Advice, tips and inspiration to help you perform at your best
Whenever I’m about to facilitate a workshop, I get pre-match nerves. I hope the people who rock up are going to ‘play nicely’. That they’re going to join in with all the exercises. That they buy into the session plan that I’ve designed so carefully. This is the bit you can’t control - how people will respond. Indeed, the fear of people misbehaving is what stops people from wanting to become facilitators.
Brand Purpose is a hotly debated topic in the world of marketing. To add to the discussion, I wanted to share my favourite purpose-led brands. The brands that I feel are doing a great job in articulating and delivering a mission to change the world. To help narrow down my choices, I thought I’d focus on relatively new businesses vs brands that are part of multi-nationals.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve heard so many inspirational stories. Mainly throughout the pandemic, but more recently during the invasion of Ukraine. This has led me to think more deeply about what it means to be inspirational. To deconstruct the actions of inspirational people. So we can all learn their lessons.
I feel that it boils down to five key behaviours.
My favourite bit of the Brit Awards is where artists collaborate. Ed Sheeran (love him or hate him) does this a lot, most recently with Bring Me the Horizon to kick off this year’s awards show. It always adds a frisson of excitement.
I love interesting collaborations. When researching content for an upcoming communication training programme, some of the most engaging examples I came across featured two brands coming together to form something new and exciting. Here are two that caught my eye.
Last week I wrote about how to uncover your authentic identity at work. The real, honest and truthful version of yourself. This week I want to provide a few more tips on how you and your team can bring this to the workplace more effectively.
Happiness and success at work starts with being confident in expressing your ‘authentic identity’. The real you. The unfiltered, open and genuine version of yourself. It means feeling relaxed and comfortable in the way you show up in the workplace. It means using this to shape your decisions and your ideas.
Following on from my previous post about building trust in a team, I wanted to talk about team conflict. I’m someone who naturally shies away from conflict and doesn’t enjoy getting involved in arguments. I’ve also felt that the best teams are harmonious. Where everyone agrees with each other.
So, it’s the 1st of September and the Summer has officially ended. The sun is getting weaker, there’s a chill in the air and the days are shortening. To me, it feels like a new beginning. Much more so than the 1st of January. It feels like the start of a new school year. So, my suggestion is to take the time to start afresh as if you’re heading back to school. Here’s what works for me.
I had always believed in following your passion at work. Doing what you love and getting paid for it. This for me was the ideal scenario. Occasionally I’d fantasise about my dream job. This usually involved food or sport.
It was a seductive vision. Make a career out of your passion. It’s the passport to true happiness.
One of the biggest challenges we face in facilitating online workshops is to make sure people stay engaged throughout. It’s so easy for people to switch off, given the amount of time we spend staring at screens nowadays.
So, as a facilitator, how do you make your online workshops more enjoyable and more productive? These are my suggestions.
Creative workshops are not like normal business meetings. Where you sit, listen, nod your head and leave. Attendees have to work hard. They’ve got to join in. They’ve got to come up with ideas.
As a facilitator, your challenge is to extract the maximum creativity from the people who attend. It’s important to get people in the right zone, right from the beginning.
Here are some suggestions:
In the past, I’ve shared three essential creative exercises for innovation workshops. In case you’re looking for more exercises that will help you generate new ideas, here are three more. They’re just as useful.
