The Human Side of Facilitation

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” -Pablo Picasso Can you really use drawing with your groups if you think you can’t draw? Artist Georgie St Clair says yes, and shows us how. In Georgie’s words, this conversation “ rambles like a good wander through an unknown place, taking twists and turns and seeing where it ends up .” Along the way, we look at ho...

“Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another.” — Alfred Adler It’s one of those ‘completing a cycle’ moments for me here, to have this week’s guest on the podcast. Fay Wallis is a Career & Leadership Coach for HR Professionals, and also the host of the highly successful podcast “HR Coffee Time”. Fay was the first person who...

“Energy, not time, is the fundamental currency of high performance.” - Jim Loehr & Tony Schwartz Jen Rawlinson, a trainer and the Director of Flourish in Mind Training, joins me today. We’ve been waiting a while for our diaries to finally overlap with a time to do this, and I’ve been looking forward to this conversation, as Jen is such a supportive and positive person in the world of training. We...

“Going outdoors opens new horizons. It can be a journey into an unfamiliar world - a world of differences where norms and routines are left behind and where people dress, feel, think and behave differently. Going outdoors can also be a voyage of discoveries where people find things out about themselves, about each other and about the natural world.” — Roger Greenaway I don’t class myself as a part...

“The actor is the greatest ally of the facilitator. It is the actor who most transports the role-players into the world of the workshop, draws and holds focus, compels belief by their utter commitment to the part, and demands engagement from the players.” — Paul Heinrich I’d never historically thought about acting as having so many overlaps with facilitation… but the more I interview acting specia...

“The magic happens when people feel included, not obliged.” — Priya Parker Today’s guest gave me a dilemma… after our pre-meeting and reading her questionnaire responses about which topics she could cover, how was it all going to fit in one episode?! It doesn’t, so we decided to book another one, so we can come back to elements we didn’t cover. In this one, Bonnie Grotjahn (a psychotherapist, coun...

“If you cannot increase reflective power in people, you might as well not teach, because reflection is the only thing that in the long run changes anybody.” — Dorothy Heathcote Psychodrama? It wasn’t a term I was familiar with until today’s guest reached out. Especially as a convert to using drama and roleplay in sessions (having previously been someone who would have found any reason possible to...

What comes to mind when you think of a lawyer? What about a professional speaker? And why would an introverted lawyer want to do a TEDx Talk? I’m speaking with Scott Walker today. Scott is a legal trainer, professional speaker, lawyer and visiting lecturer. He is passionate about helping law firms understand how introversion and extroversion shape how we work, communicate, and serve clients, and w...

How does a marketing mentor have such a strong connection to the human side of group dynamics? And does facilitating swimming lessons have anything to do with running a marketing sanctuary? I’m proven wrong about some of my assumptions about who will make a great guest for the podcast – marketing was definitely not a topic I searched for specialists in for guests! But when I saw a group that this...

Intuition? Reading the room? Picking up on cues? What’s that ‘thing’… when you just know something is happening in the room, before you can explain it. Before anyone has said anything. Before there’s any obvious signal. Your body somehow got there first. That’s something I’ve been looking into a lot lately, and working with my clients on… with new group leaders and trainers developing their own se...

Here is part 2 of the conversation I had with Matthew Morris, course creator for Emotional First Aid. We carry on where the last episode left off (obviously!), with Matthew’s take on the ‘layers of humanity that exist within groups’, stories and meaning making, and how we take our own strengths for granted (I love this, I’ve used almost word for word what Matthew says in so many of my own courses,...

I’ve only worked with today’s guest a few times, but I had been thinking for a while that a combination of things would make a conversation with him interesting for many listeners. Partly his own experience of becoming a trainer (something that wasn’t really in his plan as a course and content writer!) and how he’s been navigating himself in that new world, and then also the course he wrote (Emoti...

What skills do introverted trainers bring to the room? In this episode I’m joined by Susan Baird, Executive Career Coach, Facilitator and founder of Advantage Coaching and Training Ltd. Susan has spent 25 years working in HR across multiple sectors and countries, and brings a lot of hard-won experience to how she thinks about working with groups. We talk about why discussion and debate can do thin...

Being human contains moments of immense joy… and moments of profound sadness and challenge. This episode sits in that second space. I’m joined by Gareth Vaughan, a counsellor, psychotherapist and clinical supervisor who I’ve known since attending some training together as learners, many, many years ago. Gareth has spent his career working alongside people navigating some of life’s biggest moments...

What if joy wasn’t just a nice-to-have, but a core part of how we design and deliver learning, even on the heaviest topics? In this episode I’m joined by Becky Hawke, Senior Workplace Wellbeing Trainer at Solent Mind. Becky’s passion for bringing joy, play and creativity into training spaces is genuinely infectious, and this conversation left me smiling. We get into why joy became one of Becky’s c...

We talk a lot about the challenges of working with groups. The nerves, handling potential conflicts, the things that can go wrong. But what about the benefits? Why do we do it? That’s what this episode is about. Drawing on recent experiences and some of the research out there, I explore what we actually get from working with groups. As facilitators, trainers, managers, or anyone who holds space fo...

Are you like most of us and money ‘stuff’ shows up somewhere in your work? Maybe worrying if you’ve overquoted for a job. Gone for a role because it paid more, but you didn’t really want it. Questioned if saying ‘no’ to some work would mean you wouldn’t get more… and then the catastrophising starts… how will I pay the bills?! So many facilitators have this, including me. When I was starting out as...

Not everyone who ends up working with groups planned to. Many of us took quite circuitous routes! In this guest episode I’m joined by Mandy Wiltshire, Workplace Wellbeing Training Team Manager at Solent Mind, a leading independent mental health charity supporting people across Hampshire, Southampton, Portsmouth, and the Isle of Wight. Mandy is someone I’ve worked alongside for many years, and she...

Just so you know - this episode mentions suicide, bereavement and trauma, in the context of facilitating these topics with groups. If you’re in the middle of any of that personally right now, it’s worth thinking about when you listen to this one. If you’ve ever been part of (as facilitator or participant) a session on a ‘heavier’ topic… you may well have felt that ‘heaviness’ in the room. People s...

What does it really take to look after yourself when your job is to hold space for other people’s emotions? In this first guest episode, we explore this topic… and a few more. I’m joined by Ali Grady from The Thrive Team, talent acquisition and people development specialists with a genuine passion for helping people thrive in work and in life. Ali is an Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) instructor, a...

Why is tomorrow’s Spanish lesson making me reflect on my work as a facilitator? Join me as I go down what is partly a self-reflective rabbit hole… and partly an exploration of what it’s like to swap roles from facilitator to participant. We look at: * The Affective Filter - why anxiety doesn’t just make learning harder, it can block it almost entirely * Self-Determination Theory and what happens t...

Do you ever finish working with a group feeling completely drained…even when it went well? Find yourself fighting through brain fog or voice issues but still needing to show up professionally? Or carry the weight of difficult sessions home with you? These are all things that people who regularly run groups have to face at some point. Whether you’re training, facilitating, managing teams, or runnin...

Do you ever worry that AI might make your work obsolete? It’s the question that’s been discussed by several people I work with recently. Others are excited about the possibilities and embracing AI in their own work, not as a replacement, but as a powerful tool. And some tell me they’re trying to ignore the whole thing and hoping it goes away! If you train people, run workshops, or work with groups...

Do you run team meetings? Deliver training? Navigate difficult conversations? Bring people together to think through problems or make decisions? Have you moved from 1:1 coaching or HR work into running groups? If so, you're probably already facilitating - even if you've never called yourself a facilitator, never trained as one, or don't think of yourself that way. In this episode, I explore what f...

Do you love feedback or dread it? For many of us working with groups, feedback can feel like judgment rather than information - especially when we care deeply about our work. In this episode, I explore the complicated relationship we have with feedback: why some of us avoid it entirely, why others refresh the feedback link almost obsessively on the journey home, and how our need for validation can...