workshops work

Self-Determination Theory posits that human motivation is driven by three central values: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.If we take SDT and apply it as a framework to facilitation, the parallels become apparent and abundant. Ib Ravn sees the opportunities here with great clarity and, as a result, has a lot of valuable insight to share about how we might use SDT in facilitation.In the context of SDT, we also discussed how facilitation can be used in social spaces and situations — and the challenges we are likely to come up against when we do so.Recording this episode was a delight. Ib is erudite, focused, and curious and our conversation unlocked new perspectives for me about facilitation in general and how I relate to it specifically. I hope it will prove to be as useful for you.Find out about:The natural connections between Self-Determination Theory and facilitationHow autonomy, competence, and relatedness fit into the heart of facilitationWhy more of our social spaces would benefit from facilitation and why it’s so hard to doInterrogating culturally acceptable facilitation and its past, present, and future limitsHow to facilitate with cultural and cross-cultural awarenessWhy acceptance of facilitation in social spaces has yet to catch up with professional spacesDon’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.LinksWatch the video recording of this episode on YouTube.Ib Ravn at the Danish School of Education.Connect to Ib:On LinkedInShare your thoughts about our conversation!Support the show✨✨✨Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a free 1-page summary of each upcoming episode directly to your inbox, or explore our eBooks featuring 50-episode compilations for even more facilitation insights. Find out more:https://workshops.work/podcast✨✨✨Did you know? You can search all episodes by keyword to find exactly what you need via our Buzzsprout page!

It’s never been more important to facilitate with an awareness of power dynamics, systemic imbalances, and inequity within groups.The progress we’ve made—collectively—towards awareness and understanding of inequalities has been enormous, but the next big step is to do deliberate work to counter it. We’ve got all the awareness we could dream of and the time has come for us to act on that knowledge, rather than treat it as an end in itself.Maha Bali’s explanations and exemplifications of Intentionally Equitable Hospitality will go a long way to helping you make equity a part of your work. IEH is a deliberate approach to facilitation that prioritises structural and environmental design to create accessible, sensitive, and inclusive spaces.It was eye-opening and joyful to speak with Maha. Find out about:What Intentionally Equitable Hospitality is and how it relates to our workWhat the four phases of Intentionally Equitable Hospitality areWhy focusing on micro imbalances can shift the macroCreating socially just education, information, and community spacesHow to plan, prepare, and resource more equitable workshopsHow to use technology to bring an IEH approach to hybrid conferences and workshopsDon’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.LinksWatch the video recording of this episode on YouTube.Reflecting Allowed, Maha’s blog about education.MyFest website.Equity Unbound.Community Building Resources.Virtually Connecting website and YouTube.Connect to Maha:On LinkedInOn TwitterShare your thoughts about our conversation!Support the show✨✨✨Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a free 1-page summary of each upcoming episode directly to your inbox, or explore our eBooks featuring 50-episode compilations for even more facilitation insights. Find out more:https://workshops.work/podcast✨✨✨Did you know? You can search all episodes by keyword to find exactly what you need via our Buzzsprout page!

It’s the talk of the internet and business circles, the culmination of many years of research and training, and an amazing step forward into the next stage of technology enabled and enhanced life.ChatGPT, I’m amazed and amused to say, is this week’s guest.I put a series of questions, taken directly and adapted from previous episodes, to the conversational AI. What emerged was sometimes fascinating and sometimes mundane, sometimes enlightening and sometimes misguided. I took every answer as it arrived, not asking follow-up questions and not editing the information it gave me.What is most interesting is to see what the collected knowledge it’s been trained on can tell us about the current state of and view on facilitation.Find out about:Differentiating the skills needed and demands of online, in-person, and hybrid facilitationWhy AI cannot replace a human facilitatorChatGPT's reply on whether facilitation is the 21st century's most crucial leadership skillHow to learn facilitation and what distinguishes a good from a great facilitatorThe facilitators' biggest challenge and how to overcome itWhat the future of facilitation looks like — and how we might include AI in itDon’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.Share your thoughts about our conversation!Support the show✨✨✨Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a free 1-page summary of each upcoming episode directly to your inbox, or explore our eBooks featuring 50-episode compilations for even more facilitation insights. Find out more:https://workshops.work/podcast✨✨✨Did you know? You can search all episodes by keyword to find exactly what you need via our Buzzsprout page!

Viren Thakrar, founder of In The Game, specializes in using games to enhance team development and collaboration. He discusses how play can revitalize learning and foster genuine connections in the workplace. Viren explains the mechanics behind engaging games and how they can facilitate deeper team dynamics, avoiding 'forced fun.' He also emphasizes the importance of understanding individual personalities and aligning team goals for success. His approach proves that joy and purposeful fun can coexist, creating a thriving team culture.

Does pricing make you prickle with anxiety? Imagine what it would be like to feel confident and calm about valuing your services… and now meet Jenny Millar, who can make that imagination a reality.Learn all about positioning, discounting, strategy, and communication in the context of pricing in this standout episodeJenny’s expertise in pricing will be invaluable to any facilitator or coach, as service businesses are notoriously difficult to price. And, as the founder of Untapped Pricing—a highly regarded pricing strategy consultancy—her advice is certainly of the highest value.Enjoy a free taster of her expertise in this episode!Find out about:Strategies for pricing coaching and facilitation servicesThe relationship between pricing, and positioning and how to get confident with bothJenny’s three rules for discounting and how to discount without devaluing yourselfWhat communication has to do with pricing and why it can make or break your choiceThe three facets to consider to determine what your services are ‘worth’How tiered, rather than bespoke or binary, pricing makes life easier for you and your prospectsDon’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.LinksWatch the video recording of this episode on YouTube.Bitesize pricing tactics - a collection of 2min videos.Downloadable PDF guides - to take you through the fundamentals of pricing strategy that works for your customers and for you.Untapped’s Pricing Scorecard - our free tool to evaluate the health of your pricing in minutes. Learn how to improve it with a personalised 22-page report.Connect to Jenny:On LinkedInBook a call with JennyShare your thoughts about our conversation!Support the show✨✨✨Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a free 1-page summary of each upcoming episode directly to your inbox, or explore our eBooks featuring 50-episode compilations for even more facilitation insights. Find out more:https://workshops.work/podcast✨✨✨Did you know? You can search all episodes by keyword to find exactly what you need via our Buzzsprout page!

Things—found objects, ephemera from the discarded world, are everywhere. A marble, a spoon, a coil of string. They’re forgettable and ignorable and they’re the magic ingredient that makes Jules Gilleland’s workshops work.Jules developed Things as a problem-solving tool, informed by design thinking, to help people connect the dots and capture their problems in a physical form. It’s a context-neutral learning through play, a way to tap into ourselves when we can’t rely on language, and a means of overcoming the challenges that refuse to budge.Learn all about Things, Jules’ story, and how a bit more visual thinking can make your workshops work even better. Find out about:What Jules’ Things are and why they can be so magical in workshop settingsHow the four principles of Collect, Connect, Capture and Communicate appear in Thinking with ThingsWhy participants behaving like children is not such a bad situationHow to get out of your head and improve your hosting by focusing on engaged participantsHow to turn a disparate pile of found objects into a problem-solving powerhouseWhy Jules prioritises a remarkable ending to her workshopsDon’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.LinksWatch the video recording of this episode on YouTube.Think With Things websiteConnect to Jules:On LinkedInOn InstagramOn FacebookShare your thoughts about our conversation!Support the show✨✨✨Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a free 1-page summary of each upcoming episode directly to your inbox, or explore our eBooks featuring 50-episode compilations for even more facilitation insights. Find out more:https://workshops.work/podcast✨✨✨Did you know? You can search all episodes by keyword to find exactly what you need via our Buzzsprout page!

The latest milestone for the workshops work podcast—200 episodes! 200!To celebrate the occasion, I’ve produced a special episode. Instead of speaking to a guest, I spoke to you.And what better way to source my inspiration for episode 200 than to turn to the community that has grown and flourished around the show? I turned to my community to gather their questions—big and small, serious and silly—about the podcast, what I’ve learned, and my thoughts on facilitation at large.Michelle Howard, previous guest on the show, asked the questions on your behalf.  Find out about:My own misconceptions about facilitation that the podcast has revealed over timeWhat I would say, if I could travel back in time, to the Myriam who was about to record episode oneWhy I’m always, at least partly, pursuing constructive ignorance in my interviewsHow my focus has shifted from what my guests ‘do’ and where it rests nowWhat has changed in my professional facilitate practice since hosting the showLessons and points of interest from building the NDB communityBig thanks to Patrick Cowden, Yvonne Chin Irving,  Lily Gros, Mirjam Leunissen, Vitalij Malahov, Zoha Sharifyazdi and Dov Tsal for contributing questions! Don’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.Connect to Myriam:On LinkedInShare your thoughts about our conversation!Support the show✨✨✨Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a free 1-page summary of each upcoming episode directly to your inbox, or explore our eBooks featuring 50-episode compilations for even more facilitation insights. Find out more:https://workshops.work/podcast✨✨✨Did you know? You can search all episodes by keyword to find exactly what you need via our Buzzsprout page!

In May 2022, an academic research paper titled “Virtual communication curbs creative idea generation” was published in Nature (one of the most prestigious scientific publishers). They tested how the transition from in-person to online interaction affected innovation (measured by collective idea generation) and concluded that video calls were bad for brainstorming.The media derived: “Zoom is a creativity killer.”But, as (online) facilitators, we have first-hand experience with remote teams’ creativity and effective collaboration. But, we haven’t had hard evidence proving the study wrong.My guests on today’s bonus episode, Elise Keith (CEO of Lucid Meetings, Author and Meeting Innovator) and Dave Mastronardi (CEO of the Gamestorming Group) have the ambition to test the hypothesis that online work killed creativity through a global mega experiment. As they kick off the project with a Symposium, Elise and Dave joined me to share their vision, drivers and open questions.Listen to this episode to find out about:The definition of creativity and how to measure itHow the project came to beThe bigger vision behind the project: How online collaboration can tackle global challengesHow you can get involved in the experimentDon't miss the New Rules for Work Experiment and SymposiumVisit the New Rules for Work WebsiteAnd, don’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.LinksWatch the video recording of this episode on YouTube.Read the Article published in ‘Nature’Read about the studyWatch the Youtube video: Why video calls are bad for brainstormingConnect to Elise and Dave:Connect to Elise on LinkedInConnect to Dave on LinkedInShare your thoughts about our conversation!Support the show✨✨✨Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a free 1-page summary of each upcoming episode directly to your inbox, or explore our eBooks featuring 50-episode compilations for even more facilitation insights. Find out more:https://workshops.work/podcast✨✨✨Did you know? You can search all episodes by keyword to find exactly what you need via our Buzzsprout page!

How do you create a culture of independent and empowered facilitation in a large business? Well, Rod Butcher and Nikesh Patel of Fidelity International posed me that question and, together, we came up with a radical solution.This episode explains the story of how we built Fidelity International’s Facilitation Academy.You can hear about the process we followed and the results we’ve seen, as well as how we interpreted the issues and questions that Rod and Nikesh started with.Implementing facilitation skills at scale can be a daunting thought, but it’s eminently more enticing when it’s achieved through a generative, self-sustaining cycle of talent training talent!Find out about:What the structure and process of the academy is and how it worksHow to look at a problem with a broad view, to find unexpected solutionsThe unique challenges of internal facilitation vs. external facilitationThe unexpected benefits of implementing a facilitation mindset across an organisationWhy an interdepartmental-by-default approach creates more meaningful space for changeHow framing facilitation as problem-solving generated more interestHow to create a virtuous cycle of facilitation, training, and learningDon’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.Connect to Rod and Nikesh:Rod on LinkedInNikesh on LinkedInShare your thoughts about our conversation!Support the show✨✨✨Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a free 1-page summary of each upcoming episode directly to your inbox, or explore our eBooks featuring 50-episode compilations for even more facilitation insights. Find out more:https://workshops.work/podcast✨✨✨Did you know? You can search all episodes by keyword to find exactly what you need via our Buzzsprout page!

“Keep it simple, stupid” is a popular refrain which might be better translated as “make it harder, stupid”!One of the most common misunderstandings Gabor Bittera encounters in his mission towards simplicity is the belief that simple = easy. Far from it, in fact. Sometimes, creating simplicity is the hardest task in a workshop.Thankfully, Gabor has done the hard miles and has advice that can save you from complicating the process of simplifying your workshops… leaving you just with the fact that it isn’t always easy!We explore what it means to facilitate simplicity, with simplicity, and for simplicity in this episode—jumping from practical advice and templates to deeper questions around purpose and effectiveness. It was a joyful conversation and I hope you will get as much from it as I did.Find out about:Why Gabor prioritises simplicity over ease — no matter how complex it can be to simplifyHow to facilitate using principles from Scrum, linguistics and storytellingWhy simple facilitation requires more of our attention and careWhich part of the workshop process Gabor believes is hardest to simplifyWhy the art of facilitation includes designing constraints and restrictionsWhat the perfect group size is for both subgroup and whole-group workHow to use specific accountability to create more impactful workshopsDon’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.LinksWatch the video recording of this episode on YouTube.Subscribe to Gabor’s Substack — Scrum TimesRead or subscribe to Gabor’s MediumConnect to Gabor:On LinkedInShare your thoughts about our conversation!Support the show✨✨✨Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a free 1-page summary of each upcoming episode directly to your inbox, or explore our eBooks featuring 50-episode compilations for even more facilitation insights. Find out more:https://workshops.work/podcast✨✨✨Did you know? You can search all episodes by keyword to find exactly what you need via our Buzzsprout page!