Greetings from Barcelona☀️
If you are joining The Quest for the first time, welcome to our weekly exploration of creativity, facilitation, and learning.
You can catch up on last week’s edition on 🌿Cultivating Communityand all past editions here.
This week it’s all about💥the Secrets of Exceptional Facilitation 🔎
👉 What is an exceptional facilitator?
👉 The 7 Secrets of Exceptional Facilitators (in my new free e-book!)
Plus:
👉 Updates on the Breakthrough Facilitation course that you won’t want to miss!
Let’s dive right in!
✨What is an Exceptional Facilitator?
“Let’s go on a journey together. I’d like to invite you to walk with me.”
That’s not exactly how I had expected the workshop to start. I’m pretty sure none of the other 30 participants packed into the tiny co-working conference room expected it to start that way either.
I shared a few awkward glances with the other participants. We were packed in so tight it was almost impossible to avoid eye contact.
It was the start of a 2-day workshop on Creative Facilitation. I still wasn’t 100% sure what I had signed up for.
A bunch of questions were running through my mind. For example, “what had I gotten myself into?”
But I was also intrigued. Our facilitator Charlie Murphy was magnetic and enthusiastic. He started to walk on the spot, exuding excitement and confidence. Somehow I felt like I could trust him. So I started walking. So did the rest of the group. Before we knew it we were laughing and having a great time together. My initial resistance completely melted away.
Charlie was an exceptional facilitator. He knew how to get groups to bond quickly. He gave participants easy ways to take part. He created safety for people to take risks. He knew how to get the best out of every group member. He saw an exceptional facilitator in every one of us.
I set out to learn about what made an exceptional facilitator. That workshop was the start of 15-year friendship and partnership with Charlie and others. Through a global faciliation training organization, Partners for Youth Empowerment, we worked with hundreds of exceptional facilitators around the world. Charlie passed away 5 years ago. But he had opened a doorway into the world of facilitation for me and so many others.
I learned that we can all be exceptional facilitators. Facilitation is like a muscle. The more you use it the stronger it gets. And it is a muscle that matters. Because exceptional faciltiation sparks engagement. That’s where you uncover opportunities for deeper learning and connection. It’s the sparkle dust that can turn boredom into inspiration. Dread into excitement.
So how can we become exceptional facilitators? That’s our Quest for not only this week but for many weeks to come.
💥The 7 Secrets of Exceptional Facilitators
My brand new e-book with tips to up your facilitation game. This is the guide that I wish I had had when I started my facilitation journey 15 years ago. I have attempted to distill some of the key lessons that I have learned from exceptional facilitators, as well as from my own experience and from many mistakes!
In each section I share:
👉 A facilitation secret
👉 Why it matters
👉 An action step
👉 A tool so you can put the insights into practice
🙌 Big props to Chris Malapitan, facilitator and designer, who created the stunning visuals for the book. And to Michaele Robertson, Jen Vermet, Connie Wansbrough and others for valuable feedback on earlier drafts.
What secrets would you add?
🚀Breakthrough Facilitation: Course Update
It’s official! I’ve launched Breakthrough Facilitation– a 4-week online cohort-based course for professionals who lead virtual groups. Cohort 1 will launch in early fall 2021. Here’s the course page where you can find more information and join the wait list. Stay tuned for more updates! Do you have any questions about the course or facilitation in general? I’d love to hear from you. Contact me by responding to this email.
💌Thanks for reading The Quest
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Until next week!
