Do you like surprises, or do you need a professional workshop facilitator?

There is one thing that sets a workshop facilitator apart from just anyone leading a meeting:

A professional workshop facilitator will deal well with surprises.

(That said, we don’t like TOO many surprises, but part of the job is to deal with them as they arise!)

The question is: are you good at dealing with surprises?

If you aren’t, this may be where some of your meetings, team workshops or away days are going wrong. 

To really get the most from getting your team together, you need to be prepared to manage a few surprises. And no, we don’t mean standing on a piece of Lego in your socks!

If you are not able to deal with the surprises then you won’t be well set up for honest conversations. And without honest conversations you won’t really be able to dig beneath the surface of whatever it is you are talking about.

Of course, not all your meetings will be like that (nor do they need to be!) Meetings take all shapes and sizes. If you allowed your regular check-ins to become “bare-alls” then they would no longer be simple check-ins. But at the same time, you don’t want people to say they’re ‘fine’ if they’re not. You don’t want people to only give you the highlights if actually it’s what lies beneath the surface that is holding your project up. There is no point in having a meeting if you then need another meeting about that meeting because there are unresolved issues, left over ideas and unsaid things. Frustrating left-overs have a nasty habit of simmering away….

In order to get to some of those things, to find the juicy nuggets and ignite those fabulous ideas or really untangle a problem you need to be prepared to deal with the fact that not everyone thinks like you. Not everyone will want to tow the line, not everyone will say nice things and agree.

 

There may be a few surprises if you want people to be authentic.

At the same time, you can reduce the chances of those extreme surprises (like those lightning bolts which seem to come out of nowhere) by doing your homework and by getting to know your team. Ensuring you get regular feedback and have good communication and alignment in the first place will also reduce the likelihood of unpleasant surprises.

But you will never eliminate them.

Avoiding them, and saving them up for later is not the answer.

But creating the right time, space and process to allow the surprises to surface will enable you to head off those simmering issues, tensions and concerns. It will also give everyone in your team the opportunity to share those ideas, and knowledge and wisdom that they might not otherwise feel able to share.

Learning to manage the surprises comes easily to some leaders. But can be tricky for others. 

If you don’t learn how to manage the surprises, what will you do instead?

This is where outsourcing to a professional workshop facilitator can pay dividends. 

A professional workshop facilitator will do their homework. They’ll make sure they have a good sense of the situation and will ask about the people they will be working with. They will understand the lie of the land, but won’t be personally invested in the history or the outcome. It gives them a broad sense of perspective. 

At the same time, a workshop facilitator is prepared for, and even welcomes, the prospect of all sorts of unknowns jumping out of them. They want people to be able to say what they think. It’s not a surprise that they are adept at managing the often delicate balance of opening up the space for people to contribute whilst not letting sometimes contentious inputs take on a life of their own. In other words: they can handle it in a way that perhaps no-one else in the organisation can. 

It’s sort of the opposite of the scuba diving phrase: “plan your dive, dive your plan” where safety is the most important thing to think about. Instead, to enable effective participation in a team meeting, a facilitator will plan your session AND be prepared for surprises. They will be prepared to stay agile. They will think on their feet to enable people to say what they think, and not always what you think they should say.  

If you are not good at managing those surprises and would benefit from the support of a professional workshop facilitator, give us a call!