First Time Facilitator podcast transcript with Jane Anderson (Episode 21)
Here is the episode transcript from my interview with Jane Anderson on Episode 21 of the podcast.
You can listen to my interview with Jane Anderson on the First Time Facilitator podcast.
Leanne: Please welcome to the First Time Facilitator Podcast, Jane Anderson.
Jane: Thank you so much for having me, Leanne. I'm really happy to be here and feel very privileged to be part of your show.
Leanne: Oh, that's lovely to hear. You’re extremely impressive! So I was just reading your biography, you've worked with over 50,000 people, you've written five books, you have your own podcast, you’ve worked with some huge global clients now living in Brisbane. I see you and your brand everywhere.
Jane: I’m stalking you know…
Leanne: Yeah you probably got some remarketing cookie on me but for those listening around Australia or possibly haven't seen your brand or globally, can you just explain a bit about yourself and how you entered the world of personal branding and helping others in terms of building their influence capability?
Jane: Yeah sure, so I started, how I never thought that I would probably be doing this but when I started, I started working with personally branded businesses when I was 14 years old. The very first experience I had, I don't know if you remember growing up but whether you had bought shoes from “Mathers” shoes, like maybe your mom made you wear “Clarks”.
Leanne: A “Clarks”.
Jane: Yeah, but Clarks was a fact came from a personal brand, it was someone who founded the Clarks brand. Then I saw Robert Mathers and the Mathers’ family, the people who founded Mathers. Sir Robert was knighted for his services to the business community and they were my first mentors in my life and they were like family to me. I worked for them for twelve years and then I went on and did a marketing degree and then Tom Peters had this concept called “Personal branding” when I was in second-year uni. and I was like, imagine having like somebody say “I want a personal brand and here's my credit card.” and I was like, “this is…” and that was long a bit like the internet hadn't even been in store.
Leanne: Wow.
Jane: I just remember thinking “Imagine people doing that!” I have always had this love, I did a marketing degree but I ended up working in HR for working sort of between those two fields which those two connected are all about influence. So it just sort of evolved that way and I worked for the Mathers family as I said. I also worked in government and worked in large organizations but I kept coming back to. I always had an interest in people's personal branded businesses like I worked for Tony Ferguson the Weight Loss Company, Rotary Weight Chemists as part of that whole branding and then worked in for Super Retail Groups, Supercheap Auto, BCF. The CEO of that company had an incredible personal brand, he's very humble, his name is Peter Birtles and he won CEO of the year.
I was really drawn to people who had strong personal brands and it was just the value of who people are and not just about the organization brand but the individuals that work there. All those people who have had the courage to put their face on the shingle out the front and say like I always found it fascinating that the people I worked for had the courage to do that. I was such a behind-the-scenes kind of person. I was like...
Leanne: Oh, no way!
Jane: Yeah, I think I just was always in awe of what they could. That they had so much courage to put their face out there and it was something though I never had the courage to do so I was like “Yeah, I'll support you whatever you need done, if your face is on the shingle that's great as long as mine is not.”
Leanne: Isn’t it funny how times have changed?
Jane: Yeah, well that was what happened, you know we had a change of government in Queensland in 2012. I had started my business but a 70% or 80% of my contracts went overnight with the change of government because most of my contracts were government work. I was sort of hiding behind a brand because I just didn't have the courage to put my personal brand out and then I went, you know what, actually I have to change something and I have to change something very fast and I thought “Okay, I can see now why personal brand works because of social media.” because I just noticed that all the things I was doing with helping wasn't just businesses but I'd also spent five years working in career counselling and helping market people for jobs and I thought “Okay, I've danced around it long enough, I've helped everybody else and now I have to do it for me.” It’s not something that I've ever started up feeling comfortable with. I've always been a cheerleader in someone else's corner and but you know one day the time comes where you've got to do it for yourself and you know you just got to “step-up and let's do it!”
Leanne: It's really fascinating! A couple things I want to just to point out was I liked how you talked about the intersection of marketing and HR. That's my background as well as I was in marketing before I moved into HR, studied HR though but I think the similarities are that you are influencing over people you've got to sell ideas you got to persuade them particularly around culture change. Great to hear that you've got that intersection but also around having to step-up as well and have that courage, you use the word “courageous” quite a lot there which I really like. I think with our first-time facilitators a lot of them are getting their step-up by doing a lot of facilitation internally with businesses which is a great way to hone your skill and a lot of this podcast has been focusing that how you deliver those workshops but we have never really spoken about let's just say you actually get really good at this and you want to go out on your own. How do you transition and how do you create that step? and so I got your book “EXPERT to INFLUENCER” and I really wanted to point out there's one thing I was like “Oh, this is brilliant and haven't heard this word used before.” and you're talking about how do you develop trust with people because that's how people buy your brand, buy your credibility and everything else and as a facilitator we need trust in our workshops to get the great outcomes.
Now, what I thought there was under personality. You're talking about the twelve pillars of trust, an item there was called “remarkability”. How remarkable are you? I love that word! Can you just explain a bit more about that or how we actually can start finding “What does make us remarkable? What does make us unique?”
Jane: Yeah, when you think about “Why would you want to do that? Why can't I just keep doing what am I doing? Why can’t I just keep facilitating on contents that's already been out there or their stuff it's out in the market?” I could keep going with Covey’s Seven Habits forever and it's amazing and I love Covey's work so it's not saying that there's anything wrong with that but it's more on how do you make this leap and what you've got to do is be remarkable. Seth Godin talks about this with some in a lot of his work and you actually need to be the artist. What happens is when you're the facilitator, if you're using or you're working with other IP or you feel facilitating your strategy day, there's some kind of framework or context that maybe you have learned. It might be maybe you've learnt pro-side principles or maybe you've learnt add car models or maybe you're facilitating around some kind of someone else's IP and to make the transition yourself is you actually have to be the person creating the ideas. I know that's like- “How am I supposed to compete with like Myers-Briggs or DISC Co.?” All that stuff's out there, I have nothing else to add. But you have insights and experiences and knowledge that no one else has and it took me a long time to get my head around this because I went inside up for every certification possible and now because I was like “Good, I don't have to create this stuff, you've already done it. Great!” and those things still serve well in fact, I've created my own certifications for other people. But if you really want to stand out, what happens if you don't, if you want to stand out the benefits are particularly if you're making that transition now, the difference is in, first of all, what you paid. So there's a very big difference in your day rate and what you will be paid by clients because they need to see the value in what you bring and you can still bring in some of those things. So for example if it's like DISC Co. or Myers-Briggs, I might do it as part of what I do but it's not my whole practice otherwise I'm the same as everybody else and then what happens is they're going “Oh, we need a Myers-Briggs workshop.” and Myers-Briggs is great by the way, I'm not saying it you know I've done thousands of my not-wise Myers-Briggs profiles. I followed about 6,000 people.
Leanne: Wow!
Jane: Yeah, it's been a lot.
Leanne: Yeah.
Jane: But what happens is that people will say “Oh, we need a team-building thing, why don't we do that Myers-Briggs thing?” and they go out to market and look around and all the pricing is pretty much the same. So you have to be even more remarkable to try and get that work because otherwise what happens is you're like a “toothpaste on the supermarket shelf” where the customer's standing there going “Well, I don't know which one to buy so I just buy the one that's on special.”
Leanne: Yeah.
Jane: So you're competing on price now, so the problem is if you're not remarkable and the problem is we've got this “Tall Poppy” thing so we don't think we're very much remarkable at all and in fact we are. I find everybody fascinating that it's we're too close to our own stuff to think that we're “I'm not good enough or maybe I don't really know anything.” but you know that was what my problem. When I realized that I had this problem, I had this commoditization problem and so I realized that actually I'm competing on price with people and how am I differentiating myself or how am I articulating my value so that I can say something other than “You just need to buy me because I'm better!.” or “You just let me do it because I'm better.” but then you got to have a bit more than that to be able to get that over the line and so it's that fine line isn't it between the cocky and arrogant and trying to sell yourself and you're like “You look at these other people I go. How did they do it? How on earth are they’re so busy? How are they doing all this amazing work?” and so you spot on the difference. The remarkability is what makes you easy to buy and unique.
Leanne: Yeah.
Jane: And if you find out what that is then you're well-positioned and you can start to unpack your thinking and your ideas and what your experience it is. You know I've got some clients who have done you know PhDs and they get very cranky because when I work with them and they say “Are you telling me that you do this with people who haven't had to go and do a PhD and they are earning more than me?” and I said “Yes!”
Leanne: Yes. I mean isn't it interesting like ten years ago, if you wanted to be paid more I think the default response as well- just go to another course. It's so different nowadays.
Jane: Yes, but you don't need to.
Leanne: No.
Jane: You really don’t need to. If you can solve people's problems and you can help them have the insights and have the empathy to help them understand their own challenges and you're able to care. If you know how to care and run a tribe, if you know how to do that and you can solve problems, you don't need an MBA, that's just not needed anymore. But if you know your customers, if you understand them or the people in your rooms whether your customer is within an organization or outside if you're making the move. I always say the person who understands the customer the most is the persons whose business grows the fastest.
Leanne: Yeah absolutely. I love that you talk about what you said about we're so close to what we're thinking because it's in our own head so of course we take it for granted and we just assume – “Everyone thinks this way.” “Everyone would have the same response to that.”
What I like about your book though, it's you've got all these questions where you can articulate what your responses would be to different things like your values and things like that. I can totally imagine if you had thousands of people complete your book not one person would have the same answer to any of those questions, it’s like combination alone, if you put it to some paper and talk about logic we're all completely unique. So I hope all of our listeners get that and find the importance of what you're talking about because it does seem like nowadays you hop onto LinkedIn and it seems that everyone is a speaker, a coach, a facilitator so you have to get through a lot of noise.
Jane: Yes.
Leanne: Yeah and what you spoke about it's important about knowing what the customer wants. So I'd like to hear that in the context of facilitating a workshop. I mean you've run, you’ve worked with 50,000 people, what do you do beforehand to find out what they need from the day that you're there? What kind of tactics?
Jane: Great question. I wish so many people would ask that question so much more. I would say, if anyone said to me “Why do you get booked so much? Why do so many people work with you?” and it's because I spend the time on this and if there's anything that I would say that makes the big difference and this is where I’m with my clients, this is where I spend the time. So for example, let's say you're walking into a room of workplace health and safety or a consult teams in the mining industry. I've worked with lots of mining, oil and gas and so I know that getting them in the room is the first challenge.
Leanne: Big time. Hello to all my colleagues who’s listening. Yes it is, we all know it is. Time-poor. Yep!
Jane: Right? Time-poor is the first challenge. The second challenge is that you're in a highly reactive space so if something goes wrong, if you've got a mind shut down, if you've got, you know there's so much volatility and safety is a number one. So if there's something that goes wrong onside and particularly if you're dealing with workplace of health and safety, they're in a highly reactive role so then I go, “Okay!” So empathy and understanding is like dude. If you can get that then I can connect so I'll say “Okay, so what's going on for these people right now? What's going for on for them not just in their role?” so you've got what I call “Higher and lower order problems”.
Higher order problems you know they're going through a restructure, you know this particular mind sets has been going through. It's in a shutdown at the moment or there's lots of specific volatility that's happening in that specific role or there's a lot of compliance issues.
Lower order problems, they're still relevant which is around being time-poor that’s across all industries. But if you can take the time and I do this for keynoting as well so I do a lot of research. I have a research team so I get them out to go and find out. One of the specific challenges I've got the clients problems that I'm talking to them about but then I'll go and research what else is going on in the industry so I have them find out.
So for example, I spoke at a keynote I remember it was a couple of years ago and it was about working with young female lawyers like it was early career lawyers and it was particularly women and I was like “Okay, well I'm not a lawyer and I think I've got a bit of an idea.” but you can always assume too much so you've got to know that you've got a natural unconscious bias and assumptions. So I put it on Facebook and I said “Here's an early career female lawyer, you need to be in this age group. I'll pay you for your time. I need to interview you.”
Leanne: Wow.
Jane: So I say to them “Whatever you charge for client, I don't expect you to do it for free. Whatever you charged for a client you can charge me, I have a few questions.” and I usually take up about a half an hour of their time and I'll do it over the phone and they can bill me that's no problem because I know that builds my understanding not just for that client but I think I've worked something across 52 different industries now. So being able to know those problems that those different industries are facing and that's how you end up getting the work because I know that you can solve that.
Leanne: Yeah.
Jane: So I think it's worth…one of the things I find like I had a client just recently and he's done a PhD in this amazing management theory and I think there was sparks coming off him and I had so much stuff. He was amazing and I said to him “What problem does your customer say that they have?” this is after three hours of explaining his whole mission philosophy branding journey life story. I said “What problem does your customer understand that they have?” or “What problem does your customer say they has?” and he said “I don't know, that's my problem.”
Leanne: Wow.
Jane: So otherwise, it's you telling them that they've got a problem and that's like calling someone's baby “ugly”, isn't it? It sounds like “You know, you’re problem is?” So it comes from huge compassion and empathy and understanding and then only then it's like trying to land a plane- you got to clear your tarmac! You can't get anything through and you can't create change in a room and you don't have to regurgitate back to them everything that you've read. But you've got as a facilitator you've got to ask the right question and if you know the right questions to ask, the value you bring to the room is that's your job as the facilitator, isn't it? Your job is to change the room.
Leanne: Yes.
Jane: If you can have that understanding, it's not necessarily you’re being an expert in that person's job but if you can know the right questions to ask they've got the answers as you know. It's then that's really how and then that's when the value they see the value bring.
Leanne: Yeah, it's just being comfortable with the language that you're using as well and making sure that is relevant to that industry because you also talk about credibility in your book and I really I got this quote out that I loved. It's a John C. Maxwell quote that you've used in your book:
“Credibility is a leader’s currency. With it, he or she is solvent; without it he or she is bankrupt.”
It’s so important to be credible! I mean I guess you've been doing this for some time since you were 14 years old you've got this bank of clients you've worked with and got such a great reputation. For someone starting out, how do they create that credibility? I can't imagine, I know I'm very uncomfortable walking into a room and saying “Yeah, this is the stuff that I've done.” I don't really want to talk myself up again, the “Tall Poppy Syndrome” but it's really not about me anyway. But you want them to trust that you are meant to be in that room, you deserve a spot. How do you create that?
Jane: Yeah, great question. So trust, there is a difference between trust and credibility. Credibility brings trust, sorry, well credibility builds trust so I say there's three things that will build trust and this is some other new IP I'm working on. You saw the 12 pieces to building trust but I've really got it down to what are the three key big things that you need to be able to do to build trust.
One is authenticity, you've got to be just you, you've got to be your best self and you know that means knowing what you're trying to do, your mission, your clarity about what, who you are as a human being and just to be your most authentic self and I know that's easy to say, that first part is authenticity. The second part is empathy and empathy is that understanding that I've got an understanding, whether it's around, whatever the challenges that audience has or the team or the group or customer, whatever. If you've got those two things, so first of all its authenticity and then empathy which is what your challenges are on your world and then the bottom one is credibility so if you can get those three things the authenticity, empathy and credibility. If those three things come together you get trust because now you suddenly “I have more confidence in you; I can see the confidence in what you're saying; I can see you have conviction.” so that empathy is what actually makes you do go deeper in your knowledge.
Leanne: Yeah and like you said I mean you gave the example before of putting out a call to lawyers and then getting billed for the time. Not a lot of people do that. No, they don't! And especially with keynotes because you think “I've got this speech. It's all packaged up. I've spent a lot of time developing it. I can just go into any kind of industry and deliver this.” and I think that's where it does fall flat so what you're doing is as part of that research contextualizing it for that audience which is amazing!
Jane: Absolutely!
Leanne: So the three things that you talk about authenticity, empathy & credibility. It all talks, we're talking maps in the facilitation context but that is really what leadership is about as well.
Jane: That’s right.
Leanne: So that's what I love about doing this podcast about facilitation. Everything I'm hearing about people in terms of the great skills facilitators bring in terms of having empathy, showing up caring for people, taking that time. All of those attributes what makes a great leader.
Jane: Yes.
Leanne: So if you're becoming a great facilitator, a side benefit is you'll probably also be an amazing leader as well.
Jane: Absolutely, you know James Hume, he was the speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and he said “Whenever you're presenting and facilitating is the same thing you're auditioning for a position of leadership.” So you're in front of a room, you're already in your… I think sometimes we go out- “I'm a facilitator; I'm a trainer; I'm not a leader, I just run training programs.” but you know if you're in front of a room but even when we're branding and positioning people and around to give that credibility, we will look for photos where they're standing in front of a group. So it doesn't matter if you've got three people, if you're the one in-charge of the room, it's your room and you're the one holding the space for everybody, you're the leader!
Leanne: Yeah, you have a leader. I love that. I did read it in your book about when you are given the opportunity to present, try and document that. So this book, I have to say I love the practical nature of it. You can read a lot of books at a very theory and you're like how does it supply but I think it's great for facilitators that do want to start stepping out of their companies. One example you gave was “Before you're traveling to a workshop, take a selfie at the airport or before you hit the road.” Like that's just something so simple but that immediately what that tell people “Well, I'm on the road, I've been asked to go somewhere else to run a workshop.” such a great little hack!
Jane: Yeah and even if you are trying to show people that you don't just work in your local town so you know when I started, my problem was because of the changing government you know 80% of my business went overnight so I realized that actually half my problem is that I have a business that is very focused on clients in Queensland so I said “Okay, I actually need to build not just a national but an international brand so that if anything goes wrong at any time I can pick up. I can go somewhere or I can work with clients. I can reach out and I'm not going to be affected by local government challenges.” and that was what happens to a lot of businesses here in particular Queensland because of our volatile government so what I did exactly that I said “Okay, every time we go check in, airport; Facebook post! So it was around building the brand to be and the communication strategy that went with that and of course people go “Oh my God, you're everywhere, every time!”
Leanne: You are!
Jane: And it's very deliberate and so I've probably settled down on a bit now. But when I first started, it was very deliberate because I had to really send the message that you know if people; “I won't worry you because you're in Brisbane or you're not in Melbourne or you're not in Sydney”. I needed to open it up and create access so people would instead say “Oh, when you're in Sydney next or when you're in Melbourne next.” so I was in Sydney or Melbourne most weeks so it was just opening it up to say “I'm prepared to get on a plane. I’m prepared. “Yes I'm in town!”
Leanne: Yeah absolutely. I want to talk about a bit of travel and environment because I know you're running a workshop at Peppers at Kingscliff.
Jane: Yes.
Leanne: For anyone, for those of you that have never been there it's absolutely amazing. It's very relaxing, this beautiful beach, the town is just if you get there and all your stresses pretty much dissolved. I would like to ask you yet just about that. Was that a deliberate move to create a strong environment for you workshop? Why did you pick that spot to run your one day workshop?
Jane: Well, it sounds like I won't be doing very much.
Leanne: Yeah, cocktails by the pool but that sounds like a perfect day.
Jane: Yes, exactly. White boards can be wheeled out to the Spa.
Leanne: That's a really good idea. You should get into hotel design and thinking about conferences and things like that? Why not?
Jane: That's right! Yeah you know one of the things that I've noticed, I'm a mentor in Thought Leaders Business School and my mentor who was the founder of Thought Leaders Business School. I’ve been in there for five years and his name is Matt Church. It has this mantra, you want to get to a point where you do work you like with people you like or love, people you love the way that you want. He said to me “If you could have a program that runs any way that you want, how would that work?” and that takes a while to build up to that so yes I was running around the country and I was running programs everywhere and I said you know like Kingscliff dope I grew up around that area so it's like home to me. The beach is like home because I live in the city now but the beach is where I reconnect, it's where I get off the treadmill and so when he said “What would that look like? What would work you love, work you like with people you love the way you want?” and I thought “Okay so what I would love is I would love to be able to have a be at a point where my business had grown enough and my brand was strong enough that people would have the courage to you know maybe not stay in Melbourne get on a plane and come and disconnect to reconnect a little bit.” but it's branding work you know you're really connecting with people's identity and the core of who they are that's quite hard to do in a corporate battleship grey office.
Leanne: And they're battling traffic to even get there on time.
Jane: Yeah. You know you've got to kind of get grounded I know because I grew up around that area maybe I'm a bit of a hippie at heart but you know it's those things that you really have to consciously stop and reconnect to who you are to actually make some of these decisions that you're making and go “Oh wow! Yeah I do, do that.” But what I had to do was create that base for me to work in to help other people so that they could see that for themselves and so that's the challenge I often start to pose to them; “What would your version of this look like?” and so there's one lady that I know that has done. She's a fantastic coach and she's a beautiful cook so what she does is she cooks in her coaching sessions so you go to her house and you sit up at the kitchen bench and she coaches while she's cooking. So she cooks, she bakes so by the end of the session so she spends the first few minutes you know putting all the recipe together and whatever. I'm not a very good cook but nothing like she’s like.
Leanne: I’m a terrible cook!
Jane: Microwaves, come in very handy sometimes. You know by the end of the session then you have that by the time she's finished cooking and then you sit down you have the meal together and so that's the end of that coaching session that goes for I think an hour and a half or whatever it might be. So you know hearing some of these stories of how people do it and its part of how they love to do it that's part of their brand that's what she's known for and that's what creates the remarkability.
Leanne: Yes. I was just that word was just coming up. I mean how many people would talk about that afterwards and that is something that's completely unique to her and I love that you know because we think of workshops and we think we're boxed in a room we've got them for half the day there's going to be pretty average catered lunch, we need to have PowerPoint slides but she's completely just gone- No! This is the way we're going to do it and but then by doing that she's attracting the type of people that she'd want so it's like hitting those three things that you spoke about earlier that's such a cool quote.
Jane: Yeah you stop trying to conform but having said that when you first starting out, you've got to be easy to buy and it's hard to buy you if you set something like that up straightaway. You haven't got enough trust, you haven't built up the credibility and all that sort of thing so you still kind of got to do the hard yards initially but build up your database, build up your relationships and once there's some you'll see in the book there are a few metrics that we look for to be able to know at what point if I did. Because people are scared to do things like that so there are certain metrics that I work with people in their businesses to say “Okay, yes you've got these numbers of certain people on data bases, certain revenue, customers types of programs” and then we say “Okay, yes now is the time to do it!”
Leanne: Yeah it's a calculated risk rather than just going “I must give this a Go!” and to be completely disappointed when no one buys it. Where did that go? Why did that fail?
Jane: Yeah you've got that trust and the relationship with those clients, they'll follow you, they'll go where you want and then because they wouldn't necessarily look for something like that but when they go, the fact that you're the one running it so you create, one is actually matters that CEO of Thought Leaders said, he said “Business is changing from the business of ideas particularly with facilitators. If you're in this space, you're working with your ideas and what your worldview is and how you articulate that to get the best out of people based on your experience.” but he said just recently that “It's not just about the ideas.” Because I can go online, I can find those ideas, I can read your blog's. It's actually the experiences you create that how those ideas are applied and how do I get to connect with that which is the whole remarkability. “What’s the essence of you that makes that experience?” because yes I can get the knowledge from you but I don't want to sit and read a blog, I want to hang out with you for a day. I want to know “Oh yeah, look at my stuff, yeah give me some attention. Look at me for a day and I want to be around your energy in the space that you hold.” and that's the real value.
Leanne: That’s what would attracts me. Yeah. I'd like to talk about energy as well, sorry I'm just coming up to like a keynote or the workshop that you're running down at Kingscliff. I've been really interested in listening to a lot of podcasts recently about the morning routine and what different people do. What do you do to get sort of psyched up or do you have to calm yourself down before you start delivering one of these?
Jane: Yes and its interesting, isn't it? Like keynote and facilitation as such different modes of delivery of ones thinking, ones “tell versus ask”. So you know you've got different energy spaces that you're working with but facilitation kind of got it. The thing they have in common is you've got to meet the room where they're at. You can come in, managing your state is everything so if you can manage your energy that's for sure. I have to fire myself up a little bit because I'm actually my natural state is mentoring so I'm very introverted ironically most people don't realize that but I'm more introverted than I am extroverted. And to facilitate in groups or to keynote and I keynote every week so it's not something that comes naturally to me, it is tiring. So I have to make sure I've got myself pumped up so it'll be things like make sure I get sleep, just eating well particularly when you travel because a lot of these conferences and things are interstate so I will never I always travel the night the day before. I also will go into the room the day before so if I fly in that afternoon if I'm the first or second one on in the morning, I'll go into the room because I need to know the energy or the space of the room. I'll do it just a quick practice on stage just so I can get a sense of how it works and it's funny I spoke at an event a few years ago and I was on straight after. I didn't know that the person who was speaking before me was going to be running a meditation session.
Leanne: Hard that to follow.
Jane: I had my headphones on and I had like you know right against the machine on and I was so fired up and then I went in and it was like “Okay.”
Leanne: You could feel that mood as “Woo!”
Jane: “Okay, we’ll slow down”. But you know you get even much the energy and then bring it out but you've got to bring, there's so much energy that comes to a keynote and to being able to prepare for that and it's knowing your stuff so that you can be present to the room and serve the room and connect with the room like things like what will give me energy is I'll stand at the door and greet people when they come in. It’s also clear that to them that “Oh, she must be somebody who's working here.” or “Oh, that's right. She's the lady that maybe she's on the hand out garden.”
Leanne: Oh yeah, and she's approachable as well which is great.
Jane: It's not me saying “I'm not coming in going right. I'm the speaker, I'll have my blue M&Ms. Thank you.” You've got to connect with the audience, my job is to change the room while I'm there so you just got to do everything you can to get that energy in connection, don't you?
Leanne: Yeah I love that my job is to change the room while I'm there. Gee! That’s pretty impactful, that's going to be the quote of the episode, love that! But I think as well, I'm entering I love seeing the room as well even the day before because then it helps you go to sleep at night because he's not wondering what does the room look like and you want to have like most your questions answered before you have that sleep so you can have a restful you know eight hours or whatever it is that you need.
Jane: Yes and unique to them. You know I've had things like I've fallen off the stage, technology hasn't worked every age.
Leanne: You’ve fallen off the stage?
Jane: Oh, you name it! Like when you do as many as I do, everything goes wrong but you know you've got to know your keynote forty-five minutes inside out back to front, if anything fails what are you going to do. You know I've had that happen before. You’ve just got to know plan ABCD and E.
Leanne: Have any times where like something's happening you're like “I just can't continue doing this, what am I doing?” Have that ever crossed your mind or you like “No, just get on back on the bike and let's just keep going.” You must have been talked at times.
Jane: Yeah there was one particular time it was actually really early and when I started speaking and I got booked for this keynote it was at the Gold Coast and it was Royal Pines. I don't know if you've ever been to Royal Pines but the meeting room is massive. It's like a nightclub like they're stripe lights, it was like a rock concept this thing.
Leanne: At the golf club, that's not, now I wouldn't have thought that but…
Jane: Yeah it's got a really big, it's really popular for conferences. It's got a great massive room so there's about a thousand people at this conference and I walked in the room and the A/V guy was there and I saw my presentation on the computer and I thought it looks a bit different though and so I went over to him and said “Hi, my name is Jane Anderson, I’m on this morning.” and he said “Yeah, marked me up.” and then I said “Can I just ask you? I think there's a slide there, I just looking at that presentation, it looks a bit different than the one I had to send through.” I had send to his head two weeks prior and he said “Ah yeah, you can have a look.”, so look through and it but there were slides missing, there were things I'd never seen before and so I was on in 20 minutes I couldn't change anything and so I said “Okay, all right I'll just work with that.”
Leanne: Gosh, well done.
Jane: “Have you got a whiteboard? and he said “Yes, I think there's one down at the back.” and so I thought all right I know where my where the breaks are I think in the content so I was like “Okay, I can work I think with it.” and then he said “Just so you know, you know the remote?” so he said “With the remote, just so you know it doesn't go backwards that only goes forwards in it.” so I said “Okay, so what happens if I have to go backwards?” he said “Oh look! I'll be at the back, I'm the A/V guy, you just yell out.” So of course I started the keynote and the slides started moving. I hadn't even touched anything and I thought “I should have known when he said that. How would he know that?” Anyway, I got it, I said on to Mr. A/V “Can you come back to the first slide again?” and so I started again and they just started moving in and I thought “Okay, I'm not touching anything!” so I just turned them off and I was in the first five minutes. Anyway, I got through it but I was kicking myself because I thought “What have I done wrong, I can't…” you know because everyone's looking at you that you're the problem so you've just got to work with. Anyway of course I got off the stage and the coordinator came running up and said “Oh my God that was amazing. I don't know how you did that but what you didn't know is that your remote was connected to the room next door and theirs was connected to yours. That was fantastic, would definitely get you back next year”. I can’t do it, I can’t do this thing!
Leanne: Oh my gosh! That’s up there! There were some of the worst stories I've heard. Wow! You handled that so well. But you wouldn't have been able to pull that off if you haven't prepared. There's no way I mean you could have, you can wing things for certain time but not for 45 minutes. Oh my gosh, well done! High five! I was getting goose bumps when you're telling me when you're framing that story that is the worst scenario and if that ever happens though at least we know “Hey, what's going on next door, I think we need to swap.”
Jane: Exactly, it’s a good tip for facilitators.
Leanne: It is really a good tip. Speaking of tips, are there any tips or words of advice that you can offer our first-time facilitators listening in?
Jane: Yeah I think if I think back to. I remember the first time I facilitated I was terrible. So I would, allow yourself to you know just be- know that you're not going to be perfect straight away and this still days where I like not very often but sometimes you just have an off day. It doesn't mean it's like your whole career is destroyed. If you have a tough day that would be the first thing is to know it's just a tough day. If something goes wrong that's all part of learning and part of growing. The other thing I would say that has made the biggest difference and I wish I did this much earlier was find your tribe, find the people who you need to be around, who are doing the same thing as you or trying to do something similar. But you want to also work out find your mentor and often the mentor will be the person leading that tribe so if you want to get really great at like it might be at training activities then find the expert who is the expert in training activities. Do some mentoring with them but work out as well- “Who are other people who are trying to solve that problem as well?” or “Where do other trainers hang out?”
So for example, I have a program which is called the “Women of Influence” and we have this power up program and so these are all women who are facilitators, trainers, coaches, speakers. So I lead the tribe but they're all trying to do the same thing but they're all different at what they do. Some do leadership, some do personal branding got three in there that do personal branding, we've got others that are business coaches but they do a lot of facilitation for businesses. Everybody's so different but to work out we'll you know particularly I think for women as well you know for women, we don't naturally get out of build the networks the blokes tend to. So find your tribe, go and ask around if it's you know whether it's the AITD may be there's some members in there if it's training, the Australian Institute of Training and Development. If you're a coach but you also include facilitation in your work maybe you do group coaching it might be that kind of space. Look at the ICF professional speakers if you're a facilitator and you're wanting to include more speaking, you'll be like this plenty of speakers who also do facilitation. So look for your associations, find your tribe get around with the right people and find a mentor.
Leanne: Excellent advice, brilliant! Jane, I've loved our conversation today I could easily talk to you for another couple of hours. I think we've just kind of touched the surface but I've learnt a lot already. A lot of what I picked up free reading your book which I will recommend to all the listeners especially if you want to start differentiating yourself in a crowded market I think it's really useful. But also hearing, you’re very authentic and vulnerable when you came out with some of those stories and I think that cheers the audience that it's okay to mess up and you need to stretch in order to develop at the end of the day. Finally Jane, where can people find you?
Jane: Yeah thank you. So they can jump on my website so its jane-anderson.com, you're welcome to jump on there and of course there's all LinkedIn and Instagram and those places so I'm always around like you said.
Leanne: Everywhere!
Jane: I’m kind of everywhere. You’ll be sick of me probably. But one of the things that you can do is when you go to the website. This could be useful actually for your listeners and you'll probably notice on the book it's got where you can do take the “Influencer Score” so I created a diagnostic to help people to understand like just the communication channels and just you know you don't have to try and do all of them immediately but just to know where to start and so you can go on it takes three minutes to fill out so you just go to the jane-anderson.com website, if you scroll right down the bottom it's actually a little bit hidden and because otherwise you go to the shop and you'll pay $80, so just go!.
Leanne: Wow that’s so cool. Okay!
Jane: There’s a little link its right down the very bottom and it's called the “Lead Generation Indicator” so if you're starting out or if maybe you're thinking about making the move or you have made the move out of corporate and you're starting to do this yourself. It gives you a seven page personal report of exactly where you sit now. I'm based on what you've got to do so you know your gaps on what and where to go from there.
Leanne: Oh that's perfect and we'll definitely link those in the show notes for sure.
Jane: Oh thank you! Yeah better, right!
Leanne: Lovely. Thanks, Jane. You've been awesome!
Jane: Thank you very much.
Leanne: Have a great evening.
Jane: Thank you.
Leanne: Well done!
First Time Facilitator podcast interview with Tyson Young (Episode 20)
Leanne: Our guest today was recommended by a mutual friend, Stephanie Yeo. I'd like to read the introduction that she sent me. These are her own words. Tyson is a CEO and co-founder of Carisma, a digital application that enables your mechanic to provide you with your car's visual service history. Outside of his work at Carisma, Tyson is an amazing facilitator, emcee extraordinaire and speaker. He's wonderfully humorous and an amazing active listener who adapts his style based on effectively reading his audience. Welcome to the show, Tyson Young.
Tyson: Thank you so much for having me. That reminds me I'm going to have to pay Steph to write all those lovely things, clearly lies but–-
Leanne: How does it feel when you read a description-- someone in your audience wrote that about you, how does that make you feel?
Tyson: It's super humbling to actually have engaged the audience and one person in particular and especially from someone like Steph who is incredible. It's amazing.
Leanne: I hope you’re listening out, Steph. Yes, we both got some very positive things to say about you. Absolutely, for someone not only to think about that and then to reach out and say, "Leanne, you need to interview this guy. It's -–" Yes, well done.
Tyson: Thank you, thank you.
Leanne: How did you stumble upon the world of training, facilitation, speaking in general?
Tyson: I mean probably it depends how far back I go. I did debating in school and I'm sure that's just because mum wanted me to redirect my energies into arguing with her with other people. I started doing public speaking but quickly dropped it out when I learned you had to do preparation beforehand. Debating was great because you could just go and you would wait for them to do that a little bit and then you'd argue the point. I think that was good a little bit of high school experience. After that, I think that the pivotal moment for me was the QUT international business Case Competition.
You would get presented with these cases. You'd go overseas and you have-- depending on the timeline. It would be like 24-48 hours crammed in a hotel room with way too much Red Bull and putting together this business case and then presenting it to the audience and a panel of expert judges. That was really good in terms of learning how to develop some kind of cohesive train of thought and a message and then deliver that in a high-pressure situation.
In addition to that, I joined the Australian Army Reserve when I was 16. I did that for 10 years and I think there is a lot of training and a lot of facilitation again in relatively high-pressure situations, so that was good and good for the maturity maybe at a younger age. Then from there, just every gig seems to lead to another one and then here I am talking to you.
Leanne: Absolutely. Let's talk about those high-pressure situations. Do you remember that first pitch that you did overseas? Could you sort of reflect on that and what have you learned from that first pitch compared to now>
Tyson: So much. I think I always joked that I was the PowerPoint guy, because I wasn't fantastic at doing the talking. I wasn't fantastic with coming up with the strategies. I knew how to move some pixels around, so that's how I snuck into the team. I was like, "I've got design skills." That was good for so many reasons, but I think working with a team especially, because you couldn't just go and do your own thing. You still had to make sure that your lines worked in with everyone else's and you were kind of vibing off one another.
I think what I learnt from that is there are, in a situation like that, often many different personalities and it comes down to compromise both from your end and their end. You end up generally with a pretty happy team. What else did I learn? Not to have too much Red Bull for a presentation. No, but it was good. I think it all came together in the end and just to enjoy the experience.
Leanne: Part of Stephanie’s feedback is that she said that you adapt your style based on reading the audience. Can you give examples of doing that? Was that something again another skill that you've honed?
Tyson: Yes, like anything, I think you do hone skills over time. One thing that has helped me, and I think this actually came from dad giving me this advice because he's done a bit of facilitation himself. He also had 20 years in the military. It's to, first of all, turn up early and read the room, walk the stage, do whatever you can to feel comfortable in the environment. A big part of that for me is actually speaking with the audience.
Steph was one of the amazing conversations I had beforehand. It's just having that genuine human connection which really puts you at ease. Then you start to feel as though you're understanding who your audience are before you're actually talking to them. Because I really hate going in cold and just talking at people. It's great to already have, oh, like you feel as though you've got some friends before you even start.
Leanne: Yes, I was given that advice as well before, like a big speech. You're kind of conflicted because sometimes you just want to be backstage getting yourself psyched up or doing whatever it takes to psych you up. But at the same time, you see the value of that you're no longer delivering to strangers. You can actually find out why you’re in this room and then somehow relate that to the person.
Tyson: Oh, it's like you feel as though you're having a conversation with people. It would be the same if I had to do this interview but you couldn't talk for 40 minutes. I'm just kind of I don't know what to talk about, just making stuff up. Whereas, when you have that back and forth engagement even if that engagement is simply them laughing or just inquisitively on looking, I think that helps bring out some of the good stuff.
Leanne: Let's talk about getting laughs. Steph mentioned that you were-- We're talking a lot about you, Steph. Wonderfully humorous, is that just your personality that you just bring into your role as a facilitator?
Tyson: I don't know if that's my personality. I mean I've often had people tell me that I'm a joke. I'm not sure if that's a good thing. Now look, I'm incredibly impressed by comedians to start with because they have to get up there with the expectation that they're going to be funny. If you kind of get some laughs as a comedian, I imagine that's probably not a good thing. You want a roomful of laughter. As a facilitator, your job isn't there to be a comedian. But if you do get a laugh and people are like, "Ah, funny guy," it's a very easy one. Even if you get one joke-- I think for me it's more about going in with the expectation that there won't be any laughs and not waiting for applause or for laughter.
Leanne: Waiting for the cymbal crash.
Tyson: Yes, if a joke doesn't come off and it's -- me personally, I never deliver something with like this epic punchline. It's just if people laugh and then, ah, okay, I'll pause and I'll let you have a laugh and continue on. It feels good, it feels good for them too.
Leanne: Great. What other kind of tools and strategies do you bring into your facilitation that may make you different from the other facilitator next door?
Tyson: Look, I wrote some things down because just before this. I guess that's the first one doing a bit of research and putting some notes down. Doing a little bit of research to understand who your audience is helps a lot. Again, that helps with the kinds of jokes that are going to land. If I make lots of startup related jokes at a maybe a corporate event, they might not understand it. They won't be empathetic to that kind of humor. The next one is I'm a big fan of self-deprecation clearly. I've maybe take it a bit too far sometimes and people think I actually just hate myself but not all the time, only after a big house party. Talking with people beforehand yet walking the room, and I think remembering that it's okay to smile and laugh.
People have this misconception that if it's corporate, as soon as they hear that word "corporate," it's like, oh, it has to be serious. At the end of the day, people are still people. People still want to laugh and engage with you. What else? Find your own style. I think it's great to have inspiration but it's also okay to realize that you can be different to other people. I'm certainly not-- I wouldn't even say I'm a great facilitator, just over time I'm learning how to do it a bit better.
Leanne: Same as me.
Tyson: Yes, and I've listened to your podcast and I think they're fantastic.
Leanne: Thank you.
Tyson: Your guests are great. Hopefully, I can you have to stand with them. Just in terms of a few other tips, I'd like to write down notes like handwritten notes. Oh, just lost power. [laughs] For those--
Leanne: For those listening, we’re recording face to face and the light just went out. It went completely dark. But that's kind of-- I mean that can happen in a workshop-
Tyson: Totally.
Leanne: - where we've sort of facilitated in previous episodes, where they've said the biggest thing that ever derailed their workshop was the technology not working. How do you -- but look, that was out for half a second and we've recovered.
Tyson: I know. I started sweating profusely. I was a little bit scared but we're here. I think in terms of not just the notes, I try and avoid a lot of caffeine maybe just because it's the type of person I am. I still get quite nervous before anything like any kind of presentation. I use those nerves because anxiety and fear and excitement, for a lot of it I think it's the same physiological effect. I do use that adrenaline to keep me amped up a little bit. I don't want too much other stimulants in my system. The final one I think is just water, just making sure I'm hydrated and have a relatively clear throat.
Leanne: Well, most good tips are water and caffeine, interesting as well. Because, I've also heard there's a podcast I listen to, it's called Steal the Show by Michael Port. He always says don't drink anything with dairy in it, even the night before that you're running like a big presentation because the dairy in your system can like clog up your lungs or something along those lines.
Tyson: I don't eat dairy so that's a good stuff.
Leanne: There you go. You’re all good. For anyone else listening, I always go a Long Black in the morning of a big presentation just so it doesn't those up. You've really come a long way from preparing compared to what you're like in high school, where you just kind of wanted to wing it with your debating team now which is fantastic.
Tyson: Look, there is a certain element of preparation, but I still wing it for the most part. I absolutely hate written speeches. There are many amazing orators in the world and I think Barack Obama is one of them. I nearly said president but unfortunately some things have changed. People that can deliver a really well-structured presentation, I love watching that. I am definitely more of the style that I’ve got my key talking points and the general structure and then I’ll talk through.
Again, we don’t have written speeches when we have conversations with one another. If you were at a house partying and you're talking with someone, if you were like, “Oh, I missed that point. I’m going to have to talk about this,” it’s not natural. Again, I’d like to feel as though I’m having a one-on-one conversation even if there's 300 people in the audience, trying to finish a point looking at someone and then moving on.
Leanne: Yes, absolutely. Now, you are actually probably the youngest facilitator. Well, you’re not probably. You are the youngest facilitator we’ve had on the show today.
Tyson: I grew a whisker especially for this. It took me a month but I got there.
Leanne: Well, well done. I’d like to hear about facilitating workshops for the people in this side of community, who are generally from a younger generation and not-- like you said, you're not comparing startups to corporates. What are you doing? Do you do anything different with the startup audience? What do they want more? I’m interested to hear your thoughts.
Tyson: Yes I think, again I’m not super, super experienced with facilitation or presenting or even with startups. My brother and I have run-- we ran a digital agency for about five years, Lloyd and I. Then Lloyd and I teemed up with a good friend of ours, Yohan. He is the CTO of another company we’ve got. I think over the last 12 to 18 months, we’ve gained a little bit more experience in startup lens, not just business.
People generally like to hear some of the experiences we’ve had and then they feel as though they can resonate with those stories and understand that we truly are empathetic to some of the challenges they experience as well. Startup people are, I don’t know if forgiving is the right word, but we all understand that you’re iterating quickly. You’re trying to find work and it’s the same with presenting. I don’t always have the perfect response but it’s engaging them the best way I know how.
It’s a bit of a misconception that startups is just for young people because there are many people, I think the most successful startup founders are in their 40s when they start. Life experience is actually quite good.
Leanne: Yes, they say they have been through two or three different companies that haven’t done so well, then they hit their strides in their mid to late 40s, which is so important.
Tyson: That’s my excuse currently the next one probably is a success.
Leanne: Fail three times and then you’re on to a winner. Have you ever had a time where things haven’t gone so well during a presentation that you can share with our audience?
Tyson: A time that hasn’t gone well. I’ll talk about how I got into one of the gigs that I currently do and how that nearly didn’t go so great. I got a call from the business school at QUT. I’m in the back of an Uber. We’re in Melbourne at the time and we’re heading off to this meeting. I take this call and they said, “Tyson, Bill Prad has recommended you for this new session we’re doing. It’s called, The Business Leaders Talks, where we interview successful alumni.”
I’m like, “Oh, me, successful? I didn’t actually think I was that successful, but continue.” She said, “We were wondering if you wanted to be a part of it.” I was like, “Look, totally.” They said, “Because we need someone to interview the successful people.” [laughs] I was like, “Oh, I got you.” That has been a fantastic excuse to meet amazing people. That's been running for about three years now, the QUT BLT.
I just remember the first time I ever got up and this was the first time I really ever emceed anything. I’m okay when someone else is running the workshop or whatever it is and I just can get up, grab the mic and do my little bit and sit down. This was the first time that it didn’t dawn on me until the music stopped, that I had to go to the front and actually run the workshop or the talks.
I just remember I felt as though the colour had drained out of my face. I’m in a full suit. Again, this is when I didn’t really know what my style was. I’m wearing Nikes now but I was wearing a suit and probably even had a tie on at the time, walk up to the front, it's dead silence. I can feel the eyes on me. I didn’t even know if it was that hot on the day, but I’m sweating and the sweat start to get worse. I’ve got the paper in front of me and again the things you learn, if you are going to have notes at a lectern, make sure it's really large font and it’s broken into this visual areas where you can really quickly see.
I had basically an A4 page which it felt like point seven font and I’m staring at it. I am looking at the page and I’m looking off at the audience and looking back down at the page. I swear there must have been crickets. I can feel my voice starting to tremble a little bit and I’m starting to get tunnel vision. I can almost feel the same thing happening now retelling the story. I start the first line. I've probably made a mistake already and I just look up and my first-- [laugh] I don’t know, am I allowed this way?
Leanne: Yes, that’s all right.
Tyson: My first thought as I look up at the room, I’m like, “Fuck it, I’m just going to walk out.” [laughs] I was like, “Just stay with it because you will never ever leave this down.” I was just like, “I’ll just push through.” I did the acknowledgment of the traditional owners and I’m like, “That will be right, I’m probably going to stuff this up and it’ll be really disrespectful and no one is going to want to have me back.” Anyway, I felt as though I did a fairly average job, but I think we’re always quite self-critical.
It’s good to analyze yourself and your performance after the fact, but not beat yourself up too much. Pushing through, that was probably the best thing I could have done, because by the time I got into it I really enjoyed it. It often happens, it’s really nervous at the beginning and then by the end of it I’m like, “I don’t want this to end. I’m engaging with the audience and I’m having such a good time.” It’s just gotten better and better ever since that.
There so, so much for me to learn and for me to improve still, but if you enjoy something and you take that with you to the next experience, it will just keep getting better.
Leanne: Yes, that’s hilarious. I actually had a very similar story last week. I was emceeing a big event for the company I work for over at the convention center. It was very dark, lights came up and that was me and I was on. I thought my notes would be on the lectern ready to go, but they weren’t there. I think in that moment when you pause, you feel like it's gone for an hour and just time really slows down. You get two options really. It’s like never apologize, it's I was going to keep this going and make sure improve it or--
Tyson: You’re right. You shouldn’t apologize, but I am the sort of person that like if someone throws a ball at my head, I’ll probably apologize for being in the way. [laughs] I just apologize at the drop of a hat. I can’t help it. Yes, you know you’re right, just pushing through. It’s like the pain is, this is a no-- 99% of the audience is never going to know. Yes, I know it’s good advice.
Leanne: Yes. It’s so funny when you hit your stride towards the end of it and you’re sort of in your element now and thinking, “Oh, I wish this could go on forever because I love this!
Tyson: The problem is maybe you are enjoying it so much that you forget your audience is there and it’s like-- the startup hatch is a great example. I'm pretty sure that ran an hour over time. I didn’t know if it was because I was getting up with quips in the middle of every presentation or if I just should have hurried it along, but yes, another thing I need to improve on. [laughs]
Leanne: I would love to talk about the differences between just presenting. You said it yourself you realized when you were emceeing, as you’re getting up to open it, that there was a big shift between facilitating a workshop with a group and actually setting the standard and emceeing and getting the audience involved. What are the things have you learned from-- or the differences between those two roles in particular?
Tyson: Look, I wouldn’t say I have facilitated as many days or anything like that as I have presented. I think I took for granted how easy it was just to get up and grab a mic and do the talking when someone else has done all the facilitating for you, whether it's printouts or time management or like the event details. I was basically the guy that just got to rock up, take the mic and really take the credit, but it's people at QUT like Julie McMorris and Rebecca who did all the hard work and probably so many other people that I can’t name.
They are the ones that generally make you look good. In terms of facilitation, timekeeping is a big one and respecting people’s time. As much as I do want to wait for everyone to get into the room, I’ll generally try and start it the time it says that it starts. Then from there, a big one for me is making sure that the person who looks maybe the shy-est and like they're retracting into their shell, they’re typically the ones I want to hear from first.
People like me with a big mouth, they’ll always get their say, but I think it’s those that are quieter who maybe spend more time in life observing than they do speaking, that have more important or more interesting things to say and trying to bring that out of them.
Leanne: Yes, that’s really important. Thanks for that. Now, knowing all this, what’s the best advice then that you could give to a first time facilitator?
Tyson: Well, get involved and I guess if you are a first time facilitator you already are. I would love to see more young people doing this. It's really common for the person at the front of the room to be the older wiser one, which is fantastic go along and see those. I have met some really incredible younger people doing this, people like Scott Millar. I think he just turned 18. He is currently the Creative Enterprise Australia Collider accelerator.
I don't want to say kids even but younger people are doing amazing things. I would love to see them facilitating more workshops for each other and all growing through that experience. Maybe even older people rocking along for those and getting the perspective of younger people would be great. Other advice, I think I like to watch presentations of people that inspire and motivate me. Simon Sinek is a great one. Trying really hard to step away from just passively watching a presentation.
It happens even with me, like I'll get sucked into it just because they're great. But, observing how they move, how they talk, how they change their voice and tone and how they pause, it's a big one and it's something I need to get better at it. It's like what you said, time just stands still and it feels like it can be an hour. Pausing is one of the most effective tools I think any good presenter has.
Leanne: Definitely to get attention.
Tyson: For sure.
Leanne: Because they're wondering, is this on purpose, has she has gotten the lines, what's going on? I need to reflect on what she just said. People really start paying attention the second you pause-
Tyson: Totally.
Leanne: - which is kind of counter intuitive if you want people to listen, you don't say anything.
Tyson: Well, I mean if you've been talking with verbal diarrhea for half an hour and it just all becomes the same but you pause and then something changes. You look up and you're like, "Oh, what's going on?" One of my favourite techniques with PowerPoints especially, I know we're probably talking more about the talking aspect over the PowerPoint, for me simplicity is key in a PowerPoint. You are the focus. I don't mean that from an egotistical point of view. People are there to maybe learn or listen to what you've got to say. They're not there to read what you've written on a slide.
One of my favourite tools with a PowerPoint besides just being simple is a blank slide. Because the moment it's blank, people, "Where else do I look?" They look at the presenter. Sometimes people will think that something is missing from the slide but if you continue to engage them, it becomes really clear.
Leanne: I've never heard that strategy.
Tyson: I love it. It's one of my favourites.
Leanne: Is it just a black slide?
Tyson: Yes, it can be black or it can just be the word disappears off whatever colour background you have.
Leanne: Nice. I’m going to start using that. That's really good, thank you.
Tyson: Yes, it’s cool.
Leanne: I'm interested to hear how doing all the stuff that you're doing at QUT Business School, the interviews that you're doing, how that's played out and helped you in your business life. You've created this or co-created this app for mechanics. My husband's a mechanic.
Tyson: Yes, awesome. I have to have a chat with you afterwards.
Leanne: Definitely. Talk to us-- I'd love to hear more about the app how it started. Then have you noticed that your skills in this area in terms of negotiating with other people have improved because of the communication, your skills that you're developing at the University? How has it played out?
Tyson: Yes, I think they probably feed into each other. For a long time, I like the concept of being a bit of a chameleon and not just, ah, they put their hands on their hips. You put your hands on your hips. I think it's a bit more subconscious than that for me of trying to emulate how people are. Maybe it comes down to whether they're engaging with you and being a bit attuned to that and trying to talk you know on the same level. I don't mean like if someone's not as book smart as you, talk like them. It's just the case of finding what is of interest to them and really diving into that.
I'm probably giving a terrible answer to this. For me, when it's been out there with the workshops, it's definitely been challenging for sure, as at different markets what we're expecting. I don't actually know how to give you a good answer for that one. In terms of how it started anyway, mum and dad have been running Ultra Tune Capalaba for the last must be 12, 13 years. Dad's background, as I said, 20 years military and then basically government jobs since then but then got into private enterprise.
They didn’t quite realize how bad the reputation was of the mechanic industry. I'm sure you know it all too well. Dad being dad, just thought of innovative ways to change that and started taking photos of absolutely everything they did. He would have with the mechanics on the floor digital cameras and he would be taking this onto the computer. When any customer came in, then he would just be showing them the work that that actually done and build that trust and transparency with them.
It wouldn't matter if they're a young dude who was a red head and knew everything about cars or a young female who maybe wasn't as sure. Dad would just treat everyone the same and still does. I think he's the only mechanic that I can find that has nearly 100 five-star reviews on Facebook.
Leanne: No, that’s incredible.
Tyson: A lot of it comes down to that trust that he's been able to build. He was going through this whole digital process but it was a pain because you'd have to get the SD card out of the camera, then you'd have to archive them once the photos were too much for the computer and then dig them up for the archive. They were kind of disparate. They were all over the computer, different hard drives. I was like, "Well, dad, we're nerds and we need something to work on. We'll build an app."
We've kind of learned that maybe dad is the exception to the rule. Maybe that's one of the challenges with the app, finding independent who have the time and resources and inclination to be as transparent. We turn into an app and we're almost daily getting people, like the people that have their cars serviced, signing up so that they can keep their visual history. We don't know where we're going to take it yet. We've had some really interesting conversations with car manufacturers and some larger dealer groups. It's still going to be a long journey for us. But the results from car owners themselves has been really fascinating.
Leanne: So like a really great challenge as well.
Tyson: Yes, always a challenge with staff.
Leanne: Yes, and kind of reminds me of I've got some friends that I work with that have kids in childcare. They're often getting photos sent to them during the day. I think it's the same kind of concept that develops that trust in a way.
Tyson: Transparency will be the norm for sure.
Leanne: I'm comparing kids to cars. I probably shouldn't. Yes, it is, transparency is the new norm. I think you’re absolutely right. The automotive industry, going for something and you come out and it's $3,000, and you think, "I don’t know. Was that worth it? Did I need that"
Tyson: Maybe it helps remove some of that buyer's remorse when it's like, okay, well I knew I had to pay and I really believed that I had to get brake pads. You can have someone that needed brake pads but it wasn't communicated in the same way. They're going to give you a one star because of a miscommunication. Whereas, I believe we're big on the communication piece. I often say we're not workshop software, we're transparency and communication. It will apply to so many different industries and I think we've just started with automotive.
Leanne: I wonder how that would work in a group facilitation kind of setting. If you're running a two-day workshop, you're taking-- I do it anyway and I know a lot of facilitators do is kind of document photos of activities they've done. The group loves it because I get a souvenir of the time they've spent together.
Tyson: Totally.
Leanne: I guess your client would also benefit because they can say, "Oh, wow."
Tyson: People are engaged.
Leanne: Is there anything else that you want to share with our audience about facilitating? Actually, the other thing I want to talk to you is about something we touched on before we hit the record button. This is just an interesting thing. It doesn't actually relate to facilitation but it relates to challenges. You mentioned that you've spent, what, over 400 days just having a cold shower every day. I'd love to hear more about that. Can you share why you do that with our listeners?
Tyson: Why I do that? Because I'm weird. No, so it started as a way to break complacency. It was a bit of a challenging time just with the wrapping up of one business and starting another one. At first, it was just a way to break that complacency to get in the shower to-- it's that mental break of like-- it really snaps you out of just the mundaneness of the morning maybe. It was a reminder for me that if cold water was the worst part of my day, then life isn't too bad. So it's just cold water. Saves massively on the bills as well I want to say.
The challenge was it was a bit of accountability to my co-founders was that I would do it until we were profitable because cold showers suck and I say that in jest. They're great for some things but when you're tired and cold, they really do suck. I said, look, until we're profitable, I'll have cold showers. Then after a period of time, especially through the winter months and I could see the balance sheet, it was clear we were not going to be profitable, not in the near term.
I just said, I'm going to set a new milestone that is still I think admirable and I'll do 12 months. Then I got to the 12 month mark and I built up such a good streak and I was like-- I continued to do this for myself. I pushed the goalposts. I said, well, look, I need something to actually give it some finality. What I'll do is, after Spartan Race which is another challenge from abroad that I just completed, after Spartan Race I'll have a cold beer and a hot shower, because I also took four months off drinking at the beginning of the year.
Basically, did that and then it always like, oh, look I've done Spartan Race but maybe I'll just go till the 400 day mark. Then after a while, I realized that I well surpassed it. Last week, I had my first hot shower in a while. It was amazing. Especially, like I think San Francisco was the hardest period because I was sick and it was winter, and yes, I'm an idiot. But I got through and it was one of those things, it's really not bad.
Leanne: It’s character building.
Tyson: It's certainly the character building.
Leanne: You had a few of those in the military as well I'd imagine.
Tyson: Yes, I mean you know being at bush especially on exercising Malaysia at times, back is covered in prickly heat. You've got the radio and all ammo and webbing on you. You're dehydrated and you're living
in torrential rain for weeks on end sometimes and you forget how much you appreciate porcelain when you get back to a bathroom.
[laughter]
Yes, character building for sure.
Leanne: Character building. It's been fantastic having you on the show.
Tyson: Thank you, likewise.
Leanne: I think you've got so many other stories to share, possibly that don't fit under the theme of facilitation, but it's really interesting character building stories. I've spoken to a few facilitators who always talk about the preparation and what they need to do to get them self focused. I haven't personally tried the cold shower, but maybe that's something that I will do. I love the hot and cold as a recovery method after playing sport, but I've never done it before. It would definitely wake you up I think -
Tyson: For sure.
Leanne: - if you hadn't had much sleep. Thank you so much.
First Time Facilitator podcast transcript with Dana the Trainer (Episode 19)
Here's the transcript with Dana the Trainer, released on 18 June 2018.
Leanne: Our guest today promises bright ideas and electric training. Whether it’s technical or professional skills you need she brings her brand- that is of energy, passion and enthusiasm to every session. She remains convinced that learning can be made engaging, colourful and even fun. And it's her life's mission to make that true. Step away from sameness and say goodbye to generic courses, she's on the line in London. Welcome to the show Dana James-Edwards otherwise known as Dana the Trainer.
Dana: Hello, thanks for having me.
Leanne: It's a pleasure to have you on the show. I really wanted to just jump right in and talk about an excerpt I read on your website which I loved and probably the reason why I invited you on the show and it's this:
“One day, there was a call for internal facilitators for technical courses and I answered the call. The second I held my first box of scented markers and stood in front of a blank flipchart I fell in love.”
That’s just so beautiful. Can you tell us about that moment what was made you fall in love with facilitation?
Dana: So, I had actually done some facilitation before but very briefly like my first job out of university and then got swept up in other things so when I was offered the opportunity after working in sort of a very technical and technology focused background for several years. It was almost like I had forgotten that I loved this and the second that I got back in front of there again I felt at home. You know how people feel nervous in front of a classroom I didn't feel that I felt like “Oh my God, this is amazing when can I do it again and I also really love scented markers, it’s true I love them!
Leanne: Wait, what type do you use? Do you use the Mr. Sketch scented markers and are they are over in the UK?
Dana: I have loads of Mr. Sketch but to be honest these days I'm going for the environmentally conscious option and using Neulands the refillable ones. Yeah, but they're not as fun as the scented one so I do keep those for the learners in the classroom.
Leanne: It is funny, the scented markers for whatever kind of response you get from people but just want to try every colour and sniff the piece of paper.
Dana: All the time! It's like they forget they're grownups and they go straight back into being kids and I love it!
Leanne: A lot of people ask me how I find my guess and it's all through different things. It could be recommendations or books that I've read but you're the first person I've interviewed who I found off Instagram. Yeah, that’s how I found you I was looking through all the hashtags like hashtag learning and development, hashtag whatever public speaking. I don't know what the tag was but something about that your brand online really enticed me because it was full of colour and this is why I was talking about Sketch markers and the scents and everything and you just have that really fun brand so I'm wondering…
Dana: …My social media strategies are working!
Leanne: And you got that recorded, so you know I'm not making it up. It is just straight there absolutely. So there's only a couple weeks ago, I was like, “Who is this Dana the Trainer?” I was curious! So tell us a bit about your brand and what is it about the energy and how do you bring that into a classroom kind of setting?
Dana: So, that really is my brand, it's about energy, and it’s about passion. I feel especially in a technical setting lots of times people come in and they're dreading the day or the two days they think it's going to be really boring they're picturing like old school learning where you get a big fat manual and you have to learn off all of this theory or there's an exam some of the courses I do have an exam at the end and you can see people coming in they're already stressed out and you haven't even started and I just think “Gosh it doesn't have to be this way!” I think that's the point and really it doesn't. There are so many things that you can do to bring learning, to bring a classroom alive to make things not be so painful for people. I think that is my aim and I'm so glad that that comes across I love colour, I love things that are engaging, I love drawing people in and if you're on a training course where you're just looking at a manual for two days and it's really just intense and intensive. You want learning for the exam, I don't want people to learn for the exam or for the now I want them to actually live with stuff that they'll remember for a long time, how do you do that by making things memorable and that means by mixing things up by doing things in a different way.
Leanne: Fantastic! This is for the audience, what type of courses do you run more of the technical course as well, what of those professional skills that you can also deliver?
Dana: Okay, so you know everyone says to specialise and when I was starting out I had lots of advice which is like, you need to pick a specialism, you need to pick either soft skills or pick a soft skill that you're really good at or pick technical skills. I can't do that, I spent so much of my life working in a technical arena those are skills that I have and I don't want to lose and then at the same time when I became a facilitator for Big4, all of the soft skills courses are wrapped up into that I kind of see them going hand in hand. So from a technical perspective, I facilitate things that I learned how to do in my life when I was technical so Project management, Agile, Software Testing, right, that's my background that's the kind of thing that I do from a technical perspective but you cannot really do all of those things unless you know how to talk to people, how to interact with them or how to communicate. They go together, right? Okay, so I don't want to choose, right? and I do both and I think it's great because I never get bored there's always stuff that's interesting me and pulling me and I'm sorry but I don't want to do the one thing okay I want to do many things!
Leanne: You can have everything they're not mutually exclusive and I like that!
Dana: Exactly!
Leanne: Yeah, especially when you're talking about things like Project Management and Agile and you obviously some of your audience will be technically focused people and it would be very tempting to try and like meld in without style but I love that you're exploring and saying “No! We can make this one, we don't have to be serious”.
Dana: Exactly!
Leanne: Yeah, so I'd love to hear a bit about, I mean you've got this. I can tell over our Skype conversation a very bubbly outgoing personality. Growing up, were you always this way where you're always very confident in front of a classroom?
Dana: So I was a bookworm, my sister makes fun of me. When I was in Secondary School I was a library prefect. I was that quiet. On a lunchtime, I'd like to go to the library and read so I was of hot about books, about reading, I wasn't like an outdoor “Miss Popularity” kind of person. However, I have to say I was really good at debate so like from sixth form there were debate and public speaking competitions and I really excel there. I'm a bubbly person but I can't actually pinpoint maybe when this all happened, maybe it's in University when I was a little bit more free I'm not sure but if I look back through a childhood I was definitely a lot quieter and maybe more reserved, very studious and one of those exam people who loved exams as an achievement and that kind of thing so maybe it was that I was wrapped up in all of that achievement at the time and then “Dana the Trainer”, this bubbly person came a little bit later.
Leanne: Yeah I love how you talked about Dana the Trainer as a kind of another person or personality. I was looking at your website and it's again the first website I've seen where you have your own cartoon series. I mean, that's incredible! How did you get that idea? Where did that come from?
Dana: That was, what I like to call a “shower thought”. So my best ideas come to me when I’m in the shower and I thought, they always do right?
Leanne: Like always. Yeah!
Dana: I thought how fun would it be to have this and I spent a long time looking for graphic designers, etc. to be able to help me with the idea and it's just something unique and fun that you don't see very often. It just popped into my head and I did it.
Leanne: I think I was looking through a cartoon series and the ones that really well, the one that really popped out for me because it's something that I do as well is one where you're in bed and it's like 9 o'clock in the evening and it's the night before a workshop and I really need a good night's sleep because I need to be on my game tomorrow and then three till about 12:30 in the morning you're still thinking about how the session go and who's in the room.
Dana: That is my life in a cartoon.
Leanne: Yeah, that's exactly what I do and I thought I was probably, maybe I may be thinking things too much and maybe like the more that I do this the easier it will get but I find that I'm still over preparing. Is that what you're finding as well, you're still kind of overthinking it because you want it to be great?
Dana: You do. This is yourself, it's you're brand, you've invested, you want things to go really well and I did tell myself at the beginning, you know what, “the more practice you have, this is going to be great, you'll be going to sleep earlier” but still even when you know the content and you're familiar with it. You're still thinking about “Who's going to be there tomorrow? What if this exercise doesn't work? What do I have as a backup for this? Did I pack this thing? I have a packing list. You just get so wrapped up and everything I think.
Leanne: Yeah, so what kind of things are on your packing list?
Dana: So, it depends on the type of session but I will always have sharpies or Mr. Sketch markers depending on what I’m doing. I always have my trusty speaker, I do love some music in the classroom so I'm a big fan of that. Whatever exercises we are using for the day would be packed in there and that sort of varies between. I love doing paper airplanes at the end of the day to recap key learning points. I always have some coloured paper and I also lately have been super into getting delegates to use pipe cleaners to create their key learning points and so I take some of those with me. I also have something that I called a magical treat bag when groups are really competitive and someone says something really amazing in the session or they win a game or an activity or something it's always good to have a reward so I have this massive bag of Kathy that I take everywhere with me so that learners can pull from the bag also people that are feeling a little bit low-energy they can have some treats and stuff in the classroom. For those of you who are listening and saying “Oh my God that's super not healthy!” It doesn't matter, it's one day of training its fine. Yeah that kind of stuff but I'm trying to think is there any. Oh! I always have those kinesthetic learning toys: A. because they're fun and B. because it gives some people something to fiddle with and also when they come into the room it sets the expectation from the outset that things are going to be a little bit different and gives people a bit of a talking point before they even come into the room so I quite like that as well.
Leanne: Yeah, nice!
Dana: Pens, pencils, and notepads everything that's branded and says Dana the Trainer on it is there as well.
Leanne: It's like you were born to do this like your name just rhymed “the Trainer” it's perfect I love.
I really do admire your brand.
Dana: Exactly!
Leanne: With these, I would like to talk about when people come into your room and they say this environment. So you set it up, you got pens it's very colourful especially for the technical people they aren't expecting it. How then that create that mood?
Dana: That is actually my favourite moment of the day when people start arriving and they're like okay this is totally not what I was expecting especially when it's the first time that I've been to a particular company and you could see it on their faces and so they exclaim and plodded like “This looks fun, this looks colourful.” and I think it sets the tone and the mood for the day but especially for technical courses I love it because no one's really expecting it so it's great.
Leanne: Do you get some people that are a little bit awkward and don't know how to really react to it or get into the kind of being back being a kid and having fun, would that take a bit of time?
Dana: It is rare when that happens usually the opposite happens which is they get super into it and they choose their seat based on the toy that they want to play with most. There might be some people who start off being more reserved but by the first break of the morning especially if the rest of the group is swept up, they are into it as well, so it might take some a little longer but usually by the end of the day they’re embraced.
Leanne: Yeah that's beautiful. So we're talking about the participants entering room at the beginning. How are you feeling about you know fifteen minutes, ten minutes to go to the workshop, what do you do to prepare or you'd already in the room greeting participants? Are you doing your power pose? What is Dana the Trainer do?
Dana: I am in the room and I am greeting the delegates for 10 to 15 minutes before. I am there, I'm talking to people, and I’m reviewing, taking minutes in between to just review what's coming up. I am NOT power posing, the power posing would happen maybe before that 50 minutes when no one is there and I'm going to say something that is completely crazy. [Leanne maybe you want to edit this out after I'm done saying it]. What really gets me hyped up and in the mood right before section is hardcore gangster rap, I love it!
Leanne: I love it too!
Dana: We go to songs. There on my iPod and sometimes I excuse myself to the loo and I just go in there have a little listen if the energy levels are feeling low sometimes I can manage to do it with one side of a headphone just in the classroom but like hike music I love it I have my game face on and ready to go for the day.
Leanne: Yeah, I love that because it's something that I do as well. You know, I've got a mixer sort of rock and a bit of rap and hip-hop and stuff like that so I've created a Spotify playlist called First-Time Facilitator and it's just all my favourite like even some ballads are on there that you can just croon along to in the car put right up because you've got a lot of nervous energy that's flailing around.
Dana: You do it, it has to come out somehow, right?
Leanne: It has to come out, you can't like just go in the boxing ring or anything you just got to unleash it somehow so isn't that nice to know that we're on opposite hemispheres and we both print the same way.
Dana: Aligned!
Leanne: We’re aligned! I want to talk about energy as well so it's very easy I mean, yeah the worst thing sometimes is that you don't get that good night's sleep because you are overthinking in and then it gets to 12:01, I really need to sleep now and but naturally you've got that adrenaline that gets you through in the morning but days you know one, two or three day workshops can be quite exhausting.
Dana: They are!
Leanne: How do you sort of balance the level of energy you're giving out to the participants and how do you make sure that you're in there for the long the long haul?
Dana: So, I saw this question on your lesson I thought, “Oh my God I'm going to answer this and everyone's going to hate me when I say this.”
Leanne: I don't think so.
Dana: I wake up this way!
Leanne: Tell us.
Dana: I know. What's really interesting is when I met my now husband, there was one day when I came home and he was like “We need to talk.” and I was like “Oh my goodness he's going to break up with me.” but actually the talk was you wake up in the morning and it's like you open your eyes and in that one second you go from zero to a hundred and I don’t want to like that can you please stop being so high energy in the morning and so we've worked out a strategy where I don't talk to him for the first thirty minutes of every day cause he's not a morning person but I just naturally have high reserves of energy and I always find that after the first day of a workshop I can sleep better so like all that angst and staying up until 12:30 a.m. by the end of the first day: A. you’re exhausted and B. you've eliminated all of those things that you were really worried about the night before the first workshop, so getting a good night's rest on the first night kind of sets you up for the remaining days, I think.
Leanne: Yeah, I definitely agree with that. It's because it's more about, it's not even about your preparation or your content or anything like that, it's more about how I anticipate what's going on.
Dana: Exactly!
Leanne: And by known audience, knowing the dynamic on that first day you can rest easier plus absolutely you've been on your feet all day, you've been using your voice, yeah you're pretty naked.
Dana: Exactly!
Leanne: Okay, so I'd like to on that note of preparing for the unexpected. Have you ever had a time where things didn't go to plan in one of your training sessions and could you share that story?
Dana: Of course my favourite one is where I walked into a room being me ready to start the day. So the first you know that 15 minutes when everyone's coming in started greeting people and realising that they were super grouchy like unhappy, angry even is what I would say and then listening to the discussion in the room. I realised, okay they think that this training session is some kind of punishment for an incident that had happened in the company now I was aware that something had happened but maybe not aware that people were not looking forward to the training and actually were quite resentful that the session had been put on.
So I walked into a room of 15 people mean-mugging being really angry at me with lots on their chest to get off before I even had a chance to say Good morning, I had a question from the room which was “Do you think it's fair that we have to sit in this session while senior leadership isn't there?” I didn't even get to say “Hi, I'm Dana the Trainer” and there was just this wall of anger and I realised, okay people are not going to be able to take in anything or learn anything in the session unless we get some of this emotion out so the time that I would have used for intros I had to modify that to be a kind of a “let's get it out, bring it home” kind of session so that we could talk about what precipitated the session and how they were feeling etc. so that we could get into the learning. I always think about that session because actually it has changed the way that I prepare with clients as part of the planning process now I have added in a question which goes something like “How are the learners is feeling about this session? Are they looking forward to it? Are they interested?” like I asked even more questions that I normally would to get all the background because for that scenario I thought I had asked all of the relevant and pertinent questions so I did know that something had happened that precipitated the learning but I don't think I had grasped to what was going to be happening in the room and so now I always make sure to dot the I's and cross the T's with that extra question before I go in.
Leanne: Oh, thank you so much for sharing that. That's a great sort of prevention is better than cure. I think I mean, I'm listening to that and I'm sure with some of our listeners that listening going that's probably our worst nightmare, like that you haven't even started and it's already railroaded.
Dana: It was pretty bad.
Leanne: Yeah, but I also love that you've created this question that can just cover that off when you're working with clients.
Dana: I need to know in advance, I mean if you know that's what you're going into, you can at least be a little bit more prepared. When it's a shock those are the kinds of things that keep you up until 12:50 in the morning what if it's going to happen or not.
Leanne: It's a good survival story, absolutely!
Dana: Exactly!
Leanne: So, when you're talking to clients so you got this question, you know what the learners thinking about this training and that's a really great question. What if you get a client that comes to you and they're asking you to deliver a session that you don't have the content on ready. It's something that's a bit new, you know that you can deliver it. How do you approach that process?
Dana: So firstly, I want as much information from the client as humanly possible, right? Why are they running the session and why right now? What’s precipitated this? What are the learning outcomes they want? What are the behaviours and attitudes they want to see changed? If this learning intervention was successful how would they know it was successful so I really want to be clear with them on what it is that they're trying to get out of the session.
Now, I'm not one of those people who can block and say “Okay today, I'm going to spend thirty minutes on the session.” I'm more of an “it needs to marinate” girl, so I'm thinking about it and it's in my mind all the time. I'm thinking about it in the shower, I go for a walk. I'm thinking about it I get some of my best ideas outdoors. I'm constantly jotting things down. I have an app when things come to my mind that I might want to use and I want to give myself some time to come up with my own ideas before I jump into any research because for me research can skew you and kind of limit your own ideas so I want to have the bulk of my own ideas first before I go into any research and see what's out there but I'm also a big fan of utilising my Personal Learning Network so other facilitators who I know I want to reach out to them find out if they've done something similar, what kinds of things they've done in the space. I have a group of people or I've come up through the business with we're always happy to bounce ideas off of each other if I was really struggling and I needed a design assistant can also draw from that network as well to help me.
And another thing, I do which I think that people maybe don't use so much is search for the hashtag on social media and see what comes up. Why do people not do this right because people are posting so much exciting content out there and if you just type into Google you will probably never find it but if you type into Instagram or to Twitter that particular hashtag sometimes really amazing stuff comes up that can really help you with your idea generation and with the design process.
Leanne: Yeah, I mean that's how I found you but also I found some really cool Icebreakers on YouTube.
Dana: Oh my gosh, Youtube!
Leanne: Yeah, you save a bit of time like in here, you lost, you know what YouTube's like, you're looking at Icebreakers and then you're looking at like climbing Mount Everest.
Dana: And cats, there’s always cats.
Leanne: Yeah there's always cats. Hey, what app do you use to capture all of your ideas?
Dana: So, I'm a Trello girl. I do love Trello and I just like taking, it helps me keep myself on track but then it just gives me somewhere to record things if I'm in a pinch as well just the Notes app, it's good for a brain dump, you can put as many things in there but I almost live my life powered by Trello.
Leanne: Yeah and for those listening that don't know what Trello is we'll link to those in the show notes. Trello is an amazing like project tool but it's very visual it's like a visual board where you, it's kind of like virtual post-it notes almost.
Dana: Exactly and I love post-it notes in real life but being able to have them wherever I go because I travel a lot is very useful and I think that's my project management I have a background coming to the floor as well because it's a tool that we used in work that I also use for myself as well.
Leanne: Yeah and that's right you can use it. You don't have to use it only for work, I was booking up an upcoming holiday and all those ideas about what to do when in hotels and activities and just Trelloed it!
Dana: That's so true, one of my friends so I would quite closely with, did whole wedding on Trello. It was amazing!
Leanne: Well, that’s not simple. I can imagine they would be in so many different columns and deadlines.
Dana: It was next level.
Leanne: She should sell that template, I think it could be very popular. I'm interested in knowing so now you know you've worked in the one, the Big4 consulting firm and now you're a facilitator. What do you think are the key skills of not only a good facilitator but a next level facilitator? What do you think that the skills are of someone the ones to attain that kind of status?
Dana: So I think preparedness is important, right? There is a lot of work that maybe people don't see that goes into being an excellent facilitator but in the same breath of that you have to be prepared to be flexible. Like you cannot be rigid, sticking to your lesson plan or your time plan. The classroom is a place of surprise and I think the best facilitators can pull the learning out of what is happening in the room instead of sticking really strictly to a script. Sometimes you think something's going to be a big aha moment but actually the group is picking up on something else and it's having a bit of discussion around it. I think an excellent facilitator knows to let that discussion go especially if it's useful for the group, knows how to ask pertinent questions, knows how to pivot in the moment to get the best that they can out of the learners who they're with and for them so that you're still getting the learning objectives across but being prepared to do it maybe in a different way than the way that you plan. I think that is one of the skill that takes you from being just a normal training facilitator to being an amazing trainer facilitator.
Leanne: And it really does take a lot of your active listening, a lot of seeing what's going on in the room, you never really relaxed.
Dana: Exactly!
Leanne: Yeah you always sort of like that night out just watching what's going on, even more doing great learning activities like what I need to observe out of these.
Dana: You’re frustrated, you wanted to hear all the groups. Exactly!
Leanne: Yeah. I want to hover but I don't want to seem like I'm listening in and it's just constant. I think there's a lot of overthinking and I think maybe over experienced you do to develop those like having at numerous things in your back pocket that you can go through but I think...
Dana: Exactly!
Leanne: Yeah, that's what sort of as a first-time facilitator, the only way that you can get better at it is just by continuing to do it.
Dana: Practice!
Leanne: That's right. Now, do you have a go-to icebreaker like do favourite thing that energises people that gets everyone in the room like really…
Dana: So it depends, right? Now, if it's a public course where people don't know each other I am very conscious that the first few moments of the day can be really intimidating especially for people who maybe aren't as extroverted as the rest of the people in the group so I always about Icebreakers. I don't want to push it too far but I still want people to be able to have fun and embrace the moment.
So in a mixed group what I like to do is start off with some one-on-ones like greet as many people in the room as you can in ten minutes but I would include a fun question that you have to ask each person that you miss or a way that you have to start off greeting each person like top of the morning to you and isn't it a wonderful day good says you have to say before you get into the introduction and then a silly question that you have to ask them as part of the greeting. I think things that start off maybe a bit more one-on-one or small group instead of “Please stand and introduce yourself and say some quickly facts to the room!” puts a lot less pressure on people and gives them a bit of a chance to relaxed. So for me that is something that I'm conscious about I get that you have limited time and it's easier for everyone to stand and just introduce themselves but I guarantee there is a person or people sitting there thinking “Oh God, please no, not me.” And I don’t want that kind. I avoid that.
Leanne: Oh absolutely. I mean yeah, I mean I'm sort of, it's funny because I'm one of those people. I am a niche extrovert. I get up in front of workshops, I do lots of speeches and things like that but even in that scenario where you’re in a new group and it's going around one by one. I'm not even listening what the other people are saying.
Dana: Exactly!
Leanne: So I'm thinking what am I going to say in my introduction and so you don't really in the moment yourself because you just want everyone's worried about their own introduction.
Dana: Exactly and you miss it, so I love more one-on-one small group stuff where you really get a chance to get to know the people who you're going to be learning with and more involved and I would totally advocate that for anyone who is listening.
Leanne: Yes me too, absolutely! Now, before we hit the record button on this we're talking about you know me reaching out to you and you saying yes and then that got us on to the topic of the themes for our year and I think it's nice to share something like that with our audience. So what is your theme for the year and why did you decide to choose that?
Dana: My theme for this year is say YES, sometimes opportunities are fall into my lap and I think “Oh no, I’m not sure about this.” You know there's that element of self-doubt still even though I am an experienced facilitator. At the end of last year, I went to a session that was helping us reflect on the year that had gone by and we created you know our vision for our new year and something that really popped out of me was this idea of saying yes and embracing things and seeing where they go and so that really has been what my year has been about so far opportunities and have come into my lap. I have been actively trying to say yes more, you reached out to me, I said yes! And look here we are on a podcast. I've also done another interview already for the year. I'm just saying yes to things, so anyone who's listening and wants to ask me something asked me because chances are this year is the year I'm going to say YES!
Leanne: I love it and again we've completely aligned on this, we love the same music but I am sorry my year this year was the year of action and that's kind of like saying yes but also just taking the most of the opportunities and I think having a kind of theme like that like you said it's very easy for that doubt to creep in that imposter syndrome that person in your head saying “Oh, you're not ready for this” but if you have that theme and it’s your default response, you can just, it doesn't matter because you just say yes and let's get on with it.
Dana: Exactly!
Leanne: Yeah I am anyone that does have that kind of doubt within themselves it's completely normal I think we're all walking around all of us with a bit of self-doubt having a default theme like that definitely recommend.
Dana: I agree completely.
Leanne: Yeah, now Dana, is there any other advice that you could offer to our first-time facilitators that are listening in?
Dana: So the first thing is get out there as much as you can, say yes, okay? So the only way to become better at the skills of facilitation is to actually facilitate. If you're feeling nervous maybe find someone that you can buddy up with to deliver sessions always a good idea but really you want to be spending as much time as possible actually facilitating because that's how you get back to is the first thing. The second thing is don't be afraid to borrow from other facilitators who you think are awesome. What I like to do is attend training sessions myself but I like to do it incognito. I don't want to put any pressure on the facilitators facilitating until the very end. I'm there to learn what the course is about but I also find that I always pick up some facilitation tips that I can add to my arsenal as I watch other facilitators do what they do.
So don't be afraid to attend some training courses yourself, it’s always great. Go to Meetups, write anything where you can see other facilitators, other facilitators in action is great and then try and incorporate some of those things into the stuff that you do on a day to day basis.
Leanne: That's a brilliant advice and I especially agree with your role modelling. I'm actually doing, I'm in a two-day workshop at the moment as a participant and I've been picking up on so much that I can learn and just writing it down even little simple activities.
Dana: Exactly!
Leanne: Making notes, I need to get Trello on my phone actually just so because I've got like 10 different notepads at the moment. Actually, I'm getting the new iPad so I'll be carrying that with me everywhere and also role modelling. I think after this conversation a lot of people will probably wish there are in London attending one of your workshops because you can tell, you're just so passionate about this you really invest that time and to make it an energetic and fun experience and I think we all appreciate that all of us would have been to corporate sessions or technical training. We are a bit bored of the old approach of a manual and just the status quo so its love to it's great to see someone challenging that. So finally, Dana where can people find you?
Dana: Where can they find me? Well, on social media is a great place to be able to find me. My website as well www.danathetrainer.com and from there you link to all of my social media. Don't be afraid to drop me an email, to reach out, I love connecting with people like I said I'm always on there as well searching those hashtags. I think it's great to build a network especially of people who are facilitators as well so please do find me and I'm on email as well dana@danathetrainer.com you can't forget that it's really easy to remember!
Leanne: It's very sticky and I definitely suggest that you follow Dana especially because of all the colourful moments it'll just colour up your social media feed. So thank you so much for being on the show, I can't wait to share this episode with our listeners. I think you've provided some really practical advice but also you know some aspiration on how we can lift our energy levels. I wish we had your energy but other things that we can do on the room to make that fun for everyone so Thank You Dana!
Dana: Thank you so much for having me. I was so nervous but this was actually so much fun just like a conversation with a friend so it's been great thank you so much I am thrilled that I said yes!
Leanne: I'm thrilled that you said too. Chat soon!
Episode transcript (Episode 18)
This is the show transcript for Episode 18 of the First Time Facilitator podcast.
Leanne: Hi everyone and THANK YOU for choosing to listen to Episode 18 of the First Time Facilitator podcast.
It’s really hard to believe that for the last 18 weeks, I’ve delivered an episode to you every Monday at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, Brisbane time.
The last time I was dedicated to anything like this was probably back in 2015 when I ran the Gold Coast Marathon. I really enjoyed having that daily discipline of waking up, lacing up the shoes and heading out the door. I liked it as I’m not typically a very disciplined type of person.
Through this, I discovered a few things that help me honour my commitments. It’s really about using the motivation to then build a habit. It’s also about having a really important vision of your end goal - so in the case of a marathon, if I didn’t get out of bed and run, then I wouldn’t make it to the 42km Finish Line. Most important is that
I also had a coach who I’d email every week with my times, and he’d respond with feedback and set my plan for the week.
Accountability for me, is key. And I guess for this podcast, I feel accountable to all of you who are listening in, sharing this podcast with colleagues and friends, tweeting me and emailing… thank you so much for helping me stay consistent and honour this weekly commitment.
Today’s episode is my second solo one and again I’m responding in to a listener question. I’ll do these listener Q&A’s from time to time, to give you some practical insight into how I facilitate and approach situations.
If you have a question you’d like to send through, either tweet it to me @leannehughes or send me an email – hello@firsttimefacilitator.com.
I’d like to thank my friend Joanne Alilovic from 3D HR Legal in Western Australia for her question. Jo and I met at a conference called ‘We Are Podcast’ in Brisbane last November.
Neither of us had a podcast back then, and we both launched our podcasts in March this year. Jo’s podcast is called The Juggle and is all about how you can balance your career and work commitments. For anyone out there who thinks their constantly juggling their priorities, I recommend listening in to her show. I’ll link to it in the show notes for this episode at firsttimefacilitator.com/episode17.
Anyway, like me, Jo likes to do things a little bit differently. She’s a lawyer. In her business she takes her legal knowledge, combines that with her HR skills to help create tailored polices and procedures for individual businesses.
Jo wrote in with the following question:
‘I have a client who wants to throw out their existing human resources manual and start fresh.
We are thinking of creating documents such as a Code of Conduct, a performance management policy, complaints procedure etc.
In order to create something that is truly reflective of the workplace and the people who work in it, we decided it would be good to get the staff involved.
So we have scheduled a 2 hour facilitation session to discuss the types of policies and procedures they need, and the content for them.
Do you have any suggestions on how to run this session?
Okay first thing first. I’m impressed that the company is getting their employees involved in the process. I know it seems obvious but sometimes organisations don’t recognise this and take the critical step of engaging with their people.
So, a big high five to your client, and a big high five to you too, Jo.
I do have some suggestions I can share with you. Let’s start with preparation.
Way back in Episode 7, my guest Sue Johnstone and I spoke about preparation and how it’s critical. One of the things she drives the most is being very clear on your workshop outcomes.
As part of your prep work, I would suggest working with your client to agree on what those outcomes are. They could include things like, ‘‘Agreeing on the 5 most urgent and important HR policies to deliver’, or ‘Creating sub-groups to tackle each policy’ or ‘Generating enthusiasm for agreed actions and next steps’.
Notice that each of these outcome starts with a verb. An action word. This gives you clarity on what the outcome looks like. Avoid starting the outcome with a word like ‘Understanding’. That’s something I learnt in my first job out of university, working as an Instructional Designer.
Now for the purposes of this podcast. I’m going to assume that the outcomes I just listed are the outcomes the client wants too (I really have no idea, but to keep this going, let’s lock those ones in).
Oh and let’s pause this for a second. If you’re listening in and also have tips for Jo on your approach, please sing out and get in touch!
Let’s talk about your participants. I I like to find out as much as I can about the people in the room. Who are they? Do they all get along? What’s their motivation for being involved (or have they been nominated)? Has anyone developed policies before? Etc.
I believe there are facilitators out there who would prefer not to know this information and arrive without pre-conceived bias, but I guess at this stage of my career in facilitation, I like to know as much as I can. If I can anticipate that there will be tension with some people in the room, that’s helpful.
When considering your participants, try to put yourself in their shoes. They can barely keep up with the hundreds of emails in their inbox and now, on top of all of their other regular meetings, they’ve been asked to attend this two hour policy session.
Jo you’re going to be working with people that are busy, some may not even know why they’re in the room and you need to extract some information from their heads PLUS get them excited about this project… oh and then leave them with action items afterwards. I mean, this isn’t Mission Impossible… but it’s not far from it!
You’ve been given two hours to work with, which isn’t a lot of time. Your outcome is to find out what HR policies and procedures they require, and what information they want in those policies, and you also want to leave with enthusiasm and action items too.
So, prior to the workshop I would create a quick definitions sheet of key HR policies and procedures that are common in most organistions. The definitions sheet would have things like:
‘A performance management policy is dot dot dot…companies use it to…dot dot dot.
Now the reason I’m suggesting this is that it’s easier for you to look at a comprehensive list of policies and procedures and eliminate the ones you don’t need; rather than looking at a blank page and starting from scratch. You’ve also set the definitions so you won’t be getting arguments over policy definitions.
Ideally, you could email this information through to the participants prior to your workshop.
Now, let’s talk about delivery
I suggest you share the following information with your group upfront. Stealing a phrase from my favourite thought leader, Simon Sinek, start with why.
Share the context: And share it by stating problem and solutions. For example,
Yes it is painful working on these policies from scratch in the short-term but in future it will save more time because you won’t have managers tapping on your door every day, asking how what the process is to onboard a new employee.
Share WHY you’ve been asked to facilitate this workshop. Jo, you can rely on your credibility and experience here… you’re in the business of overhauling HR policies…you are the guru.
Share the outcomes you want to drive in the two hour workshop and why it’s critical.
- not only in that two hour session; Check in - do they agree?
I suggest you also include engagement activities early in the piece. This helps setup expectations that you’re not there to tell them what to do…
My guess is that the people in the room know each other already, so you won’t need to do any formal type of introductions.
If I was going to run some type of opener, I’d suggest keeping it simple, to get them in small groups of about 3 or 4 people and ask them to discuss in their groups a simple question like ‘Why do we have policies?’ or for more interesting answers (and laughs), you can reverse that question and ask ‘What would a company look like without policies?’
Debrief as a group. Instead of asking one group to share all their ideas, ask for one idea per group and continue to rotate around the group.
That way, when the last group is called onto speak, they have something to contribute and won’t just say ‘Oh yeah we agree with what the other groups have said’.
Okay, so now we’ve established why policies and procedures are important.
On an aside, given your time-frame, I think a Parking Lot is a good idea. Simply write Parking Lot on a piece of flip-chart paper and pop it to the side of the room. Explain that if they start talking about a subject that is off topic, or they can’t solve quickly that we park that conversation and explore it later on (if time) or outside of the workshop.
Now, remember that policy definition sheet I asked Jo to prepare? If it was given as pre-work, great, if not, then as part of the workshop I’d hand this out and ask them to individually review the policies listed.
I would then, ask them individually to circle the 5-6 (you can change the numbers, this is an example) Policy titles they believe are ‘non-negotiable’.
Following this, I’d ask them to place draw an asterisk against two policies that would be nice to have.
Meanwhile, you’ve written the name of each policy on individual post-it notes and put them up on the wall.
Ask them to walk up and vote on the policies they believe are most important. You can use stickers and allocate 7 per person, these stickers are their voting cards.
By doing this, you’ll notice trends. Either some policies receive the most votes and are clear majorities; or they could be scattered across various policies. Whatever the outcome of the voting, you have some good discussion points here.
Because we’re talking about priorities, you could even draw something like Stephen Covey’s priority quadrant matrix (important vs urgent) and then as a group, see if you can categorise each policy within the matrix - what’s most important and most urgent; what’s important but not urgent, etc.
This is when you enter the mode of facilitator and use your arsenal of open-ended questions to encourage discussion within the group.
You’ll notice those who aren’t contributing and entice them into the conversation. If there is someone who is contributing an awful lot and may be overbearing, you can say things like, ‘‘Hey John, I appreciate your input but I’d like to hear from some others in the room’.
Once you’ve categorised each policy, the next step would then be allocating 3-4 people to each policy or the policies with the most ‘votes’.
In these small groups, you can ask them to brainstorm:
What topics do we need to cover under the policy?
Does this policy link in with another policy?
Do we have all the information we have right now to develop the policy? Yes/No (If no, what other information do we need to find out?
Who else do we need to consult with?
I would encourage this sub-group to chat for about 30mins, and then each group to share their findings as a group; for feedback.
I would then reserve the last 20-30mins for action planning.
Again, come in with a project template which will create consistency across the groups. In this template, ask them to allocate roles within the team, action items and time-frames.
To wrap up, thank the group, emphasise the importance of the feedback, what you learnt, and how you will communicate with the team to ensure those policies are ready.
Okay that’s a really quick snippet but some ideas and activities to get you started, Jo.
What I also want to mention is that I love using design thinking to brainstorm and for innovation. I though about bringing in some design thinking concepts here, like reversing assumptions and question-storming, however I believe that’s more important in the next step - the step where the group then really starts questioning what each policy should have, and what it shouldn’t have. If you’ve never heard of these design thinking concepts, I’ll explain them in a future episode - they’re gold.
First Time Facilitator podcast transcript with Bob Dick (Episode 17)
Leanne: Our guest today has the longest CV I've ever seen and that's because he has over 45 years experience in helping to make the world a better place. He is an independent scholar, an educator, facilitator coach and change consultant. He uses concepts and processes from action lining, narrative and facilitation to help people, including himself, teams, organizations and communities to improve their work, learning and life. Welcome to the show, Bob Dick.
Bob: Thanks
Leanne: It's great to meet you. I want to hear a bit about yourself and how you wound up 45 years ago entering the field of training and facilitation.
Bob: It was all an accident really, I applied for a position in the department of labor and they invited me instead of that position to apply for the position of industrial psychologist. I hadn't applied for it because I didn't think I was qualified. In three years, I was expected to know everything about industrial democracy and employee participation. I did research in that area, including local case studies of interesting practices. I was expected to spend a couple of days a week reading in that area to be up to date and then the university borrowed me for six months to plug a gap and then that extended and became 21 years. I wanted to take what I had learnt from those three years in the department of labor into the classroom thinking that all I had to do was to invite my classes to have their say in what they wanted to be the syllabus and the processes and that was so different to their expectations that it just made them anxious.
We finished coming up with a collaborative design but it was fairly pedestrian and so I set out to experiment with how to engage people so that they would want to take on more self-management and I didn't think that it was facilitation. It was just trying to be a better educator but really that was the foundation of most of what I now think of today as facilitation.
Leanne: When you approached that group, in the beginning, you said that it was a very different approach, is that because they were used to being in workshops where they were spoken to and it wasn't really participative? Is that what they thought was different about your style?
Bob: This was a fairly traditional psychology programme in one of the sandstone universities and people were used to sitting in lecture theatres in rows where somebody at the front would lecture them often reading out the lectures from a set of notes. What I learnt to do eventually was I'd get into the room early, I'd ask for a room where the furniture was moveable, I'd stark the tables at the back of the room, I'd arrange the chairs in a circle as a way of saying, people when they came into the room, this isn't going to be a lecture you don't know yet what it is but it won't be a lecture.
Leanne: That's really fascinating. Who did you take the lead from in terms of the furniture design and making it a more welcoming environment because back then doesn't sound like it was a very common thing? Is it just some ideas that you came up with one night to make the environment better for learning?
Bob: It didn't happen overnight, it happened over the first two or three or four years that I was at Queen's Uni. In fact, I deliberately stayed away from the literature in adult education and experiential learning at first because I thought that if I found my own way, it would be a better fit for my own style and then I could use the literature to further refine what I was doing.
Leanne: That's really good and that's why I like talking to facilitators from all different backgrounds and industries. Everyone's got something that they do that's a little bit different that works for them but you might be able to resonate with some of our facilitators that think that is a cue that I can pick up and already that furniture design and the environment of the room is important. That leads me on to the question around your website you had a statement, I believe that the term teaching is a misnomer. I assume the teachers don't teach, learners learn. Teachers so-called create an environment in which learning is enabled and encouraged and rewarded. So, how do teachers create this environment?
Bob: That was really what I was experimenting within the first three or four years and every year since then, I keep on fiddling with what I am doing [LAUGHING] and looking for ways of making it more effective, and when things don't work I then change things until they do. But the main thrust of it all the time was that- that saying about teachers don't teach, learners learn, that was my own experience as a learner and it was those educators who did most to engage my curiosities that I learnt the most from and so I wanted to offer the same opportunity to others.
Leanne: I find it fascinating that after 45 years you are still refining what you do. How do you keep learning on the job and what keeps you excited about being in this industry still?
Bob: I would do it for fun if I wasn't doing it for a living. It's a great buzz and if I keep looking for ways of improving that keeps me engaged and in the moment. I notice more of what's going on and so while I am facilitating, I'll work out what I want to say to take the next step. I'll watch the expressions on peoples faces and ask, does it look as if they are taking this in an understanding, if not I can think to myself, well, that wasn't the right way to say that, let me have another go and rephrase it in different words and see if that works better.
Leanne: Yes. It's really is about constantly refining what you doing and then just seeing what the reaction is in the room. Given all the changes with technology as well, have you tried to implement some of that in your teaching method?
Bob: I haven't. I've deliberately tried not to use any technology, I don't use powerpoint.
Leanne: That's great I like that. I like hearing that.
Bob: In the early days I used fancy stuff like those soft koosh balls and things like that and did a lot of play time of activities and then the thought occurred to me, people don't have gear like this is their normal work setting and I'll probably get better learning transfer if I stick with stuff that's pedestrian and day to day for them and rely on the ideas and their engagement to create the excitement. Now I'm not recommending that this is really the way to go, I'm saying that suits my style and what I'm trying to achieve.
Leanne: I have been talking to a facilitator yesterday and I was pitching these innovation problems to some graduates and the questions were very rush there wasn't a lot of information and he said that was deliberate because in the workforce you're not given much time to do anything and you can't sometimes clarify what the question is, what the problem is you're solving. You just need to run with it and solve it in the best way that you can, so I think keeping it really really is important.
Okay. I was looking at one of your facilitator guides, your A- guides which was fantastic, really great resource and you talk about two things that's content and process. Can you explain the difference between the two things? What is content and then what is the process and why is that important for us as facilitators to know?
Bob: Usually, when we are involved in meetings for decision making or problem-solving or we're doing planning or we are in any kind of task-oriented discussion, we pay attention to what goals we want to achieve and what information is relevant to achieving those goals. How we interact, we run on automatic, we don't pay conscious attention to it at all. So, what then calls out fast brain handles all the complexity of the process and our slow brain- our analytical brain, focuses only on the task and the information that's directly relevant to it. As a friend of mine David Natale says, if you're chewing gum, gum is the content, chewing is the process.
Leanne: Oh, I like that. So how then do you get out of that autopilot of focusing on the content and then how do you think, right we need to work on our process because we are not really getting so far? Who does that who should take that initiative to change that focus?
Bob: I would guess that some of the facilitators that you've talked to have talked about the importance of facilitators staying out of the content and merely being a process guide because that seems to be the generally accepted belief and so it's as if the facilitator is responsible for the process because the participants aren't paying attention to it and the participants are left free to pay attention to the content but it seems to me that it's really hard to choose the best process if I'm not also tuned in to what the content is and I'm asking are people exchanging the information that's relevant to the decisions they're trying to make for instance. If not, how can I modify the process so that the relevant information is more likely to be exchanged? Or things like, they're probably not ready yet to move into decision making but they’re starting to talk about that. How can I use a process that will slow them down so that I make sure that all the relevant information is exchanged and understood before we try to do something with it? I need to pay attention to process and content too.
Leanne: Yes.
Bob: I think that whatever the facilitation style that a person has, there's some requirement to do that.
Leanne: Yes.
Bob: It's not something we do naturally. We tend to focus on one or the other. It's almost as if we have to keep switching quickly between them and remain curious about both so that we stay tuned into both.
Leanne: That can be exhausting, can't it? Because not only are you having to pay attention to the content, you're actively thinking ahead. Thinking where is this going? What strategies will I use now to intervene? It's a really tricky and fine line that whole intervention piece. What kind of things do you use when people mention an example they've moved into decision-making mode really quickly? What steps would you take to reel them back to say, hey we haven't really explored a lot of the solutions or identified what the problem really means?
Bob: If I can address that before the problem happens and that's even better, one of the things I invite people to do early on is I make the point that our task is to reach these outcomes or to achieve this purpose or goal. To do that we have to make some decisions about who will carry this out, who will do what by when. To make good decisions, we have to recall the correct information and we have to share that so that we all understand it because that body of information constitutes the building blocks out of which we construct the decisions.
The decisions then lead us into helping to choose who are the right people to carry those forward into action. I let them know ahead of time that we'll be structuring this in a number of phases. That also makes it easier to intervene because I can then say to them I think there's still some information to be exchanged, can we postpone the decisions until we've checked them? Because I would prefer that they don't leave responsibility for the process entirely to me.
Leanne: Yes.
Bob: I prefer to share that responsibility with them. Some preparation as well as being willing to intervene when it happens is a bit of combination than either one on its own.
Leanne: Yes, absolutely. Setting those ground rules sounds like it's very important. Have you ever been in really high-pressure situations where you need to drive an outcome and there's been a bit of conflict in the room and over that time, where a really important decision needs to be made and needs to be the right decision, have you been in any environment where that's occurred?
Bob: I mentioned earlier before we started recording some of the work I did in the mining industry and some of the- and particularly the really bright miners tend to be quite willing to be competitive about things. They could often be a pretty lonely group to work with. I've also worked with research scientist in CSIRO from time to time. That was where I met David Natale that I mentioned earlier and research scientists weren't satisfied until they had demonstrated to me and themselves that they were brighter than I was. Sometimes I had to feign being dumber than I am to keep them on site.
Leanne: You’re sacrificing a bit of your ego to drive a result.
Bob: I was lucky to be born with a fairly manageable ego.
Leanne: [laughs] Okay. Really diverse audiences. It's interesting that you have to shift your mindset as well and the way you behave in that room just so you can enable them to all work really well collaboratively too.
Bob: Yes. One of the tasks I've set myself over the years is broadening my repertoire so that I can more easily work in a wider range of situations and with a wider range of people. My preferred style is relatively unstructured. I plan in detail but then I don’t expect to follow the plan. I want to be responsive to what’s happening in the moment in the room but if there's a lot to do and time is short and particularly if there are a lot of participants, then that doesn't work and so I have to move to the other end of the continuum and structure things tightly and push things along a bit rather than work at a more natural pace.
Leanne: Yes, absolutely. Do you ever -- Now that you've done this for 45 years, do you ever get nervous anymore or were you ever nervous when you first started going into these workshops where you may not know the industry or the content? This is quite new to you because we've got some little first-time facilitators here that are slowly building up that confidence develops to present and talk in front of people and shift conversations along. How did you deal with the notes if you had them and are there any situations now we you'd walk into a workshop and think, "I don't know how this is going to go, the brief is pretty interesting”?
Bob: I aim for a balance between nervousness and confidence. That the nervousness helps to lift my arousal level and helps me be more present and paying more attention. There's an enormous difference in how much information I can take in when my arousal is fairly high and I have that in the back of my mind that I have my safety net. And that is that if the process isn’t working, I will drop the content and engage with the participants about why the process isn't working and invite them to join me in figuring out what process will work better for all of us.
Leanne: That is such a cool little trick that you can rely on.
Bob: And keeping that in the back of my mind means that if I feel my arousal getting too high, I can say to myself, "don't worry if it does blow up in my face we'll deal with that when it happens."
Leanne: [laughs] Wow. You've got to be pretty vulnerable to have that approach as well. I think a lot of people will expect that if I'm at their facilitating workshop, I need to be professional, I need to do all these things. But what you're saying is you can actually let down your guard and let other people into the conversation and say, "why isn't this process working? Let’s addressed this if it's an elephant in the room." Does it really need strategy?
Bob: The assumption I work on and I don't always manage to achieve it- but the assumption that I work on is that the more real I can be, the easier it will be for the other people in the room to be real and authentic. That means that things that might otherwise be censored become surfaceable. That means that the information exchanged and understood is more complete. That means the decisions are better and the actions are likely to be better and there's likely to be more ownership of them.
Leanne: Yes, fantastic. I want to talk about the action because I also read about this in your facilitation guide especially in my early experience. Much of my facilitation was of meetings, decision-making and problem-solving. Did it work? Often, I couldn't tell. The meetings were to decide what to do. Then doing happened later and more often than not I wasn’t there later. How do you control then what happens after you leave that workshop to ensure that they are continuing with those outcomes?
Bob: I've learned over the years to give more and more attention to what happens before the decision-making starts and what happens at the end before we leave the room. Time for meeting anything I can do to create more of a sense of community in the room so that people can afford to be a bit more authentic with each other. The greater the extent to which I can negotiate expectations with the people I'm working with so that they and I are on the same page and the greater the extent to which they're willing to share with me the responsibility for making this a success the easier everything becomes during the middle.
Then at the end, trying to achieve a state where people will be committed to acting on the decisions that they've made is crucial. The literature is a bit demoralizing there if you look at the literature on learning transfer for instance. The amount of learning transferred from most workshops is distressingly small. I now regard that as an essential piece of any meeting. It's about having the actions specific enough that people know what actions they've agreed to and getting a commitment from somebody in the room that they will themselves take the actions or if they have to get somebody else to do it, that they will monitor how that proceeds. I try to build commitment to the final stage of the meeting because if the decisions don't lead to actions, why did we just wasted their time having a meeting?
Leanne: Absolutely and we often find that you do a lot of work on trying to find the solutions and then it's only the last five minutes when everyone's exhausted, they're ready to go out the door because you meant to finish at five o'clock or whatever it is and it's a really rushed process. I think building it into and that commitment all three workshops is a really great idea.
Bob: I try to design processes that take less time than the time I'm given, so that I have a quarter of an hour, half an hour, a bit more of flow time to deal with the unexpected that is going to chew up some minutes on its own because I agree with you, being rushed at the end helps to kill the learning transfer or the carrying forward of the decisions into action.
Leanne: It really does. I'd like to talk about the concept you raised which is action learning. Can you tell us- you've got an example that you wrote on your CV, I loved reading that by the way, when you advise the Electoral commission in a developing nation to improve their electoral system. Can you explain first of all, what is action learning and then how you used it in that context.
Bob: There are two very different varieties that just happened to have somewhat similar origins and the same name. The British style, which developed is that a group of people from different organizations come together regularly or semi-regularly. One of them offers a problem or issue that she or he faces and the others then ask curiosity motivated questions to deepen the problem owners understanding. Then the problem owner goes back to her or his own organization and uses this deep and understanding to do a better job, that's the British style.
It tends to be unfacilitated - I would provide some early facilitation but then he would assume these are all senior responsible managers, they're capable of managing their own process. I think it was brave of him to make that assumption with some groups of people. When the Americans took it over, the usual pattern there except in tertiary education, where it's used for educational purposes is that it's a shared project. It's within an organization and a diverse team usually from within the organization is set up to take that project on and they work collaboratively together to resolve it. There's usually a facilitator often called a coach or a set advisor who really makes sure that people do what they're supposed to do, that keeps them on the process.
Leanne: Yes, you need that accountability buddy, that's right.
Bob: The process that I use is a bit of both. I usually work with a single project and in-house teams because that's what I'm asked to do. It can be a bit different in the university classroom or in Ph.D. supervision where I also use it but often, the aim is to help people expand their leadership skills by increasing their ability to facilitate because increasingly, leaders are being asked to facilitate that collaborative problem solving rather than telling people what the answer is. A bit like the shift from presentation to facilitation in training.
Leanne: Two very different skill sets.
Bob: If we learn to ride a bicycle by riding a bicycle, I don't think anyone ever learned to ride a bicycle by studying a book, then surely we learn facilitative leadership by practicing facilitative leadership. To do that it acts against that if I'm present all the time and guiding them very rigorously through a very set process. Instead, I facilitate the first meeting relationship building and being clear about the project in outcome terms so that they know what achievement will look like and negotiating expectations and negotiating process guidelines and making sure that they understand who the other stakeholders are that they can engage them.
Helping them to understand what they want to get out of it for themselves as well as for the organization so that they're motivated to hang in there and fine-tune it until it works the way they want it to. At the second meeting, one of them facilitates and I'm there as a supportive coach. By the third meeting, I'm there but I hope not to have to intervene so that at the end of the third meeting I can say, "You've just demonstrated to me that you're entirely capable of managing your own process. I'd be delighted to be invited back at any time but from this point on it's your show".
Leanne: How do they feel when you say that to them must be pretty happy with that.
Bob: Because one of them has facilitated the second meeting and been supported in doing that and because I insist that there's a process review at the end of that meeting and because the process review is then facilitated by somebody else within the group, that person is then likely to volunteer to facilitate the third meeting and the reviewer of that can then volunteer to facilitate the fourth meeting. They're invited into it so that at any stage the step they're being asked to take they know is within their capacity.
Leanne: Yes. It's not a huge leap at all. Especially the whole co-facilitating model is actually really useful and that's how I started in facilitation was, it's always nice having someone that you can lean on. It's a bit more professional then you learn from them and then when you're on your own it's okay because it's not that set from sitting in a room to then leading but stepping in the room to co-facilitating to leading is much easier. It's a great idea. In your observation what are the good skills that a facilitator really needs? If you're to pick say your top two or three which I know is difficult, what do you think those skills are?
Bob: Some of them are conceptual. I'm reluctant to offer advice to other people because in terms of my own preferences and personality, I'm surprised that I finished up as a change agent and facilitator. I can say with some honesty that I'm one of the most introverted people that I know and I'm much more intellectual in my approach to facilitation than a lot of really good facilitators are. What works for me doesn't necessarily work for others. I can talk about what I found most useful for myself.
Leanne: I think that'd be great particularly as we do have quite a few introverts that listen in, again to get that confidence. We want to dismiss the myth that every facilitator needs to be this extrovert that's really confident. That's absolutely not true at all as we can see from your success. I'd love for you to share the skills that you brought to the role.
Bob: There is one conceptual skill which is probably common across all or almost all facilitation and that's to understand the distinction between process and content. For example, the usual ground rule about facilitators not intervening in the content is useful because when a facilitator does that, the danger is that the participants think that the facilitator has an agenda and that can contaminate the process.
Knowing where that boundary between process and content is, is a useful skill for anyone who does facilitation. Then there are times when you need to intervene in content and somehow rather that has to be done so it doesn't contaminate the process. For instance, if I'm holding a marker I would deliberately put it down and I would move to a different part of the room.
Leanne: You actually physically change where you are?
Bob: Move away from the whiteboard and/or the front of the room and say, "I'm now going to speak to you as Bob Dick citizen and it's entirely up to you whether you pay any attention or not to what I'm going to say". It seems to me that that decision that you were about to make has some dangers that I don't think you may realize and I would invite you to reconsider that. Then I move back to the front of the room and take up the marker pen and stand by the whiteboard and say something like, "Okay, what do you want to do now?"
Leanne: Just that tiny shift of moving your physical location and is it just more of a status thing and saying, I'm actually out of the role of facilitator now. Is that what it does subconsciously to your audience and participants?
Bob: That's the intention that people denote authority to facilitators to look after the process. That's why they ask a facilitator in. If I intervene in content from the front of the room in my facilitator persona, then the danger is that they will pay attention to that because I've said it. The danger is what I mentioned before that they may think I have some agenda about a particular outcome. At the end of a facilitation session, the ideal for me is they don't know what views I had about the content or even better is that they think I'm on their side whether I'm or not.
Leanne: Have you ever had a client approach you just on that and asked you to drive a specific outcome? What would your response be if that was the case?
Bob: I say, "I don't think I'm the person for this. Would you like me to suggest some other people who might be able to do what you want?"
Leanne: Absolutely, great. Let's say you're talking to Bob 45 five years ago, Bob just stepped up as a facilitator, what advice would you give to your younger self?
Bob: Whatever happens, you're going to survive it.
Leanne: That's brilliant.
Bob: That means you can afford to experiment if things aren't working. If the process isn't working, it's pointless to continue with it. Drop the content, fix the process, then when the process is fixed you can return to the content.
Leanne: That's really good advice. I think this whole content and process, not philosophy but the way that you approach that as a mode of delivery is really useful. I've never really thought about that before. I know that I've been in meetings and frustrated with because you're not actually making progress but you continue ahead and talk about the content no one really stops that conversation and says, what we're doing here sitting in this room is not working maybe we need to go for a walk or maybe we need to rethink. Do we need more information, should we consult with someone else? I think that's really helpful. Bob, is there anything else that you'd like to add to any of our first time facilitators that are starting the journey?
Bob: Facilitation can be an enormous buzz and it seems to me that the way in which we structure our organizations and our teams and meetings and our social structures generally suit the world we moving from and often spectacularly unsuited to the world we're moving towards with much more ambiguous and complex environments and much faster rates of change and solutions that don't stay appropriate for as long as they used to. The more of us that can be competent in both content and process, the better placed we are to help the world survive some of the trauma that's headed towards us down the road.
Leanne: Yes. It's a very volatile environment we're heading into and I think the today's of going into a meeting with a set agenda and 10 minutes on this topic, it's no longer relevant. I think your strategy of being prepared but also being flexible and open to where the discussion could lead is such a crucial step for any facilitator. Finally, Bob, you're also running workshops for facilitators, where can people find more information about you and those workshops?
Bob: I have quite a large website, some of it about facilitation, most of it about action research really, which is the mindset that I carry around with me in most of what I do. The URL for the website is www.aral.com.au. The A-R-A-L is short for action research and action learning.
Leanne: I was wondering what that stood for.
Bob: There is a load of material there. If after that URL you finish with a slash, it will automatically give you an index to the main versions of the site. One of the links that come up on the index page will be workshops and that will take people through to a description of my program for the year and some of the other workshops that I've offered in the past or plan to operate in future years or offer in-house.
Leanne: Fantastic. We will link to your website and those workshop details on our show notes for this episode. Bob, thank you so much. It's been great meeting you and talking and you've really broadened my perspective on facilitation in terms of splitting up into content, process and keeping focused on what's actually happening and what we need to fix in that situation. I've learned a lot from you and I'm sure our listeners have as well as. Thank you for taking the time out for our conversation.
Bob: My pleasure.
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.
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.
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!
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]
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.
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.
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.
First Time Facilitator podcast transcript with Matthew Dicks (Episode 8)
Storytelling works! (Because no one's ever asked to see a Powerpoint presentation twice)
Leanne: I’d like to introduce today’s guest. He fills his days as a school teacher, storyteller, speaking coach, blogger, podcaster, a wedding DJ, minister-life coach, and a rock opera author. His upcoming book, Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life Through the Power of Storytelling, is his first non-fiction title. His other novels have been translated into 25 languages worldwide. Plus, he's a 35-time Moth StorySLAM champion and 5-time GrandSLAM champion. Welcome to the show, Matthew Dicks.
Matthew Dicks: Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here.
Leanne: It's great to have you here. I'm like, look, what a crazy and full repertoire of things that you do. You must get that comment a lot.
Matthew Dicks: I do. My wife is not a huge fan of that list.
[laughter]
Leanne: I hopped into YouTube last night to watch some of your videos. The first one was the Moth story about you as a pole vaulter in high school. I know there's--
Matthew Dicks: That was the first story I ever told.
Leanne: I can't believe that was your first one. You looked so seasoned. My husband and I were laughing out loud, watching that.
Matthew Dicks: Thank you.
Leanne: Well done. Switched over to your TEDx talk about making decisions based on what your hundred-year-old self would say, and I got to say there were a few teary moments watching that. I think your video hit home for me.
Matthew Dicks: I'm so glad. Thank you.
Leanne: I shared it on Facebook straight away. I've got to ask, how did you become so good at telling stories?
Matthew Dicks: I used to say that I was just fortunate that I found this thing that I was able to do, and then my wife told me, "You're an idiot. It wasn't because of that." What it turns out to be is that I've been sort of prepping for storytelling for a very long time through a bunch of things. The DJ-ing was great because for 20 years, I learned to speak extemporaneously in front of large groups of people. I was comfortable in front of a crowd the first time I took the stage, and that helped a lot.
I'm a novelist, so I'm accustomed to sort of the shape that stories should take. I never really understood that that would play a role until I started working with people on their stories, and I realized how people just don't really have that fundamental understanding all the time.
I've been blogging since 2006. I've discovered through the process of blogging that the more I reveal about myself, the more vulnerable I'm willing to be, the more I'm willing to tell on myself about the terrible things I may do on a daily basis, the more attention I would get from my audience. I think those things sort of combined that night at The Moth when I decided to tell my first story, the idea that I was comfortable in front of people and I understood that they wanted me to be honest and as vulnerable as possible.
Leanne: What was the first vulnerable thing that you did reveal to people? Was it that story, the part that you're this mediocre athlete at high school? Was that an embarrassing thing to share with the world?
Matthew Dicks: I guess the part of that story that I'm really trying to express that I think people feel but never say is the moment where you occasionally root against your teammates because you want to be perceived as the best person on the team. That's something that I think a lot of people feel but would rarely speak aloud. That was what I was trying to go for that night when I was telling that story.
Leanne: Back to storytelling. I know this from my experiences. There's [sic] some people that I've-- I've talked to some friends, and they're just natural at storytelling. They break into telling at something that happened in their holiday. It's really funny, and it seems effortless. There's also, on the other end of the spectrum, some people that can tell you a story, and with the first two sentences, you're switching off. Do you think it's something that's natural, or is it something, a skill, that you can learn, and is it an easy or difficult skill to appreciate?
Matthew Dicks: Well, I teach it a lot, so I have to believe that it can be learned. I've been teaching it now for about five years. I have taken people who are truly terrible at telling a story, got them on a stage in a very short period of time, and had them perform really brilliantly, so I do believe that can be taught. I do believe it can be learned. I think a lot of is just the ability to listen to stories. I think the people who are natural storytellers, the ones that don't need to work with me, they're just good listeners. They've picked up this craft along the way that they're not even aware that they picked up. Others just need some help understanding how a story works, really what is a story, and what isn't a story because that's often half the battle.
Leanne: How do you define what a story is, then?
Matthew Dicks: I always say that a story is not a series of events. Someone may come to you and say, "Let me tell you about my vacation." No one's really ever wanted to hear the next sentence of that story because what they're really saying is "I'd like to run through the itinerary of my vacation with you so I can relive it again. I'll insert good meals along the way." That's not something that's going to move us.
For a story to really be a story, it needs to be something in your life that happened that caused some kind of change in you. I usually say are transformation or a realization. "I was this person, but now I'm this person." It can be a negative transformation. It could be, "I used to be a decent human being, and now I'm not." Something as simple as, "I used to think my mom was an idiot, and now I understand that everything my mom has ever told me was absolutely true. I really can't believe it." There has to be that arc, that journey from "I was one thing" to "Now, I'm another," which people tend not to understand. They tend to tell stories which are just series of things that happened to them, but in the end, they're fundamentally the same person. Those stories aren't memorable, and oftentimes, they're not very good to listen to.
Leanne: Is there a secret structure to telling these stories where you talk about the shift in behaviour or your thoughts around something?
Matthew Dicks: There's a lot to it. I say there's a lot of secrets, but the big secret I often tell people is that every story is about a five-second moment in our lives. It's really that moment of realization or transformation. I call it a five-second moment because I really believe it takes place over about the course of five seconds where you suddenly, for whatever reason, shift into a new person or shift into a new understanding.
Once I'm able to find one of those moments, the moment in the story we were talking about, the moment I realized I'm rooting against my teammate because I'm a selfish jerk who wants to be perceived as better than everybody else-- As soon as I find that moment, I know that's always going to be the end of my story because it's going to be the most important thing I say. If people would just do that, if they would just ask themselves what moment of realization or transformation can I talk about and make that the end of my story, they're going to be better off than most storytellers already.
Leanne: Why do you think it is important for people to share information using stories?
Matthew Dicks: I think it's the best way to share information. It's the most captivating way. I often say that I'm a fundamentally unlikable person who tells a good story, and I manage to get through life on that tree. I'm a horrible golfer. I am really the worst golfer of any golfer I've ever played with. Yet, I'm asked to play constantly, almost daily. The people who play golf with me know that when I hit the ball into the trees and we go looking for it, I'm going to entertain them on the way.
That ability to grab attention, and through a story, you can just get people to do a lot of things that they might not normally do or convince people to think a certain way that they might not normally think. I often say no one has ever asked to see a PowerPoint presentation a second time or say, "Wow, that graph was so amazing. I'd love to see it again." We'll watch the same movie that we have watched ten times, an 11th time if it randomly comes on the television one night because we love stories so much more than anything else.
Leanne: So true. In the work environment, you'd recommend instead of dolling up the PowerPoint/presentation with the corporate template, would you just recommend launching into a story about how your new idea will shift the organization, and would you make it personal? How do you start even mapping out what that story would look like when it comes to, say, in business?
Matthew Dicks: I always start with a story. I have to do presentations as a teacher, and I'm often doing presentations now with corporations and non-profits for storytelling. My first goal is to tell a story that's going to relate to the goal of the day, but also going to reveal something about me. I don't want to be a presenter that's forgettable because most presenters are. You'll go to a conference, and you'll hear some information, but you won't remember the person three days later, which means you haven't made a meaningful connection. If I can share something that is vulnerable, or amusing, or even embarrassing, I've now established myself as someone who is memorable, or entertaining, or someone who you just want to know a little bit more about. I'll always start with that. Eventually, I may work into a PowerPoint, or into a graph, or into that more traditional presentation style, but I always want to start with a story. I always want to connect with my audience so that they will believe the things that I am saying.
Leanne: That's very authentic as well. Like you said, it does create that personal connection. It's so different to what everyone else is doing because most people, I guess, they expect to go into a board meeting, for example, switch on the computer and fire it up, and that's the way it goes. I guess, by using that story, you're automatically hooking them in.
Matthew Dicks: Yes. If you watch any of my TED talks, actually, I always open with a story. The story is going to inform what I want to talk about after the story, but I want that story to be something that causes people to feel connected to me and relate to the content I want to present. I'll often end the TED talk with either another story or I will finish off that first story. We begin with story we end with story. People feel entertained and fall. They feel moved and connected with me and then the content that I sandwiched in the middle, manages to get in there, sort of sneaky. They don't even notice it's happening.
Leanne: Yes, you're right. Because when I put on your second video last night, my husband was like, "Let's play something else." But then, I think in the first minute, you've hooked him in and he was there watching it for 15 minutes which was awesome. [crosstalk] Thank you. [laughs] I'd love to hear about the level of detail that you go in. Sometimes when you're describing an event, you really describe it quite evocatively and outline like the greasy tiled floor that you were lying on at McDonald's. I guess, in my experience hearing stories, some people give too much details, some people not enough. Where's the fine line in providing detail?
Matthew Dicks: I always think it's not how much, but where it should be and where it shouldn't be. There are moments, like the moments you've spoken about when I'm in a robbery in the back of a restaurant and there's a gun to my head. I want you to be on the floor with me and I want you to feel the grease in the barrel of the gun. I want you to see and smell everything because it's such a unique situation and it's the most important moment in that story. I want you there with me.
Quite often, I will tell people don't include any details. If I'm telling a story about-- I'm working on a story right now about my grandmother and I open with her in the garden. I will just say the word garden because it's irrelevant what type of garden it is. If I just say garden, you just automatically fill in a garden of your choice. You end up doing a lot of work for me, without me wasting any words, without even knowing it.
If I say the word garden to you, you automatically choose the season, you automatically choose the weather on that day, you choose what is in that garden, and as long as it's not pertinent to the story, those details, I want you to do the work for me. It will also create a landscape that you are more familiar with. So that, when you put my grandmother in your garden, you feel like you're a little bit at home because it's a sense of like, "I understand what that garden is." Even if the garden she happens to be in is full of corn and carrots and you put her in a flower garden, that's fine. I love the fact that you've created the garden that you are most comfortable with.
It's all a matter of choosing which moments need to be described and which moments can be let go. I think people either describe everything or they don't describe anything and they don't find that moment where, "No, slow it down here and give us the detail that we need because now we've hit a critical moment." Or a moment that people really can't visualize without words.
Leanne: Let's talk about storytelling and facilitation and particularly, in workshops. Sometimes, I definitely think it's a useful tool to explain whatever you're trying to get through to your audience. With your stories, do you actually have a bucket of stories that you have which you can lean on and go, "This one's a great one to use when I want to explain leadership. This one is about integrity." Do you have an Excel spreadsheet or how do you store that information? [chuckles]
Matthew Dicks: I do have an Excel spreadsheet. It's fairly insane. It's a crazy spreadsheet. It has a dozen of tabs and it really is insane. What happens is, if you build up enough stories, that's what I encourage people to do is keep telling stories and keep crafting them, eventually, when I am asked to speak on a topic, it is never relevant what that topic is because I will always have a story for it.
I had to do a talk in a human trafficking conference one time. They asked me to close out the conference with an inspirational story related to human trafficking. The conference organizer called me a couple of days before and she said, "Have you researched human trafficking?" I said, "Absolutely not. They've just spent three days hearing about human trafficking. I'm going to tell you a story and then relate it to the importance of battling human trafficking." She was very worried about how that talk was going to go.
I told a personal story about my life and how I failed to act quickly when I could have helped the student. I related that back to the importance of when it comes to things like human trafficking, we can't allow politicians to say that, "Change takes place over time and big ships are slow to turn because these are human lives at stake and not making widgets." It really went well and it was completely different from anything else said in the conference. I'm just able to do that with every topic now because I have 150 stories that I've told on stages over the years and I can apply any one of them to any topic whatsoever.
The trick is to be a storyteller with a large amount of content and then the topics are irrelevant because you can always match what you have to what they need.
Leanne: Do you collect those stories in real time, like you just, "Wow, that's interesting.", and you get out your phone and go into Evernote? Or, is it something at the end of the day? What's your process?
Matthew Dicks: I actually have a TED talk called Homework for Life that you can go and get a lot of detail on it. What I do essentially is at the end of every day, I sit down with my spreadsheet and I ask myself, "What is the most story-worthy moment of my day?" If I had to tell a story about something that happened today, even if that moment is fairly benign and irrelevant, I still write it down. I put it down in just a few sentences in a spreadsheet. I don't make it so on a risk that I won't continue to do it day after day.
My goal was to get maybe a story every couple of months to add to my lists of stories. But what happened over time is really remarkable. I've developed this lense for storytelling. Such that, I can see stories where other people don't. My wife says, "Matt can turn anything into a story." And that's not really true. My friend tells me, "Matt can pick up a rock and make it into a story, The Process of the Rock." That's not true either. What I try to explain to them is, I just see stories where you don't because I've developed this lense overtime by continually asking myself this question. I've discovered that the smallest moments in our lives make the best stories.
Even though I've died twice and been brought back by CPR. You know about my robbery. I've been homeless for a period in my life and arrested and tried for a crime I didn't commit. All of those things aren't my best stories. Really, my best stories are tiny little moments that I experience and then I see because of this process that I've been engaged in for the last three or four years.
Leanne: Do you think those little stories are good because they're probably more relatable? Because I haven't had two near death experiences-
Matthew Dicks: [laughs]
Leanne: Do you think that's why they are so good, those little ones?
Matthew Dicks: Exactly, yes. Exactly. When I tell my near death experiences and I've told those stories, you can see them on the internet, I always have to find the tiny, little moment in the big story, so that I can connect with my audience.
When I was 17, I was in a car accident. I went through the windshield, died on the side of the road, but the fact that I die on the side of the road and get brought back to life is almost irrelevant to the story. It's not the point of the story. The point of the story happens later on in the emergency room when my parents fail to show up. They go to check on the car before they come to check on me when they hear I'm in a stable condition. But my friends show up. My 16, and 17 and 18-year-old friends show up in the emergency room, unexpectedly. They fill in for my family and really become my family until I meet my wife.
That is something people can connect to you. You can't connect to me going through a windshield, but you can connect to the idea that parents sometimes let us down. Or, that friends sometimes pick us up, when we feel alone at points in our lives when we really shouldn't feel alone. You find the little moments in the big ones, but the easiest stories to tell are just, start with the little ones, then you don't have to play with them.
Leanne: It's a pretty powerful skill you have, in terms of the way that you can transition emotion. Last night, I was saying within five minutes, we were laughing and we watched the second video and it was like, "Whoa."
[laughter]
How do you feel that having that kind of responsibility?
Matthew Dicks: It's a trick of storytelling, really. My favorite story and the ones my wife likes the best are the ones that are, laugh, laugh, laugh, cry. I get you laughing at the beginning of the story and not realizing the horror that is to come. I always say it's better to make people laugh before they cry because it hurts more that way. [laughs] Part of storytelling is the manipulation of emotion because the ultimate goal is, I want you to feel the same way I felt, or as close to it as possible. So, if I'm surprised in my real life, I want my audience to experience that similar surprise as I tell the story.
I'm constantly asking myself, "How do I want my audience to feel at this moment?" So, if my story is very heavy at the end, I want to balance it with humor at the beginning if I can. It's just that manipulation of emotion that a storyteller inevitably does, in a way that it's [unintelligible 00:18:44], but it really is the satisfying way that people want to hear stories.
Leanne: Cool. Let's talk about your transition. You're doing a lot of keynotes, speaking, presenting and then you're running workshops, do you think there's similar skill-set that you brought over. I know you're a teacher as well, so you've got that as a background. Obviously, teaching has really helped you, having the storytelling as well. How have you used those skills, in terms of getting engagement in workshops?
Matthew Dicks: I teach fifth grade. I teach ten-year-olds and I've been teaching for 20 years. I often say they're the worst audience in the world. I've really learned that you have to engage your audience. I so often, I am in workshops in professional development or listening to speeches, and I'm astounded that the speaker doesn't attempt to do something entertaining or different. I think so often we assume that adults are willingly engaged in what we are about to present. Like your husband, actually.
When I do my TED Talk, I don't assume that the person who is even chosen to listen to it, wants to listen to it. So, I'm always thinking about, when I'm beginning a workshop, when I'm beginning a keynote, I assume that no one wants to listen to anything I have to say. The first thing I have to do is hook them. I have to find a way to get them to care about me and care about what I'm saying, and I just see so many people assume the opposite that everyone wants to hear them, so they have to make no effort to be entertaining and engaging in the beginning. Kevin Smith, the comedian wrote a book, wrote a biography and then he says that speakers have an obligation to be entertaining regardless of their topic every time they take the stage, and I believe that and I believe you have to be entertaining initially and not assume that people want to hear anything you have to say.
Leanne: That's amazing and how do we create a movement, I completely agree with you as well, but it just seems like, we're being overwhelmed with people that do operate off that assumption. How do we change this? I know you're starting out by writing a book about it, you created these videos, we really need to start just the revolution somehow.
Matthew Dicks: Part of it is just rejecting what people are doing you know, if you're not entertaining I just reject your content I reject what you have to say, part of it is giving feedback as well, it's so often and when I'm in a professional development situation, and I've asked to give feedback at the end of it. I believe that there's this desire to be kind to the person who took the stage because they were brave enough to take the stage and so people avoid being honest with a speaker or a presenter about what they've actually done they just think, "Well, they were kind enough to come here, we have to be nice enough to say something nice".
And I think be honest in our feedback and if they don't ask for feedback, they don't solicit it, we have to be willing to send an email the next day saying, "Hey here's a couple things you should think about", until these people understand that we are not engaged in their material, they will just continue to do what they're doing.
Leanne: Yes, you're right, no one's really brave enough to tell them, a little bit scared. That's really good advice I think we'll link to your videos, that could even be away, so providing feedback to someone, "Hey, nice attempt yesterday, maybe you should watch this video and get some tips".
Matthew Dicks: Yes, I had a politician recently, a guy I know pretty well he's trying to get a program cut in our school system and it was a program that may be needed to be cut, they were trying to save some money and he said he did a year's worth of data collection presented a beautiful PowerPoint with lots of charts, lots of evidence that showed we should cut this program and move the money somewhere else. Then he said one mother stood up and described how the program saved her son's life and he said, "I always lose to the anecdote."
I told him you took a knife to a gunfight, you thought that a PowerPoint was going to change the hearts and minds of people when a mother with a child is gonna change the hearts and minds of people. So I'm working with politicians now, telling them you have to tell a story like nobody cares about your facts and figures that you have to be a personality who is engaging and who tells a story. I think starting to understand that to a great degree.
Leanne: Yes, I think so too. So in terms of your workshops, they're engaging, interactive and then the participant walks out and leaves the workshop, what is the best way to embed learning, do you think? Following a workshop when someone leaves that environment and just goes back, back to their day to day, how do you make sure that something has changed?
Matthew Dicks: Well, hopefully, they can buy my book and that will help a little now, but what are the things I do is I call it homework for life, the idea that you're going to look for stories every day. I say for life because I really do mean that that if you're going to start doing this, you'll do it for the rest of your life. I believe that when I teach my goal is to take a large and complex process like storytelling and break it down into the smallest possible parts. So that even if you spend eight hours in a workshop with me and you pick up just five small things that you can begin doing immediately, that are easy to implement and can be repeated over and over again, you'll begin doing that and you'll notice the changes in yourself as a storyteller. Then you're going to be more likely to maybe come watch one of my videos, or come to one of my advanced workshops to learn even more or to pick up my book now and read more about it.
I think that so often it when I'm in a workshop nobody is looking to sort of break things down into tiny concrete parts and maybe because I'm elementary school teacher for 20 years, that's what I understand about curriculum. So I really do try to teach in the smallest possible terms and I scale it so that the first things I say are always going to be the most important. As we get through the day I'm going to become more and more nuanced and the things that I'm teaching are going to be less important, although still important. So that when I have them at their maximum attention and maximum energy I'm teaching the most important things and truly things that are going to be so simple that they can go home and start doing immediately.
So don't teach big things, just like in storytelling we're looking for five second moments to tell a story, I'm looking for tiny bits that kit that people can use.
Leanne: Yes, great so let's talk about your book. It's coming out in June, I've already pre-ordered my version off Amazon. So you've written novels this is your first non-fiction book, what made you decide to pick up the pen and write something and share this experience with the world?
Matthew Dicks: Well, I did workshops for about four years and over the course of those workshops actually started grudgingly, people kept asking me to do it and I said no, and eventually I agreed to do one and done that's what I said and I fell in love with the teaching of storytelling. But over the course of that time, I really began to refine what I was doing so if you had taken a workshop with me in year one versus now, it would be entirely different. As I began to develop that curriculum in a way that people responded too positively and I saw them implementing really effectively, I realized that I can't reach everybody by having them come and join me on a Saturday for eight hours.
I started to get quite a bit of demand from around the world really from people who would either say, "Can you please fly out to LA and teach a workshop or do you have some material you can provide for us, a book and things like that". So my goal was to take the workshop that I teach really this weekend-long workshop that I teach in various places and turn that into a book. So if you can't join me for a weekend, if you can't make it to where I am and I can't make it to where you are, you'll have this to get you launched into storytelling.
It's not going to be the same, it's not going to be as interactive, you're not going to laugh, you know I try to make people laugh throughout all of my workshops. There are funny moments in the book but my goal is if you can't make it to me you can start with this and then maybe we can talk later on.
Leanne: How does the book work? Is it sort of like a sequence of you start with lesson one and then you build up over the course of it or is it just different tips and tricks you can start pretty much anywhere?
Matthew Dicks: No, I've designed it like my workshops so the beginning chapters are going to be more important than the later chapters, big fundamental, the big fundamental building blocks are in the first few chapters. I've also embedded lots of stories so that they can serve as models for what you're learning and I've crafted in a bit of memoir as well so that you can sort of watch my journey on storytelling as well.
I love Stephen King's book on writing. I think it's brilliant for writers and I love it because I learn a little bit about the writer's life in the process so my goal was to write that version for storytelling. It's going to be instructive but you're also going to go on my storytelling journey with me and you're going to meet some of the great storytellers that I've met along the way and learn some of their craft tips as well.
I'm hoping that even if you're not terribly interested in storytelling the book is going to be entertaining enough that you'll read it so even storytelling for dating has become really popular for me now. It's always guys who can't get a second date so they come to my workshops. So it's not just the idea that presenters or performers are going to be using this book, but really almost anyone can benefit from storytelling and I'm hoping the book is entertaining enough that it holds their attention and that they'll get through it.
Leanne: Yes, cool, just good opening that front cover and making the effort. Storytelling for dating, what's that workshop about? I have to ask.
Matthew Dicks: It's my regular workshop although I have a couple set up where it would be exclusively dating and we'd have like a meal and things. But essentially it's the idea that on your first date, it's your opportunity to communicate to people with whoever you're with. And so often, people don't know what to say they say the wrong thing all the time, they don't tell a good story or they're not willing to be vulnerable in front of someone. They brag, they just awful people on the first day, oftentimes they're the worst version of themselves because they're not being themselves.
So I teach them that tell the story about the embarrassing moment you had this week and tell it well. Someone once asked my wife, someone said, "Why did you first fall in love with Matt?" and I was so happy I was there because I sort of wanted to know what that answer was. I figured it would like, "Look at him, you know obviously I fell", but she said, "It's never been what I looked like". She told me about a night when we were still just friends and we were teaching together, and we went to a restaurant while we were waiting for a school talent show.
And it was the first time we ever really sat down together and had dinner and she asked me questions and if you ask me a question I'm always gonna tell you a story and she said,"That was the night I fell in love with him even though it took us another six months to get together". She said, "Listening to him tell stories was the moment I fell in love because I wanted to hear more, and I loved listening to what he had to say". So storytelling got me the best wife ever and I really believe it can at least get you the second date, I can't guarantee anything after that, now you're on your own. But if you can really speak well and represent yourself well on a first date, I think you can get a second date fairly easily.
Leanne: Yes, I think so, that's the beautiful story that your wife told as well.
Matthew Dicks: Yes, I know I just, I was mad at her actually when she told it because I was into like year three or four of workshops at that point, and I said, "You never told me that, that fits my personal narrative so well like I can brand that and she said, "I’m not really in the business of making sure your personal narrative is up to par."
Leanne: Just to watch out what she says around you sometimes a bit.
Matthew Dicks: Yes. I have to run things by her sometimes when the story involves her.
Leanne: Yes, I bet. Mathew, where can people find you and find your book?
Matthew Dicks: You can find me at Mathewdicks.com and you can find my book everywhere. It's on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, your local independent books store will have it. You can pre-order it or get it there when it comes out in June. There will be an audiobook, I’m actually going to be narrating the audio book. It will be my first time doing that. All of my novels are in audio but then they've been narrated by other people so that will be a first for me.
Leanne: Wonderful. I've heard that process is pretty interesting. It’s pretty intense, isn’t it?
Matthew Dicks: No, I haven’t done it yet but I have been told this is going to take at least three days, which sounds terrible to sit in a little booth for eight hours a day for three days reading words that I wrote a long time ago.
Leanne: We can’t wait to hear it. Mathew, it'd be great to have you down to sometime I’m sure after the release of this book. Maybe there'll be some opportunities there, but I just loved-- I can’t believe everything that you've done, but just watching all your videos and hearing from you as well today is just so exciting. I think this is really relevant to all our listeners and they will be championing this episode. I think it’s really a good one.
Matthew Dicks: I’m so glad, thanks so much.
First Time Facilitator podcast transcript (Episode 6)
We need more mindful leaders (and we need them right now) with Rachel Grace (Episode 6)
Leanne: Welcome to the First Time Facilitator Podcast. My friend and fellow facilitator, Rachel Grace.
Rachel: Good day.
Leanne: Hey Rachel, we spent 2003 in a group together studying statistics. I know you were probably the brains of the group and the hardest working of all of us.
Rachel: That's a big accusation, mate. I don't know about that.
[laughter]
Leanne: Hopefully the other two aren't listening into this.
Rachel: Yes.
[laughs]
Leanne: [chuckles] Tell us, we haven't seen each other for 15 years. What has happened and what brings you in this room now talking to me about the world of facilitation?
Rachel: Yes, cool, good question. Good to see you too, mate. After I lost track of you, we lost track of each other, around that time I finished up with psych a few years later. Then after that, I went and I did research in social psychology. That's about trying to understand behaviour, what drives behaviour at a group level and trying to look for good ways to intervene to change behaviour. For example, the first job I got at a uni was for the Red Cross looking at how to understand and increase blood donation behaviour. That's an example of what social psychs do. I worked in a team there then I went from there to CSIRO and worked with a team looking to decrease water use because it was at the time of the drought so it was about how do we understand the way humans relate to environmental stuff including water. That was good.
I wanted to get more from the research side of things more into the people stuff. I started to tour with the idea of being a therapist so I went to London and I worked for the National Health Service there at a big hospital in London in a sexual health clinic.Where part of my week was about looking at compassion in nursing, how to understand, what drives it, and how to increase it. Also, in using mindfulness as a tool to help people with anxiety, relationship problems, sexual dysfunction, and pain. It was really interesting but then I got a bit disillusioned with how little impact you could have in big organizations sometimes.
I got a bit frustrated so I bailed on it, left London, came back, and found myself in the hills of Byron Bay, doing permaculture and organic farming for a long time as a way to reconnect with Earth and look at actually doing stuff that felt really tangible and pragmatic. I'd also realise that as much as I knew how to do a T-test and even trickier stats things after I left you.It was like I didn't know how to grow a carrot and I didn't know how to connect with Earth. I felt that there was something wrong with that so I rectified that by doing years, doing farming and permaculture. Because I don't muck around, so I got used to it. It was really great. After that, I realised that as much as I loved working with the Earth and working on farms, it wasn't really my calling because I like talking too much and I was a bit slow, I was probably better off working with people which is my real gift and passion.
I returned to the city and started to work with people again. This time it took a different shape. I wasn't researching about stuff or researching how to design interventions to change behaviour. I started working directly with people. I think that bridged the gap between the world of understanding psychology and human behaviour and seeking to have a practical impact, which is what I was looking for through doing farming. I got to bring those things together when I started to do coaching and mindfulness training and that kind of stuff.
Leanne: When you actually moved back from London and to Byron Bay, did anyone say, "Hey Rach, what are you doing? You're throwing your career away?"
Rachel: Yes, for sure. People were like that but there's something in people these days where they get the desire to live a simpler life and to connect to the Earth. Maybe it's a function of the type of friends I have. There was an understanding of that. There was definite concern about why would you walk away from an amazing trajectory. When I went to London, I wanted to go to Oxford and I got the prerequisite job for that and was months away from going for the interview to go to Oxford, doesn't mean I would have got in. It was looking quite good because I got the job at the hospital in London out of 650 applicants. It was at the peak of a global financial crisis. To go to Oxford, you had to get this prerequisite job so I was on an amazing trajectory from one standpoint but I knew in my heart I needed to do other things and I'm glad I did.
The people around me also were concerned, they also accepted that in some ways, our world's a little bit upside down with what we prioritize. We've lost the connection with the Earth, we've lost our connection with a lot of connections to nature even and the seasons. How to do some of these fundamental things that we need to have a fulfilling life like have time in our day to reflect after sweating and grow our own food and understand how to take care of our own waste and a whole lot of things. Sometimes people do that when they've retired. They go and have the tree changed or they buy a hobby farm. Well, I did it mid-career and I did it for many years and I'm really glad.
Leanne: It's really interesting. I think with all these inventions and gadgets and things out now, which are meant to save us time, now we can connect not only via email, via phone but there's Whatsapp. If you're off that, then there's Messenger and all these different tools.
Rachel: Yes,
Leanne: Just moving straight over to mindfulness, what are you noticing about society? Do you think the problem's getting worse or, like you said, you recognize that some people are now going, "Hey, it's okay to step back." Where do you see it heading?
Rachel: That's a good question. The thing I noticed about myself and I noticed in others too is it's one thing to go, "Look, I need to create a gap in my life because the pressures of modern life with its non-stop demands through apps and emails and work pressures and all this." It's great to go and have a weekend away. It's great to have a holiday. It's great to take four years, five, six years out to go and do farming. That's great but it's not always functional to leave the coalface of life to almost have that gap. It's really necessary to have a tool on hand as life unfolds to create a little internal gap, like a little internal holiday.
Mindfulness really is a tool that allows us to notice just how demanding stuff is. Notice how we're reacting to it. Through practice and knowing what to do with your mind, you can actually start to create a little gap where through being present and observing yourself, you're able to not take on the pressures of life. Therefore, you don't need to necessarily rely on leaving the situation or waiting for the holiday before you can feel relaxed because otherwise, it's a long time between drinks. If people are waiting for retirement before they can chill out, well that's a pretty sad circumstance really. It's also pretty sad when people only get to chill out on their holidays a few times a year. Mindfulness is a tool that helps us to chill out in the midst. There's a part of us that can chill out even in the midst of life being full of pressure, so that's one of the main benefits of it. I see just an enormous need for it particularly as you race with the amount of the apps, the intensity of the accessibility and stimulus from those. Like they call it the "attention deficit economy" where there's so much demands on our attention, it wears us thin. It's really important more than ever to have the internal tools to manage that.
It's about having a number of tools in the repertoire and I don't think society has, up to this point, equipped us with the tools to manage our minds well so that we know how to do that and yet it's a learnable skill. In our modern day and age where the economy and our productivity and our income, for most of us relying on our minds and the quality of our minds, the quality of our thinking, the quality of managing our stress and our emotions, it's like the time has come for us to not just let our minds operate on default. In the hope that we'll get through a career that's so demanding. It's time for us to, as a society, step up to recognizing that our minds are a tool that we can actually sharpen and have them performing optimally if we take the time to train them.
Leanne: When people have deficiencies in, say, technical skill, "I can't run this report in Excel. I'm going to need to do an Excel training course." we go straight to a training course. When it comes to mindfulness, people are a little bit vulnerable or don’t really talk about things like, "I actually need to work on how I'm going to cope or deal with this." In saying that in the last couple of years, there's been more discussion around mindfulness. It's coming out but there's still these connotations of, "I'm weak." if I do the meditation, it's a bit woo woo-ey" What do you say to that when you hear that?
Rachel: I understand that. There's a lot of misconceptions about what mindfulness is, yet at the same time, mindfulness has become such a buzzword so it can easily be discounted as being a fad. The way I deal with that is I try to educate people about what mindfulness is. Mindfulness, for example, we're talking about, would be it's about bringing our full attention into this moment and accepting this moment as it is. There's these two components to the definition of mindfulness as I use it, which is drawn from the literature. It's about being present, having your mind where your body is, which is not as easy as it sounds of course, but to be fully present here and now, just to accept that whatever's currently going on in the environment around you or within you, this is the reality right now. That's the definition of mindfulness. That's really important for me anyway. I clear that up as quickly as I can with people because a lot of times people have the misconception that mindfulness is about having a blank mind and no thoughts. I hear this all the time, "No Rachel. That's fine. You're into mindfulness, but I couldn't do it because you don't understand my mind. I'm a thinker." This is the way it goes.
[laughter]
Rachel: "I'm a thinker and because I've got one of those minds that races." This is the way people always say and I'm like, "Okay. Cool. I hear that," I can see you're laughing because you're relating. The reality is that in truth everyone has a mind that races all the time. Everyone has a mind that is swinging wildly between thinking about the past, thinking about the future, evaluating what's currently happening. Everyone's mind pretty much, I think.
If you're listening and that's not you, then no offence intended, but for the majority of people, their minds are all over the shop. That's nothing to be ashamed of, but we need to face up to that and acknowledge and call the elephant in the room, that we're all wondering around with a mind like that. I just say to people, "Look, mindfulness is not about having a blank mind."
If you hold that misconception, you'll automatically think it's not for you because you'll think it's unobtainable. That's a real shame because in fact, mindfulness is exactly for the people who find that they're getting kicked around by their minds, that are worrying about the past, worrying about the future, judging stuff about themselves and others that are around them and just giving them no peace really. I also do try to share that. My own journey was one of thinking that mindfulness was rubbish. When I was 20, I got chronic fatigue and I went to a GP who was a western medical doctor but also trained in traditional Chinese medicine. Then I came to understand he was a meditation master. I didn't know. In my first consult with him, he examined me and I thought he was going to give me drugs to get me better. That's what I wanted, but what he did was after examining me he said, "If you don't learn to focus your mind, you're never going to recover your health."
I was shocked, then I was angry and then I was disappointed because I was, "What's my mind got to do with it mate? I don't know where you're from, but just give me the drugs."
[laughs]
"Hust give it to me. I didn't come here to tell you all I need to calm my mind. I've got a physical problem. Give me something to--" I was desperate right? He actually wrote on a prescription slip. He wrote on the prescription slip the pattern to Meditation Center which is not there anymore, but he sat across the table to me. He said, "You need to go there and you need to learn to meditate," and I thought, "What does he know?"
I went because I was desperate. When I sat down in that first class and I paid attention to my mind like they instructed me to, I quickly found out that he had a point. That my mind was not focused. It was all over the shop. It was racing, reliving stuff from the past, worrying about stuff from the future. To be honest, I thought, "No wonder I'm tired."
That's not a clinical diagnosis for anyone out there with chronic fatigue, but that was just my recognition and I stuck with it. I did get better and I ended up getting instruction from him personally on how to do all different kinds of mindfulness and meditation techniques over the course of over a decade. Studied Psychology during that time where I met you hon and increasingly got to see the benefit of it.
I've gone from thinking it was rubbish to not only having a personal journey that tells me that it's not only helpful, it's probably helped save my life. It's actually transformed me as a person. Then as I got more into Psychology and I understood the way the brain works, I could get how the structural function of the brain operates, I could see why mindfulness has an impact.
Over the last six years is there's been enhancements in technology in studying the brain. The Neuroscience literature has given rise to over 6,500 peer-review general articles on mindfulness. It's like my personal journey for 20 years of mindfulness has paralleled the technological enhancements that has allowed the peer-reviewed literature to increase, which has given an evidence-based mindfulness, which means that I now have the benefit of not only being able to speak for my own personal journey, but I have the scientific literacy thanks to the side training to understand what the peer-review literature says.
It's like it's all come together now. Now, I can stand in front of people. I have a talk, a signature talk I call it, which is “Mindfulness is not just hippy, fluffy stuff.” It's a one-hour talk and I do it sometimes out in the public, but generally, it's in corporate situations where I basically take people on that journey. I share a little bit of my personal journey thinking it was hippy, fluffy stuff. Then I speak to the peer-reviewed literature, the evidence base for how we now know that mindfulness absolutely is transformational and changes people for the better. Then I guide everyone in that process for a 15-minute practice.
That's the cool way. I've delivered this talk so many times now that at the end of guiding people through a 15-minute practice, I always ask, "Can I see an honest raise of hands who's got benefit from that practice?" I say, "You don't need to do it to stroke my ego. I can get that done in other ways, but can I see an honest raise of hands?" Every time, every hand in the room maybe by one or two goes up.
I've done this full of rooms of people up to a hundred and not just the people who you think would be into it. This is a corporate situation in the middle of a workday, with a lot of alpha males in the room. Yet it's undeniable, time after time, that mindfulness practice that's based on what the evidence says is a good mindfulness practice, because mindfulness can mean lots of different types of techniques, but I do one that's based on what the bulk of the literature says is useful and has impact, it works.
Leanne: Great. What do you cover in the 15 minutes?
Rachel: Yes. The way I train people in mindfulness is what gets called an embodied practice. That just means that the training is about training our awareness to be present in the here and now by virtue of getting it to pay attention to sensations in the body a bit. Specifically, for example, I start the practice by asking people to pay attention to the sensations in their feet. I'll get you to do that right now. If you push your feet into the ground and create a bit of pressure, can you feel any physical sensations in your feet like warmth or coolness or tickliness or hotness or pressure or?
Leanne: Yes, I feel pressure. I feel warmth.
Rachel: Yes, okay so they're physical sensations, right? The moment that you do that, you are drawing a part of your attention in from maybe whatever it was before. Perhaps it was preparing for the next question or whatever. From where you've drawn part of your attention, from wherever it's traveling, right into the here and now by doing something very specific. If you say to people, "Bring your attention into the here and now," it's a little bit abstract. There's nothing to anchor it to, right? It's like saying, "Tie down the tarp over there." It's kind of, "Where?"
Leanne: Where is it? Yes.
Rachel: Unless you can see where you're going to peg that thing down, it's really hard to actually pull down a tarp, especially if it's flapping in the breeze. You're going to know exactly where to tie it down. That' the first thing. I just get people to pay attention to the sensations in their feet. That has the effect, is I can see maybe it's unfolding on your face, of just drawing a bit of our attention into now. Then as the 15 minutes unfold, I essentially use that same practice of guiding people to feel sensations in their feet and sensations in their hands.
Then we get to the destination place, if you like, of focusing on sensations connected to the breath. In doing that, then I start to use the instruction of, "If you notice that your mind has wandered, the moment that you notice that it's wandered, just bring it back." I often use the analogy of a puppy. It's like training a puppy. A little puppy, when we put it on the mat and we ask it to sit, no sooner have we asked the puppy to stay than it's wandered off.
[laughs]
Right? Hasn't it? It's wandered off the mat. It's like," It's wandered off the mat." But we don't yell at the puppy. We don't beat the puppy. We don't get disappointed, frustrated at the puppy. We just know that for this moment the puppy has yet to be trained to stay where we want it to be, but with every moment that we notice that and we bring our attention back and we come, "Yes, attention you've wandered off, but now come back and be with your sensation in the body."
Every time we do that, we're building our mindfulness muscle to return from wandering off out of this moment to returning to being in this moment. It confers benefits for the nervous system and of course, once we're in this moment then we can pay better attention to what's going on around us. It doesn't take that long until one day we start to notice that, "Hey, I'm able to actually listen to my partner better. I'm able to stay focused on this task without getting distracted as much. I'm a bit calmer when stuff happens."
I've trained a lot of people in mindfulness and these type of benefits, they start to happen pretty quickly. It's after the first few weeks of training. The benefits of mindfulness are accumulative. The more you practice is a direct relationship. You practice a lot, you get a lot of benefit, but it's a little bit like exercise. You don't have to have run for six months before you get benefit. You get benefit the moment you start to go for your first walk.
Leanne: That's right.
Rachel: Do you get more benefit if you've walked every day for six months than if you did one month? Yes. You can't trick it. That's what I like about it. It's an honest-
Leanne: Yes, I was going to ask you, are there any hacks, but it's basically-
Rachel: Yes, but the hack is to focus on feeling a physical sensation in the body. Give that a go yourself. If you have a mind that wanders, you find it difficult to be present. Berating yourself cognitively or going into battle with that and going, "Come on just focus." It doesn't always suggest it doesn't work. Check it out within yourself. If you go into a language-based battle, "Don't wander" or "Be now" or "Come back" or "Focus", it is tiring and it's like hacking at the leaves of a weed. Whereas, if you can get your attention to come into the physical sensations in your body, it gets to the root of the thing. Gets your attention back here and now without going into battle, it just goes all around that system. It calms you down, brings your attention into the moment and then you're halfway there.
Leanne: Yes, that's right.
Rachel: It's always with you, and you can do it when you're talking to someone. You don't need to go, as I often say in my classes, I draw this story where I say, the reason I teach the way I teach is using the physical sensations we're talking about and not a coloring book or an app. I've got a coloring book for mindfulness, fantastic, but if you and I start to have argy-bargy, Leanne it gets heated. The night before the assignment's due for stats and everyone's getting a bit tired and grumpy, it's no good if I know that I'm starting to act like a pork chop because I'm starting to get low on resources. I might be starting to get snappy with you and we're having a tense conversation about which stats test to do, it's no good for me to go, "Mate, just hang on. I got to do my mindfulness practice. I just got to get my coloring book out." Hold on. It doesn't work.
Leanne: No.
Rachel: You haven't empowered yourself to know how to use mindfulness in day-to-day life-
Leanne: When you need it.
Rachel: -when you need it. We need this as things are going on.
Leanne: It's funny, you're talking about apps on mindfulness. I've actually got this new Apple Watch which I love, but it's got a breathe app. It basically forces you for a minute to breathe, in and out. It vibrates and things like that.
Rachel: To a certain regular rhythm or something?
Leanne: Yes.
Rachel: Is it working?
Leanne: Sometimes I look at that and I say, "I don't have time to breathe."
Rachel: Yes.
Leanne: I'm probably a key candidate for your mindfulness training.
Rachel: Yes. You're welcome to do it. We can do it for sure. I've done yoga teacher training. In yoga there's a practice, it gets called pranayama.
Pranayama is about controlling your breathing to bring stillness to your mind and calm your nervous system. It's a brilliant practice. Mindfulness, as I teach, is different from that. Mindfulness, as I teach it in terms of noticing the sensations that come with your breath, is very much about just leaving your breath as it is. Sometimes if we're stressed that will mean it's fast. Sometimes if you're really tired or sleepy will mean it's slow. Again, it's not to disparage the app or to control your breathing using pranayama techniques, or whatever or apps in general, they can be useful. The question I would encourage people to ask themselves is the thing that I'm training myself to do when I'm dedicating time to try and do a mindfulness practice or whatever, is what I'm learning to do readily applicable? Can I do it in my day-to-day life?
We don't have very much time. If we're dedicating resources to engage in mindfulness practice, I'm of the perspective anyway, we need that to give us absolute maximum benefit. It needs to have the highest leverage possible for influencing and impacting our lives in a positive way. That's why I'm pretty passionate about teaching what's called in-body practice.
I follow on, or stand on the shoulders of many giants who do this. Jack Kornfield is one of my favorite authors on mindfulness. He points people towards feeling physical sensations in their body as does Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson. These are leaders in the field who do this. Essentially, it stems from a very ancient practice, but it's born out through the modern day research that says tuning our attention to a fixed thing that's related to a sensation, does have a lot of benefit. That's my hack.
Leanne: Thank you.
Rachel: Yes, no worries.
Leanne: Let's talk about, you had a career and you were researching, doing a lot of your work, not having that direct impact with people. Then you make a pivot through to farming and then pivot again through to teaching other people. You spoke about creating actual tips that people can implement straight away. I also want to talk about your progress from behind a computer screen, or behind the research and now in front of a workshop, in front of people. Was that something that came natural to you presenting in front of people or was it something that you've had to work out?
Rachel: To be honest, I think it came naturally speaking in front of people. I've always loved talking, as you can probably tell, you know me well enough. I love speaking in front of people. Actually, while we were still at uni, I started to do tutoring and fill in lecturing sometimes. I remember, I was still a third or fourth year at uni, and I filled in for a lecturer, and I did a lecture to 400 people. That was the largest group I'd ever spoken to at that point. I remember that day feeling very, it's a flow experience, but feeling absolutely grounded and present in an effortless way.
It was a sign to me that that's where I belonged, was up in front of people conveying information, looking for those Aha moments, and really seeking to turn academic knowledge into digestible stuff that lands with people that they can use. I got it that day. It was brilliant. I recognized in that moment that that's why I belong. I felt very calm. I know a lot of people find public speaking or training a lit bit stressful.
[crosstalk]
I loved it and I felt like I was in my power when I did that. To be honest, it was a bit of a relief when I went from being behind the scenes, researching, crunching the numbers, writing the articles all that stuff, to actually coming into a place where I truly belong. Which is to be able to turn that stuff into stories that impact people and practices that people can use? Essentially, that's what I do. Even I was doing it this morning before we came, and I'll do it this afternoon too. I'm looking at the literature. I'm turning that into stories to convey information because stories is how we learn. It's always been that way, and always will be. Turn it into stories that land, and practices that arise from that, that people can do.
It was a joyful transition. I wish I had recognized it earlier. Now, I look back on that and I think, I didn't expect it, but inadvertently I think having had that background as a researcher in psychology, now gives me a credibility that I wouldn't have had. I understand statistics, I understand science, I understand psychology. It's not pretend, it's real and I've been on the research side of that. Now when I talk about things it does have that benefit that people think, "Well, she hasn't just washed down the river and read a self-help book. She's actually got some-"
Leanne: Credibility, validity.
Rachel: Yes.
Leanne: Throwing in a statistical term there.
Rachel: Yes, nice.
Leanne: Thank you.
What kind of workshops and services do you offer now? How have you seen what the problems are in society? I was on your website, rachelgrace.com.au. I think your name as well, just sounds like it belongs to a famous speaker - Rachel Grace. You see what's happening in society and we're going through something that's a VUCA. Do you want to explain what the VUCA environment is?
Rachel: Yes, sure. VUCA is a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. I'm glad. I felt like that was a little test then. Good, nailed it. [laughs]
This is an expression, an acronym because business loves acronyms and that's cool. That's a way of saying in a nutshell, "Hey, things are changing really quickly now." What that means is, as conditions, largely because of technology, as conditions in business and organizations change rapidly, it means that it's no longer okay for organizations to operate like a huge ship that takes ages to adapt and change direction. It's not working. Organizations that don't know how to adapt quickly, even if they're big, they will quickly start to struggle because disruptive technologies like Uber and Airtask and all that, it's changing the way our whole economy is, right? The marketplace is characterized by this VUCA, volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. The thing that strikes me is that it's one thing to expect our organizations to adapt to that kind of marketplace, but unless we have people in those organizations who have the psychological internal capacity to adapt quickly to change, it's not going to work. There's going to be a lack of validity if you like, between how we are as humans and what the marketplace is demanding of us.
One of the key things that I am very passionate about which comes into the neuro-agility work that I do, which is a little bit of a jargony term. Basically, it relates to the fact that if we're to be agile as organizations, if we're to have agile businesses, then we have to have agile minds. Agile minds are minds who can notice change, deal with that reality quickly and make a value-based, strategic decision based on their values and where they want go, without having to resist the change. Without having to get caught it, "It shouldn't be this way. I don't want it. It wasn't like this yesterday."
I'm not the only one who's singing from that songbook. There's a Harvard researcher called Susan David, who's written a book called Emotional Agility, which is all about the same thing. She calls it emotional agility, I call it neuro-agility. Russ Harris, who's a very famous trainer in ACT, acceptance and commitment therapy. It's the same body of work. It gets called by different names, but it's all about creating, the internal skill set for humans to have, so that they are well-equipped to deal with this VUCA world does that make sense?
Leanne: Yes and then how do we just drop that and become more agile? What do you cover in that coaching space that helps people adapt?
Rachel: That's a question because evolutionary-wise if you like, there's a part of our biology that's attuned to recognizing threat with change. That's our amygdala will go off like a firecracker anytime it detects a rapid change in the environment. That was historically designed to ruffle in the bushes to the left, get prepared right now to fight, flight or freeze. It's highly attuned, it is designed to pick up emotionally salient information from the environment to protect us, really important.
But the thing in modern day and age is that part of our brain is going off like a firecracker to changes that aren't biological threats. There's a lot of literature now that talks about how the constant notifications on our phone are stimulating that response at some level because it's an emotionally salient stimulus that triggers a response from the amygdala and if we're not mindful, to come back to mindfulness for a minute. If we're not mindful enough to notice that that's unfolding to be present with it.
If we unconsciously and habitually react to notifications on our phone we will constantly potentially be getting almost like under a threat response.
Leanne: If we don't check.
Rachel: If we're not aware enough to notice that it's not a threat, it's like we have to be present enough to know what's a threat. In the workplace, I had this classic one not long ago I was working with some people and he yelled at colleagues which isn't a cool thing to do right? You can't be yelling at your colleagues and losing your stuff although we both would know that happens in organizations all the time, right? Now, what had happened to him was he'd got negative feedback about something he'd written. Now, why did he respond like that?
Well, one way to look at that or work with that or one perspective one is that he interpreted that negative feedback about what he'd written as a threat because when people lash out with fright, flight, or freeze it's a signal that something in their system has perceived that as like a threat to their very capacity to survive. I know it sounds funny but we're complex human beings and we have the prefrontal cortex and all that that's rational and gets things and is aware and can work through. "Just because I got negative feedback about that report doesn't mean I'm biologically a threat."
But if we're not present enough to notice all of our internal habitual reactions sometimes we can come out swinging because we've actually come under threat if that makes sense. The thing is that to the extent that we're able to be aware of our biological predisposition to perceive threat through emotionally salient information but to then, and this comes back to what we're saying before. To have trained our awareness to be present and observe and go, "Hey I'm not under threat I know that this is Hard Yakka, but I can sit in the center of this and I can actually respond to this criticism in a way that leaves me feeling good, leaves me outside of a performance review process [chuckles] and it's like values-based."
Leanne: Yes. I'm thinking of so many examples here, when people receive an email they don't like. The first response is you can physically get your back up and then reply and then bash out an equally not as useful email. But then strategy is a"I'll just wait overnight, wait 10 minutes," and that's all the space that you need to really reflect and think, "I don't need to respond in this way."
Rachel: The waiting can help, it depends what you do in the waiting. If in the waiting you bail you made up at work at the water cooler and relive it with them and it escalates and you get angry and then you wake up at three o'clock in the morning you think it through and you think about. It depends what you do with the waiting so I just kind of push back against that. The concept of pause and have a considered response is valid but I would say that it depends on what people do in that pause.
I'm an advocate for the pause don't get me wrong[laughs] but I just think not all pauses are created equal and the habit pattern of your mind will come into play in the pause. You'll either blame yourself a lot or you'll blame others, your habit pattern of getting angry and blaming others and wanting to discharge your pain onto others will come up, or you'll internalize it and you'll get down in the dumps and feel depleted and disempowered and like a victim. People have their habit patterns and so use the pause but use the pause in a self-kind way.
I often encourage people to take that with them mindfully out into the workplace because that will have an impact on those around them. Just like when someone's really angry intense it affects those around us. We're empathic social beings that feel what's going on and I don't think there's anything wrong at all with sharing what's going on because that's part of how we do. We want to share stuff but there's a quality to what we share and is it relaying what's happened in a way that's truly trying to work through it and taking responsibility or is it maybe a toxic way of dealing with it. Where you're spraying venom about the person or the situation or you're overly blaming yourself.
It's a fine line and this is the practice and the path of mindfulness. It's about not disowning those things that are less than optimal about ourselves. It's about having a healthy relationship with whom we're able to observe them while still taking full responsibility for how we are, understanding that we impact ourselves and not others by our choices. It's this nuance thing.
Leanne: What kind of workshops and services are you offering people in the public?
Rachel: Well, at the moment I'm doing a public program which is at Sanford as it would turn out that's an eight-week mindfulness training program, it's booked out and that's underway. That's going really well. I also have mindfulness training programs that operate in the corporate space which I've done for a while now but I've got those running in a few organizations around the place. They're eight-week programs that are an hour session every week and they comprise of a 20-minute intro talk which is about a little bit of storytelling, a little bit of philosophical framework and a little bit of neuroscience literature about mindfulness to give the intellectual part of ourselves something to hang all this off.
The important core of it is a practice and then I guide people through a practice that varies a little bit each week and we build up the mindfulness skill because there's a number of different micro skills in the mindfulness practice. There's a 20-minute guided practice and then there's a 20-minute debrief. Those hour-long sessions fit into an eight-week program I'm doing those both publicly and in organizations at the moment. But once we're aware we also need to be able to manage our conversations and our thinking in a way that's really optimal and going to get great performance and so that's where neuro-agility and performance coaching and strategic storytelling which are the other things I do really come into play.
It's almost like from the inside out work, so mindfulness about working on the inner landscape being present in the here and now. Neuro-agility is the next level up which is about how to observe the internal stuck loops of our mind. You know how an internal stuck loop it might be, "I'm not good enough so I won't speak up in this meeting." That gives rise to the behaviour of always shutting down your voice in a meeting, that's one example.
If someone does that over the course of their career they will probably get really frustrated themselves and they won't have had professional impact because they'll have kept their ideas for themselves and they'll probably be disempowered. Often when I work with people around neuro-agility stuff in the coaching process it's about going. Why haven't you reached this goal that you want to attain, what is getting in the road of you achieving that in your thinking pattern?
They get called stuck loops because typically when people have professional aspirations that they haven't been able to achieve or personal aspirations once they're getting to their late 20s early 30s range and you know that it's actually not the external stuff all the time anymore. It's something in you that keeps coming with you everywhere.
Then it can be really useful to go, "What is it that I'm telling myself?" I shied away from doing this kind of people work for a really long time because I told myself that I was worthless. That's really honest that was an internal stuck loop I had for a variety of reasons. But the work that I do doesn't get into why you might have those stuck loops, it goes well, what are you telling yourself?
Why do you shy away from shining brightly? Well for me, it was worried that I was worthless or that I'd be laughed at. It would stop me from using the training that I had in psychology to help people, it would stop me from speaking up and sharing my stories, it would stop me from being who and what I wanted to be in the world.
Neuro-agility is about from a basis of mindfulness being able to notice those and notice the content of them, "I'm worthless, not right now, I might lose my job," or if it's a fear pattern or whatever it is that stops you because when those stuck loops, those internal thoughts come up typically it will drive behaviour in a direction that takes you away from who and what you want to be in the world.
Leanne: Because it keeps looking for reinforcement and you feed that assumption that you've got in your own head.
Rachel: Yes, well thoughts drive behaviour, so you behave in alignment with your thoughts. But if you're not present to the thought, if it's operating on autopilot you're not even in the game which is why people's lives unfold and they don't get to reach the goals that they want because they haven't actually been able to hack that weed out at the root system because it's been unfolding outside their conscious awareness if that makes sense.
Leanne: Yes.
Rachel: Neuro-agility is about being able to spot those things and know what to do with them. I see you thank you very much in a voice that says," You're useless," or whatever the stuck loop might be.
I see the way that's affecting my behaviour. I see the way I shut myself down and I don't speak up and that's why no one respects me and I never get my plans through at work because I actually don't speak up about them. If I'm going to do something different I'm going to have to first of all notice that thought pattern and then I'm going to have to have the resources within me from that place of awareness to choose a different thought pattern and a different way of behaving. That's neuro-agility.
Then performance coaching is really about working with people to identify a goal that they want to achieve. Help them break that goal down into meaningful steps and then hold them accountable to that. Then strategic storytelling which is the fourth part is once you have had impact how are you going to share that with people in two minutes to basically go, "This is what I stand for, this is the challenge I faced, this is what I achieved will you follow me?" It's like a leadership tool.
For too long we have relied on people having content knowledge and technical skills expecting that to be enough for them to be good leaders and it doesn't work. If it does work it's by accident. But leadership is a people-based skill and it requires enormous emotional intelligence to manage ourselves, to manage our relationships well, to manage our communication well. I think that this is the time when emotionally intelligent leadership is not just optional it's absolutely necessary to deal with this VUCA world that you talked about because that requires an enormous emotional capacity for change, for agility, for noticing your habitual reaction patterns that get in the way of you being a great leader.
The truth is that people who are exceptional at managing themselves, and exceptional at managing their relationships and are exceptional at managing their communication, if they've got that on a basis of having their technical skills nailed, they're going to be the most amazing leaders. They're the leaders that the world needs. They're the leaders that we are crying out for, leaders who are authentic and who can manage themselves beautifully and they manage their relationships beautifully.
My work is largely with people who have their professional skill set down. I work with a whole range of professions from lawyers and medical people and policy officers, rangers, salespeople. To me, I don't really care what the profession is. I rely on people you've done your degree, you've done your stuff you've got experience. But I work with people where they start to recognize that unless they learn to manage themselves, handle their teams better that they're not going to achieve their goals because as I go around the place the single most common thing I find where teams or organizations aren't achieving their goals it's because they're leaking resources, time, capacity, energy, talent to people stuff.
Leanne: Through all your workshops and coaching you must experience moments where your participants had that lightbulb moment where they finally realise, "This has been losing my career and my personal life for so long." How does it feel as a facilitator when you see that experience?
Rachel: Well, it's really moving actually. It's interesting, it's probably I would respond to that in two ways. One is, typically at the end of the first mindfulness practice I do with people which sometimes comes through this one-hour talk. Mindfulness it's not just hippy fluffy stuff or it might come in the first week of the mindfulness program, my week program. At the end of that session what most people describe is they almost look a little bit shocked.
It's like they've actually sat for a moment and seen what their mind is like in terms of its inability to stay focused. It's like they actually get to see it rather than being in it, they're watching it. For me, that's a really mixed thing to unfold. On the one hand, I'm really happy because I know that once you can see stuff you can start to change it that's the first step on the path. But I also I feel compassion because I know I almost feel the pain of that because I know what it's like when you sit and you watch your mind and you go, "Oh my goodness, this thing is all over the place."
It's shocking and I see that in people's face. I just had someone who gave me feedback from the class last week they said that they felt like facing their own mind was like realizing that it was harder to get it to stay still than trying to stuff an octopus in an onion bag.[laughs] I thought that was a classic. This humor something in that that's some pain, right?
For example, the second week of training in the mindfulness program is about acceptance. How can we accept that this is the reality as it is? There's this sense of joy in seeing that they've got to see something, but it's a little bit like if your weigh-in at Weight Watchers and you watch someone weigh in and they're 20 kilos overweight, that's hard. It's a mixed feeling.
Leanne: Reality is dawning.
Rachel: Yes, but then when I also see that in people's eyes at the end of that first class obviously something [unintelligible 00:45:33] and when I ask them did they get benefited and they put their hands up, the room is qualitatively different. The hands going up is evidence that impact occurred and there's something different in their eyes where they look a little bit lighter and that's so heartwarming. Then at the end of the program well once we've done a few sessions together people's eyes it's like they're happier. They start to report how they're managing themselves better, they're not reacting as bad or as quickly, they're more present.
It's like this weight is lifted off them and it makes me so happy, it's really moving because people's weight of pressure that they feel is so evident on so many people's faces and to just see that lift, I'm so glad that I was called to do this work because that's what it feels like. I feel like this path of mindfulness and coaching it picked me I don't feel like I picked it. I was reluctant about it for a long time so I feel very grateful because I know that when I guide people on the journey of mindfulness and I work with them in coaching they're not as stuck in the stuff that's been weighing them down. That's an enormous privilege to have.
Yes. It makes me really really happy all of it.
Leanne: I know that we've focused on the now but I'm interested in hearing do you have any grand plans for the short-term future, long-term future in taking this message and where do you see it going?
Rachel: The path ahead will definitely be one characterized by speaking to large groups. I see speaking as a way for me to get the message out there to thousands of people. Interestingly enough I was only reflecting two weeks ago I think it was, that I'd learned some stuff that would help me to get my message out from hundreds as it is right now to thousands and the next day someone booked me in to do a talk to 1,500 people.
I'm very keen to speak in front of large groups of people and to use technology if I can learn how to use it properly to start to leverage that. Speaking is a powerful presentation as per TED Talks right? If you can nail a message from the stage you can influence a lot of people and I'd love to refine my presentation skills to be able to influence people positively through speaking. I see myself continuing to train people in mindfulness and turning that into a digital or a recorded training program so that I can share that with more and more people because at the moment it's reliant on me physically being present in the room.
I think that's probably always going to be the best way I don't want to depersonalize it but the reality is the appetite for the work outstrips my capacity to be in the room every time and continuing to work one-on-one with people in coaching because it keeps the skill sharp. I get to like see how mindfulness and these other tools actually apply to individuals who are making changes. I'll write a book at some point for sure because that's always been in me to do but not just yet.
Leanne: Sounds like you'll be really busy.
Rachel: Yes flat out.
Leanne: Super exciting. Where can people find you, Rachel?
Rachel: If you want to check out what I'm up to you can go to my website, it's my name so it's just www.rachelgrace.com that I use. It's R-A-C-H-E-L-G-R-A-C-E.com.au. I'm on LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram. I don't have a lot of presence on there because I'm still learning to do that. At the moment all the way from doing is relied on word of mouth and all that kind of thing. I was in the hills farming when social media and smartphones took off so I'm behind the eight-ball on that stuff but I'm trying to catch up.
Leanne: It's been so great reconnecting and hearing about the last 15 years and now your exciting plans for now and the future. I've certainly learned a lot that I can share with people, even if I share this podcast it's one step in building up that awareness of being mindful. Thank you so much, Rachel.
Rachel: My pleasure.
Leanne: It's been awesome hearing from you.
Rachel: Thanks.