a live debrief - how to create a profound team workshop with listening

Today I'll explore before, during, and after a workshop.

This is a workshop I had with Sophie, who you'll hear from shortly and her peers. Then we did the same workshop with Sophie's team.

People regularly say, "Oscar, how can you listen after the conversation?"

This can take many forms.

It could be right at the end of a workshop where you ask a question or a poll roughly in the last 15% of the workshop.

You want to catch it in enough time that you can discuss it so you can hear what's being heard by the participants. So if the workshop's one hour, you should be asking this question between the 45-minute mark and the 50-minute mark.

Here's some of the questions I ask,

• what's one thing that changed your mind about listening today?
• what's one thing you'll implement based on what you heard today?

The first question is typically in shorter workshops, and the second question is typically in longer workshops.

Post-workshop, you can also run a survey or you can deconstruct the magical impact that a workshop has in a 25-minute debrief.

I do this within 14 days of the workshop.

What you don't know about me is I'm really disciplined and rigorous about post-workshop debriefs.

In fact, I'm talking about that before people even book in a workshop. I'm signaling to them that there will be a debrief. I signal to them in the workshop, that is something we'll discuss in the debrief. And this is crucial to create a space and place, to create a container where the host of the meeting, or a significant executive sponsor can unpack the learning that they had, that the group had.

I want to ensure that the host reflects on their own experience in the workshop and not just the workshop itself.

What you'll hear from Sophie shortly is her post-workshop experience and how ideas landed so powerfully because the workshop was so experiential, it was very hands-on.

I want hosts also to reflect on the participant experience, individuals, as well as a group.

I want to listen to what participants actually heard, rather than what I said.

I want to listen to what participants didn't hear, couldn't hear, or I didn't communicate effectively enough that it was useful for them.

Finally, I want to understand what was productive for the audience so I can distill that and crisp that up for next time to ensure that if it's landed with one group, it's highly likely to land with another group.

This is part of the craft of facilitating a workshop from a listening orientation, you want to hear what the group heard, what's landing, and what's not.

When you pick that up and use it next time, it's like somebody who's a woodworker, who's moving from chisel to sandpaper to varnish.

Sophie's been very gracious, she's allowed me to record this conversation to help you listen to what a debrief sounds like. Here are some of the excerpts from the discussion with Sophie.