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 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 7)
Preparation: It's the security blanket for facilitators with Sue Johnston
Leanne: Our guest today is very clear about what drives her in her work and it's all about making you better. This theme has played out through her career, previously as a nurse, and with her work in both the public and health sectors. Now she's an adviser, facilitator, and leadership coach, and her job title is both Executive Director and very useful person of the Artemis group. She is on the line, across the ditch in New Zealand. Welcome to the podcast Said Johnston.
Sue: Thank you so much Leanne. What a wonderful introduction.
Leanne: You're very welcome. I would sa,y every time I interview a guest on the show I hear that they've come from a range of backgrounds, and industries. Yours is in nursing and policy work, so I'm curious as to how you entered the world of facilitation.
Sue: I suspect I entered the world of facilitation in much the same way as other facilitators, and that's almost being pushed into it or it just happens. It's not like I said, "Right. I'm ready to be a facilitator now." I look back. You've made me reflect on -- So this is about 10 years ago now. In my reflection I can see that it started with things like running a project where we had a teleconference of people from around the country, and they needed someone to run the teleconference.
I don't know if you've ever experienced those sort of situations where there's lots of silence, and no one's really sure about how we managed the process of what we do, and I can see that that's where I cut my teeth if you like on facilitating. It was basically because I wanted an outcome from the meeting. I wanted a good outcome from the meeting, so I thought, "Well, I will lead this, and let's just get on with what the purpose of this, us getting together is." That's how it started really.
Leanne: Where did you look for sources or information on getting those outcomes on your teleconference? Yes, you're right, I have been on those phone calls where you put a question out, and no one really responds. I would love to know what strategies you have for that environment.
Sue: How did I learn? For a start, I learnt by experiencing both good and bad in person, and teleconference type meetings. I thought, "God. Why is the person doing it this way? Why don't they do it this way?" Then you say you see someone do it well. So you go, "That was good. I could try that it."
For a start, it was very much around just by example seeing how other people did it. At that stage I wasn't going, "Right. I'm going to be a facilitator." I wasn't naturally going to look for those sort of tools and techniques. I was still very much embedded in my analytical and my policy process environment. That was my key thing, and this was a sideline of how we get the work done. If that makes sense.
Leanne: That's interesting, because you mentioned in one of our earlier chats that you are a bit of an introvert, and so did going through this process give you some tools to be more confident to then make the step of running workshops in front of groups? How did you make that progress in small steps?
Sue: How I made the progress, I think it always takes whether you're an introvert or an extrovert a bit of courage to stand up, and say you're going to facilitate. For me I was very aware that I had to have my security blanket of preparation with me. I learnt how to -- If I was prepared, and I had thought through what I needed to be able to do in the meeting, that helped, and my key tool that I used every time I facilitated is that I spent time before the facilitation, quite a bit of time investing in understanding what my client needs in terms of the purpose of the day.
Once I'm clear with that I can manage whatever goes on in the meeting. There's a mental process for me. The more prepared I am, and the more I understand the purpose of the day, then the better it runs. I have to say in that process it's probably not a surprise to facilitators to discover that sometimes they want you to facilitate something, and they are not clear about the purpose of the day. They're not clear what they actually want. They just want something. By doing that process with them upfront, we get very clear about the purpose of the day, and I make it clear back in my proposal in my brief to them that this is the outcome you have said you want. This is the purpose of the day, and that's what I'll be aiming to give you. Is that right?
Once I have that, the introvert in me has a process, has a thing to put the whole day around, and that makes it so much easier for me.
Leanne: Yes. I have been in situations where I've been approached to run something, and they have said, "Hey, look, we just want a team day. We just want to get along better." What kind of questions do you ask to really dig down, and get to the root of the problem or what they're really wanting to achieve?
Sue: Very good question. If I see them in person, all the better, but if not, it's a phone call, and we start by saying -- I start with really big questions like, "Why do you want this day?" It's things like, "We've go to redo our strategy."Or, "We've got to get people together in a room, and we're a bit afraid of how they will, but they need to," or something along those lines. There is the types of questions I ask are, "Why do you want this day?", "Imagine it's the end of the day. What would make you think this day's being worth it?" I get them to imagine what it's like. I get them to imagine that, "Yes. This has been a good day." I say, "What has happened for you to feel that way?"
That's usually quite a good way of getting them to focus on what they want out of us, and therefore who they need in the room, and how much time we might need, and all those other sort of questions that we ask after that.
Leanne: I guess you get that information, and over the 10 years of being a facilitator, do you have a bucket of resources or are certain models that you always lean on? Do you have any favorites?
Sue: I do have favorites. If they're wanting to do strategy, et cetera, I might go to is a strength based approach. In fact, all my facilitation is based on strength based work. In this case it's using Appreciative Inquiry. It's a usual strategy day. We'll say, "Let's look at our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats." In the strength based approach that becomes strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results. What that does, it takes their brain to a much better place to do the strategy, and the dreaming.
Without fail I have to say, the outcomes of the day, they love. They're surprised where they get to, the conversations that they have. Strength based approach would be definitely one, and that using Appreciative Inquiry. That's a big one for strategy.
Leanne: I've run some strengths workshops previously, and it's all about maximizing your potential, and really doubling down on what makes you unique and great. The feedback I sometimes get in those workshops is, "What do I do about my weaknesses?" Do you get that question a lot? What do you respond with?
Sue: [chuckles] That reminds me of a strategy day I did with with a board of a Tech company, and one of the members, even though I had requested that they put away their laptops and stuff continued to look at, and really wasn't engaging. We got to the part of the day where we were doing the aspirations, and it's all about giving them a future scenario, and saying, "Imagine that you're reading, that you've done this in the Financial Times. What does that look like, and what are your clients saying?" He just went, "It's saying that we're bankrupt, and we've gone under."
Leanne: Wow.
[laughter]
Sue: I went, "Okay." He is determined that we go there, and I said,"What happened for it to get to that point? What did you do? What did your company do?" I still made him go back, and think about what was happening in their world. What happened in their company to get to that point. That was a bit of a -- Some people would go, "Why aren't we doing it? If we don't understand our threats, and we don't understand this, we're not going to get there."
Actually, once you've got your aspirations, and you go to your results, and you have a look at what you need to stop doing, you'll identify your weaknesses. You'll say, "We can't carry on doing that in this way." It's a different way of getting there, and it keeps the brain in this lovely place of still going out to solve problems, and still being able to get the stuff out of the strategy there instead of going down holes. You have seen that right?
Leanne: Yes.
Sue: You've seen someone starts a, "Remember that time that that happened?" and everyone goes, "Yes." Suddenly they're off, and you're, "My goodness." It's not going to help them get to the purpose of the day which is to look at something new and different.
Leanne: That's a really great example. How do you steer them in the right direction if it does -- if there is a turning point in the room, and the mood changes? What do you do as a facilitator?
Sue: I call it. I notice it, so I just say, "I'm noticing that there is a bit of hesitancy in the room." If they've got a particular issue, I'll say, "Let's have a board." I use things like questions boards or holding pages. I can go and put their questions up there, because it's important to get it out and put it up there. Then I'll come back, and I'll say, "The purpose of the day is this. If we go there, I'm concerned we won't reach the purpose of the day," and then depending on the size of the group and who the client is there may be a follow up discussion just with the with one person, and saying, "You've got options here. What do you want to do with it?"
You can't ignore it. Otherwise it just just gets out of control.
Leanne: That's right. So you're recognizing it, and calling it at the time is probably a really great lesson learnt. If you ignore it, what can happen?
Sue: [chuckles] If you ignore it, and that has happened to me in early days, because I didn't have the confidence to do that. What happens is your day gets hijacked by some frustrated or angry individuals in the room who perhaps don't want to be there, or who perhaps are actually a bit afraid of what might happen. Don't trust the process for whatever reason or they have been made to come or whatever it is.
That can be hijacked, and you can end up having the sort of meeting which I've been a participant of which is that you don't achieve what you think you've come there, and and taken a day off work to to do, and that just ends up bwing frustrating to everybody.
Leanne: Absolutely. I guess the confidence to call it is a really important skill. In your observation what are some other really critical skills for facilitation?
Sue: The one that I mentioned earlier is to be able to think of the fact that you have -- it's not just the facilitation on the day. That you actually start the process, and get the purpose really clear at the start. I would say doing your preparation, and being clear about the purpose would be the thing that drives everything else.
Another key skill would be your ability to read what's going on in the room, and pick up the temperature. You'll know when you are having your -- If there's small group discussions, if there's not much noise coming as opposed to a lot of noise. You know what what's actually going on.
To react and change depending on what's going on. In my head I might have sorted what I think decisions might be in what order they might go, but then when the group comes together I may need to change the way that I do that. I still have exactly the same purpose clear in my head, but I may need to change the way that I do it. I may need to put bigger groups together or smaller groups together or mix them up or play some music or something.
Leanne: Just like a trigger point-
Sue: Yes.
Leanne: - to change the mood. When you run sessions you facilitate to a variety of different audiences, what do you actually change when it comes to pitching to a different type of audience? Do you change anything at all? Or is it just the way that you deliver the material? Does the material stay the same?
Sue: I do mix up the material. What doesn't change is the process to get to the purpose, and the outcome in terms of asking the questions that I ask like what do want out of the day? That remains the same. What I put together is customized for who's in the room, so if it's a group that know each other well, that's completely different from a group that don't get together or you've got a group of stakeholders who've never been together on their own before.
The types of things that I might do in that situation are different, and the way that I might design the day will be different than an in-house team, for example.
Leanne: I really like that you keep referring to the preparation, and I think you should write a blueprint on this. I would find it really useful.
Sue: I'm happy to share. After I have been to my initial meeting with with a client I do a note back to them, and I use the same template which talks about first of all what I do, and it makes very clear, because often, there's a lot of them invisible stuff that goes on for a facilitator in terms of preparation and design of the day. I make it very clear in what they're buying, and they're buying my preparation design and planning as well as the facilitation of the day, and follow up and potentially.
Then I outline in dot points what the current situation is, so what heard I repeat back to them, "This is the situation you're currently in. This is the outcome you want from the day, and the purpose. This is the number of people that will be in the room, and how long we've got, and this is my fee." They get a one page, two pages max back which I say, "I want you to check that I have got this right. Have I got this right in terms of your current situation, and what you want out of the day, and are you saying yes to this?"
That then leads into the the next part of the process which is the co-design of the work with them. I'm happy to share that. Happy to share that template.
Leanne: Yes, great, I would love to. Awesome. If you link it to your website we can pop a link on our show notes to that template.
Sue: Sure.
Leanne: Just the questions that you ask could be really useful. Talking about the group of stakeholders you mentioned before when we're talking about diverse audiences, and there is some people that are coming to these workshops, and they've never met each other before. How do you get them to start working together? Do you use a particular icebreaker? How much time do you give them to start talking and engaging in the workshop?
Sue: I don't know if you find this Leanne, but often my clients want a lot done in a short space of time.
Leanne: Yes. [chuckling] I think that's universal.
Sue: Yes. Whatever I can put, and whatever preparation I can do before they'll get in the room I will do. I will send things besides the agenda which I send to everybody before the meeting. I will send a note to people. If I think they're going to be particularly tricky, I will have conversations with people or I will give them the opportunity to talk with me or to the various participants in the room if that's what they need. They often don't. They just want to know what's going to happen in the day.
My agenda says, purpose of the day at the top. It then has an outcome for each session. What the result of each session is going to be? The timing for it, so they can see really clearly how it all relates back to the purpose. That helps before they come into the room. If they don't know each other, we can do something like just an introduction.
The particular icebreakers I use, I sometimes around clearing the space which is a neuroleadership one which is making sure everyone's brain is ready to come in so we talk about turning off the other apps that might be on. Actually going through, and talking about what those apps are that are open. In terms of I'm thinking about a paper I've got to get finished by the end of the day, I'm feeling nervous about that, but I'm willing to put that aside, so they they do this very quick process where they clear it.
For people that don't know each other at all, I sometimes use the different things that are in the room. Like the situation that we're in, so they might be if they're in a room that has lots of books I'll get them to pick a book that they think is the title of their life or something.
Leanne: Nice. I like that.
Sue: It just depends. Or if they were a song what would they be? It really depends again on the group. There's some groups that there's so much potential to turn it into a threat response to do anything like that. It's just about introducing them to the person next to them and that's it for a start.
Leanne: I know I've been in environments where the facilitator would say, "We are about to do an activity," and you can see people get a little bit anxious about, "What kind of icebreaker are we doing this time?" and [crosstalk]
Sue: yes.
Leanne: - those environments, so I think it is important to really recognize the characteristics of your group, the dynamics and which icebreaker, if you do use one will be most appropriate, and how came out or open up with each other?
Sue: That's true, and that brings me to the groups that I that I'm really lucky to facilitate for CQ; Collective Intelligence. What they do is they -- because they meet three times a year. They're from all different industries, ages, and stages in their world, and when someone new comes into their groups they do this really cool exercise where we get them to draw a line on a whiteboard with one end being the day they were born, and the other end being today, and then they basically put dots or lines above and below the line to highlight the key things in their life that have created who they are now. The things above the line are the positive things that have happened. The things below the line have been the tough stuff that has happened. That's a really nice way of doing us a succinct this is me, but that's in a group that there's -- they're building high trust, and they know that they get together in this high confidentiality. I wouldn't do that in one of my strategy days with a team that don't know each other.
Leanne: Can you tell us a little bit more about the CQ, your collective intelligence group that you have in New Zealand?
Sue: Yes, sure. Collective Intelligence have about 200 members, and teams of about eight or nine and see CQ's purpose is around growing the effectiveness of leaders, and using using diversity, and different ways of thinking about the will to get that. For example, we might put together --People in the group might be from a construction industry, the wine industry. They might be a C.E.O., they might be a new entrepreneur with a start up tick, and I think that's part of why the magic happens. What they do is they sometimes focus on someone's business, and that person will have a key question for their business that we'll all go in and facilitate -- our facilitator session around interviewing maybe their clients, maybe their business partner, people in their business. It might be about them personally as a leader, it might be about them as a person in terms of how they show up at work and at home. It can be anything.
It's the most wonderful landscape to facilitate, and because the people have already signed up for vulnerability. The members are all there because they want to know their blind spots. For me, it's just such a privilege to facilitate in that sort of group, I have to say.
Leanne: It sounds like a really great group, and I'm wondering if we have an equivalent over in Australia. I will have to look into it.
Sue: I'm not sure. I don't think so. CQ and the way that it operates that it keeps the groups going because some of them are in their five years or so. I don't think so. I think the closest would be mastermind groups.
Leanne: Yes. I've heard of that concept.I notice that you mentioned vulnerability when you were talking about CQ, and that you're also a Brene Brown certified Daring Way coach. Can you share with us what is does that actually mean? What do you cover in your workshops?
Sue: During work stuff it is as a huge part of what I bring to my work now either directly talking about it or what's [inaudible 00:22:59] the background for me. It's around understanding vulnerability and courage, looking at issues around authenticity, how shame shows up in our world, and I'm talking about the leaders in the leadership organizational development space. About professionalism and what stops us doing, and vulnerability which is about risk uncertainty, and emotional exposure, and how we deal with that it in a work environment.
My work is around those sorts of issues which is big.
Leanne: It's pretty deep.
Sue: Yes, it is.
Leanne: How did you -- I guess it is part of the certification. Do they teach you how to work with people that discover things for the first time in your workshop, and it's a bit of revelation, and they don't know what to do with that information? It could get quite heavy. I guess you're nursing experience would help then. How do you work with someone that's really just discovering -- It could be the shame or just information about them they didn't know before they walked into your room.
Sue: With care, and with understanding that I'm not working in a clinical environment with them. That it is not therapy, and so very much in the leadership space. It is around getting the concepts of what it means to them as leaders. In our certification process it's very much about us being very comfortable, and having gone through our own work to do the work, so it's very much about us understanding the concepts, and having a facilitation practice that we can put that into.
The facilitation training that you do to use Brene's research assumes that you have a practice already, and that you understand the issues around how to keep a group safe ,and work with them, work with leaders. In terms of how I deal with that, I use it in the same way. I wouldn't, for example, for effect, we've got another facilitator and I are doing a weekend workshop for women around authenticity and leadership and how they show up at work. We won't be going straight to shame. [laughter]
We won't be going there. We'll build up to that. The first things I'll be looking at are there values and trust? Then moving into how they show up at work, and talking about their arena at work, and the armor they need to take off, so there is this beautiful use of metaphor in Brene's work which people connect with.
Again, it's just in the way -- Well, I say just. It is in that you care for the person to get there, and make sure that they don't have a threat response, and then can contribute and participate in the work.
Leanne: I'm just curious, what if -- I don't know if you have run this workshop before, but I'm interested in hearing what are the barriers that you do see about people not being authentic in the workplace?
Sue: The authenticity place, we've all grown up, in fact we do it as facilitators. There will be identities that we want people to see [unintelligible 00:26:39] like we want to be seeing as a confident ,competent, can do it, take care of them facilitator. We want to [crosstalk] Yes. We want to be that. That is an identity we want to get . The unwanted identity is, I don't want them to see that I am peddling so hard under here. I don't want them to see that it's just been a shame trigger for me, and I'm wondering what the hell I do about that? They have got all this unwanted stuff.
Somewhere in between these identities there is us. The authentic Leanne that is the facilitator or, so in the room it's the same thing, whereas a leader it's the same thing. It's about recognizing what gets in the way of our authenticity, and sometimes it's those identities. Sometimes it's our own shame about what we are -- keeping us small and not wanting to show up. Sometimes it's the fact that we just don't have the capacity to deal with that uncertainty. We won't go there.
The types of conversations you can have with leaders are absolutely around that stuff. Getting them to reflect on and understand what is their own story around -- that gets in the way of their authenticity, be it shame, be it not wanting to put ourselves out there, wearing armor.
Leanne: I was reflecting on that right now, because even during this podcast, not this episode in particular, but when I first started out, I had come from listening to a podcast. Really professional ones where the interviewer had been doing it for decades, and I expected myself to swoon in, and be the same way. [chuckles] That's an identity I forced upon myself, but I think this is about keeping it real, and enjoying the conversation, and just learning from the people that I'm talking to. Keeping it real.
Sue: Yes, absolutely. The authentic Leanne.
Leanne: That's right, as someone who does stuff up, but can have a laugh.
Sue: Exactly right. I think that's exactly what for a first time facilitator is the toughest thing to do, but the authentic you is the one that you need to bring to the room. Whatever it takes as much as I'm talking about the prep, and whatever I do. Figure out for you what is the authentic facilitator.
The authentic Sue is different from the authentic Leanne in a way, but what we bring, and what we show up is the stuff that people will connect with.
Leanne: That's right, and different groups might take out different strengths from either of us as well.
Sue: Yes, absolutely.
Leanne: You mentioned the word threat as well quite a bit in our conversation. Does that link into David Rock's work, the SCARF theory?
Sue: Yes. That's the other part of my work, and that is around coaching. I'm a result certified coach with the NeuroLeadership Institute, and that's David Rock's research where he takes the latest neuroscience, and applies it to leadership and what that looks like, and what I love about that work, and how it fits with my daring way stuff is that there is actually quite a lot of common threads, but one has come from quite a sociological model, which is Brene's work, and the other has come from our brand. What he, and that work, points out is that if we go into a threat response, which we're much more wired to do, then we can't do the thinking and the problem solving, we can't use that part of our brain. It becomes a lot tougher to do.
He has this wonderful SCARF model, which I run through and make sure when I'm facilitating that I am addressing these things in the way that I design, and do the work. He points out that the five things that can lead to a threat response, status; people's status not being recognized, and for some people this is far more important than others. It can happen if something uncertain happens in the room. If you suddenly have someone going off on a tangent, or you suddenly change something from the agenda, for some people that will SCARF them, that will make them go into a -- I wasn't expecting that. My goodness, what else is going to happen?
Leanne: My gosh. I was in a boot camp yesterday just on that, and there's just this boot camp, 6:00 in the morning. We're assigned at our stations, and then the personal trainer is like, "Sorry, you're meant to be in group B. I stuffed up." She was really, "Hang on. I'm meant to be here. This was the station you assigned me," and I recognized that. I was like, "That's so interesting. She wants that certainty." She thought she was right, and then very simple mistake, but it did put her offside.
Sue: Absolutely, yes. As soon as it happens, we can't problem solve. We can't contribute in the same way that we could if we weren't SCARF'ed. Status and certainty. Te next one is autonomy. That I feel like I have some choice in the matter, that something that's important to me, I can make a decision about that. The way to bring that into a facilitation might be if the group have all the stuff they want to do, you might say, "You can choose between doing A or B. Would you like to do this in smaller groups or bigger groups?" That gives a sense of autonomy. There's still something they have a choice about.
The next one is relatedness, and that is that there is a sense that we are all in this together, and that I am part of this, and I'm not being isolated. If there's something going on in a group over here, and there's someone over here thinking, "I'm not participating in that. I don't feel like I'm part of that. I'm isolating." We can definitely go into a threat response around that.
The final one is F; fairness, and that is what's going on is fair. That's a pretty strong one for me, I have to say. If I think something's not fair, then I get a bit up in arms, and an example from yesterday actually is I've been watching a nurse's blog. I'm interested. There's a paid talk going on on the moment, and a couple of nurses had set up a Facebook page called Nurse Florence. The most wonderful nursing stories that come out. The nurses are telling these stories about their work, and they put up a thing yesterday to say that someone had been trying to shut them down, had gone onto Facebook and say this shouldn't -- that Nurse Florence wasn't an actual person, so they shouldn't have this website. The fairness thing in me is strong. That's just not right. These guys need to be able to tell their story, and it's important, and too bad for whoever is wanting to shut them down.
In terms of a facilitator in SCARF, keeping people away from a threat response is making sure when you design and run the day, that you are acknowledging each of those things and in fact, moving them into a reward state where they will use their brain. Giving them a lot of positives about working together, and making decisions, and that they're bringing knowledge to the room, for example, will acknowledge their status. It's not just about the threat response, and not getting there. It's also about acknowledging that to keep them in their lovely moving toward space.
Leanne: How do you find out which -- out of the S-C-A-R-F, how do you find out which ones the strongest for you? Is there an assessment, or do you -- because I was listening to what you were saying, and I think I'm autonomy, but is there a quiz that we can do? How do you figure it out?
Sue: I know in my coaching notes there is a -- in what I use with my coach clients, there is a SCARF, "Let's Think about it" model. It's pretty simple in terms of just going through and defining which each of them are, and you going, "I can see that in me, and I'm more this, but status is not a big one for me, but it can be sometimes. It's a great one to reflect on, and also then to notice when you have been SCARF-ed. Like, "I can see that there's an autonomy thing here. I need to have some choice. I can see that I've been SCARF-ed."
Leanne: Or consult. I'm going to start thinking about that this week. See where things trigger me. You've mentioned Brene Brown and David Rock. Are there any other books or resources that you could recommend to someone that's starting their facilitation journey?
Sue: I sure can. There is a book that I found once I moved from just occasionally running meetings or teleconferences, and someone actually asked me to facilitate, and I had that word connected with whatever I was going to do. I found a book called Facilitation Secrets. It's by an American guy called Michael Wilkenson, and it was like, "Oh my goodness, this is just the best." The thing that I still carry from that book that I learned very early was getting clear about the purpose of the day, and then using a lot of meta communication through the day to make people clear where you are in that purpose. You're saying, "We've just done session one. The purpose of that session was this. It ties into that. We're now moving to this part. The purpose of this, and how it attaches to the bigger purpose," to give people confidence. Again, it comes to SCARF doesn't it? A certainty around where they are and what happens. That book there for me was a bit of a game changer in terms of giving me the tools to make this rather shy, introvert, feel that I could confidently step forward. It was pretty important to me in those early days.
Leanne: It's probably a bit of a dog eared version at the moment, or have you-- [crosstalk] the latest version?
Sue: No, it's an old version, and it's just covered in -- I've got so many of those sticky things sticking out the side, those tabs. There's too many, really. [laughs] There's just so many of those little tabs in the book.
Leanne: [unintelligible 00:37:31] highlight. Well, we'll have to link to that book in the show notes. Hopefully it's still out, and being published. Maybe one day I'll get to interview the author of that book if it was so influential.
Sue: Wouldn't that be great? I think it would definitely be out there, because he has a company called, I think it's called Leadership Strategies. They have a website, and they offer courses, and I know they offer courses in Australia. Definitely there's an opportunity to use his work.
Leanne: We'll check it out. It's been so wonderful hearing from you today about your journey, the models that you use, the vulnerability, SCARF, books that you recommend, and really all leading back to how you prepare for your workshops in terms of the questions that you use, and finding out what the purpose is. Finally, where can people find you if they'd like to hear more from you?
Sue: Look, can I just say thank you Leanne for the opportunity to talk with you?
Leanne: You're very welcome.
Sue: The fact that I had to reflect, and think about what had been going on. If people want to find me, I'm on LinkedIn, and I have a website, which is artemisgroup.co.nzd in New Zealand, and I'm on Twitter, although I'm a pretty bad tweeter. LinkedIn is a pretty good way to find me.
Leanne: Awesome, and just a quick question. Final question. Why did you decide on the name Artemis?
Sue: Because I'm into a very -- from about 15 years ago, I was very much into goddesses. I thought woman should be -- all women are goddesses, even if they don't know it. I wanted a goddess name for my company, and I chose Artemis, because she is a warrior goddess, but she's also known as a nurturer. She's got a tough, can get out there and do the work, but she's also a nurturer of plants and animals, and she's the sort of patron goddess of midwifery.
Leanne: Perfect. That's sounds exactly like you. [laughter]
Sue: Yes.
Leanne: What a perfect match. Look, Sue, thanks so much again.
Sue: You're welcome. Thanks Leanne.