We don’t need to settle for stale and repetitive workshops

I recently started to stop enjoying facilitation. Workshops started to feel a bit samey to me, and I could feel bad habits creeping in. If I was feeling this staleness, then what must it be like for participants? We'd follow the same structure. Brainstorm, cluster, vote, discuss, repeat.

There is a huge amount to value in hybrid working, and tools like Mural or Miro. No curly post-its that keep falling off the wall! But one of the things that has been missing for me is the spontaneity that comes more easily when you are meeting in person. I was keen to find out other ways to bring that spontaneity and engagement back.

It’s good to look outward and freshen things up, and to that end I recently went along to The Facilitator’s Unconference*.

The unconference

This event brought together a bunch of people who do facilitation as part of their role. Some had a learning and development background, others were digital delivery people. It was an opportunity for us all to share stories, learn from each other and do a bit of low-stakes networking.

I didn’t hold very specific expectations going into the event, partly because the agenda was put together by participants at the start of the day. And although I didn’t come away with a long list of practical facilitation techniques, it still felt worthwhile.

One of the best parts of an unconference is the law of two feet; if you feel like you aren't getting something out of a session, or there is anotehr one that you are curious about, then get up and use your feet. It's very empowering to not feel like you have to sit through something if it's not quite the right session for you.

I joined a whole host of sessions during the day, including how to make workshops more inclusive, how to get teams sharing the facilitator role more, and how to make remote workshops work better. I found the practical discussions the most useful, for example how to make use of safety checks at the start of tricky meetings, and how to design a workshop to keep people active throughout. 

Out of all the discussions, a common theme was how to keep people engaged. And liberating structures kept getting name-checked as a useful tool for doing that.

What are Liberating Structures?

Liberating Structures are a menu of session templates that help you keep the team engaged in what they are doing. Their purpose is to help people interact with each other in a different way, compared to well trodden exercises like brainstorming. The templates give you a clear description of when/why to use them, instructions (with timings!) and tips on how to get the best out of the session.   

The first one I used was drawing together, in place of the dreaded icebreaker. I used this to kick off a planning day and get everyone in the mood to collaborate. It felt unusual for those taking part, but not awkward. 

The second one I used was a celebrity interview. We used this one as a way to glean as much knowledge as we could from someone who had delivered a difficult thing that was also coming our way. I collated questions from the team ahead of the session, and put them into talk-show host cards. Suddenly what could have been a fairly dry Q&A became instantly more fun; and fun things are a lot easier to stay engaged with.    

Me, roleplaying as Graham Norton for a celebrity interview session with the team

Leaders need to think about how they engage their teams

Bringing people together into one space is a privilege - whether it’s remote or in person, you are asking people to step away from their day jobs and there is always a cost to that. But it is still all too common for the substance of the day to be an afterthought, as if delivering a bunch of presentations to a room full of bored people for a whole day is enough. We shouldn’t settle for that.

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel to make these events more engaging. Tools like liberating structures and unconferences make it so much easier to shake things up and break the staleness. Yes, doing something different can be nerve-wracking, especially if you don't know exactly what people will put onto the agenda. But if the end result is that people feel engaged and empowered, surely that's the point.

* An unconference is an event where the agenda is built by the participants on the day.