workshops work – Details, episodes & analysis

The relationships in our life are a lot like gardens: they need watering, a little pruning here and there, some de-weeding, and a whole lot of love! But what about the people we spend most of our time with?

Our co-workers are often overlooked in the garden of relationships, but it’s one that requires just as much time, care and attention as any other. Enter: the biggest mischief maker, Emily Hinks!

Firm in the belief that the world of work could do with more joy, she helps people to connect, collaborate and create company cultures to be proud of, in playful and energising ways. She generously shares her mischievous ways with us, her experience with the likes of Netflix, and how she facilitates richer human connection in the new era of work.

Press play and spend a joyful hour with Emily!

Find out about:

• The ROI of human connection at work and its role in building company culture
• The importance of connecting teams to company values in contextual ways
• Why the post-pandemic workplace needs facilitation to nurture digital connections
• How to host meetings more effectively as a non-facilitator
• Emily’s small but mighty hacks for elevating every voice in a meeting

Don’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.

Links:

Watch the video recording of this episode on YouTube.

Connect to Emily Hinks:

LinkedIn

Website

www.emilyhinks.com
www.mischiefmakers.com
www.routesin.com

Support the show

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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

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Did you know? You can search all episodes by keyword to find exactly what you need via our Buzzsprout page!

In the autumn of 1996 in Palo Alto, Dan Newman had a career-defining epiphany: facilitation is playing other people’s games with your own rules. It’s something that has stayed with him on his journey from consultant to facilitator, as he solves complex organisational problems by asking: how are their rules preventing them from winning?

We cover a lot of ground from Dan’s storied career in this brilliant conversation, dancing from the debate of the neutral facilitator, to cultural communication traits, the psychology of music, and why he will happily fine his clients for breaking the rules!

Full to the brim with facilitation lessons to learn, try and apply yourself.

Find out about:

• Tips, insights and anecdotes from Dan’s nearly 30 year career
• The key differences between the role of the facilitator and the consultant
• How to rebuild people’s ‘finite games’ into ‘infinite games’, with a positive-sum outcome
• How to use Dave Snowden’s Cynefin framework to aid decision-making and de-complexify problems
• How to take a company out of their culture to see new perspectives

Don’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.

Links:

Watch the video recording of this episode on YouTube.

Dan’s Book

Connect to Dan Newman:

LinkedIn

Website

Support the show

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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

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Did you know? You can search all episodes by keyword to find exactly what you need via our Buzzsprout page!

An extraordinarily curious mind that lives within the pages of books, Theresa Destrebecq has taken the joy of book club and twisted it into a circle of deep, experiential learning: welcome to Emerge Book Circles.

In her circles, books become the ultimate impartial co-facilitator. She invites readers to move from the often solitary activity of reading, into a shared space where ideas bloom, shapeshift and expand through the collective, connective wisdom of the circle - helping us to better understand ourselves, our teams and organisations.

We talk about invitations into brave, vulnerable spaces, the discomfort of true learning and why as facilitators, we must step back from the trees to see the forest…

Find out about:

• Theresa’s book circles, what they are and
• How books can be a vehicle for exploring change in an objective way
• Why safe spaces are subjective; we all have different perceptions of safety
• The beauty of co-designed, evolved ideas through co-facilitation and collaboration
• The importance of discomfort in learning
• Why as facilitators we must detach ourselves from assumptions, choosing compassion first

Don’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.

Connect to Theresa Destrebecq:

LinkedIn

Emerge Book Circles

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

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Did you know? You can search all episodes by keyword to find exactly what you need via our Buzzsprout page!

Some episodes of this podcast have an extremely tight focus — a specific topic, inspected under scrutiny. Some episodes are like walks through a beautiful park, stopping and admiring different beautiful moments and places.

My conversation with Francis Laleman — a trainer-of-trainers, a facilitation teacher, and an excellent facilitator in his own right — was most certainly one in the latter category. We spent an hour or so weaving our way through big questions and small curiosities. It was a joy and an opportunity for both of us to think more deeply about the fundamentals of our work.

Explore the depths of change, the art of not doing anything, and the hidden designs we create in our lives and work.

Find out about:

• Why change is the common goal that links facilitation, training, and coaching
• What Francis aims to achieve by hosting workshops with ‘provocative absence’ and invisibility
• Why the ‘you’ that facilitates a group is unique to each group
• How learning is a cooperative affair and, so, training is a matter of creating readiness for cooperation
• What ‘exformative’ learning and facilitation are
• Taking inspiration from acting and theatre
• Why our view of workshops as singular events can inhibit our effectiveness

Don’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.

And download the free 1-page summary, so you can always have the key points of this episode to hand.

Links

Watch the video recording of this episode on YouTube.

Visit Francis’ website.

Connect to Francis:

On LinkedIn

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!

Dance—especially improvised dance—is an arena for deep vulnerability, connection, and growth. It requires careful and considered facilitation, as you may have guessed!

Enter, Tom Goldhand! Tom helps participants understand themselves and each other through the power of dance and authentic movement. Perhaps most impressive is how Tom can apply his skills in business settings, offering unique workshops for groups and companies to move their way into new ways of thinking.

We had a lot to discuss, which might not surprise you, but we managed to fit so much into this episode. Step up to the stage and enjoy the rhythm of our conversation.

Find out about:

• What every workshop—from dance and improv to corporate clients—has in common
• Why creating a space to share knowledge is very different to teaching
• How emergent dynamics in dance workshops reflect wider truths of human connection
• What happens to individuals and groups when they improvise
• How to protect participants from a ‘vulnerability hangover’
• Why it can be beneficial to think about a ‘good enough’ outcome for your workshop
• How ‘movement with awareness’ can make dance feel more accessible

Don’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.

And download the free 1-page summary, so you can always have the key points of this episode to hand.

Links

Tom’s website

Watch the video recording of this episode on YouTube.

Connect to Tom:

On LinkedIn

On Instagram

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!

Ask a group of leaders about heart connections in their organisations and you will likely be met with raised eyebrows and doubtful looks. Their loss—and Breeze Dong’s gain, as a veritable expert in heart connections in the context of organisational development.

Breeze joins me in this episode to unravel the concept of heart connections—explaining what the phrase really means, how companies benefit from encouraging heart connections, and how they’re more important than ever in an age of uncertainty. It’s a fascinating insight into deep truths that might otherwise be dismissed as ‘woowoo’ when taken by name alone.

Learn about facilitating inner, outer, and networked connections from a place of meaning in this episode.

Find out about:

• What heart connections are and how we can facilitate them in different environments
• Why heart connections, grounding, and emotionality need to be flexible in organisations
• Why rational solutions aren’t a cure-all in times of uncertainty
• Why having time and space for self-work is a precursor to forming heart connections
• How to move groups from being in their heads to being in their bodies
• What system thinking has to do with heart connections
• How to balance the needs of a system with the needs of its individual constituents

Don’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.

And download the free 1-page summary, so you can always have the key points of this episode to hand.

Links

Watch the video recording of this episode on YouTube.

Connect to Breeze:

On LinkedIn

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!

We’ve had plenty of opportunities to practice online facilitation since 2020, but have we reached a plateau? Has complacency crept in?

John Chen has been hosting (and training others to host) engaging virtual meetings for longer than many of us have even thought about them! He’s the perfect candidate to discuss this topic.

John joins me in this episode to discuss the magic ingredients of online facilitation — and why an overemphasis on tech and tools has led to us abandoning deeper personal and interpersonal engagement.

Find out about:

• What happens in the first minute of virtual events
• Why John is wary about making tech the main focus of virtual events
• Why forced-on-camera participants are worse than off-camera participants
• Why engagement is platform-, tool-, and activity-agnostic
• How to facilitate tangential conversations — and how to know when to redirect them
• Why the chat function in online events is a sacred space of simultaneity
• Bridging the gap between well-run and transformational online events

Don’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.

And download the free 1-page summary, so you can always have the key points of this episode to hand.

Links

Watch the video recording of this episode on YouTube.

Author of Engaging Virtual Meetings, published by Wiley and Sons

click for a FREE ticket to my Engaging Virtual Meetings Conference, every October.

Connect to John:

On LinkedIn

On Facebook

On YouTube

On Twitter

On Instagram

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!

What is it like to be on ‘the other side' of the workshop — to be a participant or a client?

This podcast has always focused on conversations with facilitators, but perspectives from clients are just as valuable for understanding our work and processes.

Hence, why this episode features Sandy Wilson, Director of Culture and Learning at Insights Learning and Development. In 2021, Insights initiated a company-wide facilitated LEGO Serious Play project, dubbed ‘On Purpose’.

I’m shocked that it’s taken me 182 episodes to host an episode from the clients perspective, but it was more than worth the wait. Enjoy a bounty of unique and unmissable insights in this episode.   

Find out about:

• How Sandy (and his organisation) decided to choose LEGO Serious Play
• What it’s like to lead an organisational project without a clear expected outcome
• Why a focus on identification and exploration was critical to creating change
• How the organisation adopted a snowball-effect of permissionless progress
• Why ‘extroverted thinking’ dominates in management structures and how to facilitate the inclusion introverted perspectives
• How they conducted the search for an external facilitator and what made candidates stand out
• The struggle to confidently link organisational changes to individual projects

Don’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.

And download the free 1-page summary, so you can always have the key points of this episode to hand.

Links

https://www.insights.com/ 

Connect to Sandy:

On LinkedIn

Facebook

YouTube

Twitter

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!

Tobias Mayer’s experience as a scrum master has taken him around the world and across the upper echelons of the biggest names in tech. Those 20+ years have taught him a lot, but perhaps more importantly, have provoked some challenging questions.

In this episode, we discuss a bit of everything! We challenge assumptions, we question the unquestionable, and we explore what it takes to facilitate change. A clue: it’s rarely comfort or ease!

If you’re curious about facilitating change in a meaningful and sustainable way and want to pick up some extra tools to help you in the process, this episode will be one you come back to time and time again.

Find out about:

• Why facilitators help participants exist ‘at the edges’ and achieve ‘their edge’
• How confrontation fits in the facilitator’s toolbox
• Why the end of a workshop is the start of a new chapter
• Why the flexible nature of facilitation makes the role hard to grasp for some organisations
• Why promoting staff for their knowledge entrenches a fear of failure
• The art and skill of asking uncomfortable — and better — questions
• How changing your style to fit the group inevitably harms the group

Don’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.

And download the free 1-page summary, so you can always have the key points of this episode to hand.

Links

Tobias’ website

Connect to Tobias:

On LinkedIn

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!

Mohsin Memon is a gaming expert—but he’s not spending his days playing shoot ‘em ups. Mohsin’s expertise lies at the crossroads of learning and gaming, where he spends his time creating immersive experiences and teaching others how to do the same.

Our conversation in this episode was a speed-run of all things experiential learning, from the nuts-and-bolts details of what makes a game enjoyable, to the more cerebral questions around ‘fair play’ and childhood experiences.

If you’re interested in alternative approaches to learning, novel applications of facilitation skills, or adapting your methods to the needs of the group—you’re going to thoroughly enjoy this episode.

Find out about:

• How Mohsin (and the wider world) defines and understands games
• How games hold up a lens to our behaviour patterns and show us fascinating distortions
• Why games are a vehicle for interaction and connection
• How our childhood experiences dictate our expectations of games
• How our culture shapes our appreciation and proclivity for certain types of games
• What it means to play a game fairly—and what happens when that isn’t assured

Don’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.

And download the free 1-page summary, so you can always have the key points of this episode to hand.

Links

Gamitar - The company Mohsin represents. This is also the official publisher of the games.

Evivve - The Leadership Game - A game designed for virtual and physical facilitated learning experiences on a range of leadership competencies.

Connect to Mohsin:

On LinkedIn

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!