Unprofessionalism

Since March 2020, almost 100 facilitators have collaborated to bring to life a bold vision: A 24 hours long, global facilitation festival.  In this bonus episode, Michelle Howard, collaborator and facilitator at the NeverDoneBefore facilitation festival (and guest on episode 043 of the podcast) interviews Myriam Hadnes who initiated the project and invited all podcast guests to host workshops in a...

As the facilitator, it’s up to you to act as the group’s vehicle and guide them from one place to the next. You do this by providing the context that enables the group to work better together by building trust, communication, and collaboration. Of course, helping groups work better together online is an entirely different story in many ways. I wanted to learn more about how facilitators can help g...

Online meetings have risen in popularity since the COVID-19 outbreak, but they must cover more than ticking boxes from the agenda list. Creating stronger bonds and giving people that human connection they’ve lost from in-person meetings is so important. After all, we’re all in this together. The more we can be there for each other, the better. Kevon Cheung is the Co-Founder and CEO of Toasty.ai, a...

Sticky notes, tennis balls, and other objects can be used to create engaging and productive online meetings and workshops. How do I know this to be true? Well, Jacinta Cubis, an incredible facilitator, mentor, author, and speaker, shared many fascinating insights like this to help get “your workshops humming” on this week’s episode of workshops work. She reveals how you can facilitate difficult co...

Are you still searching for your message? The terminology we use as facilitators may seem confusing for some of our clients. We must discover and use the right language that our audience understands, and this starts by considering the big picture of a brand. I’m so excited for you to listen to this episode of workshops work because I’m joined by the incredible Ingrid Lill, a top brand strategist w...

Creativity is the string that weaves through most (if not all) facets of life. As a facilitator, you design workshops that bring people together around a specific theme. If you think about it, workshops are a lot like parties, and every party needs good music. In many ways, facilitators are similar to DJs because they both create an experience for a group of people in hopes that it moves them from...

How can you, as a facilitator, create new and exciting possibilities for your workshop participants? The answer lies in provoking your audience to listen to each other and feel heard. Provocation is a strategic tactic to make workshop participants feel uncomfortable – but in a good way. It drives them out of their comfort zones and allows them to break free from their shells so they can take actio...

Whether you’re hosting a physical or virtual meeting, the last thing you want to do is put the audience to sleep! If you want to keep people engaged during meetings, you’ve got to unleash your inner creative genius. Melissa Dinwiddie is a Creativity Instigator who teaches people how to turn their creative taps on so they can live a life full of colour and intrigue. I couldn’t wait to talk to Melis...

We’ve reached a time when more people than ever are working remotely, and this includes facilitators. Tracy Cosgrove, Founder of PTSM, is passionate about sharing knowledge and facilitating as an avatar in the virtual world. I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to talk to Tracy about her experience and expertise around avatars, setting up a virtual office, and bringing teams together despit...

We put so much emphasis on how we look and how we use body language to communicate with our audience that we often neglect to consider our voices. It’s not just about what we say, it’s how we say it. The way we use our voices can really impact the audience. If used correctly, our voices can carry so much more than our words. Our voices can inspire, motivate, and captivate the audience…but how can...

Knowledge is one of the universal currencies with which we trade – we enrich each other with the knowledge we share and facilitate, but what are the secrets of truly effective knowledge sharing? I have wanted to speak to Júlio Maria Muhorro for a long time, and this topic felt like the perfect opportunity to do so. Júlio is a man of so many talents and roles, it's hard to summarise him and hi...

Throughout lockdown, I and many other facilitators, have loved watching and participating in Backstage Pass – the virtual workshops held by digital workspace platform, MURAL. That meant the opportunity to speak to Hailey Temple, their Learning Experience Lead, was especially exciting for me! And I hope it will be for listeners of workshops work. Hailey has done a fantastic job of adapting to the d...

Competitive spirits, high stakes, cut-throat attitudes… Boardrooms and changing rooms have more in common than we might first think. Tim Harkness, one of the world’s preeminent sports psychologists and author of the fantastic book 10 Rules for Talking, joins me to share the lessons he’s learned from the top sports teams around the world – and how we might apply them to teams in corporate environme...

The world is changing and we are in a new moment of equality and anti-racism. Strategic designer, and design educator by trade, Hina Shahid is at the forefront of this movement, through her work with Project Pluralist – a youth movement that is tackling prejudice and hate. Facilitating deep inner work – the kind that requires us to look at the parts of ourselves that we hide or don’t acknowledge –...

Why would I invite “the exact opposite of an Executive Coach” and, as her clients describe her, “a witch” to speak on workshops work? Because Laura Beckingham is a beautifully clear-minded thinker who has provided me with more provocation, intrigue, and inspiration than most people I have known in life! As a highly-experienced Systemic Coach, Laura uses constellations (and many other practices) to...

Forum Theatre is a unique approach to facilitation – creating space for change and reflection through creativity, play, and certainly some bravery (to begin with!) Though the concept fascinates me, I have not had the chance to explore it in as much detail as I would have liked to. To have Pernille Jacobsen, a brilliant facilitator and Forum Theatre practitioner, join me on workshops work gave me t...

Questions are the lifeblood of communication. Without questions, we only have statements – cold, certain, absolute. If there is no room for curiosity, there is no room for growth or change. But not all questions are created equal and, sometimes, a question can do more harm than good. This week, Elke Wiss – trainer, speaker, facilitator, author of Socrates in Sneakers, and self-styled ‘Thinking Doc...

workshops work is a podcast for facilitators, by a facilitator, about facilitation… so why have I invited Assistant Professor of Humanities and Liberal Studies at San Francisco State University and comic book artist Nick Sousanis to join me in this episode? I read Nick’s remarkable work ‘Unflattening’ recently and immediately knew that the world of facilitation needed to know about it. I was delig...

Sarah McVanel is a recognition expert, a public speaker, a facilitator… and she thinks that we are “mutts”. Put your pitchforks down, this is a good thing – and she explains herself beautifully! Sarah’s perspective on the transferable skills in facilitation will leave you feeling empowered and inspired. You might even be happy to call yourself a mutt! Sarah has successfully pivoted to work as a pu...

Everyone has their strengths, but not everyone gets to work in a way that is congruent with them. Well, that is unless they attend one of Murray Guest’s workshops. Murray is a strengths-based facilitator with a litany of qualifications and a lifetime of experience in helping teams work to their individual and collective strengths, facilitating lasting change in organisations of all shapes and size...

Teeth gnashing, fists waving, pulses racing… Conflict conjures up a certain image in many people’s minds. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, conflict can be one of the most powerful tools we have to drive meaningful change. In this episode of workshops work, I speak with Marcus Crow, co-founder of 10,000 HOURS and specialist in high stakes facilitation,  about his brilliant approach to d...

A workshop that goes exactly to plan is a workshop that exists in our dreams. The unexpected isn’t something we should be afraid of – fantastic ideas and outcomes can come from the moments we don’t see coming (and can never plan for) – but being prepared to adjust to the whim of the room is a vital skill for effective facilitation. But what do we need to learn – and unlearn – if we want to become...

Stories are far more than books we bury our noses in; they are the fabric of our culture and history, and the foundations of our progress. A world without stories is no world at all. Storytelling is such an innate feature of the human condition, from the way we understand ourselves to the world we live in. If we can harness this powerful tool to design our workshops, the results can potentially be...

When I first read about AI and facilitation, I was worried the robots were coming for my job… but then I spoke with Laure Cohen van Delft and realised AI is a most welcome addition to our profession! This is because AI, in this context, refers to Appreciative Inquiry – a framework and approach that facilitates purposeful change in organisations. The approach is centred on outcomes that grow in val...

Workshops are arranged for many different reasons, but so often there is something more beneath the surface – a deeper question that needs to be answered or a problem that the client cannot yet articulate. Clients are ‘inside’ the problem, so it is understandable that they might not be able to truly define and understand it. So, how do we cut through the noise and get to the real purpose of our wo...