***Check out the official Schedule of Practice Sessions … comment or DM me to save your spot! *** ⚡✨ We’re looking for facilitation coaches… All levels welcome! It’s so inspiring having so many colleagues interested and passionate in pursuit of new skills. After a bunch of practice sessions over the last few weeks, we’re convinced that with a safe space and a supporting team, it’s much easier to feel confident and take the next steps. For those of you already experienced in facilitation, consulting, and public speaking, this is a golden opportunity to take your game to the next level. By helping others practice these essential skills, you become a teacher, a guru, a guide. Isn’t that what we’re all aspiring to be? We need your help coaching these fellow facilitators in their next practice session. They need your knowing feedback, to quickly become aware of where they need to improve, and where they are rocking it. They look up to you, and would love the chance in the near future to co-facilitate your next client engagement. Better make sure they’re ready! We respect your time and other commitments, and will only require you to attend portions of a practice session. Spots are limited, and all those who accept the challenge will receive their colleagues’ undying love and appreciation. Help a hero. Be the guide! Tell us, what’s your coaching level?

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!

Something that I enjoy doing, and perhaps uniquely so, is story writing. Possibly born from Safe 4.0 training as a way for me to communicate process in a way that resonated between the doers (who want to write “gimme a button there” and get their bonus by doing 100s of those) and the dreamers (who want to conquer the ever changing landscape of their industry faster than everyone else). Listening to the free call today (Thanks Tim!) i am taking the call to action to post my question about detailed story writing of the format: AS a [role] I want/need/should have [a thing built] SO THAT I CAN [complete a goal] WHICH WILL ALLOW US TO [manifest the dreamers dream] The idea of the opening of the facilitation I am selling is to create alignment of roles, things, goals, and dreams by having the participants write stories in the morning that generate note and vote how might we discussions as calibration and communication with active listening as I guide them to and through their needs and wants and blockages. Could have posted and may also in workshoper master and may also, but was going to ask “Does anyone else plan or use story writing as a tool in their design sprint work and what other exercises are good for galvanizing what comes out of that activity?” Thanks in advance for the answers and as a fun example -> as a future successful workshopper I want to get feedback about my idea to use stories so that I can work on my business plan which will allow me to show up and advertise my one thing and get clients :)

Hello community! - I'm sure you've heard the riddle: "...how do you get to Carnegie Hall?..." Well, @David Rovira is scheduling a ROUND 2 of "practice sessions" - for all of us who would benefit from seeing facilitation up on its feet. Contact @David Rovira for availability and where you'd like to plug in. Excited for this! Hope to see you there ✨

Hey there! 👋 Facilitator Club is THE community for Facilitators or those who want to learn the skill of facilitation, where you can… ✅ Talk about facilitation and workshops (like the Design Sprint!) ✅ Talk about facilitation careers and how to build one (and make $$$ as a Facilitator!) ✅ Share workshop/facilitation insights, experiences, and resources ✅ Ask the AJ&Smart team questions about facilitation & workshops! These documents contain important information about the group rules and getting the most out of this community, so please read through everything before you get started! 👇👇👇 👮‍♀️ Group rules 🚨 💃 How to get the most out of the Facilitator Club community 🕺 Really happy to have you here, hope you love the community as much as we do! Lots of love, The AJ&Smart team 💛

Sometimes when people hear the word 'icebreaker' they cringe or might feel super anxious about taking part in one. Yes, icebreakers can make you feel a bit awkward initially, but they are proven to help enhance relationships and encourage creativity. 'Icebreakers can help increase team bonds, boost performance and creativity'—Harvard Business School study Integrating icebreakers into your workshops or meetings is a great way to get everyone relaxed and ready to participate. But how do you choose the right ones so that you avoid those dreaded awkward silences? Here are my Top 2 Icebreakers that are easy to implement (in-person or online): 1. My First Job Ask everyone in the group to write down their name, their first job, and what they learned from that job. Then go round the group and have everybody read theirs out. 2. Pointless Questions Prepare a few fun questions ahead of the workshop, then go round the room and have everybody take turns answering the questions. It’s as simple as that—you don’t even need to write anything down! Here are some question suggestions to get you started: - If you could invite a celebrity over for dinner, who would it be and why? - What is your most prized possession and why? - You can have an unlimited supply of one thing for the rest of your life. What do you choose? Here are some more icebreakers for you to explore! What's another great icebreaker that I can add to my list?

One of the toughest skills to learn as a workshop facilitator is managing circular discussions. I'm talking about those discussions where where the team goes around in circles discussing the same topic multiple times. Here’s my top tips on how to handle circular discussions: - Time-boxing - let the group know that you’re going to set a timer for this discussion, the time-pressure will help people be more concise in their thoughts. - Note taking - Listen to the discussion and add notes to your whiteboard. Visualising a discussion will help the team recognise when they’re repeating themselves. - Addressing repetition - Tell the team when they’re repeating themselves, highlight the notes on the board that cover what they’re saying and ask them (politely) to move on. - Challenge relevance - Circular discussions have a tendency to get off track, if you feel like what’s being discussed isn’t relevant to the topic at hand, highlight it with the team. - Summarising - Once you feel like enough has been said, interject with a summary, ask the group if you’ve missed anything and if not, move on. - Deciding - If the discussion needs a decision to move forward, summarise and then ask your decider to decide what you should move forward with. - Parking lot - If a discussion is stretching on too long, and its not crucial to resolve it for the purpose of your workshop, add a post-it to your parking lot and return the discussion later if you have time What are you top tips for managing discussions in a workshop?

I'm asking what you as facilitators find most enjoyable because I'm curious. It is not necessary what your favorite or what you find most usable because the answer to that is probably "it depends" See this as an opportunity to reflect on what really gives you energy and why and you might gain insight into something that makes you a better facilitator.

Hello Facilitators 👋 Thank you so much for all your contributions and active participation so far. We are so appreciative of the value you are all providing within this community. But don’t worry, your contributions will not go unnoticed! A lot of questions have come in about the gamification aspect of this community. What I mean by that is, how you can be rewarded for providing value and actively engaging in this community! In Skool, there is a way you can earn points and level up. The likes, points, and levels system in Skool is a way for you to earn recognition for your contributions and engagement with the group. Here's how it works: 1. Likes: Members can "like" posts, comments, or other contributions made by other members. This serves as a way to show appreciation and support for their efforts. One like = one point. 2. Points: Points are a way to keep track of how much a person has participated in the community. Members can earn points by posting individual posts and commenting on other people’s contributions. 3. Levels: Levels are milestones that a member can reach by earning a certain number of points. These levels serve as recognition for their achievements within the community and come with perks such as access to exclusive AJ&Smart content, course previews, coaching calls and more…). The likes, points, and levels system is a way for us to incentivize and reward active and engaged members, creating a supportive and collaborative environment for everyone here. This Loom video I created will explain everything you need to know about this system and how to unlock rewards! HUGE thank you @Kerri Price, @Will Stammers, @Jeff Panning, @Joao Ribeiro, @David Finnegan, @Hassanein Ismail, @Akshay Chillal, @Nancy Lhoest-Squicciarini, @Sam Pettersson and @Andra Stefanescu (our top 10 members on the Leaderboard) who have provided so much value to this community already. We 💛 you!