Episode 17: The 45 year group facilitation experiment (and how I'm still learning) with Bob Dick
Bob Dick is a change agent and facilitator who has been in the business 45 years. He believes that teachers don't teach, learners learn. In this episode we talk about the difference in process and content, the power of action learning, and how he helps his groups transfer learnings from a workshop, back into the real world.
Bob Dick is a change agent and facilitator who has been in the business 45 years. He believes that teachers don't teach, learners learn. In this episode we talk about the difference in process and content, the power of action learning, and how he helps his groups transfer learnings from a workshop, back into the real world.
Bob also shares his thoughts on how we can teach leaders the facilitation skills that are rapidly becoming a vital skill. The most inspiring part? After being in the game for 45 years he still experiments with his facilitation style and approaches.
What you'll learn in this episode
The difference between content and process and how you can effectively manage a group by looking at the process
How strategically arranging furniture can change your participants' perceptions of the learning environment
Why teachers don't teach, learners learn
Strategies to keep learning and improving as a facilitator
Why Bob doesn't use technology in his workshops
How to deal with conflict within a group
Dealing with your nerves before a workshop
The importance of vulnerability and authenticity
How to turn commitment into action once the workshop is over
About our guest
Bob Dick independent scholar, an educator, facilitator, coach, and change consultant. He has 45 years experience and started an Industrial Psychology for the Department of Labour. He helps people to change their work, learning and life.
Resources mentioned in this episode
Action Research and Action Learning for community and organisational change
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
Click here to let Leanne know about your number one takeaway from this episode!
Show transcript
View the full podcast transcript from my conversation with Bob Dick.
Quote of the episode
Bob describes his safety net: "If the process isn’t working, I will drop the content and engage with the participants about why the process isn't working. I'll invite them to join me in figuring out what process will work better for all of us".
Episode 16: How to strengthen your facilitation by connecting, teaching and landing with Adam Mustoe
In this episode, we hear from Adam Mustoe – a Gallup certified Strengths Coach and second-generation pastor. He uses an assessment tool called CliftonStrengths to help people find the intersection of their unique talents and rewarding work.
In this episode, we hear from Adam Mustoe – a Gallup certified Strengths Coach and second-generation pastor. He uses an assessment tool called CliftonStrengths to help people find the intersection of their unique talents and rewarding work.
The CliftonStrengths assessment is based on 40 years of research by the Gallup corporation where it reveals 34 potential strengths- our natural ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving.
Adam shares his story on how he found his strengths in 2009, how it changed his life, and how he is changing the lives of others – one workshop at a time.
In this episode you’ll learn:
How to bring out the element of “surprise” in your workshop delivery
How Adam developed his storytelling skills
Story of how he found his “Strengths” in 2009 and how this changed his life
His experience on some challenging workshops he facilitated and some practical advice for first time facilitators
The 50 mile rule and how, as a facilitator, you can use this to your advantage
What prompted Adam to get the Clifton Strengths accreditation
Adam shares his top 5 strengths and how it helped him in his career
How to use your strengths outside of the corporate world.
Resources mentioned:
Connect with Adam
Like this show?
Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally!
Click here to let Leanne know about your number one takeaway from this episode!
Episode 15: Facilitating and leading with your head and heart with Therese Lardner
In this First Time Facilitator episode, you’ll hear from Therese Lardner, a psychologist, leadership coach, speaker and workshop facilitator. She shares how being thrown into the deep end helped build her confidence in public speaking, and why your choice of words matter as a facilitator.
In this First Time Facilitator episode, you’ll hear from Therese Lardner, a psychologist, leadership coach, speaker and workshop facilitator. She shares how being thrown into the deep end helped build her confidence in public speaking, and why your choice of words matter as a facilitator.This is why Therese dedicates her career to teaching people how to use their vocabulary more effectively.
We also talk about employee engagement and creating strong work cultures; and discover what organisations need to consider to improve the employee experience.
About our guest
Therese is a leadership and engagement coach, workshop facilitator, speaker, executive coach and psychologist with a simple, no-nonsense approach to building leaders and businesses. Her natural way of engaging with people means that she is just as comfortable in the boardroom as she is on the factory floor. For Therese, connection at work is the key to success, developed through personal insight, alignment with company culture and cohesive teams.
What you’ll learn
How she adjusted her academic language to connect with diverse audiences
Some advice she was given that took the weight off her shoulders when she was a first time facilitator
Why it’s important to develop your vocabulary (and your emotions) as a leader and how you can do that
How she landed a speaking gig at a positive psychology conference in New York City
Resources
Therese speaking at Disrupt HR Brisbane - below
Desperately Seeking Emotional Vocabulary | Therese Lardner | DisruptHR Talks from DisruptHR on Vimeo.
Episode transcript
Click here to view the episode transcript with Therese Lardner
Episode 14: Q&A: Share some of the amazing facilitation tricks you’ve seen, Leanne!
This is the first solo episode I’m recording and it’s come in response to some feedback I received from a listener, Aminata N’Doye from Toronto, Canada. She asked me if I could incorporate listener questions periodically. I think it’s great suggestion, it allows variety for the show and typically, we’ll keep these ones short -they won’t run for longer than 15mins.
Hello fellow first time facilitators and welcome to the show this week.
This is the first solo episode I’m recording and it’s come in response to some feedback I received from a listener, Aminata N’Doye from Toronto, Canada. She asked me if I could incorporate listener questions periodically. I think it’s great suggestion, it allows variety for the show and typically, we’ll keep these ones short -they won’t run for longer than 15mins.
From time to time I’ll incorporate these episodes, either as an add-on feature for the week (I’d originally planned to call this Workshop Weds) ; or a standalone episode, depending on the length of my response!
Would you like your question answered on the show?
You can email me: hello@firsttimefacilitator.com
Send me a tweet @leannehughes
Message me your question on Instagram @firsttimefacilitator
Given Aminata had the idea for this segment, I threw it over to her to ask the first question, and her question is this:
“Along the way, you've seen a number of tricks from fantastic facilitators. What were some of the amazing tricks where you thought, "Wow! I need to add this to my facilitation!"?
Listen to the show to find out the facilitator tricks that have stunned me (in a good way)!
Resources mentioned in this episode
The Air-dropped workshop notes from Sean DeSouza's workshop: Andrew Tarvin's Walk/Stop icebreaker or energiser: Create your own game show using Kahoot.
First Time Facilitator podcast transcript (Episode 14)
Hello fellow first time facilitators and welcome to the show this week.
This is the first solo episode I’m recording and it’s come in response to some feedback I received from a listener, Aminata N’Doye from Toronto, Canada. She asked if I could incorporate listener questions periodically. I think it’s great suggestion, it allows variety for the show and typically, we’ll keep these ones short -they won’t run for longer than 15mins.
If you have a question you’d like answered, there are a few ways you can submit it:
You can email me: hello@firsttimefacilitator.com
Send me a tweet @leannehughes
Message me your question on Instagram and that’s @ firsttimefacilitator
Given Aminata had the idea for this segment, I threw it over to her to ask the first question, and her question is this:
“Along the way, you've seen a number of tricks from fantastic facilitators. What were some of the amazing tricks where you thought, "Wow! I need to add this to my facilitation!"?
Aminata, thanks for your terrific question. It’s a good one, as it forces me to really reflect back on all those years of sitting in group workshops and taking the best pieces of what they do, into the training room if it resonates with me.
I have put together my six tricks for now. I’m pretty sure I’ll publish this episode and think ‘Ahh!’ I forgot that one time that a facilitator did x, y, z…so we may need a part 2 to this response sometime down the track.
Trick #1: Airdropping notes
The first trick I’ll start with requires a bit of skill and it’s not something I’ve personally used YET… But I’m pretty sure my jaw dropped when this happened in the workshop, in a good way!
I recently attended a three day course on how to write a website landing page. This course was held in Singapore. It was run by a guy called Sean De’Souza. He has a podcast called the ‘Three Month Vacation’, is an internet marketing legend, teacher, author and a cartoonist.
On the first day, we worked as a group to brainstorm benefits and features related to selling a public speaking course.
There were two groups; and after our brain dump, we shared our ideas - a representative from each group spoke through the points. Nothing new, right?
Sean was listening to each point; and questioning any points he wanted clarified further. Again, nothing new.
After the exercise, he asked if we all had iPhones (which, surprisingly, everyone in class did) and then he asked us to turn on our Bluetooth so he could AirDrop an image to us.
It was the coolest drawing of all the points our group had just brainstormed! It was so cool - we immediately had the notes but they were drawn beautifully and a fantastic souvenir of the conversation.
I will link to a couple of these images in the Show Notes for this episode - at firsttimefacilitator.com/episode14.
So, how did he do this? He was using the latest iPad which you can draw on. Plus he’s an amazing artist.
But let’s just say you aren’t a great artist, it’s still something you can do. Your end product may not look as good as Sean’s, however your participants will have real-time access to your workshop notes.
If you’re like me, you may be thinking, well hang on - I can’t listen to what my participants are saying; and draw at the same time!
Well, maybe you can ask your participants to draw notes on the iPad and share them at the end of each topic.
This also double as an engagement strategy; and everyone has access to the notes. To be inclusive though, each participant will need an iPhone for the airdrop feature and if not, you can share via a Dropbox link or email at worst.
Tip #2: Frequent Breaks
My next tip is also from Sean’s Singapore workshop (I think I’ll have to interview him on an upcoming show). That tip is that we took frequent breaks. Now, this is more relevant if you’re in the training mode for a workshop that runs over a few days and really building a new skill with your group. So, as an example the workshop ran from 9am to 4.30pm, we broke at 10.30am for around 40mins; broke at lunch at 12.30 for 75mins and then had 30mins for afternoon tea.
This was a tactic from Sean. He believes it’s important to have a break, let the information seep into your subconscious, and attack the topic after the break with a fresh head.
I hadn’t seen this as a strategy used before and I liked it, it worked. I was not tired at any stage over the three day program, even though everything I learnt was all new. We also developed a really strong bond within our group, because we were interacting so frequently. Frequent breaks people - it’s the new black!
Trick #3: Explain before standing
What’s another trick? Well, on Episode 3 of the podcast, Nikki McMurray shared an awesome tip that I have starting using… the tips is this: When you’re going to break out into an activity and you need to explain what to do; explain it when your participants are sitting down.
Don’t ever say the words ‘Stand up’ and then try to explain what’s going on, because you’ll lose them. The second they stand up, they’ll be checking their phones, off to the toilet, off to grab a second cup of coffee. She said your instructions should go along the lines of ‘In a moment, I’m going to ask you to stand up for an activity…’ THEN you explain how the activity works. If there are any questions, answer them, and then ask them to get into their groups. It’s such a simple, effective hack.
Trick #4: Walk/Stop
Another facilitator I had on Episode 5, our Humour Engineer Andrew Tarvin also runs an excellent icebreaker or energiser if you’re working with a big group of people. I ran this recently for a group of 80 people as part of a leadership day. It also works well for smaller groups.
We did this after lunch. It’s called ‘Walk/Stop’. The instructions are really simple, so I’ll explain them now and also link to Andrew’s video explanation in the show notes.
So you need to be in a room, everyone is standing up; scattered around the room. The rules are - when you, the facilitator says walk, the participants should walk; when you say ‘Stop’, they stop walking.
Do this a few times. It’s pretty simple.
Then explain the rules are changing - now walk means stop; and stop means walk; try that combination a few more times.
The, add the words ‘Name’ and ‘clap’. Name means you yell your name out; clap means you clap. Then reverse the order. So now, Walk means Stop; Stop means Walk; Name means Clap; Clap means Name.
Experiment with those four words and yell out a combination of words.
Then it’s time to add the final two words - ‘Dance’ and Jump; then you reverse all of them. It’s fun, makes everyone move around, listen in closely and laugh. Like I said, I’ve used it before and it works a treat.
Trick #5: Think, pair, share
When I was working for a TAFE in the Northwest of Australia (for those of you who don’t know what TAFE is, it’s vocational education, similar to Community Colleges in the US). One of our principal lecturers, Carol Howe wanted to encourage our first time facilitators to stop presenting material all the time and create more interaction in their workshops.
And this trick is an oldie but a goodie. It’s the very simple ‘Think. Pair. Share’ exercise. It takes little or no energy from you and it creates excellent engagement.
How simple is it? Well, you may present content, either through a story, powerpoint, diagram, video, news article etc. Then you pause, and ask each person on their top takeaways from that information; or what it means for them. You can ask them to write it down if you like. That’s the ‘Think’ part.
Then you ask them to pair up and discuss your thoughts. That’s the ‘Pair’ part.
The ‘Share’ part is bringing it back as a group and discussing.
By using think-pair-share; you’re giving everyone time to reflect on the question and also the confidence to share their responses to the group, as they’ve had a chance to verify their thoughts with their partner.
It’s simple - quick word of warning, don’t user-use it. You don’t want an entire workshop run on the back of think-pair-share, it could get exhausting for everyone!
Trick #6: Game Show
And finally, a colleague of mine, Phil Woods listens in to the show. Last year he wanted to participate in a welcome day I was hosting. The agenda was full. So I issued him a challenge - I said, ‘Phil, if you can create a fun, amazing, engaging activity that helps pass on information, I’ll let you have 30mins.
Phil was up for the challenge and he delivered. He used an online tool called Kahoot to run a game-show type quiz for the group. And they lapped it up.
How it works, is you create your free quiz on their website at kahoot.it. You write questions with 4 multiple responses, similar to the ‘Who wants to be a millionaire’ type format. There’s a 20 second time limit.
When you play it, you project the Kahoot website on the big screen; and the answer options simultaneously display on their participants phone; they need to select the right answer within 20 seconds.
It’s super fun, gets that inter-group competition happening and is also a great way to test knowledge.
Great stuff Phil - I did steal this idea for a recent workshop, and the participants loved it, so thank you!
—
So Aminata, those are some neat things I’ve seen quite recently that are cool. There’s a variety of simple techniques, and also ones that rely on technology.
So, just to recap they are:
Writing real time notes on an iPad and airdropping it to your participants
Giving time for your participants to reflect and absorb information by having regular breaks
Explaining activity instructions and then asking your participants to stand up and move (not the other way around)
Think, pair, share
A fun icebreaker for large groups called Walk/Stop
Using technology, like kahoot.it to create an interactive, competitive element.
Catch you next time!
Episode 13: A facilitator is an entertainer (even if you think it’s all about the content) with Greg Mitchell
Greg Mitchell is a bit of a superstar in the education world. He does many things - cartooning, MCing, consulting and of course, facilitating. In this episode, we talk about some band-aid fixes you can use when participants threaten to de-rail your workshop, why you need to treat facilitation like entertainment, why unpredictability can also help hook your audience and to notice and realise that facilitation is an emotional job.
Greg Mitchell is a bit of a superstar in the education world. He does many things - cartooning, MCing, consulting and of course, facilitating. In this episode, we talk about some band-aid fixes you can use when participants threaten to de-rail your workshop, why you need to treat facilitation like entertainment, why unpredictability can also help hook your audience and to notice and realise that facilitation is an emotional job.
In this episode, you’ll learn
Why it’s important to snap your participants out of their constant way of thinking
The lowest common denominator for engagement (hint: It’s our favourite topic)
Some incredible, simple activities you can throw-in to a workshop to create variety
What to do when you have a spare 30mins left at the end of your workshop
What he perceives the error of focus is for first time facilitators and how you can direct your energy to create more engagement
Why you need to keep your participants moving (literally!).
Like this show? Please leave me a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally!
Click here to let Leanne know about your number one takeaway from this episode!
About our guest
Greg Mitchell has been engaged with the world of education since he was four years old. Since them, he has been a student, a parent, a teacher, a writer, a cartoonist, an assistance principal, a university lecturer and a consultant. He has worked for both the Catholic and Government education systems and is currently enjoying being self-employed, having finally found a boss that he really likes.
Greg suffers from enthusiasm, a condition which helps him deal happily with issues such as Stress Management, Positive Intelligence, Multiple Intelligences, Boys’ in Education, Conflict Resolution, Resilience, Values Education and Building Collaborative Communities.
Resources
Episode transcript
Click here to view the episode transcript for Episode 13 with Greg Mitchell.
Episode 12: The two hats: Switching your mode between facilitating and presenting with Paul Hellman
On Episode 12 of the First Time Facilitator podcast, I interview Paul Hellman from Express Potential about his secrets for communication in a distracted world.Paul believes presenters only have 8 seconds to grab their audience’s attention.
On Episode 12 of the First Time Facilitator podcast, I interview Paul Hellman from Express Potential about his secrets for communication in a distracted world.Paul believes presenters only have 8 seconds to grab their audience’s attention.
In this show you’ll learn
How you can break through to ensure your message is heard (even in a distracted world)
How he likens facilitation to conducting a job interview
The great advice he received when he started leading workshops about wearing two hats (and why it's dangerous if you mix them up)
Why you need to use stories and analogies in your workshops to add more colour (even if you're just presenting facts)
How to create a stronger, more confident presence (even though most of us think that presence is a mythical beast)
How he has personally developed his communication skills (and how you can do it too
Why there is a performance element in every interaction, including email and why warm-ups help to create a positive mood.
Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider using your Twitter handle so I can thank you personally.
About our guest
Paul Hellman consults and speaks internationally. He has advised thousands of executives and professionals during his career. Companies hire Paul to get faster results from presentations, meetings, emails. His latest book is You've got 8 Seconds: Communication Secrets for a Distracted World. His columns have appeared in leading newspapers like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
Resources
First Time Facilitator podcast transcript (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.
Episode 10: Keeping workshop content fresh after 25 years (and how I was inspired by a flamenco dancing facilitator) with Scott Amy
In Episode 10 of the First Time Facilitator podcast, Scott Amy from the Pacific Institute shares his secrets on Socratic facilitation and how he was inspired by a faciltator who incorporated flamenco dancing in his workshop.
In Episode 10 of the First Time Facilitator podcast, Scott Amy from the Pacific Institute shares his secrets on Socratic facilitation and how he was inspired by a faciltator who incorporated flamenco dancing in his workshop.
In this episode you’ll learn
Why seeing a strong facilitator (who used a style of flamenco dancing in his workshops) inspired Scott to leave the Defence force
How he’s run the same workshop for 25 years and how he keeps it energised/content fresh
How facilitators need confidence in themselves, ability to grow, desire to grow the org their working with; and their ability to engage people
What Socratic facilitation is all about and how it can help you discover the truth for your participants
Three great questions you can use to implement Socractic facilitation in your next workshop
About our guest
Scott Amy, Manager Client Services with The Pacific Institute has worked extensively in training, facilitating, coaching and project design with clients in many countries around the world, including Singapore, Indonesia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Australia.Working with The Pacific Institute since 1994, he has been involved in many project roles with clients from a very broad cross section of industry, education and community. Working with leadership and executive management levels through to front line operations staff, professional educators, students and community development resources, has provided him with valuable experience into how people think and behave in situations of change and leadership.With a strong background in training and training design, his skills in communication, allow him to reach all levels of an organisation and teams providing maximum outcomes. Combined with his Socratic approach to facilitation, which encourages participants to find their own solutions by working through options and applying information, Scott is one of The Pacific Institute’s most requested resources.Scott has been a student of leadership, and its effects for many years, and with a Defence Force background in training and education, has used these experiences as a basis for his continuing studies in Effective Leadership.He has played a major role in developing people and organisations with clients such as: Coca Cola, Snowy Hydro Limited, AMP Insurance, Queensland Education Department, Television Corporation of Singapore, Air New Zealand, Fonterra and Rio Tinto
Resources
Video we discussed: Forget big charge, start with a tiny habbit.View the First Time Facilitator episode 10 transcript.
First Time Facilitator Podcast transcript with Cherelle Witney (Episode 9)
Leanne: Our guest today believes that being curious to learn keeps us energized and connected throughout our work and our life. She loves ideas, innovative thinking and what-if questions, and is passionate about lifting people's personal and professional capability to lead and manage.
She runs a company called LIFT Performance Solutions out of Perth. Her aim, as a facilitator, is to inspire her participants with real experiences that make learning practical and fun. Welcome to the show, Cherelle Witney.
Cherelle Witney: Thank you, Leanne, for having me. This is fun already.
Leanne: Cherelle, our listeners may not know, but we met when I was living in Broome working for TAFE. We would fly you up every so often to help us out with our leaders. I've only really known you as a facilitator. Can you tell us a bit about your career journey and how you wound up with the position that you're in now?
Cherelle: Actually, where we met in Broome was one of the best jobs, because it was paradise. It's always nice to come to a gorgeous venue, with gorgeous down-to-earth people like you. I loved that job, but really, that was the culmination of probably about 20 years of training and facilitating. I started my journey in my early 20s as a paralegal in a law firm.
I had no idea that I was going to become a trainer or a facilitator. Back then, I was looking for a job where I could earn some money and use my skills.
I was very lucky and I have continued to be lucky along my journey to have some great mentors. The guy who ran the law firm in Perth was very big on training and development of his staff. I quickly became, in a fast-growing law firm, the trainer for about 130 staff and also managing those staff. I cut my teeth there in training and development, and I learnt a lot about team building.
I had a very supportive boss who was keen to expose me to a lot of new tools at a young age. He was also a good mentor as well. He very much believed in meditating at the start and the end of each day to keep your mind fresh and keep your mindfulness present in your work, kind of unusual for a lawyer. [laughs] He was a great role model for me. I've taken that through to my facilitation tools and skills throughout my career, being present and being ready and up with your energy to work the room and the group.
After I worked in law for seven years, I started my first business which was called Traveling World it was an art selling business so completely different to law, but that was my first step into an entrepreneurial kind of space. Then, I worked in tourism for a few years in a sector of support area. That CEO that I worked closely with was very good at creating the bigger picture and the energy around an event.
I learnt quite good skills from her about knowing who’s in the room as a facilitator and knowing how to build the atmosphere to be safe and fun. She liked fun and I liked fun, so that worked very well for us. We ran some of the best events in Perth for tourism in that time. After I did that, I started my business as a consultant, and I started off doing database management of all things which was just bizarre now I look back, but it had an element of connecting people.
Back then, there was no such thing called a CRM or Customer Relationship Management, but that's what I was doing is working on the data to make it sense for the customer. I think that's one of my skill sets as a facilitator, is bringing the agenda, whatever the organization needs and the people together so that they feel connected with it. That began my consulting journey. I also started the first internet cafe for people over 55, back in 2000. I had a vision about old people needing to have some space where they could just train and learn in a positive comfortable, safe space. Back then, all the internet cafes were full of young kids, old people were feeling a bit isolated.
We started that business in Perth and again I used my training skills and facilitation skills to bring a very scary medium, being the internet, to people that were scared of it, older people over 55 to 60, 65, and bring the two together so that they could be more than they had thought possible. I had some great memories. That business didn't make any money because it was a bit too early on the market, but I have some great memories of people being 70 and being able to see their grandchild in London for the first time or email a photo and understand how they could cross the world in a few seconds.
Then, my most recent part of my career has been seven years in the Department of Health, and then what is now about nine years in my consultancy with LIFT. That last chunk of time-- You can work that I’m fairly old by now. [laughs] That last chunk of time has really allowed me to develop my leadership and team development practices. Now, I have culminated that in my keynote talks around the courage to create whatever you want to create in your life, in your work, in your home or your sporting career, whatever it might be.
All of those things, I guess it’s a long answer, Leanne, but all of those things along my journey when I look back have each taught me something different and have allowed me to be a facilitator now that has a good wealth of diverse experience in different industries first hand, and also has the ability to understand other industries and other people that might be in my groups to some degree to perfection.
Leanne: You're not kidding about diverse industries and experience, that's absolutely huge. The common thread in what you're talking about is you always bring out this concept of creating a safe environment, something that you're very passionate about. How do you create a safe environment in your workshops?
Cherelle: That's a great question. I think the best way to create a safe environment is be yourself. Don't go in as a facilitator trying to be something that you either think the group wants or that you think a facilitator should be. It's so important to have authenticity because you've got less than three minutes to build that trusting space with your group, especially, if you haven't met them before.
I always say to people, "Be yourself", and obviously, be professional, think about how you dress, how you move, what your body language is conveying and to create a trusting space where what you say actually is relevant to them and you're not telling them, you're asking them the whole time. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got from my mentor was, "The wisdom is in the room."
If you go in with that mindset that you are the facilitator, but you're not the teller of all the information, you don't know the industry, you don't know their challenges, you're there to help them explore all of that, and find an answer, that will come out in the first three minutes. If that's your mindset, that'll come out in the way you talk and the way you move, that you're genuinely there for them not for you. You've got to put your ego in a box, leave it at the door because you're there to help the group not to show them how much knowledge you have.
Leanne: Lovely. That's the first time I've ever heard the concept of the first three minutes. How did you find out about that? What is it about three minutes?
Cherelle: I think that's just my own thought. From experience, when you're meeting people one-to-one, you got 30 seconds before they make a judgment of you and I think there's some research to back that up.
In the room, you've got that first three minutes where you're saying, “Welcome to the day, this is what the day is about”, people are sitting there either thinking, “I wish I wasn't here or what is this girl? Does she actually know her stuff?” all of these kind of chatter in their head. In that three minutes, if you can talk to them maybe for me, I had a little bit of humor because that's my nature if that's authentic for you, do that.
If it's a very serious meeting, then I get right down to why we're here and what are we going to achieve by the end of the day. That helps release a bit of pressure and people go, “Okay right, it's not just going to all be talk, we're actually going to get to an outcome.”
That three minutes is your chance to build a quick bond that they believe in you. You still got to build on that over the rest of the day.
Leanne: You spoke about for you, it's about being authentic, and your authentic self is quite humorous and you're fun. In your observation, what are other critical skills for a facilitator?
Cherelle: There's a couple of ways you can look at this. The IAF, International Association of Facilitators, have core competencies. There are six of them. You can Google 'IAF core competencies' and it will come up. They’re in a lot more detail. People that like the detail and maybe want to work towards a checklist, that would be good for them have a look at. For me, I've got 12 things that I always make sure I'm doing. Absolutely number one is be prepared. You can not go in the room not prepared. You need to know the industry, you need to have looked at their website.
You need to know who's in the room which is another part of that. You don't need to know a lot about the people but you need to know what level they are at, are they managers, leaders frontline, that kind of thing. You need to build that inclusive trusting safe environment in that first three minutes. You have to have a plan of how you do that and know the content of the day. If it's serious content around heavy strategic planning or downsizing or upsizing whatever it is, then in that three minutes talk about that. Name that elephant in the room if there is such a thing.
If it's more of a fun day then encourage them and let them know they're going to have fun. Set some ground rules. You’ve absolutely got to do that because not everyone's coming for the same reason. How we're going to listen? What are our values? What are we going to stick to? Do that by asking them what the ground rules need to be. I see some facilitators telling the group what the ground rules are going to be, that's not going to stick.
I guess a couple of the other things out of the 12 I've got are, you need to manage your time. You absolutely need to know the time schedule of how this day is going to run. You can't get to an hour and before the end time and you've still got two hours of material to do. For me, that is my Achilles' heel because I'm more creative than time-bound, so I've got to be careful about that. For other facilitators, it's been easier.
You have to go in optimistic, adaptive, flexible. You’ve got your whole session plan, you've prepped the hell out of it but things change and you've got to be able to let that go and go, "Okay, this is where the group needs to or wants to go." To do that, you've got to have a Mary Poppins bag full of stuff.
Leanne: [laughs] What's in your Mary Poppins bag?
Cherelle: My partner is fascinated when I pack to go and facilitate because he says, "You've been doing this for so many years and you still take too much stuff every time. You take stuff you don't use." I say, "Yes, because you don't know what's going to happen in the road." I always take extra icebreakers in addition to the ones I've planned because I often get in the room and go, "You know what? This room’s a bit more high energy than I anticipated." Or, "This one's a bit lower energy than I thought or a bit more resistant than I expected." I might use a different icebreaker.
I always take more paper, more pens, more blue tack, more everything that you think you're going to need because the walls that you thought you could put paper up on, you can and you've got to be able to adapt if you want people up and moving around. I always take some other energizers. I have a favourite go-to which is a beach ball and it has questions on permanent marker on the beach ball. You throw the beach ball around the room and people catch it and wherever their hands land it's a question and they read the question and they give the answer. It’s a bit of fun and energy. There are a few things that are in my Mary Poppins bag.
Leanne: That is so cool. I know you're a bit of inventor. Are you going to paint in your beach ball?
Cherelle: [laughs] Yes, I actually have a secret desire to make a range of facilitator products because-- Not so secret now, I'm saying it on the podcast.
[laughter]
Cherelle: There is a lack of Mary Poppins bags, I guess. When you're starting out, it takes a long time to gather these tools. I've gathered them just from my own learning I guess, but also watching other facilitators and I'm always fascinated, "What have they got in there?" "What’s their go-to tool?" For first-time facilitators, ask away. When you're in a workshop, ask what they've got in their kit and that's a good way to learn.
Leanne: Yes, I was actually thinking of a little segment on the show, a bit of an aside was to ask facilitators what they do pack in their training toolkit and then just linking that as part of a packing list on the website or something. I know it's all right, you're so true and even like the pens that facilitators use. I've seen those Mr. Sketch, the free pens that people-- I don't know, they seem to last forever. They smell good. They’re colorful. I've seen that a lot around Brisbane.
Cherelle: Yes, you see people like Adam Fraser on his YouTube, he’s got those giant, giant outline pens that are just huge. When he just wants to write one word it's this big fat text and it looks fabulous. I've seen them in office work.
Leanne: We'll link to those in the show notes. It's fun, creating a safe environment, you can do all these sort of things and prepare really well and then sometime in the course of your workshop, someone can say something that can derail or you have a bit of an impact which isn't so positive. How do you bring it back to that safe environment and creating a positive atmosphere when something like that happens?
Cherelle: Yes, I think that is the number one nightmare of all facilitators. [laughs] I've watched some more experienced facilitators than me that have 40 years experience under their belts struggle with that. I would just say to first-time facilitators, "It's not easy for anyone to deal with when you've got one person in the group that is resisting or is been quite negative." I've also had the ones that like to clown around and so they never do the instructions that you are asking them to do and then they go around disrupting everybody else. Or the person that constantly is on their mobile phone even though the ground rules have been set that we'll put our phones in our bag.
You do get these kinds of behaviors. You also get the behaviors of people that have been sent to the workshop and that's always challenging. They don't want to be there from the get-go. A couple of things that I do is absolutely make sure you've got the ground rules in place first, at the beginning of the day. Then, if you got those, you will need those because say the ground rule says something like, "We listen without interrupting", and you've got someone that's always interrupting, then you need to say, "Look, I'm noticing that we aren't sticking to the ground rule we'd set earlier today about listening without interrupting. We need to come back to that and be mindful of that and make sure that we are doing that to get the best out of the day."
When it happens again, I would say, "Hey Jake, when you're interrupting Sally like that, we're not sticking to the ground rules. You need to give it--" Actually, have to name it. You don't want to as a facilitator, especially in a larger group setting, you don't want to have to say, "Hey Jake, that's not what's in line with the--" If you've done all the other-- You've done the grounds rules, you’re reminded the group as a whole and then it's still happening, you're left with no option.
The other thing I do that can be effective is go to the break. Take a five-minute stretch break and pull that person aside and say, "Look, Jake, when you're interrupting the group, when you're interrupting Sally, it's not allowing us to get the best out of the day. What’s going on for you that you feel the need to do that? What could I do differently as a facilitator to help you be heard?" Have that conversation with him and hopefully, he's not just doing it because he loves running amok. Hopefully, that brings him around.
On the flip side, out of the last 10 years of facilitating, I probably only had that happen twice where it's been that bad that I've had to even name it in the group or I've had to pull the person aside. First-time facilitators don't panic, it's not going to happen in every group. [laughs]
Leanne: I find it interesting that you said facilitators of 40 years still experience and you can sometimes trip and stumble, a lot of preparations involved in a workshop, it can be stressful. Why do you enjoy training other people?
Cherelle: I love it because I like to take complex stuff and make it simple and have people go, "Oh yes, that makes sense. Now we could do that." I like creating that energy that you can create as a facilitator and move people from, "I don't think I can do this", "This is so hard and complex", "We don't know what to do next", to the end of the day or the end of the two hours going, "Oh wow, we've got a solution. I never expected that. We’ve got an idea of how to move forward." If it's team building, they come in and they're quite separate and there's a few people that don't like each other and they're thinking the day is going to be rubbish. Then they come out the other end going, "Oh, that was really actually quite productive. Now, I understand so much better what we need to do next."
That's probably why my consultancy is called LIFT. I like that energy. I also like transferable learning. I like people to get outcomes that they can they can use. I also think back to when I was a little kid and I've got three sisters and we always played schools in our school holidays, we never wanted to be at school but in our school holidays, we played schools. I was always the teacher. [chuckles] I always wanted to be the one writing on the board. I think you haven't made an unnatural path towards that as well.
Leanne: Yes, they actually say when people are looking at, I guess, career advice they get you to reflect on what activities and things you were doing back when you were a kid, what kind of skills. There's a natural-- That’s just exactly, so being a teacher in school and now you're actually doing it for your job. That's very straight life. Now, reading your bio, you're accredited in a number of profiling tools including DiSC, MBTI, and Belbin. I know speaking to different facilitators, they all have the one that they really like the most. What's your favourite tool and why?
Cherelle: I love Belbin because it is a team based profile. Myers-Briggs is personality. I use that a lot in one-to-one coaching and leadership development. It tells you introvert/extrovert, how you think and process information. I like the DiSC because it's simpler and for some clients, it's cheaper as well. There’s a price factor. Myers-Briggs has 160 plus questions. DiSC has only got about 30 and Belbin has 10. 10 is very quick to do. It's the cost competitive. Mostly, it's about team roles.
Belbin is the only one that really does team roles. It's not your personality, it’s about your behaviors in a team. Whether you're leading a team or working in a team at some point you need to know your team role. It’s very appreciative inquiry based. It’s very much around your strengths and what you do well and what you bring to the team. I find it's a very non-threatening profile to use.
I've been using it since 2003. I'm probably the most experienced person in WA and probably in the top five in Australia because I've done about 1,500 profiles. It just freaks me out every time how accurate it is. Even now after doing so many profiles, people sit in front of me and go, "Wow, I answered 10 questions and this is like really relevant to me in a team."
It fits in as a facilitator well because you are working the team. Knowing their profiles means you know who's in the room from a behavioral point of view.
Leanne: Does your Belbin profile change depending on the team or work environment you're in or does it stay consistent?
Cherelle: It doesn't. I guess I can only answer from my experience, it doesn't really change over time unless you change your job significantly. I remember probably about eight years ago, I had a nurse manager and his Belbin profile strength was around shaping, driving change, being quite dynamic and energetic. That’s what he did well and then he changed jobs for a three-month period and had to do an audit on the health service which was all about data and measurement.
Interestingly, in that same period, he did his Belbin again because he'd joined another team. His Belbin top score was no longer the shape and drive and dynamic one, it was around completer-finisher which is all around deadlines and quantity and measurement. It’s not his natural preference and the three months just exhausted him because it's not his-- I actually had proof, scientific proof that it does change if you change your job significantly. He then went back to his normal job and was much happier. I think that's from my experience the only time it does change.
Often, if you're going to have a baby or you've just had a major life shift then your Belbin will go a little bit more even spread because you haven't used a lot of different skills in those transition times. Generally, the top three scores might shift place, one, two and three, but they stay as your top three.
Leanne: You mentioned before that you've got a bit of creativity in you, Cherelle. I'd love to hear, I only heard about this recently, you developed a new keynote, is it a workshop or a speech?
Cherelle: Well, that's a good question. It’s called an interactive keynote because I didn't want to become a keynote speaker that just stands on the stage and talks at people. It’s a combo.
Leanne: Yes, I love the title, the Courage to Create. Can you tell us what it's about?
Cherelle: It's got three elements and it's really bringing together my inventive part of my life which is Tricky Treats and it's an automatic toy and treat dispenser for dogs and I've been working on that for about five years. It brings that and my LIFT consultancy training and facilitating together in a space where I talk about the importance of diverse thinking, agile thinking is all the rage at the moment, people are talking about it a lot. Really what it means is getting people in the room and appreciating their diversity.
The interactive keynote for the Courage to Create has a first part around diverse thinking and how important it is that we appreciate each other's thought. We do an activity around that. People look at the same thing and then see it quite differently. The second part of it is a bit more serious. We talk about failure. Danner and Coopersmith have written a great book called The Other F Word. It’s on failure and they have a great quote in there that says, "Failure is the asset in your company that you've already paid for." If you've already paid for it, why wouldn't you examine it and use it? We tend to not do that.
We tend to push it to the side because we're embarrassed and then move on with the next idea. The second part of the interactive keynote talks about failure and how we manage that and obviously how we manage the emotions around that which are going to be embarrassment and possibly shame and how we rise up from that. We do an activity that’s fun in that quite serious bit of the keynote to talk about how we bounce back from failure. Then, we finish off with some Belbin team roles which is, are you a task person? Or are you a thinking person? Or are you a harmony people person?
People get to stand in their area and look at the other different people in the room and how similar or different we are. I have a bit of fun talking to them about how you see the world differently to the other people across the other side of the room.
Leanne: Wow, how did you actually decide to put this together and then also make the decision on what you include and what-- I guess more important question, is what you don't include?
Cherelle: Yes, hours and hours of pulling my hair out. It’s really hard to distill it down specially-- I'm looking at 25 years of knowledge, how do I get that into a one-hour keynote that's fun, that's not boring death by PowerPoint? It took a long time. I'd say it took over two weeks of intensive thinking and also other people giving me their feedback. People that could then share-- I shared my keynote with them and they'd go, "Oh, yes that doesn't really make sense." Or, "I'm going to be bored there." Really help asking people to give you feedback as being important and they see different parts of the keynote as important to them.
I'm putting it out there for other people not for me. I've done that to refine it all the time. I guess the other thing that drove me to those three areas and they are the three areas that my clients use over and over again so the diversity of views, knowing your team profile strengths and knowing how to navigate failure seem to be the common themes over the last five years that have come up more and more. Certainly in my business with Tricky Treats and having an invention, having a crazy idea and then taking it to commercial reality, they are the three things that I really encountered the most as well.
Leanne: Yes, having that side hustle sounds like you had a couple different side hustles going. How are you managing to juggle all of them and still deal with your clients?
Cherelle: [laughs] A lot of bowls fall on the floor regularly but I'm quite good at scooping them up. Well, you don't sleep. Sleep is a bit of a waste of time.
[laughter]
Cherelle: Although I watched a program last night that said sleep is essential for reconfirming our memories and creating the myelin around their brain better. I better get some more sleep. I guess time management is always an issue. Probably the simplest answer is to segment my day. I try and segment. Morning, I'm doing inventive work or I'm talking to potential buyers and things like that. The afternoon, I'm working on my keynote for a client next week. It does come down to planning.
I do have a virtual assistant who helps me and keeps me on track and manages my diary. I confess to her once a week all the things I haven't done [chuckles] that I need to now do for next week.
Leanne: You mentioned a few resources and really great videos to watch including the Adam Fraser one. Are there any other books or resources that you would recommend to first-time facilitators?
Cherelle: Yes, I would definitely say find a mentor because that's probably where I've learnt the most than from books. I'm going to say something that other people might have a completely different opinion on but there's not a lot of great books on facilitation. I would read some stuff around group dynamics. There’s lots of good books on group dynamics and the more you understand group dynamics, the better you are as a facilitator.
Anything written by-- I think his name is Roger Schwarz . Yes, Roger Schwarz, he's written Smart Leader, Smart Teens. Patrick Lencioni if you're more Italian, has written great books on team development and the five functions or dysfunctions of a team. As far as pure facilitation books go, Dale Hunter has written a couple, The Art of Facilitation and The Zen of Groups. I've found parts of those books quite good. There’s a Perth girl called Iwona Polowy. I always mispronounce her surname, sorry Iwona, she’s written Ordinary Meetings Don't Interest Me That Much. Her book is basically a selection of other facilitators, very experienced facilitators sharing their thoughts and of course her journey as well. They'd be my burst of thoughts.
Leanne: Finally, I want to talk a bit about your invention, Tricky Treats. If you'd like to share a bit more about your journey with that with the audience. Also, just explain have there been any, in terms of crossover in the skills that you've learnt by building up this business and an invention that you've brought into the world of facilitation? Are there any parallels?
Cherelle: Yes, there are huge parallels that I didn't anticipate. I thought I had two separate businesses that had nothing in common with each other. Particularly, now I'm doing my keynote on the Courage to Create. It’s so obvious that the universe has been leading me in this path. I can stand up and talk with authenticity about the courage to create like needing to find the courage. There's certainly days where I want to put the dinner over my head and it's just a bit hard.
I think too that the natural journey of an invention requires you to fail quite a lot and you have to get good at bouncing not just back but forwards from the failure. I can talk quite emotionally in a good way about what that means and what that means to put yourself out there and have people say, "Oh, that's a rubbish idea", or "That's a good idea" or whatever it might be. I think too that my facilitation skills have helped me in my invention business because often I'm sitting in a room talking to business people, retailers, I don't know anything about their world, but I have good questions.
Being a facilitator gives you good, powerful questions that you can ask to learn more. That's fed backwards into Tricky Treats. I think overall too I talk a lot about agility in my facilitation work, and I want my teams in the room to be agile. Really understanding what that means and being able to not hold on to a thought or an idea so tightly that you're not able to listen to someone else's view is key.
Leanne: Cherelle, I'm so excited for you. We're talking about the idea of Tricky Treats when it was in its infancy in Broome a few years ago. I remember at the Mangrove hotel you told me about your idea and I was instantly excited because I thought of my two dogs at home getting bored, digging up the garden. It's really exciting to hear how you've progressed and how it's benefited both the invention itself plus your facilitation as well. Finally, where can people find you?
Cherelle: That's a good question because I'm just about to update the website. Our website is liftps.com and probably they could just send me an email, I'm happy to respond to any questions or support any of those new facilitators that might be listening, cherelle@liftps.com they could reach me there.
Leanne: Awesome. We'll link to that in the show notes as well. Cherelle, it's been so great catching up. I love hearing all of your updates every couple of months about the business. Well done and thanks again for sharing your advice for first time facilitators.
Cherelle: Good, I hope it was helpful. It's been my pleasure to work with you again. Who knew our lives would cross in this way?
Leanne: [laughs] Who knew. Thanks again, Cherelle.
Episode 9: The three minute rule of group facilitation with Cherelle Witney
In this First Time Facilitator podcast episode, facilitator, entrepreneur and inventor Cherelle Witney shares how a diverse career spanning legal, health and tourism has helped her confidently deliver workshops to thousands of participants.
In this First Time Facilitator podcast episode, facilitator, entrepreneur and inventor Cherelle Witney shares how a diverse career spanning legal, health and tourism has helped her confidently deliver workshops to thousands of participants.
In this episode you’ll learn:
How to create a safe environment (hint: It’s all about being yourself)
Why you only have three minutes to create a trusting space with your group
Why it’s important to set ground rules for the workshop
Why you need a Mary Poppins bag full of stuff
The #1 nightmare of all facilitators (and how to manage it)
About our guest
Cherelle Witney is the Founder of LIFT Performance Solutions, Leadership trainer and coach.
She believes that being curious to learn and willing to welcome shared learning keeps us positively energised & connected throughout our work and our life. Her aim is to be a facilitator that inspires her participants with diverse real experience & insights that makes learning practical and fun!
On the Belbin profile she’s a Specialist, Plant, Shaper which means she likes detail, to be up to date with facts, theories and practices. loves ideas, innovative thinking and “what if….” questions.
Over the last 18+ years, her career has included work as a senior manager & leader, internal trainer/facilitator and professional coach in a variety of private and public organisations with 7 years in public health and 6 years in law.
Her facilitation work uses a variety of tools from brainstorming to framing to open space and journey maps to assist strategic planning processes, creation of organisational learning & development plans, effective process improvement pathways and change engagement strategies in organisations of 12 to 1200 people.
Resources
Books:
The Other "F" Word: How Smart Leaders, Teams, and Entrepreneurs Put Failure to Work
Smart Leaders, Smarter Teams: How You and Your Team Get Unstuck to Get Results
Ordinary Meetings DON’T Interest Me!: What is Facilitation? (Creative Group Leadership Book 1)
Transcript
Read the full First Time Facilitator transcript with Cherelle Witney
Episode 8: Storytelling works! (Because no one's ever asked to see a Powerpoint presentation twice)
In this First Time Facilitator episode, internationally bestselling author Matthew Dicks shares why storytelling so important, and how telling stories is not simply sharing a series of events; it’s the manipulation of emotions.
In this First Time Facilitator episode, internationally bestselling author Matthew Dicks shares why storytelling so important, and how telling stories is not simply sharing a series of events; it’s the manipulation of emotions.
It’s a skill that can be taught and he shares some of the techniques he uses to engage his audience, whether they're 10 year old kids, or politicians.
In this episode you’ll learn:
What a story is (and what it isn’t)
The details you should leave in your story and more importantly; the details you can leave out
How you can become more memorable by sharing things that are vulnerable, amusing or embarrassing
That it’s important to assume that no one wants to listen to anything you have to say
How to start collecting your own stories by reflecting on everyday moments
About our guest
Matthew Dicks is the internationally bestselling author of the novels Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend, Something Missing, Unexpectedly, Milo, The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs, and the upcoming Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling. His novels have been translated into more than 25 languages worldwide.
When not hunched over a computer screen, Matthew fills his days as an elementary school teacher, a storyteller, a speaking coach, a blogger, a wedding DJ, a minister, a life coach, and a Lord of Sealand.
Matthew is a 35-time Moth StorySLAM champion and 5-time GrandSLAM champion. He has also told stories for This American Life, TED, The Colin McEnroe Show, The Story Collider, The Liar Show, Literary Death Match, The Mouth, and many others.Heis also the co-founder and creative director of Speak Up, a Hartford-based storytelling organization that produces shows throughout New England.Matthew is the creator and co-host of Boy vs. Girl, a podcast about gender and gender stereotypes.
Resources
Grab his new book! Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling
Video: Life lessons learned while pole vaulting told by Matthew Dicks
Transcript
Read the full First Time Facilitator transcript with Matthew Dicks.
Thoughts on the episode? Share your comments below!
Episode 7: Preparation: It's the security blanket for facilitators with Sue Johnston
In this First Time Facilitator episode, Sue Johnston from the Artemis Group shares practical facilitation advice from an introvert's perspective. She talks about how she ‘accidentally’ wound up as a facilitator after working on strategies to make weekly teleconferences more effective.Sue also emphasises the importance of preparation, and why it’s critical to revisit and communicate the purpose of a workshop.
In this First Time Facilitator episode, Sue Johnston from the Artemis Group shares practical facilitation advice from an introvert's perspective. She talks about how she ‘accidentally’ wound up as a facilitator after working on strategies to make weekly teleconferences more effective.Sue also emphasises the importance of preparation, and why it’s critical to revisit and communicate the purpose of a workshop.
In this episode you’ll learn
An introvert’s perspective on how it takes courage to step up in the room
Why it’s important to ‘call out’ behaviour in the moment and reinforce the purpose of your workshop
Why preparation is critical and how it works as a security blanket, particularly for first time facilitators.
Why you need to bring your authentic self to your facilitation
How to incorporate SCARF, a neuro-leaderhsip tool to engage your participants.
About our guest
Sue Johnston founded Artemis Group in 2000 as a vehicle for her professional services work with clients and entrepreneurial adventures.She’s a registered nurse, public sector advisor, health sector strategist, manager, entrepreneur, and now an advisor, facilitator and leadership coach.
Her clients include public sector organisations, private sector businesses, non-government organisations, and individual leaders and entrepreneurs.She’s a certified Daring Way Facilitator Candidate, a Results Based Coach with The Neuro Leadership Institute and a member of the International Coach Federation.
Resources
Sue's book recommendation: The secrets of facilitation by Michael Wilkinson
Episode 6: We need more mindful leaders (and we need them right now) with Rachel Grace
In this First Time Facilitator episode, we hear from consultant, Rachel Grace, on how she facilitates and leads mindfulness workshops; and coaches people to adapt to the rapid change of modern day work-life and society. Rachel believe the world needs more mindful leaders and they need them right now.The skill of mindfulness isn't only important to our leaders. It's an essential skill for a facilitator to remain present in their training/group workshop environment, and to not think about what's going on in the outside world; or worry about what's ahead. It's about listening, staying focused and tuning in to the non-verbal 'clues' in the room.
In this episode you'll learn
The definition of mindfulness (Tip: It's not about having a blank mind)
Why mindfulness isn't just hippy, fluffy stuff
How you can start gaining the benefits from mindulness after 15 minutes
Why businesses who want to be more agile need to start developing agile minds
Why mindfulness and neuro-agility is a key skill set in navigating a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world
About our guest
Rachel has first class honours degree in psychology and over 10-years experience in researching, understanding and working with individuals and organisations to change human behaviour. She's paired her formal training and work experience in psychology and leadership coaching, with a long stint working on permaculture and commercial organic farms.She has worked with individuals privately and with leaders in organisations from across the public, private, higher education and healthcare sectors. In amongst all of that, she has strung together serious training in meditation and now has 20-years experience on the path, a daily personal practice and the scientific literacy to know that the benefits of mindfulness is not just hippy-fluff. It’s an evidence-based skills with an unbeatable capacity for transforming people, their work and organisational impact.
Resources
Transcript
Click here to view the full First Time Facilitator transcript with Rachel Grace.
First Time Facilitator podcast: Transcript (Episode 5)
Episode 5 transcript: How to use humour to deliver x-factor presentations (and laughs) with Andrew Tarvin
Leanne: So excited to have you on the show. I heard your story on Chris Guillebeau's Side Hustle School podcast. and thought your story was fascinating. I’d love to start with that story. Your job title is Humour Engineer. Tell us about yourself and how you ended up with that title?
Andrew: Yes. So, for people that are surprised by that title, it didn't exist before I made it up. As far as I know, I’m the leading humour engineer in the world because I'm the only one. But it is basically an intersection of my background. I have a degree in Computer Science and Engineering and I've always been an engineer, I've always been obsessed with efficiency.
I went to the Ohio State University here in the states and started working at Procter & Gamble as an IT Project Manager after I graduated. When I was at P&G, I started to realise that there was a difference between being efficient and being effective. I was always obsessed with how I get the most results with the minimum amount of work. And I realise that you can't be efficient with humans because humans have emotions and feelings and they get sick and tired and all these other things that robots and computers don’t get.
I didn't really have the skills that I needed to be effective with humans. You have to be effective and so, luckily for me in college I started doing Improv and stand-up comedy. My best friend wanted to start in Improv comedy group. They needed people and they forced me to join. I realised that the same skills that I was learning to be effective as an improviser on stage, were actually the same skills that were helping me to be more effective with my teams. I started to explore the intersection of humour in the workplace with business and ultimately ended up building g a company that was my side hustle for a while until it became my full-time job and that's why what I do falls under the category of Humour Engineer if that makes sense.
Leanne: Yeah, it does. I'm interested in hearing about this Improv school. I did improv in high school and it's pretty scary. Was it easy for you or did it take you a few months to really get in to your groove?
Andrew: For sure, it took me sometime - when we first started we were not very good. We had no formal training, we’re just some college kids. A couple of people in the group had a little bit of improvising experience from watching ‘Whose Line is it Anyway?” and we tried to copy what we saw. I was never the class clown or the life of the party type person. I’m an introvert. In my senior year in high school, I was voted as “Teacher's Pet."
Leanne: Wow!
Andrew: I was very much on the academic side. When I first started on a new crowd, I was nervous the entire day before the show, to the point that, like I couldn’t eat anything and then after a few shows, after some practice I couldn’t eat for the entire half-day. Then, I ate in the morning, but not in the afternoon. And the same thing with stand up - it became a process which I learned, where I was constantly nervous, but as I got better and better, I became more and more comfortable with it.
Leanne: So, you sort of, introducing what you’re doing outside of work into your workplace. When you started incorporating humour, what was it that you were bringing in to a meeting? What were you noticing with people in the meeting - was there great response first up, or were people a bit confused or shocked, thinking, “Hey, this isn’t the way we operate in corporate America?!”
Andrew: Yeah. I mean, I do think people were a little bit surprised with the way I introduced humour. For meetings, I would start every meeting as a project manager like with an interesting question, a simple question like, “Go around the room and answer, what’s the first thing you remember buying with your own money?”, or “What is something true for you that you don’t think it’s true for anyone else in this room?”
What we found out was that as we get to know each other more as humans, we started to have better team dynamics, we started to respect each other more. The thing is, that when we think of humans as resources, it’s simply resources of people who are going to work for us. We forget that they are humans and that sometimes they may be a little bit late getting back to you - not because they secretly hate you but because they have a sick child at home, or they’ve been going through some extreme challenges; or work is really stressful for them. By bringing back the human element into the meetings, it helped us improve our relationships.
With my own presentations, I started to add a little bit of humour, adding more images. I remember reading one of those trivia things that said Alfred Hitchcock would put himself in almost every single one of his movies - even if he was like just in the background or silhouette, or something. I thought that sounded cool so decided I was going to start doing that in my presentations.
Leanne: [laughter]
Andrew: Some of them were obvious, and some of them were hidden. It became kind of a game for the people in my meeting to see, okay, when is the picture of Andrew going to show up? Small things like that. There was never a thing that was too extreme and I think people started to open up more. People started to actually attend to my meetings because they knew that it was going to be fun and engaging. I got positive feedback from people saying, hey I just want to let you know that I really enjoy coming to your meeting. I enjoy the humour that you use. I’ve even started to use humour in my meetings as well.
Leanne: Wow! That’s a great knock-on effect, I mean that’s how you create a positive company culture, by starting something organically like that. Well done!
Andrew: Yeah! And I just kind of built on that because one of the things that I think is important about when I’m working with organisations, I’m talking to them as individuals. You decide every single day on how you approach your day, so, you know you can make the choice to use humour. I kind of likened to Zombie Apocalypse, right? That change is kind of like the Zombie Apocalypse. It starts with a patient zero, a single person with a disease or hopefully more likely a good idea.
When that goes out, that spreads to a couple of people that they interact with, then it spreads to a couple of more. Ultimately you change the entire culture, but it comes from individuals’ choices that they make.
Leanne: Yeah. I think that’s really empowering to people at all levels in an organisation that this is in your circle of control and influence. When you started including images in your presentation the first time, was it very obvious or did people pick it out - they started to notice this pattern?
Andrew: Yes, it was. I mean, the first picture of me was very obvious. I think it was a picture of me as a kid - and that's one of the ways to immediately I feel like you’re almost getting an audience on your side.
If you show a picture of you, either as an adorable child or a Wonder Years type of photo (where it’s like I can’t believe that my mom let me go to school like this )– it immediately creates a little bit of a human bond because everyone has those cute photos. The first couple were kind of like that and then people start to pick up like, wait a minute there’s one in every single of one of these presentation.
Leanne: [laughter]
Andrew: And that's where it became fun.
Leanne: Were people in your organisation responding to these challenges and starting to innovate their presentations because they saw the results? Or were there people, still saying ‘No, I don't have time for this. I’m just going to stick to the traditional method and throw a bunch of texts onto my power point slides?’.
Andrew: Yeah. I mean there are some people who will stick to the way they've always learned it. I’m really talking about effectiveness. My training company is a training company in human effectiveness and you recognise that, yes, creating a presentation that has more images adds a little bit of humour isn’t as efficient - but it is more a lot effective. As someone wanting to get results,as an engineer, that's what I'm all about, solving problems and getting results, I’m willing to take a little bit more time to do it so, that in the long run I’m actually saving time.
Leanne: Sure.
Andrew: Because if I go into a meeting and I use a little bit of humour, and I get people to pay attention and they actually remember the message, that means I don’t have to send as many follow-up emails. It doesn’t mean that I have to do another presentation where I give basically the exact same talk, and for me, think over the long run, I actually save a lot more time because I am being more effective rather than focusing more on efficiency.
Leanne: So in these workshops that you run relating to human effectiveness - what kind of strategies do you teach people?
Andrew: Well, I have to start with the why. You have to understand you know the “why” in terms of what you are working for and the results you want. When I want to talk about humour I use ‘MAP’ and that stands for your Medium, Audience and Purpose.
Leanne: Nice.
Andrew: Medium is all about how you are going to execute your humour - is it in your email or your presentation? A is for Audience - who is your audience? What do they know, what do they need, what do they expect and what is your relationship to them? Because your relation to them dictates the type of humour that you can use.
You recognise the humour, that you can get away with a good friend is different from the humour you can get away with someone you just met for the first time. And then finally and most importantly is the Purpose. What is your reason for using humour?
I don’t teach humour just because it’s fun. It’s nice that it's fun. But I teach you because it works. So, are you trying to use humour because you want to get people to pay attention or are you using it so they'll remember something longer? Are you using it so that you'll build a better relationship with them or that you help them solve problems more effectively, like what is that specific goal you are going for? From there you can pick the right style. That’s what I teach - that’s the key to effectiveness… because it doesn’t matter how fast you run, if at the start of a race, you run in a wrong direction.
Leanne: Yeah. Absolutely! I really like that acronym MAP. That’s easy to remember - I the Medium, Audience and Purpose. How do you end up choosing your medium - does it relate to your personal brand, or is it like, okay here are some funny images, a cat meme always gets a laugh; or do you refer back to the person who's presenting to figure out their strategies?
Andrew: I give some recommendations based on some different styles for different purposes, different reasons, but yeah it ultimately comes down to you and your sense of humour. Your sense of humour is your ability to appreciate humour and what you find funny… that dictates your skill of humour because that’s what you are going to talk about.
For me, I love puns, so, I started to introduce humour pretty early on at P&G at the end of every single of my weekly status update meeting e-mails, I would send a couple of puns based on the subject matter.
And a lot of times, I would get e-mails back that were like, “Hey, this was a good pun”, or a lot of time they were, “Hey, this is a terrible joke”, kind of like in a playful way, but what they told me was that people were actually opening my e-mail. And scrolling until the bottom of it to see the pun.
Leanne: Yeah.
Andrew: And that’s for me because I love puns, but if you are not a very good joke teller, but you are pretty good at telling stories then you would probably tell more stories
Another thing that I talk about is that you don’t really have to be the creator of humour. You can be the shepherd of humour. You can find interesting pictures and as long as you, you use Creative Commons, you can put them in your presentation. Or, if you find a TED talk that you like, then you can share that out with people; or if you listen to this podcast and you think it is great, and you want your team to start to embracing humour a little bit more, share this podcast with them.
You know, there's a lot of things that you can do to get started. It’s a balance of what is your sense of humour, your style, and also some strategies that maybe work really effectively for or getting people paying attention.
Leanne: Yeah, that’s really cool. We do something called a pre-start talk and that’s when the leader gets up the front of a room and talks about what’s happening that day, assigning people tasks that sort of thing. I sort of liken it to the pre-flight safety briefing in terms of,, it's kind of like ground hog day. So something like this, bringing a joke, showing a funny image, whatever it is can mix it up.
In your example, we mentioned that at the end of your email, you wrote a pun. I’m also going to ask you a question about the online learning environment. Sometimes, it might be easier when you're face to face in a workshop to introduce them but I guess that’s one strategy that would work online when running online training. Is there anything else you can incorporate online?
Andrew: Absolutely! Well, yes, I think one thing I just want to touch upon the idea of what you said in these pre-start meetings. One of the viable things about consistently using humour is that it changes people's expectations and their behaviour in a good way.
When I started using humour in meetings, people would actually want to come to my meeting because they knew they are going to be more fun. When I started using humour in my emails, people are wanting to read my emails because they knew they are going to have a little bit more fun.
And so, if you take something that people have to go to, and then add your own style to this pre-start meeting, what it’s going to do is to change people behaviour to actually look forward to the meetings. That's part of the value of incorporating humour consistently and it changes perception and engagement long term. I think that is a great example of an area where humour is to be added.
Jumping over to online learning - certainly, puns work. A lot of times in online learning you try to listen to someone and it's easy to alt tab into a different program, or kind of daydream or look at something else…But if you have images that are interesting, you are going to stick to the screen itself because you want to see what other interesting image comes up.
If your goal is to help people remember something longer, then that’s a great opportunity for an association, connecting whatever it is that you are training to something else that is interesting. For example, when I was at P&G, I was tasked with teaching a three day project management course in three hours for interns. And so, with that I wanted to create an association and ultimately decided to associate project management with a wedding. If you understand the basic set up of wedding, then you can have basic understanding of project management (so, the engagement is like the project charter and the parents are like the stakeholders).
And there's a schedule, there is a budget and the vows are like the scope of what you're talking about and then we would also end with a joke that fifty percent of both marriages and projects fail.
Leanne: Yeah, I see. That’s clever. So, you talked about condensing this three day workshop into three hours. In your book, you list five hundred one strategies to use humour in the workplace. I’m interested to hear which one item has received the most feedback, or maybe it’s been controversial.
Andrew: I think one that people really like but it’s hard for them to grasp is related to subject lines - probably email because we spend too much in email.
One way you can encourage people to use it, is to use humour in the subject line, so, I think people are really interested in that but it’s a little bit of a challenge. Think of a normal subject line that you are going to use and then pick one or two words and find a unique and interesting way to say those words.
I think that's one that I've gotten more clear on - I do suggest that if you are going to read e-mail and you're starting to get bored suggest start reading the different e-mails with a different accent in your head.
Leanne: Awesome. I'm actually going to work a little later today so, I'm going to use an interesting subject title and see what the reaction is!Andrew: Yeah, the key to this is to start. The reality is that humour is a skill and that means it can be learned. I know that because I'm someone who's had to learn how to use it. It really starts in with the choice in trying things out - trying a handful of things that are within your comfort zone.
Maybe it is like you said, just an email or maybe it’s just listening to a comedy podcast on your way home to relieve some stress. It starts small but then as you start to think about it more and you see more opportunities it starts to become more second nature and you start to add it and so, it doesn't feel like you have to do as much prep time for executing some of these in your ideas.
Leanne: Yeah, that's what I love it sounds like I can implement it immediately and I can send you some feedback if I get any interesting responses. What comedy podcasts do you recommend if any?
Andrew: It kind of depends on your style, there's a plenty that are talking about comedy and how people create top comedies. The Mark Maron podcast has a lot of comedians on and they end up talking a little bit about their process and how they create comedy.
Comedy Bang Bang is more of the kind of sketches very, very popular with people in a good way to listen and there's certain personalities - I think if you start to study a little bit more, you can start to pick-up on things that can help you to be more comedic yourself.
Leanne: Yes, you do believe there's really strong parallel with being a comedian and also facilitating a workshop?
Andrew: I think so, I mean I still do stand up to prepare for speaking events because I think that stand up would be one of the hardest form of public speaker I'll ever do.
My thought is just like an athlete goes into a weight room and stresses his muscle far beyond what they're going to actually use in their sport- it's the same way with joining in. Stand up is like that, if you get comfortable doing that or get comfortable doing improv -doing a presentation where you have slides behind you and the expectation is not to be funny becomes a lot easier.
Leanne: Yeah, for sure, oh I can't even imagine getting up on a stand-up stage, that's huge. Talking about big moments on stage, you delivered a TEDx speech at a Ohio State university. I was flying back from Sydney the other day and I was watching it in the airport and just laughing- it was really funny. When preparing that speech, how much time did you put into actually getting that all together and memorising it, it's about 20 minutes long, how much time did you give yourself to do that?
Andrew: Typically, that one is a little bit hard to remember because it's a little bit further back - I also did a new TEDx speech last year which is a little bit more present in my mind.
Typically, you get a four month lead time where you get selected as a speaker. The thing that I realise for me is that I joke that I don't procrastinate but I don't do something until I have to Parkinson's law [inaudible].
So, four months leading up to knowing that I was going to do this talk, I booked myself for stand-up shows and worked on jokes in different ideas of what I was going to tell, explore the idea.
I started to book in with friends. I would say, “Hey can I come in and talk to your team about the skill of humour so, that I can practice?” I don't know the actual number of hours that I put into it but it's definitely, I think at least 5 or 6 run throughs of the 20 minute version of the talk with private groups just to get feedback; and then I did a bunch of other stand up shows to get there.
TedX is a very specific environment where if you're doing that -that's probably going to be more rehearsed in almost any other thing that you're going to do.
Maybe the first time when you're first creating your first draft, you write it all out and then as you write it out, go back and there are certain things you can look for to add humour to it.
So, anytime that you have a list you can look into turning that into a comic triple. Every time you express an emotion you might give kind of allegory for another time that you might experience that emotion in a funny way.
Anytime you're teaching a point you might use an association.
After you have that draft you can build it into bullet points. As stand-up comedians we call them a set list and you have a name for each piece of your bit and then you practice it -not worrying about getting things right or wrong but just about getting the overall ideas across.
When it comes to a presentation the only time that an audience knows you messed up is if you tell them you messed up. If you kind of skip something you can bring it back a little bit later, or you can decide to ignore it completely. I get the best performance right now in this moment based on how well I prepared.
Leanne: I heard a lot of people say that it’s really important to over rehearse so when you deliver it comes across very natural - which sounds counterintuitive but I delivered a similar type of speech (it was only five minutes) last year and I over-rehearsed. It came out effortlessly so, yeah, that's really good advice.
Andrew: Seinfeld talks about it - he says that when he's learning his material he wants to be so rehearsed, so that if someone's slapping him in the face he would still be able to perform. That’s a bit extreme for me but I like to think of the same thing - that I should be able to do a basic task like work on my speech when I’m running or washing the dishes… simple task s where you're kind of slightly distracted are great times to actually work on your presentation.
Leanne: Interestingly you talk about writing your script and bullet-points and then thinking about associations. Do they come to you in a moment, or do you you sort of think about it in the shower one night - do these associations come to you at times when you least expect it?
Andrew: It's a little bit of both. If you want to be a comedian or if you want to learn from comedian, there's a couple of things that all comedians do.
Number one, just about every comedian (unless they have a fantastic memory) has a humour notebook. That might be a physical notebook or it might be Evernote on your phone, or the notes app…but they have something where- when they're in the shower, or when they're walking along they have this idea. And so, then they write it down, right? You write that down in your notebook.
Then when you want to explore some humour or working on this piece from my talk or I want to tell a story, then you into your humour notebook and that gives you your inspiration, gives you ideas to play with.
The second thing that comedians do is that they write a lot. Within comedy we say there's something called the rule of 90 which is that 90% of what you write is going to be crap only 10% is really going to be the stuff that's really, really good that's going to get laughs on stage.
I tweet almost every day- a pun or one line, just to force myself to get stuff out there and usually at the end of the year I go back and look at all the tweets that I had and what are the best engagement -what had the most re-tweets and I will sometimes use those in stand up, or I find ways to use that as speaking engagement and stuff like that.
The difference between a professional and an amateur is that a professional is able to work even when they don't feel inspired. The way that you do that is by giving yourself structure by doing certain exercises and then giving yourself forms of inspiration like, ideas that you've captured in your notebook.
Leanne: Yeah. I guess by doing that tweet a day you’re sort of developing a discipline and a habit so, at the end of the year you got 365 puns a day - you could probably sell one of those daily calendars! How do you even think of a pun a day, do you sort of batch it on the weekend, or do you actually just every day get inspired by something that's going on?
Andrew: It depends on the week and I do a little bit both. As you start writing humour you start to see the humour in more places. As you start to do storytelling you start to realise, Oh, wait this random experience at the grocery store could actually be a pretty interesting story.
I don't know if it's actually good or not but I put this one up 30 minutes ago - my mom sent me an article about the ten most confusing emoticon or emojis and so, when I was thinking of a tweet for the day I was like, oh what's related to emojis? What's something that I could say about emojis? So, I started to explore and then my thought for the day- I don't know if it's good or not is that, is that people make fun of emojis but the truth is that they introduced emotions to a whole school of engineers had to program them in.
Leanne: [laughs] That's good, yes, I like that one. [laughs]
Andrew: Right and so, that's just me -that's a process from the day- it's what happens in my life that I can kind of look back on and explore to see if there's anything interesting to talk about.
Leanne: Oh, love it yeah, really great tips and I think as presenters and facilitators, we know that stories really help in terms of reinforcing a message but it's hard to sort of look back on moments in your life and think of that moment to reinforce a point. So having that notepad and taking notes of everyday things, can really help - in maybe three or six months time you think, well that could actually be useful in demonstrating this points. It is a much easier process for sure.
Andrew: The hardest way to add humour is to sit down and be like, alright let’s try to be funny. It’s much easier to look at existing content and then look for triggers. It’s easier to go in that direction with something funny and making it relevant than it is to come up with something scratch.
Leanne: Yeah, for sure and on that note - what is the best advice that you could offer someone that's turning from a technical expert and they want to start sharing their knowledge with others- they want to be a first-time facilitator. What would you tell them?
Andrew: I would say that certainly taking Improv classes is usually beneficial in facilitation, right? Because facilitating is different than speaking in that sense- speaking is a little bit more like stand up; Facilitating a little more like improv.
The beautiful thing about taking an improv class is that you get to practice these skills in a safe environment where the stakes are incredibly low. You don't want to read about facilitation and go facilitate your first workshop with someone, where the stakes are higher.
Leanne: I think it's about getting comfortable with being uncomfortable because I know when I deliver workshops this times the content in the audience so, it's pretty easy but then other times where one of those things will change, the nerves sort of creep back in again. Do you ever get nervous delivering anymore?
Andrew: I get nervous every now and then so, I just did a talk in Baltimore. There's an organisation here in the US called The National Speakers Association. There’s a conference on the Future of Speech which is like, what do we see speaking being looking like in ten years .
I gave a talk that was a very different that my traditional style - I wanted to show and not tell and so, I did a scene with someone else acting as a voice assistant; basically what I think content creation would be like in the future with creative machines. I was nervous for that because there was a different style of presentation and it went really, really well. A bunch of people came up to me afterward and like, you need to invent what this thing that you're talking about because I want to use it, I want the structured creative process that I can go back and forth with the machine to help me be more creative.
I've done over a thousand shows now between stand up and improv and over 500 events, so I need to trust my ability to react and perform.
Leanne: Oh great so, apart from that the voices assistant project what else are you working on?
Andrew: I'm continuing to build out training programs so, with my training company ‘Humor That Works’, the focus is on building out workshops that target very specific problems. What we're doing now with our workshops is working with smaller teams, 10 to 30 people on a specific challenge that they have - so, there's a stress management workshop there is a presentation workshop and there's a job satisfaction workshop =, I’m focusing more on keynotes to speaking and building up some creative tools that help people solve these problems. This is what I love about engineers is that it actually gets results and so, I want to help people to not only embrace and have more fun at work but for them to get better results for doing it.
Leanne: Yeah and we'd love to have you or whatever you preach, Down Under! I think your humour really relates to the people in Australia, so it would be great to have you here sometime.
Andrew: Yeah we'll have to make it work. I've been to all 50 states I want to do all the continents and so, I got to get there at some point.
Leanne: Awesome. It'd be so good to see you down here. Thank you so much for all your advice and I think the best thing about this conversation is that I could list at least 5 practical things to implement straight away. Finally, where can people find you?
Andrew: If you're a fan of puns you can follow me on Twitter, if you like more image-based stuff you can follow me on Instagram- all of my social media is @drewtarvin so, you can also follow me on Facebook, Drew Tarvin,
I have a newsletter through Humor That Works, where we share something related to humour every Friday. They can also find more either on specifically the humour site humorthatworks.com or more about me at Andrewtarvin.com
Leanne: Wonderful. Thank you so, much for your time, Andrew! Learned a lot.