50 episodes of Workshops Work – wow! What a joy every episode has been. Thank you for joining me on this journey – whether this is your first or fiftieth time listening.

To mark this milestone, I brought together ten Workshops Work alumni for a fishbowl discussion about facilitation.

We covered a range of topics in such detail, it’s a struggle to summarise it in these show notes. If you are interested in hearing what a room of facilitators has to say about the complexities, joys, and novelties of our profession, I am very happy to present to you this episode.

Thank you again for helping me on my journey to 50 episodes. Here’s to the next milestone…

In this episode, we discuss:

• The different roles in workshops
• Why it’s so important to give participants and their discussions space
• Whether neutrality should be the facilitator’s goal – and whether it is even possible
• How best to tease out conflict in a safe and healthy manner
• Our experiences of our discussion – from excitement to discomfort

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A huge thank you must go to SessionLab, the sponsor of Workshops Work. Claim your free two months of SessionLab Pro now – this deal is exclusive to Workshops Work listeners!

Questions and Answers

 [03:23] How do you ensure everyone in the room has the same understanding? Do you do so before or during a workshop?

 [08:08] How do you make sure everyone has a role?

 [11:51] What is your experience of wanting to act as a facilitator but knowing that you should not?

 [13:10] How do you deal with having assumptions about participants?

 [14:41] Neutrality and conflict

 [21:52] How do you make space for people in a fair and balanced way?

 [25:39] Neutrality, readiness, and being present

 [30:51] Reflecting on the experience of the fishbowl

 [40:54] What brings you the most joy from the transformation in the room of your workshops?

 [41:56] Coming back to discomfort

 [49:21] What do you do to limit yourself and avoid taking too much space when speaking?

 [51:54] Do you have any short lines you use to transfer power in the room?

 [53:11] Checking in on the participant’s experiences of the discussion

Links to Check

007 – Mindset Management – with Jeremy Akers

011 – How to design brainstorming sessions for huge groups – with Frans Scheepens

020 – Create experiences for your audience to achieve results – with Rein Sevenstern

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

030 – The day after! How to effectively document to achieve results – with Mireille Beumer

037 – How to facilitate group decisions in 4 easy steps – with Marjolijn de Graaf

041 – Presence, Mindfulness and Facilitation – with Amaranatho Robey

Any thoughts? Share them with us!

Support the show

👉 What happens when being “professional” gets in the way of being human? My new podcast Unprofessionalism explores the rules we’re taught to follow at work, and what happens when we break them. Listen here: