Leading interactive workshops

We’re getting the hang of online meetings. But how are the interactive workshops going? 

If we just press the breakout rooms button and think that’s how to interact and collaborate ... that’s a limited view. 

Some facilitators use apps like Mural or Miro for interaction but still, it’s not about just choosing an app or breaking people into groups. 

The art of facilitating interaction involves:

📐DESIGN
and
📐DELIVERY
of the interactive workshop experience. 

Many workshops default to ‘now, go chat in breakout rooms’. These are usually poorly framed and then not debriefed, totally losing the gold from the group interactions! 

Breakouts are generative... they generate contributions. 

What will you do with all of the generation and contribution? Most of us do little, perhaps asking a ‘so, what did you talk about?’ question. 

Helping a group do great work together doesn’t happen via a button. 

If you’re leading a group in a workshop setting, sharpen up your skills for better group interaction. 

Consider the DESIGN of the experience. 
Then the DELIVERY. 

Engagement myth : ‘Once you lose them you lose them’.

It’s not true. 

We lose focus and attention all the time. As leaders, speakers or trainers, we can’t hold people’s engagement all of the time. 

So yes, we will ‘lose them.’ We all drift away. But it doesn’t mean they are forever ‘lost’.  

Attention ebbs and flows. We can’t give 100% attention, 100% of the time. 

The task becomes: how do you get them back... and when they come back, how do you catch them up with what has been happening - whether they’re ‘gone’ for 15 seconds or 15 minutes?

The work then is to firstly DESIGN for engagement. 

And then to invite, welcome and DELIVER for reengagement. And repeated reengagement, because our attention lapses. 

Rather than the control freak in us expecting or demanding 100% attention, work to earn engagement and to hold it, understanding that it will leave at times. 

And then work to always encourage and welcome re-engagement, whenever it comes. 

Build engagement slowly

Starting with a bang in a meeting may seem like the way to get people’s attention - but the reverse can also be true. As we join the next meeting in our diary, we bring with us a hangover from the previous one.

The previous meeting could have been overwhelming with too much information, or frustrating in how decisions weren’t made. It could have been time wasting or unclear or .... highly entertaining, interactive and uplifting!

Every meeting leaves us with a kind of hangover that we need to unload or process. The guide then for facilitating or leading better meetings is to build engagement s-l-o-w-l-y. Slow and steady style.

That means:

> Not putting people on the spot at the start, or ever

> Not making them look foolish, and

> Not making them wrong.

It’s easy to put people off or get them offside in meetings - online or otherwise Ramp or build engagement with participants slowly, steadily ... even if you’re in a hurry to make things happen. There is plenty going on for people. Lead meeting speed safely.

Why the rush to simplicity

When things are messy, challenging or difficult, we can be impatient to make it all simple so we can tick it off and move on. It happens in meetings and workshops when the leader - meaning well, doing their best - takes what someone has said and simplifies it down to one big simple word.

The leader responds, ‘oh right, so what you’re talking about is < simple, big category word like productivity, strategy, collaboration>‘.

’No’, the person may say, that’s not quite what they were saying. Their contribution or explanation gets distilled so far ... pushed ahead to a single word, for the sake of simplicity.

But it could be too simple.

It’s like that exercise some people run in workshops: ‘What’s ONE WORD to describe today’s workshop/conference/meeting?’

Why the limit to one? One word may be easy, quick and controlling for you to put on people but it’s less effective for engagement, sensemaking and meaning making.

We may distill so far that the deeper (and intended) meaning vanishes, evaporates and is lost. Beware that by stripping things away to make it easier for you, may make contributions so vanilla... there’s no vanilla left.

Focused on the technology or the humanity

As we adapt to leading and working in some new and different ways, don’t lose sight that we are still leading and working with humans, people.

We might be learning new apps, systems and tools and discovering which button does what, or what the best features of the app are, but remember there are people there, wanting to connect and contribute.

Focus on the people. And allow time for it. Ask them questions. Seek their responses. Gain their participation and contribution. Validate their views and opinions.

Yes, the apps and tech may be new to us, and we may be distracted by these bright shiny objects, trying to learn them and be (perfectly) proficient with them. And yes, maybe we need the tech to help us do the task or job better ... you know, perfectly.

But the human connections you make with the other humans matter more than pursuing the perfect tech. Remember to ... Focus on the people. Look at their faces. Listen to their suggestions. Ask them more about their thoughts. See more of our humanity.