What have I just agreed to deliver?
You get a tap on the shoulder. It’s a request by a leader in your organisation. What happens if you have to run a workshop that isn’t within your comfort zone? For whatever reason, you are not in a position to say no. Lucky you. Is it at this point you’re wondering how on earth you can approach such an unknown and dangerous beast? Dangerous due to potential embarrassment if you get it wrong! What if people see right through you? You are no expert, after all.
Your concerns may feel strong if you are working with an audience well-versed in the topic, yet you are not. Yet were you called upon to speak on novel ways to approach the subject at hand? In this case, you will be drawing out the collective experience of those in the room and crafting this experience in a way that achieves a given outcome. Or gently critique the status quo or even direct discussion amongst experts?
Unfamiliar workshop topics and my career? How do they relate?
During your workshop, you still may feel nervous despite not needing to be in this expert role nor having all the answers. The nerves can help you stay on your game, and in time you may find a growing confidence in delivering workshops well outside your comfort zone. The curious mindset of someone like Michael Parkinson is an inspiration.
Channelling Mr. Parkinson’s strengths, workshop skills may open various career doors. What doors? Any door where curiosity and ability to draw great information out of people is prized. In management careers, this skill is valuable as a manager can listen to their team and customers. Skilled managers guide conversations and elicit information for their team and customers. Their Socratic questioning style solves problems without the managers’ intervention.
Depending on your personality and the time you have available, you might find this exhilarating. In other words, a challenge! What if you see it like so many people — a terrifying or deflating problem? You might even vacillate towards the two ends of the spectrum, and this is entirely okay.
What are some pointers to help you break down what you need to cover in the workshop and how you can feel like an expert in the subject? You may still not be an expert at the end of the workshop — yet still be successful at it. What do you make of that?
That’s right — the best news about workshops is that you do not need to be a subject matter expert. Yes, this is counter to many people’s beliefs (maybe including yours). This perspective may even seem irreverent or even disrespectful to the topic at hand. So here are d to examples which may change your mind.
Watch brilliant journalists or TV hosts. They are not an expert in the people they interview. They are curious and park their ego or assumptions about a given topic. It is fascinating to watch interviewers explore a subject through the medium of the person they are interviewing. Michael Parkinson comes to mind as an exemplar.
Similarly, counsellors take a similar curious and non-judgemental approach to exploring a client’s predicament. The counsellor may have an academic background in counselling, psychology or social work. But they don’t honestly know their client at an “expert” level — even after many sessions. There is no way on earth they can ever be an expert in the variety of people they work with. This expertise accounts for nuanced aspects of each client’s personality, cultural background, and the client’s predicament. Not to mention the client’s motivation to change or show insight into their plight. Thus counsellors strive to understand their clients as best as they can. Their curiosity, providing space for the client to open up, and unconditional regard for their client helps achieve this aim.
Hopefully, the perspective of journalists, interviewers and counsellors give you the confidence that you don’t need expertise. Instead, maybe all you need is curiosity, two ears, one mouth and a structured approach?
Here are some valuable pointers in overcoming any ambiguity from when someone asks you to run a workshop. These pointers might help you build reasonable confidence in delivering workshops where you are unfamiliar with the topic at hand.
Start with the goal.
The person who wants you to run the workshop might have a particular goal in mind for you and how your expertise contributes to this goal. For example, a workshop on better communication skills for a specific team in your organisation — say, a finance team. The person asking you to run the workshop may believe that you are an expert in communications. But how do you scope “communications” in this context? Especially for the specific context of this small team of financial professionals? Is there an interpersonal skills deficit in one or all team members? Or a need for Plain English and less-abrupt sounding email messages? Is there a personality clash or another issue?
In this case, aim to elicit the goal(s) of the workshop. You could use a semi-structured interview format, such as a brief creative template. Failing this, what about structuring several questions, bringing your six friends to the party. Your six friends? They are: how, who, what, when, why, and why. Sometimes, the person requesting the workshop clearly states the workshop goal. Yet occasionally, it’s what’s not being said that speaks to your workshop’s goal.
What does industry best practice suggest?
If you broke down the goal into components, how would you structure a workshop into three to five points to help achieve this goal? You might want to start with what your industry considers best practice depending on the goals of your workshop. Googling this best practice may be the equal of asking Dr Google if you had a medical problem. It doesn’t definitively solve the problem, but it may give you a starting point. There may be existing materials on topics like communication, particularly within the limited scope of what communication is based on the given goal.
Can you bring in relevant academic research?
Yuck, you say: academic research? Yet, you might find some valuable studies which have a strong scientific basis and relevance to the topic at hand. You don’t have to go overboard on academic research, especially for a workshop in any organisation. Practicality proceeds research outcomes in most organisational contexts. Academic research findings are also often tentative — is being tentative something you usually find in corporate workshops?
Yet interesting studies can help your workshop in several ways. Research may illustrate industry best practices or provide a novel spin on a topic related to the workshop goal! Topical and considered research insights may tell an interesting story. Or set an evidence-based, credible context for your workshop. Your research review may help build your confidence in your emerging expertise.
What do some of your participants say?
I like to bounce the odd idea off friendly participants before workshops to be sure that my approach will hit the mark. Can you schedule a quick chat with some of your participants well in advance of the workshop? Their insights may help you not only structure your topics linked to the workshop aims. Their answers often reveal particular terms and turns of phrase. Learn these terms — they are gold if used appropriately in workshops.
In speaking to experts, you may identify patterns or novel and practical takes on their domain. You might find the workshop goals established by their leader differs to their views! What you learn from these brief conversations may bump up your impact on the day of delivery.
How will you draw conversation from everyone?
How will you elicit conversation or feedback on specific topics from the quietest people in the room?
Sometimes the quietest people in the room may have novel or valuable insights.
How many conversational gems and powerful insights have never surfaced in a single workshop, let alone dozens of them? All because a small minority monopolise the conversation. Or workshop facilitators don’t seek a diversity of opinions, don’t “park” irrelevant conversation or interpret silence from quieter participants as either boredom or a cue to move on.
What if you fear some of the workshop participants? They might be aggressive, dismissive or tune out. They might attack concepts in your workshop, or other participants. Knowing and practicing verbal judo (or change jujutsu for those facilitating change) can help. Verbal judo is an alternative to struggling with dissenting viewpoints.
It’s not only the quality of your questions which counts, but the quality of your listening.
Channel your inner Michael Parkinson. Right in the middle of your workshop, fighting nerves. This is the time to practice active listening. Your audience drop clues for you to pick up on during a workshop. They emphasise certain words, use specific terms and touch on unique ideas. Can you probe for words often-emphasised words, or seek to understand the emotions underlying a comment? Will you link one person’s comment with another’s question? Can you weave workshop comments into a richer tapestry, and reflect participant’s comments back to the audience?
What tools are at your disposal?
You may have a system to present to your audience. To help you walk through the system, do you have a training or nonproduction environment handy for the workshop? You can then walk your audience through a replica of the “real-life” system. You may want to elicit comments or other data from your audience. You can use tools like Miro to arrange Post-it notes based on a given topic digitally. Miro (or other) digital whiteboards also let you organise ideas. You can use Kahoot to capture vote data and brief comments, which become useful fodder for the workshop. And when you think of tools, think of resources, including people. Consider your audience or others that you can invite to add life to certain aspects of the workshop. They might contribute their expertise or presentation skills. Or you enlist the most valuable gem of a workshop asset? Someone who can the best out of people and explore nuanced and sometimes fractious topics? Perhaps that most valuable gem is… you?
What would you like to ask participants?
There may be three or four questions that link to your workshop goal. These questions may comprise the bulk of your workshop. Perhaps even to the point where you hardly need to be an expert in the topic at hand and can revert to an almost pure facilitation role. Your audience may enjoy venturing their opinions! What are the factors influencing this comfort? How casual or intimate your workshop is, the audience dynamic and the opportunities to speak. Acknowledging and encouraging contributions during the workshop and learning contributors names also help!
You could have a subject matter expert who can introduce the topic at hand? This expert may illustrate how each question links to both the topic and the goals of the workshop. They might articulate this better than you! Thus you could play an emcee role then revert to a scribe role throughout the workshop. Finish with a flourish! Provide a summary of points raised. Then note everyone’s contributions to the workshop, and any next steps.
It’s all about timing.
Your workshop scope and topics hint at likely workshop duration. Have you performed a dry run, or at least in your mind, have an clear and reasonably accurate estimation of how long each part of your workshop will last? This understanding is essential as you may need to form an agenda upfront with these timings. . A time-bound schedule permits you to move onto the next issue as you’ve already established the ground rules around timings.
Workshop logistics.
Have you tested the virtual room or visited the real-life room that the workshop will be in? Have you got backups of any presentations you will use? Have you completed at least one dry run of any quiz or collaboration tools that you plan to use on the day? Have you thought through all the possible things that can go wrong with a corresponding mitigation plan against each one? Experienced facilitators will remember one workshop where everything went wrong. This strain and stress from things going wrong mid workshop makes us especially vigilant for the next time.
At least one dry run.
Are you delivering a workshop that you already have experience in or this is a workshop with pretty clear parameters? If not, it is worth meeting with the workshop originator to ensure that you are on the right page before the workshop. This dry run doesn’t meet at the complete end to end dry run. Instead, it could be a brief walk-through or high-level overview of the topics you aim to cover.
Again three to five topics should be enough, as many people should remember a small handful of concepts. The more topics or the more complex your workshop agenda, the higher the likelihood that your timing might blow out. Still, also people might start to get tired of wading through several topics, especially if deep exploration of each issue is needed.
Are you thinking beyond execution?
So it is all well and good to deliver the workshop and do this well. You may have achieved the workshop objectives. Well done! You may have collected a tonne of information if you acted as (or appointed) a scribe. Qualitative information, voting data, outstanding questions or conversations “parked” for later? Also, did conversation touch on other resources or commitments to be delivered upon outside of the workshop?
The final step is not completing the workshop. Instead, finishing well includes a comprehensive follow-up. Even if it’s a simple thank you.
How will you shape your audience’s memory of your workshop positively? We are remembered for how we are when we finish something. Suppose you provided relevant resources or a beautiful summary of the information collected? In that case, you are finishing in the strongest position possible!
Our book — The Change Manager’s Companion — is available now. You can also check out our online course on Change Management.