Hello Facilitators👋 I'm really curious about where everyone is from. I'd love to make this a mega post where we can see how diverse the Facilitator Club community is. Who knows, you might find a lot more people in your area than you thought! Once I have lots of answers on this post, I want to make a nice graph!

Hi there! As I noticed that there is interest in the community about this topic, I would love to create a thread dedicated to great resources about Facilitative Leadership. I'll go first: Douglas Ferguson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMF8WrY6ScY&feature=youtu.be. Who's next?:)

Hi guys! I really need your help:) Thank to my outstanding content strategy on LinkedIn:))) I got a client that asked me to run a 4 h session (focused on collaboration, team building etc) for 150 - 200 ppl (I don't know the exact number just yet). What format / exercises do you suggest that I could easily facilitate on my own? More context: these are people from all over the country, with different management / collaboration styles (it's more of a franchise model) so the annual meeting is about getting them on the same page, making them feel like a team. Thank you sooo much:)

Watched Jonathan's "1 Hour Innovation Workshop - Lightning Decision Jam" on YouTube and was going to try to implement it tomorrow, as I have a team offsite with 36 members, a team that I inherited a few weeks ago. Was going to try to run an LDJ to address a general feeling that team members are disconnected with each other and other partners, working in silos. Was going to try 6 tables of 6. However, question is that do we start with "one" HMW, such as "How might we increase collaboration within the team and with partners/stakeholders?" Do we all work independently/jointly on the same HMW? On different HMW statements?

Recently, I facilitated a workshop without being asked… Since I’ve relocated to my hometown (Brasov) a few months back, I’ve been on a quest to find opportunities that will make me an active member of the society 😎 And so I’ve met Mara Oprișiu and Rares Ioan, the founders of Sewa Experiences. They had just launched the company and wanted to have a meeting with the artists involved in the event, to get their feedback. The moment I heard “meeting”, I kinda knew how that will play out (extroverts take the stage, valuable input is lost, you know 😀. And so I offered to run a workshop for them. I knew that they were the kind of people that would make good use of the feedback they get. So why not make it valuable? And just like that, I joined a “party” I wasn’t invited! Why am I telling you this? I feel that facilitation is a superpower. Just like Spidy 🕷 , we should use it when we see someone in "danger" (in my case, of a bad meeting). People don’t know what they don’t know. If all your life you have attended “traditional” meetings, how would you know how co-creation feels like? Someone must show you! Did you offer to facilitate workshops when you saw people in "need"?:) I cannot help myself:))

When you try to be everything to everyone, you become nothing to no one. Facilitation is a powerful tool. It can streamline a difficult decision, ease the process of idea generation, offer clarity, save time and money and the list goes on and on. A gift and a curse. Because you cannot put your finger on it unless you experience it first-hand. And even then it's quite difficult to identify all the use cases. After more than 5 years facilitating all types of projects (persona generation, business plan development, internal process redesign, you name it!) I have decided that it’s time to stop waiting for clients to “get it” = understand what facilitation is and identify on their own the situations in which it can be extremely useful. It’s our job, as facilitators, to articulate a specific value proposition, relevant to a specific group of people. I’m still figuring out my zone of genius (as @Gay Hendricks describes it in his book “The big leap”) + who are the people I can serve best with my innate abilities and the know how I have gathered until this point. I don’t know how long/difficult this process is going to be but what I do know is that I’d rather put it in the work to find out than being everything to everyone, tempting as it may be 💰 Have you found your “zone of genius”? If so, what was your process? I’m just asking for a friend 🤓 P.S : I found this list of facilitation niches. I don't know about you, but I needed a moment:) BOARD FACILITATION CHANGE MANAGEMENT COACHING COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT CONFERENCE FACILITATION CREATIVE FACILITATION DIVERSITY, EQUALITY AND INCLUSION FOCUS GROUP FACILITATION GRAPHIC FACILITATION INFORMATION SYSTEMS FACILITATION ISSUE RESOLUTION MEETING FACILITATION OPERATIONS REVIEW ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PARTNERING SESSION FACILITATION PERFORMANCE CONSULTING PROCESS IMPROVEMENT PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROJECT PLANNING STRATEGIC PLANNING TASK FORCE FACILITATION TEAM ACTIVATION PROCESS TEAM BUILDING TRAINING CREATION/CUSTOMIZATION

Hi there:) I am currently trying to narrow down on my "genius zone" as a facilitator + to find my "ideal customers". If any of you went trough this process and found some useful tools / frameworks, do share. I feel I need some kind of structure/clear process, I'm in my head a lot:) Thankssss

Hey Workshoppers, I usually don't cross-post anything from our Workshopper Inner Circle community but this video I made for the group today kinda exploded and created a lot of really interesting conversations. So I said fuck it, let's pop it in here too :) P.S. Applications are still closed right now for joining our Inner Circle community, if they open again any time soon we'll post about it here 👍🏻 **************************************************here's the post*********************************** Hey all! I spend a lot of time coaching or being coached. I spend a lot of time around hyper-successful entrepreneurs and consultants, but also people who are stuck (and stay like that forever). I have some thoughts about what keeps people stuck and what makes people successful. I decided to make a little video about something I think is going to hold a LOT of you back from achieving success. It's a bit of an experiment so lemme know if it's interesting! https://www.loom.com/share/b03e24ebdf8449d3bb700abd7fa35cdc?sid=cc23381e-4203-4a6c-8057-631e886c3670 Cheers, Jonathan

Hi guys! I hope you can help me with some recommendations. As e reference point, this is the type of work I like: https://www.samara.com/ https://www.raus.life/ Thank you so much!

My (unrealistic) view would be that people work with me, I do a great job, people like me, people refer me. Did this happen? Sure! Am I still striving to do my best work? Yes! Is this a strategy? Definitely no! Chris Do was my companion on the treadmill today 🏃‍♀️ And I must say that this episode of The Futur™ podcast (link in comments) really spoke to me. It puts such a HUMAN lens on SALES that all I want to do is…SELL 🙈 I will sum up some gems linked to the SALES acronym but I highly encourage you to listen to the whole conversation about the “5 Core Business Principles” Serve – “temporarily, put on hold your needs and wants and be of service to others (…) Learn what it is that your clients want, where they failed before, what it means for them to succeed, what’s at stake if they fail again” Ask – “the best way to sell is to ask calibrated questions (Chris Voss). Ask a question that primes your prospect into thinking what it is they want to achieve” Listen – “active listening is very different than how we see people listening today. Most people stay quiet long enough so that they formulate what they want to say next” Empathize – “in order for us to get to the future we must go to the past first” (Socratic Selling) and understand where is the pain our clients want to avoid repeating Summarize – “once you get a complete understanding of the problem and the potential solution, you’re going to close with a hypothetical question: If you saw a proposal that did X Y and Z, in X time for Z price, would you be interested in moving forward?” At this point, if you’ve done your job it should be a smooth, effortless YES” 🎙 drop How do you feel about sales? What works and what doesn't?

If you're just yelling: "Can I have your attention please?!" you're probably gonna end up losing your voice and damaging the trust with your participants. In my weekly #icemelters email I shared today 4 different methods for making sure participants stop talking and focus on you, that: 1. Don't require you to raise your voice 2. Quiet a room in less than 10 seconds 3. Boost engagement I am curious what have been your go-to methods to quiet down a big group during your workshops?

Any faves?:)

May I know how everyone deal with the sticky notes if it didn't stick well on the white-board! I already bought 3M sticky notes but some pieces didn't stick well and really cause trouble flying multiple times during the workshop! And how do everyone keep the sticky notes and tidy it up after the workshop/session had completed? Thank you everyone for sharing your experience in these two situations!

Inspired by the ui design workshop. I am now designing a branding workshop for charties or clubs or small businesses to create a simple brand which they create together Anyone have interest or experience in this area?

Hey all 👋, if you could recommend one book about questions, what book would that be?

hi community is there anyone who can help me to learn UI/UX design kindly mention in the comments if there is free sessions thank you

First time poster, long time reader here! Would love advice on this specific story. Last night I was talking with a close friend of mine. He was having a work life/career crisis and didn't know what to do. He was contemplating all the different paths he can go into, but knows that he needs to work on specific skills for each one of those paths (he's more a jack of all trades, master of none). Anxiety and stress has been winning him over and his head is just going round and round on possibilities and gauging the time and money he would need to be able to transition. Knowing what's he is going through (I am currently unemployed and very stressed, the UX market is saturated in the US), I wanted to help him sort out some of his thoughts. In 20 minutes (while my friend tried to relax watching an episode of an anime) I developed a small workshop for him to go through: Collect All the career paths he can go through The skills needed for those roles The skills he himself has to develop if he goes in that role Choose "Dot voting" (technically giving a score) divided into 3: 1-3 least liked to most liked; 1-3 hardest to insert himself in the market to easiest; and 1-3 most effort to least effort to lear the skills he needs. A little unconventional, but that what I came up with for his style of thinking so he would accept the outcomes. Create Here I blanked out due to fatigue and sleepiness (and where he told me he was ready). We created a plan on what to do with the first path; his steps on how he was going to study and look for jobs in that path. Commit I was too tired to think and he was thinking on the timeframe. SOOOOOOO on an impromptu case like this; how can I improve this workshop? What activities could have yielded better results (besides concrete activities in Create and Commit hahaha)?

If you sell your services at market price, then you automatically position yourself as a commodity. Great facilitators should be so unique that their customers have no obvious reference point.A famous and talented Romanian singer told me the other days that he sometimes finds himself in awkward discussions about how much he charges for “just” 45 minutes. It got me thinking that the same goes for facilitation. Often, the client looks at the “man-days” that go into a project. But what if you can create a workshops design in “just” 3 hours because you have so much experience that it’s now easy for you to do that? And what if you can save your client a significant amount of money through a one-day workshop? Should you charge “man-days” with a fixed price? Whether you are a singer or a facilitator, if you find yourself in the position to explain why you charge X amount for your services, think about this:- The client doesn’t understand the value you are creating => make it obvious (ex. the stress and costs you eliminate, the time you save, the money you help them make etc)- The client doesn’t understand the process you go through to create that value => explain what goes into your work (knowledge, creativity, and time to think are the core pillars of the services world)- The client has chosen a wrong reference point for your services => discuss what you and only you can bring to the table, so it becomes obvious that your services are quite unique (the assumption being that they are 😎 )The conversation about value is an important one! And we should have it with our clients before we set the price of our services. Different projects = different value creation = different pricing.Would you pay The Rolling Stones the same as a basement band, for 45 minutes?Credits go to Adam Davidson who wrote an amazing book (The Passion Economy), that gave me a brand new pair of lenses 🤓

..as Jonathan Courtney would put it:) I identify as a creative person 💡I get super excited about “shiny and new” ideas. In consequence, one of my biggest challenges when I started facilitating was to sit back and resist the temptation to chip in. Sometimes I managed to keep my thoughts to myself, sometimes I didn’t. Looking back, what I found was that the process is more important than indulging my creative side 😁 Today, I know I ran a great session when: 🤓 My focus stays on the people in the room (leaving my ego at the door) ❓ I add value by asking powerful questions (without offering solutions) 💡 People arrive to solutions on their own (I only hold the space for them) At times, as facilitators or leaders, we are so focused on “getting there” (delivering results) that we are tempted to take shortcuts (offering solutions). The pitfalls? You get push back on your ideas, or worse, your ideas are accepted without actual buy-in. So, whenever I get the urge to manifest my creativity, I take a deep breath and try to think about a great question I could ask instead 🙃

What's your favorite facilitation tool, and how has it made your job easier? Share a picture or a brief description, and let's learn from each other! For me, it's Magic Paper! It turns ANYYYYYYYYY surface into a whiteboard which has been useful every time the workshop location changes very last minute, or we run out of whiteboard space. It's not cheap but 1000000% worth it!

If indeed you consciously have one? I'm interested in how niche people have taken their businesses in this group....let me (and everyone else) know!