020 - Create Experiences for Your Audience to Achieve Results with Rein Sevenstern

07/17/19 • 57 min

Share your thoughts about our conversation!

In this episode, I talk to Rein Sevenstern, a facilitator, coach and managing partner of Experiential Learning, a consulting firm that designs and facilitates experiences for people to leave their comfort zone in a safe environment, to unleash learning.

Since Rein has lived and worked in many different countries, such as India, Malaysia, US, Belgium and the Netherlands, we talk about the impact of cultural differences on workshop preparation and facilitation.

The core of our conversation is the question of how we can create experiences in various workshop contexts and how we can take participants out of their comfort zone while protecting the safe space. We also speak about ego and about trust and what it takes to transform groups of colleagues into teams.

Don’t miss the part when Rein guides us through the beautiful workshop experience “The valuable object” that gave me goose bombs from just listening.

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Questions and Answers

[1:31] If you were a hashtag, what would it be?

[3:58] What have you learned from the cultural differences while living and working aboard?

[5:32] Would you adjust your facilitation style to the different cultures where you conduct workshops?

[9:25] What would be your warm-up exercises depending on cultural differences?

[13:47] What is “experiential learning”?

[18:40] What makes the difference between a group of colleagues and a team?

[21:40] How important is it for the team building that each person discloses their own agenda?

[25:16] Do you build a ritual around the exchange of the “valuable object”?

[31:23] How do you bridge the gap between taking participants out of their comfort zone while still creating the safe space in which they can connect?

[41:58] In our briefing you shared about a leadership program of yours where you bring team members to a developing country to collaborate with NGOs. Can you tell us more about that?
[49:58] How do you assure the sustainability of the experience once managers come back to daily work?

[52:57] What makes workshops fail?

[54:30] What shall the listener remember from the show?

Related links you may want to check out:

Rein’s business page: https://experientiallearning.biz/
The “trust equation” by David Maister
Our sponsor Session Lab (affiliate link)

Connect to Rein on:

Support the show

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Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a free 1-page summary of each upcoming episode directly to your inbox, or explore our eBooks featuring 50-episode compilations for even more facilitation insights. Find out more:
https://workshops.work/podcast
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Did you know? You can search all episodes by keyword to find exactly what you need via our Buzzsprout page!

Share your thoughts about our conversation!

Don’t miss the part when Rein guides us through the beautiful workshop experience “The valuable object” that gave me goose bombs from just listening.

✨✨✨

Questions and Answers

[1:31] If you were a hashtag, what would it be?

[3:58] What have you learned from the cultural differences while living and working aboard?

[5:32] Would you adjust your facilitation style to the different cultures where you conduct workshops?

[9:25] What would be your warm-up exercises depending on cultural differences?

[13:47] What is “experiential learning”?

[18:40] What makes the difference between a group of colleagues and a team?

[21:40] How important is it for the team building that each person discloses their own agenda?

[25:16] Do you build a ritual around the exchange of the “valuable object”?

[31:23] How do you bridge the gap between taking participants out of their comfort zone while still creating the safe space in which they can connect?

[52:57] What makes workshops fail?

[54:30] What shall the listener remember from the show?

Related links you may want to check out:

Rein’s business page: https://experientiallearning.biz/
The “trust equation” by David Maister
Our sponsor Session Lab (affiliate link)

Connect to Rein on:

Support the show

Previous Episode

019 - Workshop Tactics: Can we Design Workshops Without Experience? with Charles Burdett

Share your thoughts about our conversation!

In this episode, I talk to Charles Burdett, a UX Designer and the founder of Workshop Tactics, a card deck with exercises for workshop facilitators. I reached out to Charles after I saw examples of his early alpha version on Instagram. And, I was lucky enough to get him to honestly share his experience of developing a physical product for workshop facilitators.
In the show, we discuss the needs of newbie and professional facilitators in terms of tools that make workshops work, what we can learn from UX Design about workshop participants. And, we speak about the difference between workshop exercises, tactics and strategies, namely how wording can impact participants’ engagement in workshops.

Don’t miss the part when we make up the workshop hierarchy of needs that could fail your session despite high-quality content, precise tactic preparation and world-class facilitation.

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Questions and Answers

[1:53] You have a background in UX Design and developed Workshop Tactics. What’s your story behind this idea?

[7:44] What have you learned from UX for workshop facilitation?

[9:45] How does UX works when we think of workshop participants as users?

[11:34] You mentioned in a previous call how you knew an exercise similar to the “premortem” for design workshops. Could you run us through?

[15:15] What are the skills a facilitator needs to make workshops with internal and external stakeholders work?

[19:33] Can you briefly explain the concept of OKR?

[23:33] What are the prerequisites for a facilitator to be able to use your card deck?

[25:24] What would be your advice for someone who uses your card deck for the first time?

[28:20] Where do you think this ‘eye-rolling’ when speaking about workshops comes from?

[30:11] What do you understand by tactics when you speak about workshops?

[33:32] As a facilitator, what do you need to do before starting the tactical part?

[40:17] Do we need creative rooms to host workshops that work?

[44:05] What’s your favourite exercise?

[49:15] What do you want the audience to remember from our conversation?
Related links you may want to check out:

Charles' business page: www.workshoptactics.com
Radical Focus by Christina Wodtke
Lean UX by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden
Our sponsor Session Lab (affiliate link)

Listeners of the workshops work podcast are prioritized for the beta testing! Sign up here!

Episodes mentioned in the show:

Alison Coward on Workshop Culture (Episode 013)

Jeremy Akers on Mindset Man

Support the show

Next Episode

021 - How to use Liberating Structures to translate the purpose into a process - with Max Brouwer

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In this episode, I talk to Max Brouwer, a change-agent, scrum master and facilitator who also runs a solo consulting business max.co. The core of our conversation is the method of “Liberating Structures” and we dig deep into different exercises (so-called “structures”) and how to effectively apply them in different contexts. We also talk about the role of managers as “facilitating leaders” and how to avoid the “leadership bias” when a senior manager joins a workshop.

I was particularly curious to learn about Max’ experience of organizing Meet-up events that bring together groups of unrelated people to learn and experience “Liberating Structures”. Amongst others, I learned from Max a nice add-on to my favourite “premortem” exercise: After a brainstorm on how to fail a goal, he asks participants to highlight those items that they are already doing and challenges them on how to stop doing that.

Don’t miss the part when Max shares how he dealt with the situation when a manager started co-facilitating the workshop and questioned the process. And don’t miss our heartful laughs throughout the show (which I decided not to delete just for the fun of it).

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Feeling inspired by the conversation in this episode? We can have our own - take a seat at my virtual table as part of a Mastermind Group.

Questions and Answers

[1:36] If you were a hashtag, what would you be?

[2:26] What is a change agent?

[3:43] Can you learn to be a change agent and how do you become one?

[6:23] What have you learned from being a consultant about facilitation?

[9:09] Must the CEO be present in the workshop?

[11:10] Can you briefly explain the concept of “Liberating Structures”?

[14:49] Do you usually co-facilitate workshops with other practitioners of “Liberating Structures” (Liberating Structuralists??)

[20:05] Can you share the story about the manager who started co-facilitating?

[25:33] Can managers become “facilitating leaders”?

[28:03] Do you think we can create a “kitchen table” atmosphere at work?

[31:00] How do you adjust your string to different topics of a “Liberating Structures” Meet-up?