workshops work

How often do you walk away from a conversation feeling heard, like you put across the things you wanted to? Feeling relaxed, not frantic?

And how often do you workshops produce those same sensations?

If it’s less often than you’d like, Johnnie Moore can help, with his Unhurried model for conversation (and more).

As facilitators, we can learn a lot — directly and indirectly — from this approach. Unhurried might make you think ‘slow’, but it’s not necessarily so. Rather than purely slowing down, Johnnie explores what happens when we add layers and awareness to our interactions. When we take time to share, listen, and reflect, the conversation sounds very different.

In an increasingly demanding and results-oriented professional space, this is becoming a rare skill. And, as it becomes rarer, it will become vital that we reclaim the time and space to be unhurried.

Find out about:

• How Johnnie developed the concept of unhurried conversations to what it is today
• Why slowness isn’t necessarily the goal of being unhurried
• How to use props and models as guides to ease your way into unhurried conversation
• Why Johnnie’s reflective practice uses a sliding scale of satisfaction, rather than failure vs. success
• How to own your role in the conversation and step into honest relating about your experience
• What ‘airtime’ in conversation is and why it is often the root of frustrations
• How to have an effective conversation while speaking gibberish

As facilitation has grown in popularity and awareness over the last decade. And, as markets grow, dilution and variance begins to naturally occur. Marcus Crow has been pondering this issue for a while — chewing over formalization, authentication, and accreditation in our profession.

An idea he wanted to explore more (and what better stage than this podcast?) is what a degree in facilitation might look like.

Is facilitation something you can teach in an academic space? What disciplines and related fields would inform the curriculum? Where would our field trips take us?

Head back to school with us in this curious and joyful episode!

Find out about:

• Why Marcus keeps questioning whether formalization will help or hinder facilitation
• The disciplines and ideas that might inform a Bachelor’s-style programme
• Whether facilitation is static or context-independent enough to be academized
• How facilitation might become a constant feature of CPD plans in the near-future
• Why Marcus would take his class to a military barracks
• What the common threads and techniques are between different types of facilitators

Facilitation might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of courage — we do not charge valiantly into battle or wrestle wild animals! — but the closer one looks at it, the more the connection becomes visible.

It takes courage to bring a group of people together and challenge them to grow and make progress. It takes courage to stand up and say “I will do this”. It takes courage to ask difficult questions.

And it takes courage to get out of our own way — and the group’s.

Roi Ben-Yehuda joins me in this episode to dissect what it means to facilitate with courage, why questions are the currency of the courageous, and what he’d plan to say if zombies attacked.

Find out about:

• Why courage has nothing to do with escaping fear, but everything to do with contextualising it
• Why open vs. closed questions is an outdated binary — and Roi’s more qualitative alternative
• How collectivism operates as a shortcut to courage
• How the magic of workshops isn’t in the content, but in how the group interact with the content
• What you can do to prevent being triggered out of courage
• Where leadership and facilitation intersect — and why collaboration and cocreation are critical to both

Facilitation might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of courage — we do not charge valiantly into battle or wrestle wild animals! — but the closer one looks at it, the more the connection becomes visible.

It takes courage to bring a group of people together and challenge them to grow and make progress. It takes courage to stand up and say “I will do this”. It takes courage to ask difficult questions.

And it takes courage to get out of our own way — and the group’s.

Roi Ben-Yehuda joins me in this episode to dissect what it means to facilitate with courage, why questions are the currency of the courageous, and what he’d plan to say if zombies attacked.

Find out about:

• Why courage has nothing to do with escaping fear, but everything to do with contextualising it
• Why open vs. closed questions is an outdated binary — and Roi’s more qualitative alternative
• How collectivism operates as a shortcut to courage
• How the magic of workshops isn’t in the content, but in how the group interact with the content
• What you can do to prevent being triggered out of courage
• Where leadership and facilitation intersect — and why collaboration and cocreation are critical to both

Improvisation seems to have an inescapable connection with facilitation. It’s a topic we’ve touched on many times in this podcast but, to really dig into its depths, it made sense to speak with the man who — quite literally — wrote the book on it!

Robert Poynton is the multi-talented author of Do Improvise and Do Pause, creator of Yellow (a unique online learning programme), and the fabled On Your Feet experiential workshop studio.

In this episode, we explore what it means to improvise — by saying no as much as yes, by learning to trust our embodied instinct and responsiveness, and by trusting that there are no wrong roads in the journey towards facilitating change.

Find out about:

• Why the unpredictable flow of a workshop is the only flow it can realistically take
• How to facilitate with instinct, as well as intellect
• How to embrace ideas, challenges, and interruptions in your workshops as creative inputs
• Why a workshop that meets your expectations may not be so successful
• How to pan for golden nuggets in a stream of silence
• Why Robert disagrees that improv is all about saying ‘yes’
• What acceptance, rather than agreement, does to transform the room

Improvisation seems to have an inescapable connection with facilitation. It’s a topic we’ve touched on many times in this podcast but, to really dig into its depths, it made sense to speak with the man who — quite literally — wrote the book on it!

Robert Poynton is the multi-talented author of Do Improvise and Do Pause, creator of Yellow (a unique online learning programme), and the fabled On Your Feet experiential workshop studio.

In this episode, we explore what it means to improvise — by saying no as much as yes, by learning to trust our embodied instinct and responsiveness, and by trusting that there are no wrong roads in the journey towards facilitating change.

Find out about:

• Why the unpredictable flow of a workshop is the only flow it can realistically take
• How to facilitate with instinct, as well as intellect
• How to embrace ideas, challenges, and interruptions in your workshops as creative inputs
• Why a workshop that meets your expectations may not be so successful
• How to pan for golden nuggets in a stream of silence
• Why Robert disagrees that improv is all about saying ‘yes’
• What acceptance, rather than agreement, does to transform the room

Accessibility — ensuring the spaces we create are open, welcoming, and easy for everyone to join — is a critical, but often neglected, issue in facilitation. It took the rise of online workshops to take accessibility from an afterthought to a main event.

But this increased focus on accessibility, long overdue as it was, has proven to be to everyone’s benefit. A rising tide lifts all boats and more accessible workshops help everybody feel included.

Marie Dubost has been shouting for accessibility in facilitated spaces for many years and it’s a joy to know that her voice is now being heard. In this episode, we focus on the specifics of how we can make our online workshops more accessible, whilst also touching on some broader reflections on facilitation and inclusivity.

Find out about:

• What percentage of internet users have access needs
• How much variation there is in access needs, from colour-blindness to traumas
• How to become a proactively inclusive facilitator
• Why accessibility starts long before the workshop begins
• The quick wins you can start practicing today to create greater accessibility in your workshops
• Why accessibility in workshops is more about mindfulness than deep expertise

When you’re facilitating, where are you? In your head, your body, a role? There are no wrong answers, but there are plenty of interesting questions you can ask to better understand how you facilitate.

Anna Momber-Heers can share a lot of interesting insights, as her background is as a performance and communication coach. She helps professionals use tools and ideas from acting to get into their bodies and into a more settled place in their minds.

The closer we can get to our bodies, the clearer we can get in our minds. And, in fact, the more we can start to use one to influence the other. Learn about embodied facilitation and how to act like the facilitator you want to be in this episode.

Find out about:

• Why creating a facilitator ‘role’ for yourself can make it easier to focus on your job
• How we can use acting tools to connect us to our minds, bodies, and emotions
• What changes when facilitators have a stronger connection to their physical and mental experiences
• Why trust is irreplaceable in workshop settings
• Differentiating between our private selves and our present selves in the room
• How to handle the tension between encouraging improvisation and managing time
• How to train your body to prompt and support your mind in different states