Learning and Development

L&D: does it stand for learning and development or long and drawn-out.

Is it time for L&D to be more responsive, to lead the way in agility, experiments and lean solutions?

I was speaking with an L&D team about running my ‘ish' workshop for the organisation - where people learn to challenge perfectionist tendencies and work until it's 'good enough', working in increments and iterations. The L&D team said, "Actually, WE need that!"

Often an organisation’s learning program is embedded in an annual calendar; by the time the dates come around there’s other/better/more responsive things out there, the market has shifted, and the skills need has shifted. Does your organisation still work on an annual calendar? (Sure, a calendar works for availability, logistics and managing budget).

Is it time to get more agility into L&D? How responsive is something that’s planned a year or more out? How does a team or project and the skills and capabilities they need change in that time?

Could L&D run on shorter 90-day cycles for example, responding to the needs in the business and what’s happening in the market, offering stuff swiftly to build skills now, not in 365 days time?

Facilitation for Consultants : 9 things to do

Building on my recent post about Beyond Being a Consultant, there's a wonderful space for consultants, experts and thought leaders to step into organisations today, and that is in the role of a facilitator. 

Not just being a clever smarty pants about your expertise, but also helping a team, group, executive, board or gathering of leaders to work through the stuff they need to work through and get to some meaningful outcomes. 

I see it as a three element thing; when you're facilitating (as a consultant, expert or thought leader), you're helping this group be: 

• PRODUCTIVE: you help them get stuff done. 
• COLLABORATIVE: you help bring people together 
• CREATIVE: you help them do good work.

The 9 things to do

I see there are nine things to do or questions to answer in being able to think, design and deliver an effective facilitated workshop or session for a client organisation. These things address what you need to engage with a client about facilitating a session, preparing to facilitate, designing the event and handling what happens during - and after - the session. 

Looks like this ;-)

Think about these things; ask yourself about them: 

1. EXPERTISE

What’s my expertise? What do I bring to working with a group or facilitating a team? What type of sessions could I facilitate? 

2. NEEDS

Who are they? What are their needs? How do I best identify their requirements? Where is the 'gap' I can help them close? 

3. RESPONSE

What is my response? How do I propose we close the gap? What is my response to their situation? How will I bring my specialist expertise to their situation? What do I do?

4. OUTLINE

What does the session look like? What processes will we use and follow? What type of workshop or session will this be?

5. AGENDA

Designing the session, in detail. What will happen, when? How will we make best use of the time available? What games, tools, activities and resources are available to us? What will we do when we all come together? 

6. FACILITATE

Conducting the session. What will I do on the day of the event? How do I set up the room or space, run the agenda? What things are needed on the day? How do I start things off? 

7. ADAPT

The best-laid plans may need to change. Now what? Handling what happens on the day and dealing with unexpected changes. How do I handle how people respond and work in the session? What if...? 

8. TECHNIQUES

Tools, Tips, Techniques & Tricks: these are the approaches, the methodologies, the processes that facilitators have up their sleeve. 

9. BEYOND

Wrap Ups, conclusions and ‘What Next?': How will I wrap up the day? How do we make sure we achieved something? What could we do next? How do I make sure there is ongoing opportunity for us to work together? What else could I do to support them with their work? 

New to facilitation?

If you’re new to facilitation as an expert or consultant, it’s a great time to make a clean start. You can begin to add facilitation into your offer to client businesses. If you’re not already getting this type of work, would you like to? If so, you’ll need some contemporary facilitation skills to design the program or session, run it and get the outcomes needed. In this way you’ll get the most out of their time and their investment of getting everyone in the room on the same day.

Already facilitating? 

If you’re already facilitating, you can always, always enhance your capability, step-up the type and level of work you can deliver and help your clients get even greater impact and outcomes when you work with them. How might you need to think differently? What other processes or approaches or styles would you like to test out in facilitating your expertise with a client? 

It's very now!

Facilitation is a way of working with teams and groups that's very 'now'; with increasing requirements for teams to be more collaborative, to co-design and co-create things and for a more diverse team to be sitting around a workplace meeting room, the need for facilitators is greater than it's ever been. 

Helping people get important work done, and done swiftly and creatively are the reasons why I LOVE working as a facilitator and building the facilitation capability of leaders of all sorts. I think it's one of the greatest leadership capabilities - whether you're a leader of a team or a leader in your own business, and particularly if you're a consultant, expert or thought leader. You know stuff that you can help your clients with; adopting a facilitation approach gets them working on it, together. 

Building Facilitation Skills

I enjoy supporting consultants, experts and thought leaders to boost their facilitation capability. In most of my facilitation workshops, I run a policy of 'any question at any time' and so there is always that uncertainty about 'what's going to happen' which is present in the room. This is a good thing to get used to. The uncertainty. It's about being less in control and more comfortable, confident, capable. 

And even more fun than the questions at any time, I make my workshops on facilitation skills a facilitated experience. Yes, that's very 'meta' isn't it; a workshop on facilitation that is actually facilitated. No PowerPoint, no definitions, no yawn-yawn training. That means we co-create the agenda based on what we want to learn or what our challenges are and then we go through and cover off the content. It's more experiential; you get to see (what I think) is contemporary, effective, business-ready facilitation. Things happen in the room with us during the day and so as the facilitator, I have to handle them. This is how you get to see what to do, how you could handle the stuff that happens. This provides you with a 'real life' environment to see and experience great facilitation skills in practice in the room during the program. 

Read more about the two-day facilitation skills program I run here for consultants, experts and thought leaders. 

How did that happen?

In a recent workshop with a senior leadership team, the highest priority topic of the day wasn't strategy, or competition or finances. It was death and injury. 

'How did that happen?' asked the leaders when it was reported that one of the team had been killed and another injured at work. 

The stark reality is that safety is the most important thing in the workplace. 

After discussion of key points from the day and identifying actions for leaders of all levels to implement, the visual I share with you this week is a reminder that none of us can take safety lightly. 

In your own environment, and with your own team, family and community… please, be safe. 

 

Solo Operator : Diversify or Die

I'm mentoring some sole business owners through a 10 week program in selling your expertise and at the core of it are a few key principles. 

The principles are almost paradoxes, or ironies or those things that are true one moment and then untrue the next.

While they need to focus and target their efforts to serve a specific market, I'm also encouraging them to diversify or die. 

Of these business owners, one is a coach, one is a facilitator, another is a trainer. 

I'm encouraging the coach to stop being 'just a coach', start offering what they know through other modes of delivery, like writing and speaking and training. They know so much, they're so talented, but they're running out of puff. There are only so many people they can coach in a day and only so much a corporate client will pay them once they're on the corporate coaching panel. 

For the facilitator, a similiar thing is happening. They love working with community organisations but they're finding that despite some briliant positioning, they're running out of clients that have the cash to spend on a great facilitator. They're doing 'mates rates' and 'cheap days' and they're working very hard, for little return once they take out expenses. So it's time to diversify or die. They know great stuff - they can train others, mentor up and coming facilitators and speak on community engagement and change processes. 

The trainer is just plain tired. Full days of contract training, on their feet talking, thinking, walking, listening. All day, every day. They're not able to earn much more per day than the 'going rate' and they too need to diversify or die. They have brilliant skills and knowledge. They could be speaking on the topics they know about, mentoring leaders, or shifting into the facliitation space, given they work well with groups. 

The working world of today demands people with flexibility, insight and agility. You can't be everything to everyone - that dilutes your offer - but you will need to be able to deliver more than just one track, to survive when you're a solo operator. 

I think the expert model of selling your expertise through a number of modes is a winner. Just this week I've facilitated, presented, coached, trained and consulted. And it's only Wednesday. I love the diversity not just for the changing scenes, but for the longevity and flexibility it provides in the long run.

Diversify, definitely.