room, I think that's what he would have wanted. I got him to lay on the floor and start breathing. He was really distressed. Finally, I put my hand on him just to-- I said, "Do you mind, I'm going to touch you?" "Yes, that's fine", just to adjust his poise and he started to shake. Then he started to cry and just sob, just sob like I've never seen anything like it.
I just said, "I'll give you a hug". I didn't know what else to do. I was thinking about all the training that I'd had in physiology where you bind people that are overwhelmed. I just held him for 10, 15 minutes. This guy just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. Then he said to me, "I haven't been touched in six years. I won't let my wife touch me because I'm scared I will fall apart".
He just sobbed, and then by the end of the session he was breathing easily. Then I got a message saying, "Thank you so much. Keep the money for all the other sessions. I actually booked a trip for my family and I to Spain. We're gone". He was like, "I can breathe again. and that's all that I needed". That is a person whose voice is so constricted. He couldn't even ask for a hug from his wife. He couldn't even find the words. He couldn't even give himself the permission to ask for something he needed so desperately for that long.
It just bound him up. His whole body was bound up. If I can help people find a way to release that tension and release that energy so that they can feel free to express themselves in a way that's rewarding and that's honest and that's candid, then I think you can say that that's someone finding their voice.
Leanne : Well done you.
Emmanuella: Going to university in Australia, I did master's in education, and one of the big rules is don't touch people. I really came up against that because I thought, "I think that there is a place for human touch". I think ask permission first and keep it appropriate, and make sure that you match appropriate coaches with the right person. I think that there does need to be a space for touch in the coaching room if we're training bodies. You wouldn't tell a physio they can't touch you.
Leanne : Yes. It's about the context. You did mention that you had some training in physiology that supported you in that moment.
Emmanuella: Exactly, right. I was hit by a car when I was 18, and it was pretty serious. I couldn't really function very well for many years. I discovered Alexander Technique as part of my training in acting. Alexander Technique is just one of the number of ways of learning to use your body. There's a lot out there like [unintelligible 00:15:41] and things. They're all really good. What essentially they do is help you develop an awareness of how you use your body in a space and help you maintain good poise.
When I went back and studied music, I took every elective there was in anatomy. At Melbourne Uni when I did my master's in performance there, there was some very good teachers that had a background in physiology that they would teach us about the voice in the context. Also, when I was in London, I started working with a lot of physios and doctors after I had a vocal injury, just kind of picking their brains as we went through the process of healing me and then later on collaborating with the British Association of Performing Arts Medicine so working with doctors and physios to help treat other musicians.
Then I was actually on the board of a charity here in Australia [unintelligible 00:16:27 which is again for performing arts health. I have a real interest in how the body affects us as performers. You might be the most brilliant musician mentally, but if you can't actually deliver that using again your instrument, what good it to you?
Leanne : What about listeners that are tuning in and they believe that they've got a few blockers? They might be at a board meeting, and they're kind of squeaking out their ideas. What are some things that they can do? Are there any ways they can reflect? What can they do to start that process of finding their voice?
Emmanuella: I think developing a sense of self awareness is really important. I have one thing that I advice people to do especially when they start to feel the adrenaline kick off. You know you're going speak, then the adrenaline kicks off. The first thing that happens is your throat closes over because part of the fight flight of freeze response in our body is to protect our lungs because you can be brain dead and still alive, but if you're not breathing, you're a cactus. The body's first impulse is to protect the lungs, so it will close over the throat which is a valve that closes to stopping anything getting into the lungs. You will have this impulse. You'll feel like your throat is closing over because it is.
We have this amazing nerve in our body called the vagus nerve. I love it. It sounds like a party. It actually runs through your whole system. If you take a nice deep breath in through the nose, it will stimulate that. It's also what when babies rub their eyes or when we as [unintelligible 00:17:59] kind of touch our face reassuring or distracted way, we're stimulating that nerve or in yoga when you do the Ujjayi breath. Taking a breath through the nose and then I say, "Count to three while you do it".
Because there's another exercise I teach people called the three second pause. It's amazing what you can gain with three seconds of pausing.
It will feel like a long time to you, but it will really open up the room. It's one of those things where if you take the three seconds pause and you use that time to breathe in through your nose before you go, you'll be more centered and more present, and your thought process will be clear. I would combine that with a exercise that we do called red and yellow cards which is we prepare some phrases in advance for situations that you know you'll feel nervous in. If for you interjecting in a conversation makes you feel the stress or you feel uncertain, write up some phrases that will help you to do that and then practice them, like, "I would like to interject here", then do your three second pause. You've got everyone's attention then you go.
Leanne : That is such a great technique.
Emmanuella: Yes, this is something that I use for everything, from helping people deal with bullies through to the boardroom.
Leanne : On that note of working with diverse audiences, do you change anything when someone comes in, a client comes in, or do you have a prescribed process and that's what you'll take them through? How does it work from working with bullies through to the boardroom?
Emmanuella: There is still some fundamental things that will apply to all of us as human beings. I have distilled those into some concepts that I also train my team in. That being said, everyone that's on my team are professional performers. They're actually out there everyday doing it which can make it really interesting trying to book them to coach because they're all doing shows or gigs or whatever. The thing is you're working with people that actually do it everyday. They're not someone that went to university, got a piece of paper and then never performed again. They understand what it’s like to go through that process. What they have been able to do and what I do is when a person is in a room with you, you meet them where they’re at. Let go of all preconceptions that you had. This isn’t about you; it’s about the person that you’re in that room to nurture in that moment. I know that in business it’s smarter to do one-too-many. You make more money, and that’s fine, but that’s not what we’re doing here.
I think everyone has their individual things that are bothering them. Even if you can fit those things in to a number of categories so that you can take a generalized approach, each person still needs to feel like they’ve been heard. They need to feel like you’re there for them and that’s transformative having someone give you their undivided attention. We do have some modules that we apply, that we teach everyone, but in that moment it is personalized for you because everyone is different, and then everyone is the same.
We all have essentially the same mechanics. The thought that is hijacking those mechanics and causing perhaps some kind of amygdala freak-out where you’re triggering fear and fright or freeze, that might be different for each person, but the outcome is the same. Physiologically, we’re having the same response, but for one person it might be that I’m scared of dogs and another person that might be I’m scared of rejection. You’re going to apply the same solution, but you might approach it slightly differently for each person. I think the long term results are more lasting, and the solution is reached faster when you actually make it specific to that person rather than trying to generalize.
Leanne : Let’s talk about facilitators as an audience listening in. Sometimes they’re asked to run one day workshops through to five day workshops. Or they work in corporate jobs where they’re in meetings all the time, and towards the end of the week or the end of that day their voice might be getting croaky. Their throat is getting soar. What do you recommend? Are they doing something wrong?
Emmanuella: We have a vocal care sheet that we send that to everyone when their voice starts to feel that way just as a "Hey, thought you might like this". Actually, remind me later, and I’m happy to send that over to you. Feel free to share that with your readers or your listeners. Where are we? 1870.
Leanne : [laughs]
Emmanuella: Your voice shouldn’t get to that stage. [clears throat] Excuse me. It's early. Your voice shouldn’t get to that stage. It’s preventable. Babies can scream for hours and not lose their voice [laughs]. There’s no reason for your voice to get to that stage. There's some really fundamental things we can do to look after our voices. The difference is that an athlete would know that. An athlete would think, "If I’m going to run a marathon, I’m going to do everything it takes to look after this body that has to deliver me there". Whereas we take our voices for granted.
The first thing that happens when we’re under pressure is self care goes out the window, so is every chance you will neglect sleep because you’ve got to be on a plane. Then you’re on that plane and you’re probably going to have a glass of wine instead of some water. You’re probably going to read those papers that you really should have read last week on the way to the meeting instead of taking a nap. On long distance, I actually fly with a- what’s called a humidifier which stops my voice from drying out.
We do all these things that are actually counterintuitive to caring for ourselves so that when we get there and we actually have the pressure on us, we haven’t given ourselves the best chance of delivering. What we’ve actually done is undermine all the resources that we’re now going to rely on to deliver. We haven’t slept enough. We haven’t mentally prepared or done our meditation or yoga or whatever it is that usually helps you get in to a good head space. By the time you feel thirsty, it’s about two hours too late.
A lot of people that I work with as professional singers sleep now with humidifiers. I think they’re a fantastic thing. Even if you can just take the hand-held one for you, that keeps the vocal cords warm and moist. Then what we do is we put ourselves in front of a room where we have adrenaline in our body, so the throat is probably tighter than usual. We drink a lot of coffee. We probably had drinks the night before with alcohol. You’ve got to think about how the vocal cords are put together.
They’ve got a very, very thin epithelial skin layer on top, and then you have a number of mucosa layers and then muscle. If those mucosa layers are dehydrated, they’re not going to bounce the way they ought to. That very thin skin layer is going to end up basically with the equivalent of wind burn or some kind of bruising. Over the course of the day, the vocal cords will swell. You’ll get more husky, so what do you do? You push harder. You try and go louder. What you’re doing is taking an injured part of the body and putting it under more pressure.
Leanne : Everything you’re saying I was like, "Yes, that’s tick, tick tick". Because I’m really more concerned about the material that I’m delivering and making sure I’m really good at that. I will spend the extra hours researching things, watching videos, getting very clear rehearsing, and I won't take that time to rest. I did-[crosstalk]
Emmanuella: Then you create a vicious cycle. What happens when your voice starts to go is you start to become self conscious, so then you start to do all these things that actually make it harder for your voice to function. You will probably start to tense up your shoulders, and you’ll start to try and push a little harder. You’ll probably speak more because you’re trying to compensate rather than taking your three-second pause and knowing where you’re going, trusting your authority because you know where you’re headed with this.
Taking that step back, it would actually enable you to use less words, ask for that glass of water that you need, take those pauses that will buy you the space, chose your words more carefully so you’re actually having to do less work and relax your body.
Leanne : I was going to ask you your advice for first time facilitators, but I think that’s it. It would be to choose your words wisely, not take your voice for granted. Probably prepare further in advance than the night before so you do get that long rest.
Emmanuella: No one would listen to their favorite Nick Cave album a thousand times like I have and then assume that when he’s in town, you could get up with him because you’ve listened to the album. You'd still have to show up to the rehearsal room and practice the chords and practice the words and actually go through before being like, "Hey Nick, let’s do a gig together". You'd actually have to do the work. You'd have to do the practice.
I’m kind of bemused at the idea of people thinking that because they’ve listened to the albums, they’re ready to play a gig. That’s the same as what we’re doing, "Yes, I read this stuff. I know where I’m going with this". You need to stand in front of a mirror and say it out loud. You need to see what words don't flow well, see what makes you trip, see what thoughts don’t feel sincere and so you're hesitant when they come up.
If you don’t feel that you’re speaking with authenticity, your subconscious is going to hijack that speech. If you’re saying something that you really don’t believe in because you’ve been put there by your company to speak it, you’re not going to give your best performance because you’re coming from a place that isn’t authentic, so subconsciously you’re going to be pulling yourself back. You need to find a place to speak from where you really believe what you’re saying. That’s why I got knowing what your big picture is, knowing what your [unintelligible 00:27:32] is so important because that will help you navigate these situations.
Leanne : You’re right. I've written down work scripts for workshops to introduce a concept. When I’m rehearsing, I’m reading through it going, "This isn’t me. I can’t say this confidently", so I have to restructure the whole sentence to make sure that will work and that I’m more confident delivering it because like you said, they’ll pick up very quickly when one is saying these words on a page that don’t resonate with you. They certainly won’t resonate with your audience.
Emmanuella: Exactly, right. The audience can pick a fake.
Leanne : Big time.
Emmanuella: They won’t be kind to it. You need the loyalty of your audience. You can’t connect with them, whether it be on stage or in a boardroom unless you have their loyalty first or that they feel that they can relate to you or connect with you in some way. If you’re being fraudulent, they’re not going to trust you.
Leanne : You spoke about being authentic as a way to connect with your audience. Are there any other skills that you think a good facilitator or a trainer really needs?
Emmanuella: I think it’s really important to know what’s important to you first. We’re often in professional environments put in positions to do things that maybe don’t necessarily resonate with us initially. It’s really important to meet those KPIs and still do it in a way that’s authentic for you because if you’re someone who’s just going through the motions, you might tick those boxes but, A, you’re not going to enjoy what you’re doing and B, it’s not going to be a nice experience for anyone else who’s in the room with you.
Life is short; we don’t have a lot of it. I think if we want to enjoy our lives, we need to find ways to do something that we love. I have a four-week old baby, and I’m up at seven o’clock in the morning to speak with you because I’m talking about something that gives me so much energy because every day I do it I feel enlightened. The entirety of my 20s, I had family members and people saying, "Aren’t you scared you’re going to be broke? Aren’t you tired of being a broke artist? What are you doing with your life?" I just go, "I’m doing what I love".
Now in my 30s, I’m really very grateful to have a life where I feel that I have an abundance of everything I could ever ask for, from friends through to resources where now I can pass it on to other people. If facilitation is what turns you on, then find out what it is about facilitation that excites you and bring that in to the room. Bring that into the room with you, and share that excitement with people because you've got to where you are somehow for a reason. You didn't wake up one day and now you're doing this. It was lots of little steps that got you there. Go back to the heart of this. Go back to what it is that excites you, and then bring them into the room because that will then excite other people and you'll move through your day with more energy. For the introverts, I've had people that have achieved a particular level in their career, and then they're asked to go in a panel, or they're asked to engage in some kind of situation where people are going to be looking at them, and they think, "I don't talk about myself". I can really understand that discomfort, but I encourage them to think of it like this: You have something that the people in that room would like to share in. When you go into that panel, think of it not that it is about you promoting yourself or talking about yourself. You're actually going into the room and giving these people something that they really want. You're sharing with them a gift that they really want.
That approach has had some of my clients really transform not only their careers, but I've had other people come to me later. Just seeing that person engage in that way has transformed their lives because they got what they needed in that moment. If that person had gone in with the attitude that they were talking about themselves, they might have been far more reserved and less candid.
Leanne : Talking about sharing a gift, I think that is what facilitation is all about. Not only sharing your gift but sharing [unintelligible 00:31:29] of all the people in the room with each other and then creating that amazing atmosphere in the room. The reason I started the podcast really because I was sick of seeing people just getting up there. I agree life is too short. Now, wasting our time with these presentations that just didn't have any impact or didn't turn anyone's behavior or change anything or ignite an idea anyone. I'm really here just to make sure that-- not make sure but encourage people to really follow what they like and bring some of that energy and excitement and discuss creating-
Emmanuella: Look what happens to your face. Listen to what happens to your voice and your body language. The minute you start thinking about something you love, your face lights up. Your body opens up. Your voice is clearer. That's why if you're functioning from a place where you're really working with what's important to you and what really turns you on, your voice already will start to manifest that and show that in a way that's clear without you having to do warm-ups, without you having to understand the anatomy, and without you having to hop on one leg, stick your finger in your ear, look at the ceiling, and do all these really fancy exercises to get it. Just find what turns you on. It's a really good first step.
Leanne : I love it. Emmanuella, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed this conversation. I think it's going to be so useful for all of our listeners. I don't think people really notice the impact of voice, and we do take it for granted because it's something that we use all the time. I think all of your tips have been amazing. I know they're not-[crosstalk]
Emmanuella: Anytime. It's my pleasure.
Leanne : I think mindset's really critical. Where can people find you?
Emmanuella: My name is Emmanuella Grace. I founded a company called Find Your Voice. If you want to see me, I work with a kind of more selective group, but I also have an amazing team that if I can't see you then you can see them. I speak with everyone that comes into our company at this time because I want to work out what is the best service for them. We don't have a one-size-fits-all approach. I would definitely say give Find Your Voice a call. We will have a conversation that determines what it is you need and how we can help you because you might need one session with a vocal coach, or you might need six months with me.
Everyone's going to be coming from a different place. We really want to meet people where they're at. It's not about a kind of formula. It's about helping you work out what's important to you and helping you get there and achieve those goals and feel fulfilled and feel energized. That's what we want to help you do. findyourvoiceaustralia.com is our website. We coach all over the world. We used to have Find Your Voice, London, but we consolidated.
Leanne : Wow, [crosstalk] down under. We'll link to both of your websites in the show notes as well as that vocal care sheet.
Emmanuella: I will email that through to you now.
Leanne : That would be awesome. Thank you so much Emmanuella. Love having you [crosstalk].
Emmanuella: My pleasure.
First Time Facilitator podcast episode transcript (Episode 10)
Keeping workshop content fresh after 25 years (and how I was inspired by a flamenco dancing facilitator) with Scott Amy (Episode 10)
Leanne: Our guest today is from the Pacific Institute in Perth and has worked extensively in training, facilitating, coaching and project design of the clients around the world. He's been a student of leadership and its effects for many years. With a defencee force background in training and education, has used these experiences as a basis for continuing studies in effective leadership. He's played a major role in developing people and organizations with clients such as Coca-Cola, INP insurance in New Zealand and Rio Tinto. Welcome to the show Scott Amy.
Scott: Thanks, Leanne. Thanks so much for having me.
Leanne: It's great having you on the show and connecting again. We met a few years ago in Broome. I want to start back with your defence force background. How did that happen and what kind of role were you doing in the defence force?
Scott: It's part of the reasons why it's a background now because I spent 11 years in the education and training sector in the Air Force. It didn’t actually fulfill the goals that I wanted. The roles that I was doing were not taking me to where I really wanted to go, so I was stuck with it for a while continually looking for something that was going to take me to what I wanted to do in the education and training side. Hence, found the Pacific Institute through that journey. Funnily enough, the Air Force was a client of the Pacific Institute so I had a fair understanding of what they did and once I got the difference between what I was doing in the Air Force and what I wanted to do the Pacific Institute, it was quite an easy leap.
Leanne: Nice, it's funny how things work out that way. What is the Pacific Institute and what kind of workshops or things do you run for clients?
Scott: We’re a global organization consultancy that runs leadership and personal effectiveness training. The majority of that work is based on positive psychology or cognitive psychology backed up with the latest research in neuroscience. We essentially work with individuals, teams and large corporations to understand their behaviors or their culture and working on the individual development, helping grow their culture to a more effective one.
Leanne: Where do you actually begin a process like that?
Scott: There’s a number of different ways and I guess the work that we do goes from very large scale organizations, you mentioned we had 10,000 people go through our education there, right through the small to medium enterprises and the entry points are a variety. It can be around change management, it can be around ineffective cultures, it can be around creating a stronger more cohesive team. It's a hard question to answer because there are so many entry points to go into an organization but we always come back to that main component of helping the individual because the individuals together will collectively grow a stronger team or organization.
Leanne: What was it about the Pacific Institute when you're working in the Air Force? What really attracted you to that style of facilitation and engagement?
Scott: The Pacific Institute was started 40 years ago by a gentleman called Lou Tice. Lou, had an extremely effective teaching style. He was informative, he was humorous, his points really came across and hit people at a personal application. I had the opportunity to watch Lou’s videos a number of times in some down times in the jobs that I was doing and I just fell in love with his style and the information that he was giving, it was really around how people can develop themselves.
From there, I guess, I stole a lot of the way I facilitate now in Lou and I just thought this is an organization that does wonderful things, in a wonderful way, in a way that I really resonate with. For me, it was a no-brainer in trying to incorporate my future into the Pacific Institute and luckily I did.
Leanne: Did you actually just reach out to Lou and say, "I want to bring this to Australia. I'm your man. Work with me, Lou."?
Scott: No, I wish it was that simple. The Australian office of the Pacific Institute operates fairly autonomously. We have a strong relationship globally but because of our positioning here in Perth, away from Seattle where it started, we've always done things on our own. They simply had a large client and I needed some more resourcing. They put an ad in the paper for the facilitator trainer. A friend of mine always said share your goals with those that can help you and I shared those goals with him one day about getting out of the Air Force. He found the ad for me and suggested I try it out. I thought I would. I thought I would have some interview experience after 11 years of being in the Air Force. Suffice it to say, I still haven't got interview experience because fortunately for me, I got a job on the first go.
Leanne: Congratulations.
Scott: Thank you.
Leanne: I really like to just talk a bit more about Lou's style that you watched on video and that those would have been VHS, I imagine back in the day.
Scott: Yes.
Leanne: You said that he was informative and humorous. Were there certain things about his voice or his body language or the way that he told stories? What was it in particular that you think that you've modeled from Lou?
Scott: That's a great question. It’s around the body language, I think. If you ever get the chance to watch Lou Tice delivering information, look for in as much as he uses a style of flamenco dancing, funnily enough, yet he never danced flamenco dancing but he did study it as an art for communication form. He's just a great gregarious guy that is very open in his communication. He really has a strong passion for the stories and information that he’s teaching. I shared that passion and I just really thought he's a guy that just tells it as it is.
He has an interesting accent so if you ever listen to him you won’t pick him from any certain part of the States. He just has a very soft and comforting accent as well that you put all those things together and it really makes a great presentation style.
Leanne: In your observation then, what are the skills that you transferred to first-time facilitators that are really important?
Scott: I think there is a number of different things. We go by a very basic formula here, is that you need to have confidence in yourself, you have the ability to grow, the ability to, and desire to grow the organization you’re working with and you can engage people, it's fairly simple. I think they have to have a desire to help others grow and discover different elements. Whether that's our curriculum that we're talking about or facilitation of any workshop in general.
Leanne: I'd love to really stay on that first point, confidence in yourself? How do you build that with your participants? Or is it something that you know you can give them strategies but it will take the time, where do you sit on that?
Scott: There’s an element of both. When people are trying new areas and one of the things that we've been quite good at over the years, is we've taken people that had no presentation skills at all a basis and get them to facilitate a program, two or three days facilitation. The confidence is a part of developing their own levels of self-efficacy, their belief in their ability. It's a gradual process. However, the three or four days that we have in helping people become facilitators, there’s a lot of assimilation processes. Just get up and talk, get up and stand, do some thing, deliver a concept, talk about the application of it. The continuously getting to build their levels of confidence and I get a lot of feedback from many in terms of what they can do, what they've done well, what they could do better as we call them gems and opportunities and feedback from the other people going to the program as well. They get a lot of opportunities to really put their own take onto what they're about to deliver, the stories that they would tell, how it might have affected them in the past. There's a lot of them coming across in what they're doing.
Leanne I agree that feedback is really important. You spoke about gems and opportunities, how do you deliver that? Is it like-- we’ve got the SBI model, you've got that "Say something positive, say something negative, say something positive, that sandwich." How do you deliver feedback to people that are just going out there and having a go but need a bit of help?
Scott: It's a continual approach, I think. I certainly don't subscribe to the give something positive, positive something negative style. If I do something that’s not so good, it's a matter of self discovery. What would you do differently? In a conversation with them and the feedback, it might be around, "That didn’t particularly go down well. Do you think it went down well?" Yes or no? If they say no, what would you do differently? A lot of the work that we do at the Pacific Institute is around the visualization, seeing yourself doing it in a different or an effective manner. It continues to get them to understand what they’ve done and what they could do to improve.
Leanne: Fantastic. Actually, that's how I learnt as well in my facilitation style. I was asked to co-facilitate a part of a leadership program explaining the disc model. I studied up a lot on it, I went down there and delivered it. The facilitator I was working with, Nicky, she was actually on episode three of the podcast. She came up to me and started asking questions, "Lian, how do you think you went?" I was like, "I think it went really well, everyone seemed really engaged." Blah blah blah.
Then she said, "Did you notice that you used the words pens down about twenty times through that?" [laughs] I was like, "What? No, I didn't." She's like, "Yes." She said, "I think one participant was ready to throw their pen at you." It was really good feedback because no one had ever told me that before, but what it said to me was that I was approaching it in a really-- in a teaching way. I wasn't really approaching it in a facilitation way, in terms of I was instructing them to put their pens down like they were 10-year-olds, but I think the way that she delivered that feedback, she could have come to me and said, "Did you know you did this?" Which I might have become quite defensive but because she opened up with that question, it was really good.
Scott: I think it's an effective way of doing it. There's a strong difference in my mind between facilitating and presenting as you just identified there. When you're facilitating, the idea of facilitation, it comes from the word facal, the Greek word facal, which is to make easy. All you need to be doing is giving people the opportunity to learn and develop and at the end of the day, they don't know what you're going to do next. If you don't do what you're meant to do, they don't know.
You can't make any errors, it's a broad statement I realize, but it's enjoying it and just seeing how it goes as you go, in my opinion.
Leanne: Yes, I agree. From one Greek word to another, you did mention that you have, in previous conversations that we've had, you mentioned you have a Socratic approach to facilitation. Can you explain what that means?
Scott: Yes, I could, but I'd like to know what you think Socratic means first.
Leanne: Oh my Gosh. Jeez, well, he was a philosopher, so I believe it's probably about asking questions. Am I on the right track or?
Scott: You're exactly on the right track. You've just been Socraticized, I guess, because that's the whole process.
[laughter]
Scott: The Socratic questioning style is around that process of just continually asking questions. From my world of thinking, it comes back from the theory that Socrates had a belief that the truth is within us all, we just need to ask the right questions to find it. When you're continually asking questions, you're getting people to have their journey of self-discovery. Certainly, with the information the Pacific Institute delivers, there isn't a right or a wrong answer. The Socratic question style works really well because the people are discovering it for themselves. As a tip for facilitators, it means you don't have to work as hard in knowing what the content is.
Leanne: I love that. That's perfect. Is there a particular approach to Socratic questioning. Is it that you use a combination of closed, open or how do you even implement it?
Scott: We've got a formula that we go by when we're training facilitators which is called relaxation, fascination and visualization. RF and V, but they actually go in reverse. When you're facilitating or presenting, you want people to be able to visualize themselves using that information. Unfortunately, people can't visualize until they're fascinated. To create the fascination, you've got to get them to be in a position where they want to learn about it. The Socratic facilitation style is around getting people to create the words and the pictures in their minds of where they want to be, how they see that happening.
It's really just a lot of questionings around things like who here has ever? What would you do if? Have you ever been in the experience of? They're very broad opening statements, but it's just getting people to engage themselves in the situation. From there, you can use a logic link. Question gets an answer and the next question comes from the answer that you've given them. It makes for a very casual, free-flowing style as long as you're moving towards where you wanted to go and you're simply asking general interest questions.
Leanne: Have you ever had a situation or really like talking about the fascination comes before the visualization, and you've facilitated for a couple of decades now.
Scott: Thank you. [laughs]
Leanne: You would have had situations where you can tell immediately that some participants in the room just don't want to be there. Is that when you'd come out with these questions? Or how do you approach a situation like that when you can see immediately that they're just not interested?
Scott: Yes, that's a tough one. There's a horror story that comes straight to my mind as soon as you mentioned it. Being aware of what the parameters are of the program. I had a two-day program in Adelaide with a bunch of people that just did not want to be there. That was pretty obvious by lunchtime of day one. We'd pretty much gone through all of the content of two days by afternoon tea of day one. It was around looking for the learners' outcomes. I wasn't going to force them to stay in that room for two days. We went through what we needed to go through in terms of the responsibility from the client's point of view and then we just took it back to a personal view.
How do you use this information personally, because it was very corporate oriented? We finished up at morning tea on day two because it's no good having people sit in a room when they don't really want to be there because that's not relaxation whatsoever.
Leanne: When you were speeding through the program, what were you thinking in your own mind? Were you thinking, "Oh my Gosh, this is going too fast, what's the client going to think? What am I going to do?"
Scott: Yes, I was probably in the same boat as them, thinking I wish we didn't have to do that.
[laughter]
Leanne: Oh dear.
Scott: A nice bunch of guys, they just had no interest which is fair enough. We agreed some rules. We need to be here because your employer expects you to be here, it's part of the outcomes that we're looking for but if we can together make this as enjoyable as possible, how about we do that. I was also thinking about what is the reason I'm going to use to the client that explains why we left it on day two.
Leanne: Maybe we need to create an article about the best excuses you can provide to a client-
[laughter]
Scott: I've got a few of them I can add to it already, if you like.
Leanne: Okay, let's talk about the flipside. What kind of positive transformations have you witnessed as a result of some of the workshops that you've run?
Scott: Well, from the larger organizations we've experienced great cultural change. Developing more of a collegiate culture where solid mentalities are now breaking down those barriers and working more collegiately. Individually, I have seen wonderful aspects of people transitioning into new careers, massive weight losses, relationship gains, all those wonderful aspects. There's probably so many and that's not a braggadocios statement. The impact of the information that we present on people has really a strong impact that's wonderful to see.
Leanne: Great, what about your growth personally as a facilitator? What are doing now that were probably a bit amateurish 10, 15 years ago? What's changed in your style?
Scott: Keeping my introductions simple. I remember just before I started my very first co-facilitation with the Pacific Institute, I went and watched a world-famous presenter. To be honest, it was 25 years ago so I can't remember his name. He told a wonderful introduction story, which was a complete fallacy. He made it up step after step, but it grabbed the interest of people. I thought if he can do that, I can do that. I tried it and it didn't work at all.
Leanne: Was your story made up or real?
Scott: There were elements of reality, not many of them, to be honest. [laughs] There was more a humorous yarn than anything else. I think the development of myself is to well, just being me in what I do. I absolutely love what I do. Having that come across at the beginning sets the pace for everything else and also not willing to teach.
Leanne: Yes, that's really important. I think you need to define, if it is a training workshop and this content is new then you need to approach that quite differently to working with adult learners that have some knowledge in that material that you're presenting and some experience for sure.
Scott: Very much so. People these days, they're far more educated than they were when I first started running this education. They're a pretty savvy bunch of people out there. The concepts are maybe not so new to them but the application of them can be quite strong when they take on the accountability to use it.
Leanne: Been running similar programs for the last 25 years odd years, a couple of questions. How do you keep the content fresh and also how do you keep yourself energized when it's another day of the same workshop? What do you do differently?
Scott: Well, as you said, 25 years doing essentially the Investment and Excellence program, the content hasn't changed a great deal but its application has. For me, every group that I work with is a new group and they're people that have a fresh understanding of the information. I probably try to add an element of coaching into it as well. Not a formal process but really getting people to understand how they can use the concepts that we've been delivering. The fact that I've been doing it for 25 years, I think only adds to the value where there's a lot of stories that I can tell from a wide variety of fields of life.
They can make the concepts come alive for individuals and organizations, because they're new people, the content is always fresh for me. Keeping myself energized, I have a background in radio instruments. Well, I worked in radio for a while and have a love of music because of that. A task I've set for myself is to find a song that supports the information that we might be talking about and implement that as we're going through and just using lots of upbeat music to keep me energized.
Leanne: Do you have a Spotify playlist of all the songs that you use to get yourself going for a workshop?
Scott: Yes, I do. I do. It's a great tool to have, I think. I try and mix it up as well. There's some stock standard ones that are there for a very good reason and then there's new stuff that I find all the time.
Leanne: I really liken facilitation to playing a really important game of netball. Before I play a big final at any game driving to the court, I'd put on this music and it would get me fired up. I do the same before I run a workshop. I find that it just channels that nervous energy into something that's really positive. How else do you prepare for a workshop? Do you have a routine that you go through?
Scott: Not particularly. It's the advantage of doing presentations for 25 years as you very well know what you're doing. Typically, the night before, I just go through my slide deck and my information, making the small changes that I think are applicable, reading the news, stuff like that is great because it gives you current stories that you can tell that relate back to the concepts that we're talking about.
I'll make a few changes there, get to the gig, set myself up and then just wait. Basically, this is where that relaxation part comes in out of that relaxation, fascination, and visualization formula. I like people to be relaxed. As soon as I walk through the door, I introduce myself, make sure I use their name and just do some social chitchat. I find that relaxes me because I get to know a little bit more about them and in doing that, have a greater understanding of what their pressure points might be or their interest points. It enables me to relate with them a little bit stronger I think.
Leanne: Yes, I think it does set a nice tone if you're in the room welcoming people rather than just sitting there and fussing around because you haven't prepared something. Talking about getting your slide deck ready, have you ever had a situation where the technologies let you down on a day?
Scott: Yes, I have. I have had many of those. I think most of us would be in the same boat. There's a degree, when we talk about Socratic facilitation using particularly questions, there's a degree of knowledge that you certainly need to have about the program or the information that you're presenting as well, because if you're left dead with no slide deck or video or whatever it is that you're using, it can be quite an awkward time.
Leanne: Yes, you can't just continue asking questions for the rest of the day.
[laughter]
Leanne: I want to talk about a LinkedIn profile you wrote about practicing and starting habits. This relates to the themes that you're talking about personal development and growth. What drove you to write the article and how do we create a habit?
Scott: It's a practice of making a practice. A lot of the tools that we talk about in the education at the Pacific Institute provides, are practical tools. They're things that you can do and you know how to do. There's nothing difficult in what we're talking about, but I think we live in such a fast-paced world that we don't get the opportunity to do so. we just go to a wonderful two or three-day program that's been presented and think, "That's fantastic. I'll write that one down," and we just head back to the normal. We don't get the opportunity to actually improve and use more of the skills that we've got. The practice of making it a practice is an important element because then it becomes ingrained into our subconscious, the way we just do things continuously. That's a process of continuously developing what you are.
I've just written or recorded a video podcast today. It tells a story of playing golf. Quite often, social golfers will go out and play golf and they'll talk about what they could do differently next time they play a round. It's different stance, closer to the ball, whatever the case may be and then they'll forget about it and won't do it the week after. A professional goes out and plays a game of golf and as soon as he finishes the 18th hole, they tend to get back out again and play another nine. What they're doing there is putting into practice what they need to do to become better. It's around with your social developer or a professional developer.
Leanne: I was just reflecting, it was a video I watched a few years ago and the guy was talking about how you create habits. It's all about getting a trigger point. It could be to do 10 push-ups after you brushed your teeth. Linking it with an existing habit but just building it.
Scott: Yes, that's an important element, that action, and triggering stuff because when you're doing something that's new or different, to create a conscious action is important. I had a friend of mine that I used to ring on a business that I'd say to him, as we all would, I'd say, "How are you doing?" His response was, "I'm relaxed." I thought, "What a weird way to respond to that question?" Then I thought about it after a while. How many times a day do you think you'd answer the phone, Lian?
Leanne: Dozens of times.
Scott: Yes.
Leanne: Yes.
Scott: If you dozens of times answer the phone, I'm relaxed or I'm calm or I'm whatever the case might be, over a period of a very short period of time you've created that habit and for the work that we do, that's going into your subconscious to create your self-image and we act like we know ourselves to be but what a great way of doing something. Creating a trigger action to reinforce the practice is a wonderful tool. I thoroughly recommend what you just said.
Leanne: Great, thanks. I haven't actually implemented that at all but this could be a trigger point for me. Just try and create that new habit. Interesting what you said about the language and the things that we say to ourselves. If we start saying I'm calm on the phone, that's just sending a message to our subconscious. Can you expand on that a bit more, in the terms of the impact of language on our self-belief?
Scott: Yes, if we look at the impact of language or as most people commonly call it self-talk or internal dialogue, we talk to ourselves about 50 to 70,000 times a day. The unfortunate part is we don't stop and listen to what we say. We just accept whatever it is that we say. If the majority of our self-talk is in a negative fashion, that's what our subconscious takes on board. Unfortunately, as I said, the subconscious doesn't know the difference between whether you're joking or you're not. It just accepts it as truth.
The subconscious, which is also the self-image for us or the truth about us, means that we're now going to have to act like that. It's extremely important the way you talk to yourself.
I know I've heard a couple of your previous podcasters talking about like the superhero pose and things like that. That's a similar process because as you're doing that, your self-talk that you're saying to yourself should be reinforcing the good things around the pose as well. It's quite a strong process for us and it's almost that the basis of what our curriculum is based upon. Be careful what you talk about.
Leanne: In the lead up to a workshop as well and if people ask you how are you going and you saying things like, I'm not ready or I'm really nervous or I don't think it's going to go well, you're not really putting yourself in a strong position from the start.
Scott: No, not at all. I'd often quote my mother on this and she said to me as a teenager, "Start how you mean to finish." If you can control your self-talk at the beginning of a session or in preparation of the session and you use words that take you to where you wanted to go, then you're going to finish that way. Finish strong. We think in three dimensions. Words which trigger pictures and those pictures trigger feelings or emotions. We've got to be very careful about the words that we use.
Leanne: Yes, all the time I hear from people, "I'm not creative." I look at them and go-- I just think, "Yes you are. Some of the ideas that you come out with have been outstanding." They're just not recognizing themselves, learning to just close it off and think maybe the word creative is as well associated with art, color and things like that but I see that all too often, especially in the workplace.
Scott: That's exactly right, because we've seen said creative accounting happening in my house and I'm sure [unintelligible 00:27:40] happened in yours as well. It's around that belief in one's own ability. The stronger we can get that, that's personal efficacy. The stronger we can get that, the more we can use the potential that we have.
Leanne: What other resources do you think that you'd recommend for first time facilitators? I guess not only to facilitate but to build up that self-efficacy and belief.
Scott: It's a good question, because there's so many things out there. I'm forever just having a look through SlideShare, YouTube and Vimeo and places like that, TedEx for just some wonderful ideas. Plagiarism is alive and well in facilitation and presentation. It's just a matter of how you put your slant on it. I think grab those areas wherever you can, whatever tools you can use and if you can see yourself doing it, maybe adding a little bit of a personal slant to it, then give it a shot.
One of the things that I use in terms of personal reference was around Karl Rohnke's books from Project Adventure in terms of activities. He's got a number of books to really good activities that could be adapted through individual or team learning as well.
Leanne: Cool, we'll link to those in the show notes. Now, you mentioned that plagiarism is alive and well in the facilitation world. Let's talk a bit about just curriculum design and developing content for a workshop. How do you approach that process? Do you rack your brain first or do you jump straight onto Google?
Scott: For me, the development of a curriculum is always going to be based around the individual. What does the individual need to do? That's our core content here at the Pacific Institute. I would look at what are some of the concepts that we particularly have and then-- Google is a great place these days. Just to go and look at different aspects of how that might work. Looking for a particular concept and then Googling that and look for other people's opinions, ideas or views on it, how do they relate and just trying to create as many links as I can to start with and then work through, well, that's applicable to this organization or this group or that's not applicable or that is and then there's maybe a tenuous link to something else.
Can I make that a little bit stronger? Really, it's a throw up in the air, see what lands and then look for the commonalities for me.
Leanne: On your LinkedIn profile, you mentioned that you have delivered workshops to both presidents and prisoners. What do you do differently with different audiences? That's a huge span.
Scott: Nothing particularly. It's really around the stories. I can remember Lou Tice once said to me, many years ago, he said, "Scott, the soul is assigned for everyone, facilitate to the soul." That's the same premise that I use, is prisoners, just as much as presidents, need to know the information that we're giving them for a variety of reasons. For a president, it might be around spending more time with the family as opposed to work. For a prisoner, it might be around creating opportunities so that they get more time to spend with their family rather than being held up where they are.
It's really around making the concepts and the ideas applicable to the individual, but because everyone is a person, there is not a great deal. I just certainly wouldn't tell a prisoner story in senior executive conference. I probably wouldn't tell a senior executive conference story in a prison.
Leanne: Yes, selecting the story based on the context, I think. I love that. Facilitate to the soul, that's brilliant.
Scott: It's worked well for me.
Leanne: It should be a title of a book, if it isn't already.
Scott: [unintelligible 00:31:24] down now.
Leanne: What's your go-to icebreaker, do you have one?
Scott: No, I don't. For me, it goes back to that relaxation stuff. I got a few that I really don't like and I would never use them but if I need to have an icebreaker, for me, it's around the one that I typically use is, "If you had a superpower, what would it be and how would you use it?"
Leanne: I think what that does straightaway, gets both the fascination and visualization working, because I was thinking of just standing on top of a building with a big cap on, the second you asked that question.
Scott: Good, well it's great, because you actually have a little bit of insight. Some of the parents will often say it's the invisibility to see what my kids are doing, or super hearing so I can hear them when they're in their bedroom and things like this. That also gives me an indication of what's important for them, family, Kids.
Leanne: That's a great question. Finally, Scott, where can people find you?
Scott: Sitting in my office, really.
[laughter]
Scott: Well, all the usual social media areas. There's a LinkedIn page for me, you can find us at our website, thepacificinstitute.com.au, Twitter, well, I'm not very good at that, I must admit. Happy to find us at TPIS or Scott Amy on LinkedIn.
Leanne: Lovely, Scott, thank you so much for all of your useful tips that you've provided in this episode, but also I really love talking about the language and that self belief that you need to have as a facilitator, and little ways that you can change that. I think one good idea we spoke about was just answering the phone a little bit differently and saying, instead of "I'm good," what is that word that you want to start bringing into your life, start saying that in your response.
Scott: I'll ring you next week to make sure you respond about that.
Leanne: Okay, keep me accountable, nice one. Thank you so much Scott, I really enjoyed this chat.
Scott: My pleasure, thanks, Leanne, take care.
Episode 10: Keeping workshop content fresh after 25 years (and how I was inspired by a flamenco dancing facilitator) with Scott Amy
In Episode 10 of the First Time Facilitator podcast, Scott Amy from the Pacific Institute shares his secrets on Socratic facilitation and how he was inspired by a faciltator who incorporated flamenco dancing in his workshop.
In Episode 10 of the First Time Facilitator podcast, Scott Amy from the Pacific Institute shares his secrets on Socratic facilitation and how he was inspired by a faciltator who incorporated flamenco dancing in his workshop.
In this episode you’ll learn
Why seeing a strong facilitator (who used a style of flamenco dancing in his workshops) inspired Scott to leave the Defence force
How he’s run the same workshop for 25 years and how he keeps it energised/content fresh
How facilitators need confidence in themselves, ability to grow, desire to grow the org their working with; and their ability to engage people
What Socratic facilitation is all about and how it can help you discover the truth for your participants
Three great questions you can use to implement Socractic facilitation in your next workshop
About our guest
Scott Amy, Manager Client Services with The Pacific Institute has worked extensively in training, facilitating, coaching and project design with clients in many countries around the world, including Singapore, Indonesia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Australia.Working with The Pacific Institute since 1994, he has been involved in many project roles with clients from a very broad cross section of industry, education and community. Working with leadership and executive management levels through to front line operations staff, professional educators, students and community development resources, has provided him with valuable experience into how people think and behave in situations of change and leadership.With a strong background in training and training design, his skills in communication, allow him to reach all levels of an organisation and teams providing maximum outcomes. Combined with his Socratic approach to facilitation, which encourages participants to find their own solutions by working through options and applying information, Scott is one of The Pacific Institute’s most requested resources.Scott has been a student of leadership, and its effects for many years, and with a Defence Force background in training and education, has used these experiences as a basis for his continuing studies in Effective Leadership.He has played a major role in developing people and organisations with clients such as: Coca Cola, Snowy Hydro Limited, AMP Insurance, Queensland Education Department, Television Corporation of Singapore, Air New Zealand, Fonterra and Rio Tinto
Resources
Video we discussed: Forget big charge, start with a tiny habbit.View the First Time Facilitator episode 10 transcript.
First Time Facilitator Podcast transcript with Cherelle Witney (Episode 9)
Leanne: Our guest today believes that being curious to learn keeps us energized and connected throughout our work and our life. She loves ideas, innovative thinking and what-if questions, and is passionate about lifting people's personal and professional capability to lead and manage.
She runs a company called LIFT Performance Solutions out of Perth. Her aim, as a facilitator, is to inspire her participants with real experiences that make learning practical and fun. Welcome to the show, Cherelle Witney.
Cherelle Witney: Thank you, Leanne, for having me. This is fun already.
Leanne: Cherelle, our listeners may not know, but we met when I was living in Broome working for TAFE. We would fly you up every so often to help us out with our leaders. I've only really known you as a facilitator. Can you tell us a bit about your career journey and how you wound up with the position that you're in now?
Cherelle: Actually, where we met in Broome was one of the best jobs, because it was paradise. It's always nice to come to a gorgeous venue, with gorgeous down-to-earth people like you. I loved that job, but really, that was the culmination of probably about 20 years of training and facilitating. I started my journey in my early 20s as a paralegal in a law firm.
I had no idea that I was going to become a trainer or a facilitator. Back then, I was looking for a job where I could earn some money and use my skills.
I was very lucky and I have continued to be lucky along my journey to have some great mentors. The guy who ran the law firm in Perth was very big on training and development of his staff. I quickly became, in a fast-growing law firm, the trainer for about 130 staff and also managing those staff. I cut my teeth there in training and development, and I learnt a lot about team building.
I had a very supportive boss who was keen to expose me to a lot of new tools at a young age. He was also a good mentor as well. He very much believed in meditating at the start and the end of each day to keep your mind fresh and keep your mindfulness present in your work, kind of unusual for a lawyer. [laughs] He was a great role model for me. I've taken that through to my facilitation tools and skills throughout my career, being present and being ready and up with your energy to work the room and the group.
After I worked in law for seven years, I started my first business which was called Traveling World it was an art selling business so completely different to law, but that was my first step into an entrepreneurial kind of space. Then, I worked in tourism for a few years in a sector of support area. That CEO that I worked closely with was very good at creating the bigger picture and the energy around an event.
I learnt quite good skills from her about knowing who’s in the room as a facilitator and knowing how to build the atmosphere to be safe and fun. She liked fun and I liked fun, so that worked very well for us. We ran some of the best events in Perth for tourism in that time. After I did that, I started my business as a consultant, and I started off doing database management of all things which was just bizarre now I look back, but it had an element of connecting people.
Back then, there was no such thing called a CRM or Customer Relationship Management, but that's what I was doing is working on the data to make it sense for the customer. I think that's one of my skill sets as a facilitator, is bringing the agenda, whatever the organization needs and the people together so that they feel connected with it. That began my consulting journey. I also started the first internet cafe for people over 55, back in 2000. I had a vision about old people needing to have some space where they could just train and learn in a positive comfortable, safe space. Back then, all the internet cafes were full of young kids, old people were feeling a bit isolated.
We started that business in Perth and again I used my training skills and facilitation skills to bring a very scary medium, being the internet, to people that were scared of it, older people over 55 to 60, 65, and bring the two together so that they could be more than they had thought possible. I had some great memories. That business didn't make any money because it was a bit too early on the market, but I have some great memories of people being 70 and being able to see their grandchild in London for the first time or email a photo and understand how they could cross the world in a few seconds.
Then, my most recent part of my career has been seven years in the Department of Health, and then what is now about nine years in my consultancy with LIFT. That last chunk of time-- You can work that I’m fairly old by now. [laughs] That last chunk of time has really allowed me to develop my leadership and team development practices. Now, I have culminated that in my keynote talks around the courage to create whatever you want to create in your life, in your work, in your home or your sporting career, whatever it might be.
All of those things, I guess it’s a long answer, Leanne, but all of those things along my journey when I look back have each taught me something different and have allowed me to be a facilitator now that has a good wealth of diverse experience in different industries first hand, and also has the ability to understand other industries and other people that might be in my groups to some degree to perfection.
Leanne: You're not kidding about diverse industries and experience, that's absolutely huge. The common thread in what you're talking about is you always bring out this concept of creating a safe environment, something that you're very passionate about. How do you create a safe environment in your workshops?
Cherelle: That's a great question. I think the best way to create a safe environment is be yourself. Don't go in as a facilitator trying to be something that you either think the group wants or that you think a facilitator should be. It's so important to have authenticity because you've got less than three minutes to build that trusting space with your group, especially, if you haven't met them before.
I always say to people, "Be yourself", and obviously, be professional, think about how you dress, how you move, what your body language is conveying and to create a trusting space where what you say actually is relevant to them and you're not telling them, you're asking them the whole time. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got from my mentor was, "The wisdom is in the room."
If you go in with that mindset that you are the facilitator, but you're not the teller of all the information, you don't know the industry, you don't know their challenges, you're there to help them explore all of that, and find an answer, that will come out in the first three minutes. If that's your mindset, that'll come out in the way you talk and the way you move, that you're genuinely there for them not for you. You've got to put your ego in a box, leave it at the door because you're there to help the group not to show them how much knowledge you have.
Leanne: Lovely. That's the first time I've ever heard the concept of the first three minutes. How did you find out about that? What is it about three minutes?
Cherelle: I think that's just my own thought. From experience, when you're meeting people one-to-one, you got 30 seconds before they make a judgment of you and I think there's some research to back that up.
In the room, you've got that first three minutes where you're saying, “Welcome to the day, this is what the day is about”, people are sitting there either thinking, “I wish I wasn't here or what is this girl? Does she actually know her stuff?” all of these kind of chatter in their head. In that three minutes, if you can talk to them maybe for me, I had a little bit of humor because that's my nature if that's authentic for you, do that.
If it's a very serious meeting, then I get right down to why we're here and what are we going to achieve by the end of the day. That helps release a bit of pressure and people go, “Okay right, it's not just going to all be talk, we're actually going to get to an outcome.”
That three minutes is your chance to build a quick bond that they believe in you. You still got to build on that over the rest of the day.
Leanne: You spoke about for you, it's about being authentic, and your authentic self is quite humorous and you're fun. In your observation, what are other critical skills for a facilitator?
Cherelle: There's a couple of ways you can look at this. The IAF, International Association of Facilitators, have core competencies. There are six of them. You can Google 'IAF core competencies' and it will come up. They’re in a lot more detail. People that like the detail and maybe want to work towards a checklist, that would be good for them have a look at. For me, I've got 12 things that I always make sure I'm doing. Absolutely number one is be prepared. You can not go in the room not prepared. You need to know the industry, you need to have looked at their website.
You need to know who's in the room which is another part of that. You don't need to know a lot about the people but you need to know what level they are at, are they managers, leaders frontline, that kind of thing. You need to build that inclusive trusting safe environment in that first three minutes. You have to have a plan of how you do that and know the content of the day. If it's serious content around heavy strategic planning or downsizing or upsizing whatever it is, then in that three minutes talk about that. Name that elephant in the room if there is such a thing.
If it's more of a fun day then encourage them and let them know they're going to have fun. Set some ground rules. You’ve absolutely got to do that because not everyone's coming for the same reason. How we're going to listen? What are our values? What are we going to stick to? Do that by asking them what the ground rules need to be. I see some facilitators telling the group what the ground rules are going to be, that's not going to stick.
I guess a couple of the other things out of the 12 I've got are, you need to manage your time. You absolutely need to know the time schedule of how this day is going to run. You can't get to an hour and before the end time and you've still got two hours of material to do. For me, that is my Achilles' heel because I'm more creative than time-bound, so I've got to be careful about that. For other facilitators, it's been easier.
You have to go in optimistic, adaptive, flexible. You’ve got your whole session plan, you've prepped the hell out of it but things change and you've got to be able to let that go and go, "Okay, this is where the group needs to or wants to go." To do that, you've got to have a Mary Poppins bag full of stuff.
Leanne: [laughs] What's in your Mary Poppins bag?
Cherelle: My partner is fascinated when I pack to go and facilitate because he says, "You've been doing this for so many years and you still take too much stuff every time. You take stuff you don't use." I say, "Yes, because you don't know what's going to happen in the road." I always take extra icebreakers in addition to the ones I've planned because I often get in the room and go, "You know what? This room’s a bit more high energy than I anticipated." Or, "This one's a bit lower energy than I thought or a bit more resistant than I expected." I might use a different icebreaker.
I always take more paper, more pens, more blue tack, more everything that you think you're going to need because the walls that you thought you could put paper up on, you can and you've got to be able to adapt if you want people up and moving around. I always take some other energizers. I have a favourite go-to which is a beach ball and it has questions on permanent marker on the beach ball. You throw the beach ball around the room and people catch it and wherever their hands land it's a question and they read the question and they give the answer. It’s a bit of fun and energy. There are a few things that are in my Mary Poppins bag.
Leanne: That is so cool. I know you're a bit of inventor. Are you going to paint in your beach ball?
Cherelle: [laughs] Yes, I actually have a secret desire to make a range of facilitator products because-- Not so secret now, I'm saying it on the podcast.
[laughter]
Cherelle: There is a lack of Mary Poppins bags, I guess. When you're starting out, it takes a long time to gather these tools. I've gathered them just from my own learning I guess, but also watching other facilitators and I'm always fascinated, "What have they got in there?" "What’s their go-to tool?" For first-time facilitators, ask away. When you're in a workshop, ask what they've got in their kit and that's a good way to learn.
Leanne: Yes, I was actually thinking of a little segment on the show, a bit of an aside was to ask facilitators what they do pack in their training toolkit and then just linking that as part of a packing list on the website or something. I know it's all right, you're so true and even like the pens that facilitators use. I've seen those Mr. Sketch, the free pens that people-- I don't know, they seem to last forever. They smell good. They’re colorful. I've seen that a lot around Brisbane.
Cherelle: Yes, you see people like Adam Fraser on his YouTube, he’s got those giant, giant outline pens that are just huge. When he just wants to write one word it's this big fat text and it looks fabulous. I've seen them in office work.
Leanne: We'll link to those in the show notes. It's fun, creating a safe environment, you can do all these sort of things and prepare really well and then sometime in the course of your workshop, someone can say something that can derail or you have a bit of an impact which isn't so positive. How do you bring it back to that safe environment and creating a positive atmosphere when something like that happens?
Cherelle: Yes, I think that is the number one nightmare of all facilitators. [laughs] I've watched some more experienced facilitators than me that have 40 years experience under their belts struggle with that. I would just say to first-time facilitators, "It's not easy for anyone to deal with when you've got one person in the group that is resisting or is been quite negative." I've also had the ones that like to clown around and so they never do the instructions that you are asking them to do and then they go around disrupting everybody else. Or the person that constantly is on their mobile phone even though the ground rules have been set that we'll put our phones in our bag.
You do get these kinds of behaviors. You also get the behaviors of people that have been sent to the workshop and that's always challenging. They don't want to be there from the get-go. A couple of things that I do is absolutely make sure you've got the ground rules in place first, at the beginning of the day. Then, if you got those, you will need those because say the ground rule says something like, "We listen without interrupting", and you've got someone that's always interrupting, then you need to say, "Look, I'm noticing that we aren't sticking to the ground rule we'd set earlier today about listening without interrupting. We need to come back to that and be mindful of that and make sure that we are doing that to get the best out of the day."
When it happens again, I would say, "Hey Jake, when you're interrupting Sally like that, we're not sticking to the ground rules. You need to give it--" Actually, have to name it. You don't want to as a facilitator, especially in a larger group setting, you don't want to have to say, "Hey Jake, that's not what's in line with the--" If you've done all the other-- You've done the grounds rules, you’re reminded the group as a whole and then it's still happening, you're left with no option.
The other thing I do that can be effective is go to the break. Take a five-minute stretch break and pull that person aside and say, "Look, Jake, when you're interrupting the group, when you're interrupting Sally, it's not allowing us to get the best out of the day. What’s going on for you that you feel the need to do that? What could I do differently as a facilitator to help you be heard?" Have that conversation with him and hopefully, he's not just doing it because he loves running amok. Hopefully, that brings him around.
On the flip side, out of the last 10 years of facilitating, I probably only had that happen twice where it's been that bad that I've had to even name it in the group or I've had to pull the person aside. First-time facilitators don't panic, it's not going to happen in every group. [laughs]
Leanne: I find it interesting that you said facilitators of 40 years still experience and you can sometimes trip and stumble, a lot of preparations involved in a workshop, it can be stressful. Why do you enjoy training other people?
Cherelle: I love it because I like to take complex stuff and make it simple and have people go, "Oh yes, that makes sense. Now we could do that." I like creating that energy that you can create as a facilitator and move people from, "I don't think I can do this", "This is so hard and complex", "We don't know what to do next", to the end of the day or the end of the two hours going, "Oh wow, we've got a solution. I never expected that. We’ve got an idea of how to move forward." If it's team building, they come in and they're quite separate and there's a few people that don't like each other and they're thinking the day is going to be rubbish. Then they come out the other end going, "Oh, that was really actually quite productive. Now, I understand so much better what we need to do next."
That's probably why my consultancy is called LIFT. I like that energy. I also like transferable learning. I like people to get outcomes that they can they can use. I also think back to when I was a little kid and I've got three sisters and we always played schools in our school holidays, we never wanted to be at school but in our school holidays, we played schools. I was always the teacher. [chuckles] I always wanted to be the one writing on the board. I think you haven't made an unnatural path towards that as well.
Leanne: Yes, they actually say when people are looking at, I guess, career advice they get you to reflect on what activities and things you were doing back when you were a kid, what kind of skills. There's a natural-- That’s just exactly, so being a teacher in school and now you're actually doing it for your job. That's very straight life. Now, reading your bio, you're accredited in a number of profiling tools including DiSC, MBTI, and Belbin. I know speaking to different facilitators, they all have the one that they really like the most. What's your favourite tool and why?
Cherelle: I love Belbin because it is a team based profile. Myers-Briggs is personality. I use that a lot in one-to-one coaching and leadership development. It tells you introvert/extrovert, how you think and process information. I like the DiSC because it's simpler and for some clients, it's cheaper as well. There’s a price factor. Myers-Briggs has 160 plus questions. DiSC has only got about 30 and Belbin has 10. 10 is very quick to do. It's the cost competitive. Mostly, it's about team roles.
Belbin is the only one that really does team roles. It's not your personality, it’s about your behaviors in a team. Whether you're leading a team or working in a team at some point you need to know your team role. It’s very appreciative inquiry based. It’s very much around your strengths and what you do well and what you bring to the team. I find it's a very non-threatening profile to use.
I've been using it since 2003. I'm probably the most experienced person in WA and probably in the top five in Australia because I've done about 1,500 profiles. It just freaks me out every time how accurate it is. Even now after doing so many profiles, people sit in front of me and go, "Wow, I answered 10 questions and this is like really relevant to me in a team."
It fits in as a facilitator well because you are working the team. Knowing their profiles means you know who's in the room from a behavioral point of view.
Leanne: Does your Belbin profile change depending on the team or work environment you're in or does it stay consistent?
Cherelle: It doesn't. I guess I can only answer from my experience, it doesn't really change over time unless you change your job significantly. I remember probably about eight years ago, I had a nurse manager and his Belbin profile strength was around shaping, driving change, being quite dynamic and energetic. That’s what he did well and then he changed jobs for a three-month period and had to do an audit on the health service which was all about data and measurement.
Interestingly, in that same period, he did his Belbin again because he'd joined another team. His Belbin top score was no longer the shape and drive and dynamic one, it was around completer-finisher which is all around deadlines and quantity and measurement. It’s not his natural preference and the three months just exhausted him because it's not his-- I actually had proof, scientific proof that it does change if you change your job significantly. He then went back to his normal job and was much happier. I think that's from my experience the only time it does change.
Often, if you're going to have a baby or you've just had a major life shift then your Belbin will go a little bit more even spread because you haven't used a lot of different skills in those transition times. Generally, the top three scores might shift place, one, two and three, but they stay as your top three.
Leanne: You mentioned before that you've got a bit of creativity in you, Cherelle. I'd love to hear, I only heard about this recently, you developed a new keynote, is it a workshop or a speech?
Cherelle: Well, that's a good question. It’s called an interactive keynote because I didn't want to become a keynote speaker that just stands on the stage and talks at people. It’s a combo.
Leanne: Yes, I love the title, the Courage to Create. Can you tell us what it's about?
Cherelle: It's got three elements and it's really bringing together my inventive part of my life which is Tricky Treats and it's an automatic toy and treat dispenser for dogs and I've been working on that for about five years. It brings that and my LIFT consultancy training and facilitating together in a space where I talk about the importance of diverse thinking, agile thinking is all the rage at the moment, people are talking about it a lot. Really what it means is getting people in the room and appreciating their diversity.
The interactive keynote for the Courage to Create has a first part around diverse thinking and how important it is that we appreciate each other's thought. We do an activity around that. People look at the same thing and then see it quite differently. The second part of it is a bit more serious. We talk about failure. Danner and Coopersmith have written a great book called The Other F Word. It’s on failure and they have a great quote in there that says, "Failure is the asset in your company that you've already paid for." If you've already paid for it, why wouldn't you examine it and use it? We tend to not do that.
We tend to push it to the side because we're embarrassed and then move on with the next idea. The second part of the interactive keynote talks about failure and how we manage that and obviously how we manage the emotions around that which are going to be embarrassment and possibly shame and how we rise up from that. We do an activity that’s fun in that quite serious bit of the keynote to talk about how we bounce back from failure. Then, we finish off with some Belbin team roles which is, are you a task person? Or are you a thinking person? Or are you a harmony people person?
People get to stand in their area and look at the other different people in the room and how similar or different we are. I have a bit of fun talking to them about how you see the world differently to the other people across the other side of the room.
Leanne: Wow, how did you actually decide to put this together and then also make the decision on what you include and what-- I guess more important question, is what you don't include?
Cherelle: Yes, hours and hours of pulling my hair out. It’s really hard to distill it down specially-- I'm looking at 25 years of knowledge, how do I get that into a one-hour keynote that's fun, that's not boring death by PowerPoint? It took a long time. I'd say it took over two weeks of intensive thinking and also other people giving me their feedback. People that could then share-- I shared my keynote with them and they'd go, "Oh, yes that doesn't really make sense." Or, "I'm going to be bored there." Really help asking people to give you feedback as being important and they see different parts of the keynote as important to them.
I'm putting it out there for other people not for me. I've done that to refine it all the time. I guess the other thing that drove me to those three areas and they are the three areas that my clients use over and over again so the diversity of views, knowing your team profile strengths and knowing how to navigate failure seem to be the common themes over the last five years that have come up more and more. Certainly in my business with Tricky Treats and having an invention, having a crazy idea and then taking it to commercial reality, they are the three things that I really encountered the most as well.
Leanne: Yes, having that side hustle sounds like you had a couple different side hustles going. How are you managing to juggle all of them and still deal with your clients?
Cherelle: [laughs] A lot of bowls fall on the floor regularly but I'm quite good at scooping them up. Well, you don't sleep. Sleep is a bit of a waste of time.
[laughter]
Cherelle: Although I watched a program last night that said sleep is essential for reconfirming our memories and creating the myelin around their brain better. I better get some more sleep. I guess time management is always an issue. Probably the simplest answer is to segment my day. I try and segment. Morning, I'm doing inventive work or I'm talking to potential buyers and things like that. The afternoon, I'm working on my keynote for a client next week. It does come down to planning.
I do have a virtual assistant who helps me and keeps me on track and manages my diary. I confess to her once a week all the things I haven't done [chuckles] that I need to now do for next week.
Leanne: You mentioned a few resources and really great videos to watch including the Adam Fraser one. Are there any other books or resources that you would recommend to first-time facilitators?
Cherelle: Yes, I would definitely say find a mentor because that's probably where I've learnt the most than from books. I'm going to say something that other people might have a completely different opinion on but there's not a lot of great books on facilitation. I would read some stuff around group dynamics. There’s lots of good books on group dynamics and the more you understand group dynamics, the better you are as a facilitator.
Anything written by-- I think his name is Roger Schwarz . Yes, Roger Schwarz, he's written Smart Leader, Smart Teens. Patrick Lencioni if you're more Italian, has written great books on team development and the five functions or dysfunctions of a team. As far as pure facilitation books go, Dale Hunter has written a couple, The Art of Facilitation and The Zen of Groups. I've found parts of those books quite good. There’s a Perth girl called Iwona Polowy. I always mispronounce her surname, sorry Iwona, she’s written Ordinary Meetings Don't Interest Me That Much. Her book is basically a selection of other facilitators, very experienced facilitators sharing their thoughts and of course her journey as well. They'd be my burst of thoughts.
Leanne: Finally, I want to talk a bit about your invention, Tricky Treats. If you'd like to share a bit more about your journey with that with the audience. Also, just explain have there been any, in terms of crossover in the skills that you've learnt by building up this business and an invention that you've brought into the world of facilitation? Are there any parallels?
Cherelle: Yes, there are huge parallels that I didn't anticipate. I thought I had two separate businesses that had nothing in common with each other. Particularly, now I'm doing my keynote on the Courage to Create. It’s so obvious that the universe has been leading me in this path. I can stand up and talk with authenticity about the courage to create like needing to find the courage. There's certainly days where I want to put the dinner over my head and it's just a bit hard.
I think too that the natural journey of an invention requires you to fail quite a lot and you have to get good at bouncing not just back but forwards from the failure. I can talk quite emotionally in a good way about what that means and what that means to put yourself out there and have people say, "Oh, that's a rubbish idea", or "That's a good idea" or whatever it might be. I think too that my facilitation skills have helped me in my invention business because often I'm sitting in a room talking to business people, retailers, I don't know anything about their world, but I have good questions.
Being a facilitator gives you good, powerful questions that you can ask to learn more. That's fed backwards into Tricky Treats. I think overall too I talk a lot about agility in my facilitation work, and I want my teams in the room to be agile. Really understanding what that means and being able to not hold on to a thought or an idea so tightly that you're not able to listen to someone else's view is key.
Leanne: Cherelle, I'm so excited for you. We're talking about the idea of Tricky Treats when it was in its infancy in Broome a few years ago. I remember at the Mangrove hotel you told me about your idea and I was instantly excited because I thought of my two dogs at home getting bored, digging up the garden. It's really exciting to hear how you've progressed and how it's benefited both the invention itself plus your facilitation as well. Finally, where can people find you?
Cherelle: That's a good question because I'm just about to update the website. Our website is liftps.com and probably they could just send me an email, I'm happy to respond to any questions or support any of those new facilitators that might be listening, cherelle@liftps.com they could reach me there.
Leanne: Awesome. We'll link to that in the show notes as well. Cherelle, it's been so great catching up. I love hearing all of your updates every couple of months about the business. Well done and thanks again for sharing your advice for first time facilitators.
Cherelle: Good, I hope it was helpful. It's been my pleasure to work with you again. Who knew our lives would cross in this way?
Leanne: [laughs] Who knew. Thanks again, Cherelle.
Episode 9: The three minute rule of group facilitation with Cherelle Witney
In this First Time Facilitator podcast episode, facilitator, entrepreneur and inventor Cherelle Witney shares how a diverse career spanning legal, health and tourism has helped her confidently deliver workshops to thousands of participants.
In this First Time Facilitator podcast episode, facilitator, entrepreneur and inventor Cherelle Witney shares how a diverse career spanning legal, health and tourism has helped her confidently deliver workshops to thousands of participants.
In this episode you’ll learn:
How to create a safe environment (hint: It’s all about being yourself)
Why you only have three minutes to create a trusting space with your group
Why it’s important to set ground rules for the workshop
Why you need a Mary Poppins bag full of stuff
The #1 nightmare of all facilitators (and how to manage it)
About our guest
Cherelle Witney is the Founder of LIFT Performance Solutions, Leadership trainer and coach.
She believes that being curious to learn and willing to welcome shared learning keeps us positively energised & connected throughout our work and our life. Her aim is to be a facilitator that inspires her participants with diverse real experience & insights that makes learning practical and fun!
On the Belbin profile she’s a Specialist, Plant, Shaper which means she likes detail, to be up to date with facts, theories and practices. loves ideas, innovative thinking and “what if….” questions.
Over the last 18+ years, her career has included work as a senior manager & leader, internal trainer/facilitator and professional coach in a variety of private and public organisations with 7 years in public health and 6 years in law.
Her facilitation work uses a variety of tools from brainstorming to framing to open space and journey maps to assist strategic planning processes, creation of organisational learning & development plans, effective process improvement pathways and change engagement strategies in organisations of 12 to 1200 people.
Resources
Books:
The Other "F" Word: How Smart Leaders, Teams, and Entrepreneurs Put Failure to Work
Smart Leaders, Smarter Teams: How You and Your Team Get Unstuck to Get Results
Ordinary Meetings DON’T Interest Me!: What is Facilitation? (Creative Group Leadership Book 1)
Transcript
Read the full First Time Facilitator transcript with Cherelle Witney