Ep. 3: Revealing Innovation Secrets – How to Facilitate like a Superstar!

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all right everyone welcome to the deliberate way great to have you all here thanks for
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holding on because we’re here and we’ve arrived I’m Dan Seawall the host of the
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deliberate way and thanks for joining for our third episode it’s great to have
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you guys here live and on with us today so it is holiday season ladies and
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gentlemen and during the holiday season there is no better gift that you can
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give than the gift of knowledge and we’ve got two awesome people that are going to be with us today for our third
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episode uh Janet jeddo and Cal Austin thanks for both being here they’re here
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with me live and we’re going to be talking to them and hearing a lot of interesting stories tidbits tips and
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some of the hidden secrets that they’ve been storing away in their their gunny
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sack of uh of innovation facilitation expertise so thanks for being here guys our pleasure thanks for having us all
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right well um for the folks who aren’t familiar with the deliberate way and maybe you
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missed the first two episodes but you can re-watch those on our YouTube channel a little bit of a promotional
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plug there um long ago when I was a college athlete and a wrestling coach I noticed
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something kind of unique about the really successful athletes and the the
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kids that I worked with they had a systematic or a very intentional way
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about doing things almost what do you call a deliberate approach and fast forward about 20 years give or take and
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I started to notice inventors marketers entrepreneurs artists musicians you name
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it the most successful people have this really deliberate or systematic way of
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doing things and we’ve got two of those people here today Cal and Janet and
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we’re going to talk more about your craft The Craft half the facilitation because there are deliberate and
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systematic ways of being an awesome facilitator a lot of people assume it’s just god-given just divine intervention
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and Voom you have it but like every other craft and advocation it takes time
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and it takes deliberate practice so we’re going to talk a little bit on those skills and techniques here today
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um so for those who don’t know our guests let me give you a quick read out of who they are so Janet Janet
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you’re the founder of the ghetto group and for the past couple of decades you’ve taught applied creative problem
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solving you’re a masterful facilitator that’s worked with dozens and dozens of
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organizations large and small academic corporations you name it across the
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Spectrum and um Janet is a facilitator an organizational developer a trainer a
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coach for executives teams and project leads alike and you know if you’re
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looking for Janet you might find her in the city of Steel in Pittsburgh PA where
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hopefully it’s not as freezing there as it is here but I gotta believe it is yeah it’s got to be
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um but when she’s not facilitating Janet the rumor is is that you’re out hiking biking boating skiing hopefully not all
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at the same time but you’re an outdoors person so awesome to have you Janet thank you
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yeah now not to leave cow Cal’s a superstar I’m telling you uh but instead
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of working on the outside Cal has spent his career working on the inside of one of the largest companies in the world
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full disclosure Kell and I have known each other for quite a bit of time when we spent time together at Pfizer where
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he’s been there for over 30 years sorry cuts out of the bad cow 30 years 30
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years in that time I’m told he’s done it all sales sales operations training
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Global Marketing Innovation coaching I mean you name it he’s done have you been the CEO yet by the way not quite yet not
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yet that’s what I’m hanging around for all right I’m I’m voting for you next board meeting I’m coming
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um when Cal is uh not doing every job that’s been known at Pfizer he’s running
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workshops and training he’s trained in design thinking CPS agiles growl up strength finders you name it he’s doing
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it and uh when he’s not out facilitating rumor has it you’re doing beekeeping you
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you got some beekeeping going on there Cal I have some bees yeah you do that’s
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an unusual avocation very unusual habit I don’t know if I would uh recommend it to everyone but it’s an it’s an
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interesting one yeah that that really is and uh I hear you also built an ice skating rink in your backyard I don’t
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want everyone to bum rush your your property Upstate New York but that’s a that’s an amazing thing it takes a lot
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of facilitation skills to do that yeah I don’t know about the facilitation skills but it takes some determination some
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deliberate determination all right well I love that um folks here’s the deal we’re gonna
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have three rounds with cow and Janet round one just a little bit of to hear about their perspectives about
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facilitation their life and World philosophy then we’re going to call a pause it’s your chance to have your say
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so in that what we’re going to invite you to do put your questions comments in LinkedIn live send them over our
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moderate over on LinkedIn live is going to grab them she’ll uh send them over here and we’ll answer or ask a number
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your questions so happy to field those so you have a thought put it out there have a spark share it
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um there’ll be a time for that our third round you’re gonna love it you know I’m a big fan of games and you know
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one of the great things about games is creating a little bit of energy and momentum behind those games and the game
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we’re going to play is called facilitator dilemmas now it happens from
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time to time as a facilitator the unexpected happens I’m going to lay on
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Cal and Janet an unexpected scenario and they’re gonna have 30 seconds or less
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this has not been rehearsed they don’t know what’s coming I’m going to lay that scenario on them and they have to tell
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me what they would do so from my lips to their ears and to your viewing and
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listening so that’s the plan oh then we’ll have a few little more wrap up things at the end some some gifts for
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you imparting wisdom so that’s a story and I’m sticking to it um first question I have is for Janet so
Getting Involved With Innovation
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Janet um you’ve made a career out of this you are you are a masterful facility I can
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say because I’ve been in sessions with you we’ve worked together there aren’t many people that really have this craft
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down like you do um how did you end up doing this it’s it’s not like you studied facilitation
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in college and my daughter was a freshman in college now in the business school said there’s no classes around
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facilitation or innovation facilitation for that matter
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yes that is true and I definitely didn’t study this and was also similar to Cal
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well inside of an organization at the time so I was actually in the business
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of salty snacks I was working at Frito-Lay organization and and not to
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date myself but inflation was also uh had spiked up quite quite a bit and it
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was eating indoor profit margins we had two choices we had to find ways to increase revenue or reduce cost and I
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happened to be in the manufacturing side so we focused on reducing cost and we
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did it we decided we wanted everybody focused on it everyone from
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the shippers the Packers the menu you know people that were actually online to
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making the salty snacks and but that we had to find a way to do that and so we
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embarked on this journey of including every person and how do we get them to
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Think Through what are all the challenges they could solve to reduce costs finding innovative solutions and
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finding ways to implement them and so uh there was a group of us that became what
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we called facilitators in uh in Creative problem solving and we were just doing
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it you know that wasn’t my job I had another job inside of the organization but this was sort of the add-on it was
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the how we operated and and from there it just I guess became a career so when
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I left Frito-Lay they you know asked me to stay on in that role of a facilitator
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and uh and I did so and then just continued on so it’s been a great
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Journey I’m blessed to have been on this journey and it’s nice to see that it’s
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not such a strange thing anymore yeah very very serendipitous and do they
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still have kind of a kind of a facilitation capability there or did it disappear yeah that’s a good question
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and um having not been in the organization I know that I’ve actually
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parent company of Frito-Lay over the years um and so I think there’s been a lot of
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you know there’s there’s still good thinking going on whether it is as now deliberate as you say or organized I
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really I don’t know actually so many of us have moved on in our careers uh in
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that so just just one more follow-up for you John on this you know something I hear a lot is can you really facilitate
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Innovation it’s it’s something that kind of strikes like lightning in a bottle and I know how I feel about this but but
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your thoughts because I’m sure people must say to you like well can you really make this a facilitated exercise doesn’t
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Innovation just have to happen with a few gifted people yeah that’s uh that is sort of the old model and that everybody
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thought oh there’s a small group of creatives over there and we’ll just throw stuff on that side of the wall and
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what we found is that absolutely you can navigate you know you can help people
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think well together and innovate well together by being very purposeful in making sure
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that they’re doing good challenge formulation again solution formulation formulation not just the first three or
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four ideas that come to mind but getting giving people the right tools and the right thinking skills to generate
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expansively uh and so absolutely and even in Frito-Lay in that story that I
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told you we were able to succeed in our hitting our goal even faster than we
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anticipated because of getting people to use those their God you know god-given
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talents and that we’ve sort of buried away as we in our schooling um so
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absolutely you can innovate you can learn to innovate you can learn this craft
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100 yeah I’m gonna turn this over to Cal you’ve been inside a Pfizer for for many
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years and Pfizer has gone through like most companies because sort of cycles of supporting Innovation as a as a
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capability centrally then decentralizing then disappearing then coming back
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um how did you get involved in this Cal and you’re you’ve been doing this for a while and you you do a lot of sessions
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inside the company maybe share a little bit of context about you and how you got involved on this yeah I guess you know
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one of my roles was in training and you know I really enjoyed that imparting of
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knowledge but anyway it’s limited because you’re training something that
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the colleagues can then go and replicate so that the the training is really only
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as good as that bit of information that you’re you’re trying to share it doesn’t
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it doesn’t get expansive from there it’s you know it’s very rigid structure
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here’s how you do it now you try it you practice it now you go off and do it on your own
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but I went to a training conference probably it’s probably close to 15 years
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ago at this point and there was a session around uh open space technology
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and and a way of of creative on Creative problem solving and it it was a half a
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day No Agenda a group of people trying to solve an overarching Challenge and it
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was one of those unconference self-organizing sessions and the the lead facilitator uh said you know you’re
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not going to leave this afternoon without discussing what’s important to you because you have as much opportunity to
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put it on the agenda as the next person and it was so eye-opening I was so
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energized now it is as free form as it gets and it’s a
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it’s a tough role for a facilitator to do an unconference because it looks like it’s just you know wide open but there’s
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there’s some method to the madness but it really opened my eyes to the world Beyond just the rigid training to you
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know what if you just get the smart people in the room to create the content that could then
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almost be be trained or adopted or executed and I just became so energized
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with with the idea of this that you know I stalked people advisor that were doing creative Innovative things until I uh
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wound up uh in a role in that space and I’ve really been doing it ever since you know Innovation customer experience work
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I mean I have to tell you you make me a little nervous when you say imagine a
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session without an agenda and a meal I’m like oh my God how could you not have an
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agenda but you’re saying something a little different you’re saying that sort of on the surface it may look free form
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but underneath there’s an order to the chaos or am I am I overreach you you’ve
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got it I mean when you get into some of the unconference methodologies that’s one end of the spectrum your training’s
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all the way at the at the other I like fine finding that that space in between where you’ve got enough you’ve got
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enough order you’ve got the processes as Janet mentioned you’ve got the mindset
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you’ve got the tools but there’s there’s enough space for the smart people in the
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room to really diverge on on the topic that they’re working on I don’t want to
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limit them so much that it’s it’s all about following an agenda they need that creative spark time to uh to really get
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things done let me flip this over to Janna for a minute Janet when you think about sort of like your Bible if you
What Facilitators Should Do To Be Successful
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will the things that you tell people when they’re in a session Thou shalt do these things what are some of the things
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you tell people if you want to be successful whether you’re a participant or you’re the one facilitating what are
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some of the things that would be on the The Ten Commandments of the facilitator it doesn’t have to be 10 by the way but
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you know what might be in scripted on that tablature yeah well the the
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absolute foundational work that we do and and whether I’m a facilitator or a
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participant or the problem owner I make sure that we understand the difference
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between generative thinking or as as Cal said Divergence and the ability to
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really be expansive in our thinking and also convergent thinking or evaluative
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thinking the ability to make good decisions and make evaluate and select out of many options but most importantly
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to defer your judgment and separate those two things so that is our our
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go-to as you would call it principles of how we operate so we’re always
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orchestrating a team between those two things and we’re not mixing them up so
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as a facilitator it is my role to make sure that we are giving space for both
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that’s that’s appropriate and that we’re doing great Divergent thinking and we’re
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doing also really good impactful conversion thinking evaluative thinking so I always say trust the process that
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we’re going to do both and that um I often and my role will navigate through three phases of work it’s either what
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are all the challenges and let’s make sure we’re working on the best thing to work on mm-hmm what are all those
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Solutions and make sure we’re getting some Innovation and there’s some new thinking and then how do we take those
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Solutions and make a go of it uh so in the end uh you have all three phases uh
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that are well done and that we’re not skipping around uh but most importantly
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it’s being able to be really skillful in generative thinking so you get some in
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you know Innovation and new thinking in there and evaluative thinking or convergent thinking
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thanks Jack Kelly your things you might have in your Bible that build on are different than than what yeah and well
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let’s take the different stakeholders so a lot of work happens before you get you
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get in the room for the session so uh one one key is to make sure that you and
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the sponsor of the challenge or the the challenge owner are a hundred percent
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aligned on what the challenge is and what what he or she hopes to get out of
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the day you you want to find you want to make sure you’re aligned before you you enter that room
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now for the participants of of the session that you’re facilitating
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there’s a a word I often use is permission they’ve got permission to say
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things that might sound stupid on the surface or they they they’re very
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Divergent um and that there’s a psychological safety that that goes along with that that they
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can they can get in they can they can mix it up they can be playful they can be silly they could go out on a limb but
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it’ll all come together and it for me it’s the facilitator
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uh Janet used the the term right before we went live read the room
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and my role is to read the room because I’ve got I’ve got an idea of of blocks
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of time but the last thing I want to do is you know right on the cusp of inspiration
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say well you know we’ve got to move on because we you know it’s it’s you got to
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read the room when things go longer some things don’t need as much time but you can’t you can’t demand when when that
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spark of inspiration is going to hit now I mean we can’t put on the agenda 1206
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inspiration that’s right that’s I don’t know why we can’t do that yeah it’s a great point you know something you just
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said I’ll just kind of pull this out um something I’ve observed both of you
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do that thinks remarkable to to other people about is when you’re doing live
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sessions I’ve noticed that you don’t sit there behind the scenes kind of putting
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on your makeup and waiting for the show to begin you’re immediately connecting and engaging with the group and I I
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found that that’s it sounds obvious but it isn’t for for a lot of people they have their agenda they’ve got a follow
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it bit by bit um you’re out there chatting socializing reading the room so you know what to
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change in that moment and it seems like uh just socializing but it’s a whole lot more than that
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um your thoughts I’ll just throw it as a toss-up for you you were Janet about that reading the room and that sort of
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informal piece that you inherently do yeah I mean I I’ll I’ll take a first
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shot at that and especially remember no matter what you’re doing that we’re all you always want to think about the
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humans involved there are people that are in that room there are people that are trying to you know figure out what
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it is they’re hurting they have a problem as a result or some something’s happening uh that’s why you’re all in
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the room so you definitely want to just Center yourself on those folks that are
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there uh and you know I always say it’s easy to show up at a meeting but we’re
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always asking people to show up and choose to be present that’s really
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important and and it’s important that we do that as well that we are present with
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every person in that room and that’s that’s a thing that we ask everyone when
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they come in the room it’s good to show up thank you for showing up and now we’re going to ask that you choose to be
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present with with one another that’s really important I feel I feel you on that feels very existential I
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love it and it’s true you’re right you could be here but not really be here and everybody knows that the person who
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takes out their phone they’re like yep I’m here I’ll just be with you in five minutes um it really does make a difference and
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I’m gonna flip something over to Cal just build you on this a bit there there’s a quote that I like
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um it was Douglas MacArthur the general famous General who said something to the effect of that you know plans are
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useless but planning is indispensable um when you think about the planning
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part when you’re running a workshop or you’re planning any type of facilitative event
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um how much goes into the planning what what type of shorthand do you use and how do you prepare
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uh you know you know this kills me because I I I always like like it to
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look like it’s just flowing and it’s coming so natural and there’s
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but I I really kind of a rule of thumb is for every hour that I’m in front of a
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group I’ve spent at least two hours prepping
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and I’m sorry I have to admit this but I put together a spreadsheet that does
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have an agenda and does have timings of of what I want to accomplish and what what tools do I need to do this uh
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what’s the objective of this portion and it is down to the five-minute increments
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and you know it I never let anyone see it I certainly don’t
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share the detailed agenda with the stakeholders and certainly not the participants because again I I like it
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to look like things are flowing and and once groups start working on their project I’ll glance at it make make
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edits but the the plan has has got to be there I love your quote because
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I don’t think I’ve ever run a session that that stayed to the minute and I’ve
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been wildly off uh in some cases but the the key column is that objective what
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what are we trying to accomplish here and as long as I can figure out a way to stay true to the objective I I really
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don’t care so much about did I did I stick to the the minute yeah very
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helpful Janet do you how do you different different intentions to do handle it differently than Cal no I I
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handle that I handle it almost identically uh and that we always have on the agenda not only what are the
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things that we want to do there uh but what’s the intent or the objective and
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even to the point of what what material do I need at that moment in time uh what
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do what is it that I need at my disposal right there and even you know so oftentimes people
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are building agendas they forget the transition times so if you have if
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you’re moving groups in and out and small groups and large groups it takes time and unless you’re accounting for
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that pretty soon five minutes 10 minutes 20 to 30 you know over a course of a day it could be a whole hour off so you are
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always thinking about just even that kind of the the flow of that day but I
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do it exactly what Cal is doing so I agree and speaking of timing I just want
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to hold sessions always look so fun you you’ve got you’ve got an agenda I
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actually do tell and the same thing it’s a you don’t have to share you know you have a participant agenda they don’t
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need to know what’s that saying about sausage you know it doesn’t you don’t need to know all that’s in the sausage
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you know it’s like God knows you don’t want to know what’s in most sausage you don’t want to know and the same thing
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here you may not want to know all those things but it’s important as a facility educator to be thinking about all of
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those things though and I’ll just put a reminder out to our our viewing audience if you have questions feel free or
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comments for that matter put those in LinkedIn live we’ll invite our moderator to pop those right into the chat for us
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so we can field those before we do so put those in when you’re ready
Feelings Towards Co-Facilitation
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um I have another question just to build on for for Cal and Janet you know we
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we’ve talked about facilitating and it sounds like it’s kind of like a solo hero type of sport it’s one person but I
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found that I almost always co-deliver uh often co-deliver how what are some of
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the things to consider when you’re bringing somebody along or you have a co-facilitator because it creates a
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little bit of a different Dynamic when you do it with somebody else um Cal I’ll turn to you co-facilitation
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love it hate it things that you consider if you are the more experienced or even the less experienced one for that matter
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yeah I I love it uh actually and you know I think comes down to the two heads
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are better than one while I’m I’m speaking you know my co-facilitator might be able to to really pick up on
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things that are going on in the room um whether I’m the the least the less
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experienced or the most experienced I think you can certainly learn from each other and and um you can you can bring
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in someone that you can learn from or they might be able to to learn from you and it’s it’s a great way to almost
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build in a bit of an apprentice uh model where I take the 70 of of the material
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but give someone that’s newer an opportunity to to spread their wings a
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bit but it’s I think it’s just a great practice to always have have a couple facilitators
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certainly for groups of of 10 or more and then as you break out into working
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groups you’ve got a little more flexibility as to who works with which group so that the participants are
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getting some some Hands-On coaching and facilitation oh great Point Janet you
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you do a tremendous amount um you do both I from what I from what I
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recall um tell us a little bit more about when when would you do dual and what are some of the considerations when your code
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delivering yeah I think size is the primary consideration if you have eight
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to ten people I think you know that that may be what I might consider Overkill uh
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and also there’s a an element the client you know the owner of the client in my case uh may not want to bring to two
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extra people in or you know myself and another person but when there is a larger group absolutely you can only
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have so much you know you can only have so many eyes and ears on that team but also it’s a creative process so that’s
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what’s fun about facilitating co-facilitating you know during those breaks you kind of huddle and you say
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okay you start generating options to try to catch up because that’s what you’re usually doing and or or what you know
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what what do we think we might need here that we weren’t anticipating so it’s always a fun creative experience with
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another co-facilitator so not only do you learn but you also just have that fun of uh just playing off the ideas of
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one another with one another vocal variety does matter I I agree 100 on
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that um we do have a few questions that have been directly sent over to us so a few questions for you guys
Audience Questions
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um first question was about resources and tools so some people are interested in you talked about building kind of
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plans is there any particular tools that you use when you’re building an agenda
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besides Excel so I’ll put that out to either of you toss-up um any tools resources you’d recommend
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well Dan I know you and I have used a session lab uh as a as a tool to put
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agendas together that’s a possibility um I don’t know if the tool is as important you know Excel is is a go-to
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as well uh but I don’t know if the tool is as important as just getting that
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agenda down getting the boxes filled in around what are what’s the flow and intent and uh timings what do you think
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yeah I I go back to excel I keep it pretty pretty simple uh I’ve seen
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session lab and I think there’s if you’re if you’re facilitating all the time you can take as I understand it
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blocks out of session lab and and copy and paste them so you can kind of
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repurpose them and build but when it when it comes down to getting things
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done I I fall back to my good old Excel agenda wow all right you guys are traditional I personally Love Session
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lab I find it to be an amazing tool um this group of guys I think they’re in Scandinavia built this tool and it’s uh
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it’s a real it’s really nice so now I have no personal Equity or stake in it but um I do like that that’s my top tip
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we had another question that came in um separate from the agenda how do you
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present housekeeping rules and guidelines as you begin this session um Cal I’ll put that out to you I know
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there’s a lot that you do before you ever get into the content housekeeping guidelines getting people warmed up what
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do you do what do you recommend yeah I mean there’s there’s the basics say yeah there’s the the layout of the room uh
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people want to know where the the food or snacks are they want to know where the bathrooms are they they want to know
30:28
that there’s a break coming at some point so I’ll usually lay out just some
30:34
of that the true housekeeping items pretty early on and and pretty conversationally
30:40
um but I think maybe a little bit more importantly some of the expectations of how to be
30:46
for the the day or uh the the couple what do you mean what do you mean by that a mindset you know what okay what
30:54
are the behaviors the mindset um I don’t really come out and say Hey
31:00
you know like you can’t make fun of someone for a stupid idea or for for saying something silly but I do like to
31:06
maybe start with some sort of game where participants go through kind of the
31:13
steps that we’ll be going through with their business challenge but in a playful way and then you know once the
31:20
game is over I’ll say you know what during that game you you thought
31:25
expansively you prioritize you you you picked a winner we’re going to be doing
31:32
the same thing with your business challenge but I noticed during the game you were laughing you were being uh you
31:40
were being a little silly at times you were having some fun you were building that momentum and camaraderie
31:46
those are the exact behaviors we want to see when it comes in time to focus on
31:51
the business challenge so I kind of mindset you know ground ground Rules by
31:57
doing rather than just telling I I love the I’m a big believer in games I love
32:02
that you bring that up because the people don’t worry about failing at a
32:07
game usually so it’s risk-free it’s an experiment it’s fun and also we know
32:14
like when you’re playing a sport or any type of activity that warm-up matters it really matters it makes a big difference
32:21
so yeah I love that Janet your your thoughts on that things that you might do beforehand
32:26
uh similar that that we always will practice a little Divergent thinking and how do you do that and deferring your
32:33
judgment uh so that if we’re going to ask people to do that in a session on their work related challenge we want
32:40
them to get it to do that in a non-work related challenge so they can experience that in a a more freeing way so again
32:49
tapping into that uh the other thing is I have a couple basic uh guidelines such
32:55
as he’ll show up as we said show up and choose to be present listen for understanding uh things such as
33:03
we’re going to diverge you know keep Divergent thinking separate from convergent thinking so I might say a few
33:09
of those but then at the end I will ask them so what else you know what else do
33:14
we agree with I agreed to as a team that we want to bring in and that’s when
33:20
they’re they will often will do the you know let’s put the phones away let’s put the computers away all of that so that
33:27
it’s coming from them versus me telling them so that there are things that they
33:32
may choose based on their team to implement as a ground rule the good thing about that is when somebody breaks
33:39
the ground rule you have it up there and you say well um hey well there it is
33:44
hey you broke the you broke it you haven’t bought it you know I you you
33:50
kind of I I I can’t help but think one of the things that you bring up is this idea about you know attending being
33:57
present and it’s so damn hard today to to be present I I I see it you know
34:04
whether it’s you know if your kids being distracted or us as adults being distracted doing a workshop some people
34:10
love it because they’re forced to be present other people find it like a
34:16
prison they’re like ah I don’t have my phone I don’t know what to do with myself and it’s difficult how do you
34:21
guys cope with that how do you help folks navigate because it’s you know it’s it’s
34:27
not just cliche it’s fact that there’s an addictive nature to technology we’re
34:32
so accustomed to it so when you’re in a workshop even if you are using technology it’s to a particular end
34:38
um they’re not surfing Facebook how do you help people kind of cope with that I’ll throw that out either of you can
34:45
jump on that one well anyway it’s a tough one yeah can
34:53
you solve that for me right now I I don’t know if I can solve it but I you know gone are the days of put your phone
35:00
in this basket or you know you can’t break out your phone because I I use
35:05
have participants use their phone for for real-time voting or for instance or
35:12
uh use the technology in ways that uh make a multimedia experience out of out
35:19
of the session I I guess with a couple
35:25
direct statements of hey you know I noticed a couple of you are grabbing your phone we’re gonna have a break in
35:31
15 minutes if you don’t mind just put that away for now sometimes you do have to just tell them
35:37
when when to break out the phone and when to put it away but it it I think most professionals have figured out
35:44
their own time management their own ways of using technology so it doesn’t it’s
35:49
not a huge problem anymore what do you think Janet I would I would agree I usually let participants come up with
35:56
that versus me because we’re all adults in the room I think the the the thing
36:01
about it being engaged is more about um you know to engage people it’s about
36:08
asking making sure you’re asking questions open-ended questions and you are scanning that room to make sure that
36:15
all those voices are heard and that’s how you get people to be present because
36:20
now they’re involved in solving this thing or creating this new product or
36:25
creating a new service whatever that is that you happen to be working on so it’s
36:30
really about the art of the question and making sure that you’re including everyone in the development whether it’s
36:37
the understanding part or the defining or the solution finding whatever that is
36:44
we’re all engaged age in that activity yeah oh great great points and there’s
36:49
so one more question and then we are going to go to our speed round better known as facilitator dilemmas so hang on
36:56
to your hats it’s coming um the last question that we got uh was around a sweet spot where the ideal
37:05
number of participants in a session and I know it will really vary based on the
37:11
type of session but when somebody says to you Janet what’s the ideal number for
37:16
you how do you respond or what questions do you ask to to clarify that yeah I
37:22
think you’re right it depends on the scale of the challenge you’re working on but also always remember there’s only so
37:28
much air time in a meeting that means the space where people can get to the talk and the input and if you have 30
37:35
people in that room there’s going to be less people having that time so one is
37:41
if you have a lot of people how do you design the session so that there’s enough air time for everybody to have a
37:48
say and it might be that breaking up into small teams in which case I might bring a couple facilitators in so we’re
37:55
in these pods uh or that eight to ten people there’s usually enough air time
38:01
or space for people to give input so I I often will think that together you know
38:07
an eight to ten maybe even 12 people you probably have enough space but otherwise
38:13
once you get there that doesn’t mean have to exclude people you just have to change your design right training is a
38:19
critical element in facilitating it’s not you know you’re going to plan it yes then you have to design the session and
38:26
that that’s all about how do we make sure that we have enough space for people to be heard
38:32
yeah that’s a great Point you’re you may have to change your design if the the number doubles because you can’t give
38:39
them the same love and same engagement Cal is there too small could you what is there ever too small of a workshop
38:46
well it depends on what you you define as the workshop like I might scope out
38:52
the the workshop with the sponsor and maybe one other so that’s me and and two
38:57
stakeholders yeah that’s a mini Workshop in a way just to make sure we’re aligned
39:04
um you know I wouldn’t really want to go in and do a workshop with two participants because you know they’re
39:10
they’re just gonna diverge you know one times one it’s you
39:17
know you’re not gonna have a lot of uh different perspectives
39:23
five or six I mean that I think that’s very workable you you it’s enough to
39:28
kind of be expansive get some some expansive thinking but still get get
39:35
something done so I I wouldn’t worry as much about it being too small as long as
39:41
you’ve got five or six people would you and let me let me just kind of build on
39:46
a little bit more is there a sweet spot for you is there like a number like if somebody said to you I’m not going to
39:51
tell you what we’re going to be facilitating I’m not going to tell you what we’re gonna do what’s the ideal number for you if you were to pull some
39:57
numerology out the uh the other end where what number would you pull out
40:02
here’s the number all right I’m ready six or seven wow all right that’s a
40:09
breakout group I don’t I don’t really care as much about how many people are in it what I care about is are the
40:15
people that are there there for a reason do they have something to contribute some some real reason for being there I
40:22
don’t want just Hangers On um but you know I can share what I have to share to any number of people but
40:30
then what I want them to do is break into groups really no more than seven six or seven is really just perfect and
40:38
as Janet said at that point I love to have um a co-facilitator or you know if I’m
40:46
not able to have a facilitator for each table what I like to do is beforehand go around and just find someone at each
40:53
table that get I can appoint as a table captain or
40:58
Ambassador or you know give them some title where I can look to them to know that you know that that table has
41:05
completed their task or their their they’re ready to move on whatever the case may be just so you can get a little
41:12
bit of uh uh a read of the room a little more quickly and I I’d be remiss if I
41:18
don’t ask one more question before we go to our speed round somebody asked this in LinkedIn live and it’s a it’s a great
41:23
question it’s probably on everybody’s mind is virtual versus in person we we
41:29
live in both of these worlds all of us do and we know that um how does that there are a lot of
41:35
people that will tell me Dan I can’t do this type of Workshop virtual and I I
41:40
find that you can do something’s much better virtual personally um what do you guys find what are some
41:46
of the con considerations about designing for virtual that you know
41:51
perhaps you wouldn’t think about as kind of like a of a hobbyist as a facilitator what what do you consider Janet yeah
41:58
that’s actually a very good question certainly super relevant in today’s world and the last few years I think we
42:05
have learned we can do a lot more virtually than we thought we could so that gave us that permission to
42:11
experiment and try new things I think that uh the the skills holds are steady
42:17
they’re stable you still want to do Divergent thinking before convergent thinking for your judgment have a
42:23
process to navigate through the complexity uh so we don’t have people going all over the place at the same
42:30
time we’re you know we’re not thinking the exact same thoughts but we’re thinking in the same space at the same time
42:36
you know uh We’ve added a few elements that help you so you can you have tools
42:42
that are out there to use virtually if I’m doing a team uh you know if I’m working with a team virtually I don’t
42:49
want to just have a zoom call we might have a um you know a board where we’re
42:56
actually able to collaborate such as Miro or mural there’s a lot of different
43:01
virtual out there to to use and to
43:06
in terms of converging there’s people everywhere there’s a lot of different things to employ there so do that and uh
43:15
always better to have those things than not have them and just have this conversation that swirls around so uh
43:23
that’s that’s my take that’s a great point I’m going to ask you the same or similar-ish thing about the virtual
43:29
experience I do remember it’s got to be at least a few years you said to me hey
43:35
you got to try out Miro and I said I don’t know like I’ve used some other virtual stuff and then I fell in love
43:41
with it um because you can do so much with it you can do things differently the recording the capturing is much richer
43:48
than when you’re in person however you have the consideration that people are not fully present they may be doing
43:55
something else um how do you get people engaged you know what what do you do in the virtual
44:01
world because some people definitely are struggling with this yeah and you know I use Miro I love it
44:08
uh but I don’t think it should should be the center of attention you know just
44:14
like in a live Workshop you know it’s not uh the workshop was okay but I love the flip chart you know miro’s just the
44:20
flip chart so sometimes I I will have a little bit of a a game within Miro you
44:27
know where okay everyone let’s grab a post note and put you know put your favorite uh snack or something where
44:33
they they have to actively do something put their name and what they’d have for a snack at the break that’s coming up
44:38
just to make sure that everyone is present and accounted for and engaged
44:43
because you know when you start seeing all the little names floating around you can’t tell if one person has checked out
44:50
and really isn’t participating so I might do something like that but but
44:55
again the important thing is they’re using the tool for the purpose at hand not just because
45:02
it’s a cool tool when it comes down to the the overarching question of live versus virtual I would say though either
45:09
or it’s tough when some are alive and some are virtual and um that that’s that’s where it gets
45:15
difficult but I think we can do just about everything uh with with the virtual tools that the zoom and and
45:22
teams breakouts plus Miro that’s a pretty good combination yeah all right
45:27
well thank you for that thank you for the questions folks if you have other points comments questions keep them
45:34
coming on LinkedIn live we only have a little bit of time left and I want to make sure that we get a chance to get to
Facilitator Dilemmas (Speed Round)
45:40
facilitator dilemmas so Cal Janet here
45:46
are the rules of the game I’m going to read off a scenario I’m gonna appoint one of you as the respondent if someone
45:52
else wants to jump in you’re welcome to do it to add add on to this these are all scenarios that we’ve faced before so
45:59
if you listening in or thinking boy I didn’t hear about this well there’s a good chance you’ll get a scenario that
46:05
you might have come across before or that you will so we’ll do that yeah 30 seconds and I’ve got my handy dandy Bell
46:13
here to ring away to tell you time is up you guys ready I’m getting nervous me
46:19
too all right I know the pressure is on Cal I’m going to start with you first since you’re nervous your project
46:25
sponsor tells you you’re conducting an in-person session but when you get there
46:31
there are four people dialed in in just a handful of people in the room what do you do you’re on the clock
46:38
oh that’s what we were just talking about um in a case like that I think I would
46:43
pivot quickly and have the four people that are dialed in do a breakout on
46:49
their own and set up a mural board very quickly for them and then have the group that’s in person be another breakout
46:56
group bring them together to the main topic but let them go into the breakouts now I have done times where I’ve given a
47:03
live person a buddy to have one of the the remote people on a phone but I think in this case I’d
47:09
separate them out entirely awesome right on the dot Jen anything to add to that
47:14
or anything different and that was a nice pivot that’s a it’s a great way of quickly
47:20
um figuring that one out good job all right well Janet you’re on the clock now you ready there’s one participant one
47:28
participant in your workshop and they cannot stop criticizing every single
47:34
contribution and idea both verbally and non-verbally rolling their eyes and you
47:40
don’t know what to do with this person what do you do when there’s a one jerk that just doesn’t stop you know crapping
47:47
over everybody’s contributions yeah so there’s a few things that I
47:52
might do here and I it’s a subtle escalation uh so in the beginning uh if
47:58
I am capturing what they’re saying I would just preface that Dan thinks XYZ
48:05
whatever you think and if they continue I would keep pointing did I did I get
48:10
that did I did I miss anything Dan is there more to that you know to your criticism
48:16
um so I might just capture it verbatim so I’m not judging it’s just he thinks I’ll capture it if they are
48:24
converging while somebody else is diverging let’s just say it’s an idea and they come up with an idea and Dan
48:30
says that’s such a stupid idea I might then pause and and just put it out there
48:36
we are diverging what are you doing you know let me ask are you diverging or converging and they often will recognize
48:43
they’re converging and I’ll say great well so let’s turn your feet your criticism into another idea give me
48:50
another idea so that’s a technique through the day I don’t know how much
48:56
time I have but I would just simply hold on I would just put that person aside and
49:01
just do a little debrief with with them I like that sorry I gave you the ring on the Bell Cal anything else you would do
49:07
anything you know I think I think Janet Janet hit it yeah I like the escalation idea yeah yeah you know sometimes you
49:15
just pull out you know since we just had the World Cup congratulations to Leonel Messi also who’s considered the great
49:22
facilitator on the soccer field you know sometimes you could borrow a little bit of World Cup soccer and pull out the
49:28
yellow card and say hey I’m gonna have to this is a bookable offense I’m gonna have to send you you know off the field
49:35
if you do it again although it might be a little kitschy some little signal like that can make a difference all right Cal
49:41
you’re running a workshop and the goal is to generate big disruptive ideas but
49:47
the idea so far are not particularly big or disruptive or even that great what do you do
49:55
yeah I think at that point I I would I would pivot I wouldn’t make any sort of
50:01
announcement I would say you know what the great we’ve got a good collection of ideas but you know let’s see if we can
50:07
really push them and I would throw out uh some provocations and sometimes I even
50:14
carry little cards that have set provocations and you know there’s different techniques like Scamper but
50:21
you know I would say you know how would you solve for this challenge if you had a superpower
50:27
how would you solve for this challenge if you were five years old how would you solve for this challenge you know if it
50:34
had to be done with zero budget and let them take another stab at it
50:39
and sometimes just with that that self-imposed roadblock you get teams that think about it completely
50:45
differently like oh if I had zero budget I’d have to do this and I would you’re conversely unlimited budget oh if I if
50:53
money wasn’t a worry I would do this and that and that gets those ideas to go beyond
51:00
just the incremental and it usually teams don’t go so wild that there isn’t
51:05
a kernel of of reality in there that can be built on that’s a little bit further out there than than the initial ideas I
51:13
like it great point I love pushing the the thinking trying to break the
51:18
existing patterns they’re stuck in so good good suggestion there cal um Janet
51:24
pre-work everybody hates doing it but we know the battle is won or lost before you step on the battlefield
51:31
here’s a situation there are a couple exercises in your Workshop that depend on the pre-work being done and
51:37
everybody’s agreed to doing it you show up to the workshop nobody did the pre-work what do you do
51:43
yeah that is so common uh it’s more common than not common I’ll be honest with you Dan I always
51:51
assume that they there will be people that haven’t done the pre-work uh you just have to embed that and that uh if
52:00
they don’t do it then you’re hoping that they’ll catch up but there’s not a whole
52:05
lot that I do in terms of I try to minimize the pre-work actually because
52:10
of that that people are thinking you know they’re very busy people and you’re just going to assume that they aren’t
52:17
going to have that much time or if they do that there’s a way to make sure that
52:23
they’ve done it in other words if you want them to read something you might ask them to send their response in uh
52:30
before the workshop that way you can be assured that they’ve at least put their eyes on it uh then and if they haven’t
52:36
then send them a little note reminding them to do it but uh you
52:42
really try I just try to minimize the pre-work because of that happening often and it does remind me that as a
52:49
facilitator you’re one part facilitator one-part designer one part behavioral
52:55
scientist you’re trying to modify people’s behaviors so that’s a great point about using the kind of response
53:01
in front right in the beginning to create that behavior to encourage that behavior speaking of which cal
53:09
um imagine you’re facilitating a virtual Workshop participants aren’t responding at all what do you do
53:18
laughs log off try again another day now if they’re just not responding at all
53:24
you have to bring it up it’s like you know we we’ve got an objective here you know we we’ve got a limited amount of
53:30
time and you know the sponsor is really expecting X Y or Z you know it’s been
53:36
quiet maybe we need a little fresh air so let’s let’s take a let’s take a quick break grab some highly caffeinated
53:44
beverage or run outside um but when we come back we’re going to have even less time to get get the work
53:51
done so let’s let’s expect this that and the other when we come back it’s going
53:57
to be super fast but we’re going to get it done and we’ll we’ll get out so I mean give them the chance to to change
54:04
their environment and tell them when they come back they’re really under under a time constraint to deliver for
54:12
really what they’re there to deliver it’s not it’s not I don’t own it
54:17
speaking of which Janet if I you had you had to come to a workshop and you’ve
54:22
been told you had six hours to do it but you know what we got to cut it down to four and even told that right on the
54:28
spot which I’m sure has never happened to you before um what do you do what are you doing you like a third of
54:35
your agenda time has just been completely eviscerated that’s a very
54:40
um realistic situation uh I think um you know it actually happened to me very
54:47
recently I was uh working in Morocco and at this Workshop was designed
54:54
um months before right I mean not on the spot so here we are and of course
54:59
Morocco is in the World Cup playing Spain in the quarterfinals and that’s a
55:04
big deal and and that was a big deal that’s a big deal very big deal the
55:10
participants came and basically said oh no we the game we need to be where we’re
55:16
going to be to watch the game and we need to be out of here at 2 30. so that that agenda a couple hours just
55:24
got just taken off that agenda and so yes we had to rethink and so always the
55:31
first thing you think about is what’s the intent what did what were the objectives of that day there were some
55:38
things that it was they were nice to have but there were things we must have and so that’s what we focused on it’s
55:45
like let’s you know uh we had a few nice to haves in some spots that we peppered
55:51
through and we stopped all the peppering through and we pushed all the must-haves right up front and so you know and we
55:58
all agreed that there may be some stuff we have to catch up with do we all agree yes okay but yeah that happens all the
56:06
time and you just have to be agile in that moment you have to think about you know how how might we how might we do
56:13
this how might we do this in a new way uh how might we do this in a in maybe a
56:18
faster way or how might we get the most most important things done
56:24
working lunch and working lunch no break in the afternoon and that those obviously those
56:31
are some things we actually did we said okay but if you’re leaving at 2 30 we take that break away are you okay with
56:36
that oh yeah yeah and uh so and we shortened yeah we did a little shortening of lunch but sometimes
56:42
that doesn’t work either but yeah yeah well you know World Cup hard to plan for those big big happening there that was a
56:50
great great real example we are just about out of time um I have one more I’ll throw it as a
56:56
toss-up to you guys and then kind of some closing thoughts from from both of you um toss-up question you arrive at a
57:02
workshop and the place looks like someone decorated it uh like it was Rikers Island it’s small dark dingy is a
57:10
big table right in the center it’s awful how do you run as a facilitator what do you do and what how do you kind of
57:16
improvise given the circumstances and the setting isn’t what you’re promised or expected
57:22
well I I’ll just start on that cow because it again it just happened not that long ago um and first of all you
57:29
never just show up at a workshop let me just triple that you should always be at that workshop and enough time to
57:35
rearrange everything and we have to you know when you completely can flip around the environment to Cal’s point before
57:42
your environment is important how are cares arranged is there a big table in
57:47
the middle get that out of there uh if you could possibly do that those those you know open that space up as much as
57:55
possible and there was a meeting recently um it was actually in another country uh
58:01
but it was so dark in that room so what did we do we scoured the space we
58:07
outside and we brought lamps in from outside of that room we’re like taking them out of the lobby grabbing them I
58:15
love it it’s like a flea market it’s a Moroccan shook where you can just grab
58:21
Appleton carpet to bring them in we were just grabbing stuff and um and to
58:27
brighten up that space because lighting is everything and um
58:32
never show up on time always show up plenty years that is a great Point
58:39
timing things will never be the way you expect them to be so always be ready to
58:45
improvise and be early yeah the space always ask for photos of the space to be
58:51
sent to you ahead of time great points all right well we are just about out of
58:56
time but I’m gonna ask Cal first from you any sort of hidden secrets Little
59:01
Gems to share with the group your parting advice um that that maybe we haven’t shared yet
59:08
well I already gave you the secret that you should plan you should have a detailed agenda you should know what you
59:15
need to accomplish how you’re going to do it but but once you get into it I think the
59:21
key is to have some fun I mean you’re going to have one of the best roles in the company or you know in in the the
59:28
facilitator has the best role with the group they’re working with have some fun with it be ready to flex don’t get
59:36
freaked out as things change because they change every single time uh just make sure you follow through on those
59:42
objectives that you want that you want to accomplish and have some fun with it and things will will go just fine they
59:49
they always seem to awesome thanks Cal Janet you get the last word on this
59:56
yeah so always remember that you aren’t a Content expert in what they’re doing so your role is to get people to think
1:00:02
well together that’s what you’re there for you don’t need to know about what they’re working on as much as how
1:00:08
they’re working on it so stay on that side get them to think well together and trust that they have the content
1:00:16
I love it great from your lips right to everyone else’s ears well said first of
Concluding Thoughts
1:00:22
all big high five for you guys you’re both amazing thank you so much for sharing some of these secrets or not so
1:00:30
secret secrets that everybody knows but they don’t think about you guys were great um for our folks next episode we’ll be
1:00:37
in 2023 if you could believe it 2023 is almost upon us but from deliberate
1:00:43
Innovation for the deliberate way um we’d like to thank you guys our friends our clients our colleagues
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um we hope you have a very safe healthy and prosperous New Year and in 2023 be
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on the lookout we’re gonna have some awesome episodes coming your way while we deconstruct the deliberate ways
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people do different things again Janet Cal thank you for being with us today and uh for everyone else be well we’ll
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talk to you soon stay deliberate