In this episode, Beth Cougler Blom talks with Kerri Price about the art of creative facilitation and why it’s so important for facilitators to push ourselves and our groups to think differently.
Beth and Kerri also discuss:
- techniques we can use while designing to be more creative
- activities to help groups come up with more innovative ideas
- breaking out of the crutch of PowerPoint
- setting up rooms as creative spaces
Engage with Kerri Price
Other Links from the Episode
- EP 1: The Somewhat Accidental Facilitator with Beth Cougler Blom
- “Know Your Why” Michael Jr. on YouTube
- Washington DC Liberating Structures User Group
- Liberating Structures
- Chad Littlefield
- Facilitation Matters – Festival of Learning
Connect with the Facilitating on Purpose Podcast
- Follow Facilitating on Purpose on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube
- facilitatingonpurpose.com
Connect with Beth Cougler Blom
- Give feedback or suggest upcoming show topics or guests at hello@bcblearning.com
- Visit bcblearning.com to explore Beth’s company’s services in facilitation and learning design
- Purchase a copy of Beth’s book, Design to Engage
- Follow Beth on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn
Podcast production services by Mary Chan of Organized Sound Productions
Show Transcript
[Upbeat music playing]
[Show intro]
Beth
Welcome to Facilitating on Purpose, where we explore ideas together about designing and facilitating learning. Join me to get inspired on your journey to becoming and being a great facilitator wherever you work. I’m your host, Beth Cougler Blom.
[Episode intro]
Beth Cougler Blom
Hello. Thank you so much for joining me for another episode of Facilitating on Purpose. Have you ever felt like you’ve just fallen into a bit of a rut in your facilitation work? That you seem to be drawing on the same old activities, the same old structures, doing things the same way? Well, we’ve all been there at some point or another, those of us who have been facilitators of learning for some time and there are things that we can do to bring ourselves out of such a slump, reinvigorate ourselves, and re-energize ourselves and recapture the creativity and the innovation that we did and want to and will then continue to bring to our facilitation practices.
That’s the topic of my episode today. I’m so pleased that I have Kerri Price from the Facilitators Network joining me. Kerri has been working as a facilitator for about 25 years. She not only still is a facilitator, she teaches people how to be facilitators as well and she thinks the best facilitators are ones who are comfortable bringing their authentic self to the room. I think that’s the kind of conversation we have in this episode. Here’s Kerri Price and I talking about the art of creative facilitation and why it’s so important for us to push ourselves and our groups to think differently. Enjoy the show.
Beth Cougler Blom
Kerri, it’s wonderful to see you. Thanks for joining me on the podcast today.
Kerri Price
Thank you so much for having me. It’s such a pleasure.
Beth
I thought we could just start with you situating us just briefly in who you are and a little bit about the types of facilitation work that you do.
Kerri
Oh, that’s like the million dollar question, isn’t it, for a facilitator who’s all sort of all over the place. But I’ve been doing this facilitation kind of thing for 20-25 years. And so I’ve worked in a whole bunch of different places and spaces. But right now, I kind of wear two hats. I have one hat which is where I work around leadership and team development and most often working with teams who are in all shapes of awful and need to come together and collaborate on things. Maybe it’s some planning things but they need to get on the same page before they can do that. And the other heat I wear is that of the Facilitators Network, so I’m super passionate about helping other facilitators facilitate well and when I say ‘facilitators’ I don’t necessarily mean professional facilitators. I mean, anyone who’s been landed in that role of having to leave meetings or workshops or community conversations and just wanting to be able to do that in a really engaging way. And that’s that’s where my happy is.
Beth
I saw that on your, I think it was your LinkedIn profile where you did a really nice job of that kind of distinction. Where you do work with those two groups of yes, people who would call themselves a professional facilitator and other people who [smiles] are just kind of using it as part of their job and they wouldn’t maybe resonate with that title. So I liked how you did that to really because it helps people who are new to facilitation, particularly they go well, ‘Am I a facilitator?’ Well, you may not call yourself that, but yes, you’re still using facilitation skills and you’re doing facilitation work.
Kerri
Yeah, 100%. And I often refer to them as ‘accidental facilitators’, right? It’s like maybe they’re in a role of community development or they’re team leader. And there’s all of this stuff in the job description and then down the bottom, it’s kind of like, oh, by the way, you have to lead these meetings and workshops. And no one ever shares with them how to do that well, it’s just kind of expected that they can get to the front of the room and make that happen. And I love working with those people because it’s with just a few simple tools and frameworks they can take it from a home hum, boring, no one’s engaged meeting to wow, you know, like, people actually want to be here and it can be engaging and productive. And yes, I love working with accidental facilitators.
Beth
I’m pretty sure Episode 2 of this podcast I had said I was also an accidental facilitator. [Beth’s note: It was actually Episode 1.] Because you know, you start off in some other job and all of a sudden somebody you know, asks you to stand up and do something in front of a group. So I absolutely was that person, and I’m an accidental learning designer as well, because of course, that role I hadn’t even considered was a job, when I was younger. So I kind of fell into it and I’ve talked about that before. Did you fall into it as well?
Kerri
Yeah, and I think lots of facilitators have, right? You ask anyone who’s sort of and and independent facilitator or or someone who’s out on their own and the story is the same. Oh, I was kind of asked to do this meeting one day and I found out I liked it and I kind of went from there. And yeah, that’s absolutely my story. My background’s actually early childhood education, and I often joke and say if you can wrangle 4-year-olds, you can wrangle 40-year-olds cause it’s the same thing, right? And then I went on to work within the charitable and the community sector and as a part of my role there, I was being asked to facilitate meetings and workshops. And then other people started tapping me on the shoulder and saying, hey, you’re quite good at this. Can you do it for our team? Can you show us how to do this? And I just kept saying yes and at the time I had no idea what I was doing really. I was just totally making it up as I went along. And after a year, a year and a half or so I said to my husband, I think I’ve accidentally started this business! Like I think I think this thing I do has a name and it can actually be a career and it kind of went from there.
Beth
I’ve worked with early childhood educators before, and I want to ask you, does that have anything to do with what you’re doing now as a facilitator? Because I feel like when I learned a little bit more about that profession – and I can’t say that I know a lot – but I saw ECE folks using really creative techniques and–because they were used to having to work with little kids and engaging them and being fun and using play. Does that help you a lot in your facilitation work and is it partially why we’re having the conversation we are today [both laugh] about creativity and facilitation, did that help you at all?
Kerri
Yeah. And I think the biggest link between the two is when I was training, I had the privilege of going on a four day in-house live-in workshop around creativity and children. And I remember watching the facilitator and just the process that she took us through and I thought, man, I don’t know like if what she does is actually a job. Like is that something. like what is that called? And I just tucked away in the back of my head: one day I want to do what she’s doing. And I didn’t even really know what she was doing as such other than it looked awesome and it was so much fun. And so that link between ECE and facilitation was really sparked through my training in ECE, and knowing that oh wow, I could take this further. And what was interesting about that workshop, creativity in children, is actually it was all about creativity and us and actually coming into coming to terms with and tapping into our own creativity and that helps foster creativity in children. So yeah, I guess to your point, it was, it is there and I became during that time really fascinated with the creativity process, innovation process and what actually goes on in our brains during that. And where do we lose it? Like in four-year-olds it’s there, they just they just have it. So how come we still don’t have it when we’re 40? How come we need prompts to make that happen?
Beth
What did you determine was the answer? I mean, that’s a question we’ve all asked ourselves and you know, maybe some of us know the answer, but why is it? It seems so obvious, right, that we should keep those skills, but we have a real trouble doing so. Why do we lose the skills of play and creativity?
Kerri
Yeah. I think lots of things, but when you’re three and four, there’s no fear of getting it wrong, right? You just you just go for it. And if it sounds fun, we just give it a shot. But as adults, we get really caught up on is it the right answer? Is it going to work? What’s the risk attached to that? We really engage our logical brain and that creativity gets pushed aside for practical, sensible things. And I think some of that gets sort of taught or bred out of us as we go through schools. You know, everything has to be the right answer. So it’s no wonder, I guess, once we’re in the workplace that that no longer exists.
Beth
Yeah. And then we have to recapture it, don’t we? And maybe through the help of a facilitator or colleagues or whoever. Do you think that being creative and innovative, was it always a skill that you had and you brought and you were looking around going why aren’t other people doing it the way I’m doing and why? Do I have a secret sauce that I’m bringing to this, or was it always easy for you to be creative?
Kerri
Wow, that’s a great question. I guess if you ask my mum, she would say sure, I was always coming up with hair brained schemes and doing things a little bit differently from others. I don’t know if as a child it was an intentional thing. I guess it was more of a personality thing that I was always sort of pushing the boundaries a little bit and wanting to do things differently. What I do know is that I’ve never really had a fear of failure [laughs], so I’m prepared to just like, well, I’m going to give things a shot, and if it works out great, and if it doesn’t work out, well, we’ll just move on to the next thing. And I think that not fear of failure is a great breeding ground for creativity because there’s we kind of not hamstrung by that wrist that’s attached to giving things a go.
Beth
Yeah, if you can get people over that and maybe you can tell me how you do in a second, but why is it so important for people to kind of get over that hump of fear of failure and use creative approaches with themselves and with others. Why do we really want to have this in facilitated work?
Kerri
Yeah. And I think it’s particularly important when it comes to problem solving or finding solutions for problems, right? So that saying, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” And I have no clue who said that. I’m sure it was someone far more intelligent than me. And so when we come to problem solving if we just go to the answers that we have already tried or just slight tweaks on the things that we’ve already tried then we’re never really going to get those transformational solutions or things that will really take you to the to the next level. And so actually priming a group and creating a safe space so that they can explore things before they have to make decisions about them, that’s when you start to get the innovative ideas come through.
Beth
Do you talk about that with the group and kind of that meta cognitive piece about why we’re doing what we’re doing and what it’s going to get them or do you just put them in things and have them experience the activities or the exercises?
Kerri
Yeah, a little bit of both. So what I find if you’re wanting groups to be really creative and innovative is they first have to become aware of how they’re currently thinking. Like I can say to you, Ohh, Beth, you know you think in patterns and we need to do these crazy things to get you out of it. And you’re like, ‘I don’t think in patterns. I’m really creative. There was this one time I did this thing’, so actually doing some activities with people where they’re like ‘ohh, I get it. I really do thinking patterns, maybe I’m not as creative as I thought.’ It makes them more open to doing silly prompts or silly activities that will actually prompt the thinking. So if they get the reason why I’m doing stuff they’re more likely to engage in it.
Beth
Yeah. And you’re not just telling them, you’re having them experience something where they – hey, that’s a good facilitator technique, Kerri – [both laugh] where they realize it for themselves and go OK. Yeah, you got me. Let’s move on.
Kerri
Yeah, 100%. And I mean, I have like a couple of silly games that I play with and then I’ve been in workshops before where there’s, you know, people crossing their arms and looking a bit like I’m not playing your silly games like you know what’s this about? And then as we start, as the activity unfolds, it’s like this. Ohh. You know all it needs is just a teacher, a bit of engagement to begin with and then they realize through the unfolding of it just how caught up in their own head that they are.
Beth
I have a feeling with you that you’re not just going to put – you say a silly game – into a workshop or a meeting, you’re not gonna just put it in because it’s fun or it’s silly. Like you have an ulterior intention I think for everything you do. Do you?
Kerri
100% and I think that’s important for every workshop that you’re doing. Like not just creativity and innovation, right? But I always say the new facilitators, ‘you can’t think about for what you can’t think about what activities you’re going to use until you’re really clear about the why.’ What are we ultimately trying to achieve in this workshop? And not just that big picture, what’s the end goal? But what are all the many objectives we have to achieve along the way? And it’s not until you’re clear on why you are in the room and what you’re ultimately trying to do, that you can find the activities to match, right?
Beth
Absolutely. I always end up talking about purpose. I talk about it a lot. I feel like I talk about it broken record style, right? ‘Always come back to purpose. And what’s the purpose? What are outcomes?’ And so I hear you. You know, we’re always grounding ourselves in the why as you say.
Kerri
Yeah, absolutely. There’s a wonderful YouTube clip by a guy called Michael Jr. He’s a comedian, and I won’t give away the whole clip because it’s amazing to watch. But he says at the end ‘when you know, you’re why your what becomes more impactful because you’re walking towards or in your purpose’. And I think that’s so true right? When you know the ‘why’ of your workshop. Then the what, whatever activities or exercises or questions you ask, become more impactful. Because all of them are designed to take you closer to that end goal.
Beth
And it sounds like your participants don’t always have to know the why necessarily. But you do. Like they will learn along the way. Or maybe sometimes you tell them, and then you do something. So there’s a discovery piece in there that’s happening with the folks in your workshops or meetings, hey, where they’re discovering that why a little bit along the way?
Kerri
Yeah, yeah, 100%. And so sometimes I will say ‘we’re going to do this and this is why’ and other times I’ll say, ‘hey, I’m just gonna do something with you to help your brain work a little differently’. So one of the activities I use when sort of setting the scene for idea generation as I will stay to participants: ‘before we get into idea generation I’d love to just do an exercise with you just to get your brain thinking a little bit differently’. And so Beth, in a minute, I’m going to ask you three questions. I don’t care how you answer them, as long as you answer them wrong. OK, so I will ask the three questions, you just hold the answer in your head and then I’ll ask for the three answers at the end. Does that sound OK?
Beth
OK, but I have to answer them wrong in my head. OK, I’ll what that means when it comes. [laughs]
Kerri
Yeah, absolutely. So alright, so three questions, don’t care how you answer them as long as you answer them wrong. OK, got it. OK. So the first question for you to answer in your head is what is the capital of Canada? Already you have that in your head?
Beth
OK
Kerri
Second question, how many people on this, how many people in this podcast right now as we record? OK you got a second answer in your head?
Beth
Yep.
Kerri
Perfect. OK. Third question is what is my favorite colour? As in what is Kerri Price’s favourite colour? OK you got three answers for them?
Beth
Yes, let’s see if I can remember them. [laughs]
Kerri
OK, so first question. What is the capital of Canada?
Beth
Toronto.
Kerri
Toronto. OK. Second question, how many people?
Beth
And I’m giving you the wrong answers right? OK, yeah.
Kerri
Second question: How many people in this podcast right now as we’re recording?
Beth
Five.
Kerri
OK, perfect. Awesome. And third question, what is my favorite colour as and what is Kerri Price’s favourite colour?
Beth
Yellow.
Kerri
Yellow. Wow! You’re amazing because you’ve just beautifully illustrated how the human brain works, right?
Beth
OK.
Kerri
And this is what happens in our workshop. So I will ask the whole group these questions, they write it on a post it note or keep it in their mind, and then I get them to call back the answers, and it almost always happens just as you have. So the first question, what’s the capital of Canada, you instantly went to a place in your brain that said, well, it must be a place and you got creative around that.
Beth
That’s right.
Kerri
Yeah, right. So you went straight to the place and then the second question, how many people on this podcast? Well, you instantly went to a place in your brain that said, well, it must be a number. And you got creative around that.
But here’s the kicker: when I said to you what is my favorite colour, Kerri Price’s favourite colour, the only way you can answer that wrong and be 100% sure that you’ve got it wrong. Given that you don’t know what my favorite colour is, it’s to answer with something other than a colour. So giraffe, table, bus, car.
Beth
I played right into your hands! Look at that.
Kerri
You kind of did! But it’s because our brains are so pre-programmed to go where we think we’re going to find the answer. And so that’s why it’s difficult for people to get creative. We break into small groups and we say you know ‘we need to brainstorm solutions to this problem. How might we solve this particular problem?’ And people just go straight to where they think they’re going to find the answer. Not because they’re necessarily not creative, but because our brains are so pre-programmed to think that way. And it’s just really difficult to do it in any other way.
Beth
Other way I love that so much. And it’s the pattern piece I think that you were talking about earlier, right? Like the pattern is we know colours and we know a bunch of them and we’re not we’re not going to say ‘giraffe’ when we really want to say ‘yellow’, like it just doesn’t come up in our brains. Yeah. So yeah, put us in a different situation of we’re brainstorming something for an organization and how they can move forward and whatever. Yeah, it’s really hard to break people to think outside the box as we always say. Nice illustration.
Kerri
Yeah, and we do it so quickly in our brains. Like often in workshops I’ll do this activity and let’s say we’re in New Zealand, I’ll say what’s the capital of New Zealand? And people will think they’re being really creative because they say ‘London’ because they’ve moved outside of the country. [Beth laughs] And then there’s this realization of wow, actually on the scale of creativity, that’s not that creative. It’s still a place, right? (Yeah) And it just so highlights how tricky it is to move past that. And so then when I say, then when we go on to do different prompts, I’m like ohh, I get why she’s doing this. I get why this is important.
Beth
That’s nice. I love it. Cause why wouldn’t you want them to experience it rather than you just tell them about it and they kind of don’t really see. But when you just did that to me, I really see. Yeah, I love that. (Yeah.) So how do you use that for yourself when you’re designing your workshops or your meetings that you’re facilitating? How do you not fall into some of those traps for yourself and kind of do the same old thing that you’ve always done? Do you have those kind of techniques for yourself?
Kerri
Yeah, that’s such a great question. Because I think the longer you are involved in facilitation, the easier it is to just fall into ruts, right? Because you’re like, I did this thing this one time, and I know it works. Why would I bother changing that? And so when I’m designing workshops, I will first of all start with my why in that. What are all the many objectives? And then I start plugging in what activities might I use or what structures or frameworks might I use in each of these spaces.
But then I come back for a third round and I will ask myself what are three other ways that I might prove this point or illustrate this point or get this discussion going? And just so that I’m not stuck and well, this is how I did it this time. And sometimes you know, to be fair, those three other ways might be ways I’ve done before as well. Like it’s not brand new. And other times I’m like, wow, I actually need to create something new here. I have to force myself to think differently. And it doesn’t mean I always use the new idea, but it’s a practice of what else might this look like? What else? And I think when you use that term, what else, it’s telling your brain there is something else, and now you just need to find what it is.
Beth
Do you go outside of yourself too and get other people’s opinions or, you know, co-facilitate? Or are you really trying to force yourself to do it within yourself because it almost feels like a crutch sometimes to go ‘hey, can you look at this and give me an idea’, you know, or three other ideas, my other friend in facilitation, whoever it is or like, do you try to situate it just with yourself first and force yourself to do some of those exercises alone?
Kerri
Yeah, I’m a big believer in together alone. So when I say ‘together alone’ it’s the process of working out your own thoughts before you’re influenced by someone else. Now that doesn’t mean you don’t bounce ideas off people and you don’t spark ideas from other things. But often we have ideas in our own head that just never get a chance to be explored because we talked to someone and we follow their path before actually bringing that stuff out. So I use things, like for my own innovation, I will pick up things off my desk and go OK, so how might I turn this into a activity or how might this relate to what I’m talking about? I use metaphors a lot, so if I’m maybe I’m doing a strategic planning session, I’ll be like strategic planning is like what? And create pictures and stories around that and then that will help me come up with relevant activities or frameworks to work with.
Beth
Do you ever use constraints? Because I’ve dabbled in and around that, you know in different ways, and I went to one of the Washington DC Liberating Structures user group’s meetings year, a couple of years ago at least. And one of the main facilitators said, OK, let’s rethink this, activity, this Liberating Structure but here’s the constraint: you know you can’t do blah blah blah. And it was so fascinating. We were broken into small groups in breakout rooms, and people were so creative when they were given that constraint to kind of say, OK, well, this one’s normally…you’re standing up and walking around the room in pairs. But you know, you can’t stand up or whatever. I forget how it worked there were lots of creative ideas that the group captured for sure.
Kerri
Yeah, constraints are such a great tool for getting people to be creative. In fact, I was facilitating a workshop last week with a group of local government professionals, and as part of that workshop they design our workshop to deliver, and they have to practice putting in different types of activities and frameworks to create a workshop that’s engaging. And one of the groups sort of called me over and they’re like I am, we’re really stuck. Like the only thing we can do right here is use PowerPoint. And I said, well, just imagine you’re in a room and you don’t have access to PowerPoint. There is no screen, there is no slideshow like how will you do it? Other than that? And it’s amazing what they came up with. But we first had to take away. It was like, but you’re not allowed to do that. Let’s imagine you can’t. And then they’re forced to think of things differently.
And the same goes when I’m in a workshop with a team and they’re problem solving something. And I often use a guided visualization. So people on their own just grab a piece of paper and or post it notes and I will start asking questions like how would you solve this problem if you had all the money in the world? So no constraints. And then my next question is how would you solve the problem if you only had $100 to spend? And usually there’s this collective groan of like ‘$100. How would we?’ But it’s actually the constrained ideas that that come up with the most creative results, right?
Beth
Exactly. Yeah. So you have to, you mentioned you mentioned PowerPoint. I talk about it sometimes as a crutch. You know, people so often default to that. And oh yes, we’re going to put together a workshop – well often case it’s a presentation, not really a workshop, right. And they go right to the PowerPoint and they’re going to have a lot of slides. Sometimes I’m sent these massive massive decks, right? With just hundreds of slots in them. [laughs] So is that the biggest crutch people have, or are there other crutches that you’re trying to get people to break out of when they’re doing their work?
Kerri
Yeah, I agree with you with PowerPoint. So often, people use them as kind of a prompt for them so they know where they’re up to. But in the words of the of Chad Littlefield, I mean, when you’re using PowerPoint to that extreme, you’re designing for consumption, right, not contribution. And it’s about getting people engaged by asking questions.
What’s interesting about PowerPoint is I think oftentimes people create their slide decks as handouts. They’re like, well if I do my PowerPoint and then I can just use that as handouts. But actually a handout and a PowerPoint has two completely different purposes. And so by trying to put them together you do neither one any great service. So I’m a big fan of no PowerPoint workshops. Maybe it’s because I’m crap at using PowerPoint. [laughs] I think there’s more engaging ways to do things. But to your to your point around is PowerPoint a crutch? I think sometimes it’s just that people don’t know any other way.
Beth
Yeah, maybe that’s often what happens, isn’t it? That they haven’t seen someone be really creative in a room as the facilitator. They haven’t seen a facilitator even! [laughs] They just don’t have examples for it so they don’t know how to replicate that in their own environments. Is that what you found too?
Kerri
Yeah. You got to see it to be it, right? And I’m lucky when I if I think back to that Pennie Brownlee, who was the wonderful facilitator I saw when I was training for ECE. I had the privilege of watching this amazing facilitator in action. She was the first facilitator I’ve ever experienced. And so that’s for ever being my bow. Like ohh, if I could be as great as her like, that would be amazing. But if you’ve never had the privilege of seeing someone like that in action, then your bar’s pretty low, right? Like you don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t know what’s possible.
Beth
That’s right. And I bet you’re that for the people that you teach facilitation to now. I mean, you have – I think you have a two day workshop coming up and you probably always have a two day workshop coming up. But you know what’s the impact you see when your participants are coming up to you at the end of your workshop and saying something about how you did something differently than they’ve never seen before? Because you’re that person for other people in your world, I’m sure. What are they saying? What’s the impact?
Kerri
Well, that is so kind of you to say. I hope I’m that person for other people in my world. It’s it’s fascinating because in these two days workshops, the Facilitator’s Toolkit, we talk a little bit about workshop design. And then most of the two days is just a whole bunch of different activities and exercises you can use to plug into them. And the comment when people sort of at the end, they’re like, I can’t believe you didn’t use a single PowerPoint! [both laugh] And that’s like this, just this this massive, like, what? Like, I get you don’t have to use it all the time, but you didn’t use a single one! And that’s usually the biggest sort of aha moment for people.
I was sitting up a room for a workshop a couple of weeks ago, and I was staying at the hotel where the workshop was happening, and I came down the day before and I thought, I wonder if they’re setting up the room yet? And I caught them just as they were starting to set it up. And I said I’ve had to rethink about how to have it set iup. Can we, you know, move it around? And I was dragging tables around, and the guy was just kind of looking at me. And he said, I’m really concerned that people aren’t going to be able to see the screen from where they’re sitting. [laughs] I was like, OK we don’t use the screen. And but even that in venues, they’re so pre-programmed to set up the room to face the screen because for so many people, that is the focal point. And it’s just not the case for me at all.
Beth
I sometimes have a PowerPoint and often don’t, you know, in favour of my flipcharts or sticky notes or whatever. All those other tools we have. And I find it quite hilarious to talk to the venue, people, hotels or whatever. Because you’re right, they’re so used to the status quo and then they’re kind of confused. Like they’re literally getting really confused! [they laugh], who is this crazy lady coming in here and, you know, doing something different? And is this gonna really work? You know, you can kind of see it all over their face. But it does. Take it from us, right, it really works.
Kerri
Totally. And what was interesting in that particular venue, the way I set it up, there was this big open space kind of in the middle and he was like, don’t you want to bring the tables in closer? And I said, oh, no, we need an open space because we’ll be doing a lot of activities on our feet and moving around. And you could just see this dumbfoundedness on his face. [chuckles] It’s kind of like what like what? And honestly, I mean, that was a two day workshop and we would have spent at least half of it on our feet doing, even if it’s just having a conversation on your feet rather than sitting and talking to the person next to you, that movement. Creates engagement and it does something in your brain.
Beth
Yeah, I agree. Yeah. It disrupts some sort of – again, it’s a pattern, isn’t it? We’re disrupting something when we ask people to move around, move their bodies or whatnot. Yeah.
Kerri
Yeah, absolutely.
Beth
I have a proposition for you to give a lightning round to you, asking you some questions about how to be creative. How can we be creative about some potentially common challenges that might happen in workshops. Are you game to participate in my lightning round?
Kerri
Sure thing. Am I allowed to take deep breaths as you ask me? [laughs]
Beth
Yes, pause as much as you want. [they laughs]
Kerri
OK, deep breaths, alright? Awesome.
Beth
And we can do it. We can do as many as you want here.
OK, so do you have any creative ideas for…first one…facilitating debriefs or report backs with a large group so they don’t drag on and on. Do you know what I mean? Like you’ve asked the group to do something, they’ve broken up into small groups and then you have to take it up or debrief or do report outs. Like how do you do that creatively? Because I think it’s a common challenge for even facilitators who’ve been working in the field for a while.
Kerri
Yeah. Great. So you’re talking about groups have gone into small groups. They’ve had some sort of discussion and now you’re wanting to hear back. (Yeah.) Yeah. So my favourite one in that space is instead of going right, we’re going to go to Group One and hear what they say, and then we’re going to go to Group 2 and so on, I will start with one group and I’ll say you just share one of the things you’ve got written on there. And then the next group just shares one of the things that they’ve got on there and we go around sort of one at a time. So that it’s not Group One goes through everything they came up with and then Group Two goes, ‘Ohh yeah. Same as what they said.’ You know, so break it into pieces. I also love the idea of finding connections. So going to the first group and they share a couple of things. And as soon as another group goes ‘ohh, we’ve got that too’. And they kind of sing out. And then they keep going on. And then another group. ‘Ohh, we’ve got that one too’. And then they take over. And so there’s kind of – you have to be listening in to what the other people are saying listening for the connections and it starts to sort of popcorn and bounce around the room.
Beth
I like that, like the popcorn. And just so you give them a bit of advance warning. You know, you gotta listen because we’re gonna make connections here and give them a heads up on that?
Kerri
Yeah, and so it means that they’re actually listening to understand and connect rather than just hanging out, waiting for their turn to come.
Beth
OK, thanks for that. Here’s another one. Do you have any creative ideas for setting up a room?
Kerri
Ohh, I’m a big fan. I’ve got a big thing about room setup. And it always comes back to purpose, right? What am I trying to achieve in this space? And so because people come into a room and instantly they know what kind of workshop it’s going to be based on how the room has been set up. So for me it’s really important that people can see each other. They can have conversations across groups and that they’re not all just looking at me.
So in terms of creative setup, I don’t know that there’s anything particularly creative other than just be really clear on purpose and then set the room to that. The most interesting workshop that I’ve actually participated in in terms of room setup, it wasn’t my great idea, but it was a really cool eye opener, was we came in and all the tables and chairs were just kind of pushed up against the wall. And it looked like a real mess and everyone was kind of just standing around, ‘what the heck, like, this is not what we expected’. And then the facilitator said, ‘So to get you to help you get to know each other, you’re going to collectively set up the room. How do you best think we should set up the room for today?’
And it was, it was really interesting to see what unfolded. And then there was a whole lot of debrief around why she did that, obviously. But yeah, that was creative.
Beth
That’s fun. I like that. Might be a group dynamics thing as well. It’s like, how is this group going to decide on what the room set up should be and kind of sit back. I’ve heard of someone doing that here as well. I think for something called the Instructional Skills Workshop. I heard there’s a local facilitator that maybe did that on Day Two so that she’d kind of shake up the group going, they think they know what the room setup’s gonna look like because I saw it the first day. But day two it’s completely different (Yeah) and what does that mean?
OK, here’s another one. What’s your creative idea, or one of them, for moving participants beyond status quo thinking?
Kerri
Yeah, so I use it a few different things. So one, that guided visualization I talked about. So I I’ll always get people to do things on their own first so they’re not influenced by other people in the room. And I’ll run off a series of questions like how would you solve this problem, like I said before, with only $100. What would your 8 year old neighbour tell you to do? Like so we go through that kind of thing.
But one of my favourites is using picture cards. So I might put a picture card in front of each person, or I might put one, I dare I say it up on a slide, show a picture and I will ask them to kind of think about what that reminds them of and go down a chain or a train of thought.
I remember I was working with a organization a few years ago now and we were they were wanting to brainstorm a flagship fundraising event so they wanted it to be an event that was absolutely amazing, they could do it every year and they’d become known for this event. They were really stuck on ‘we could have a quiz night’. We could, you know, all great ideas, but nothing particularly amazing. And I put this picture of vintage car up on the screen and I asked people just to jot down in front of them what that car reminded them of. And so people were just jotting down various things. And I said, OK, now look at your list. And now drop down. What do those things remind you of? And they started jotting down again. And I said that three or four times.
And then all of a sudden, this young girl said, ‘Oh my goodness. We could do a silent movie festival!’ And I said ‘OK, tell me about the silent movie festival. How did you come to that?’ What happened was she saw the vintage car and that reminded her of her grandfather who was a bit of a collector. And then when I said, what does that remind you of? She said her grandfather reminded her of Clint Eastwood movies. And then when I said, ‘What is that?’ she started going down another track, which was just listing all these genres of film. And when she says she got to Charlie Chaplin and she was, like, silent movie festival. Now that’s a lovely idea, and it’s something a little bit different, but what made it so amazing was that this was a charity that worked with people who supported people with aphasia, which is their inability to speak. So this silent movie festival was like this amazing fundraising event. They had a direct connection to the work that they were doing, but it came from starting with this vintage car. What does that remind you of? What does that remind you of? And so it was a million of miles away from where they started but so so aligned with their purpose.
Beth
That’s so wonderful and it makes me think about, I mean, we’ll go to concept mapping, right? Like some of us know about concept mapping, but you didn’t probably even say the word concept mapping [laughs] with this particular group. (No!) But how often do we brainstorm and kind of go to that second and that third and however many levels? I love that. We don’t go there very often, right? You just brainstorm one level and you know it’s the typical that we get. And you pushed them further. That’s so lovely.
Kerri
Yeah. And I think it’s that level thing. I remember I had a friend who worked in radio many years ago and he always said to me when they were sitting around brainstorming their promotional activities or, you know how radio stations do crazy out there things, they had to get to 31 ideas before they were allowed to look back on anything. Now, I don’t know what the 31 is any some particular magic number, but it was they were forced to just keep coming out with ideas before they started to evaluate and choose.
Beth
It’s funny, makes me think of Baskin Robbins ice cream. Do you have Baskin Robbins? I don’t know if it’s still around, it’s not in our part of the in our part of the country. But they I think they had 31 flavours. (Yeah.) Maybe it was like a Baskin Robbins exercise! [laughs]
Kerri
Maybe. Yeah, maybe it was, yeah.
Beth
OK, let me do one more and then we’ll see where we go from there. Do you have any creative ideas for facilitating creatively in virtual spaces?
Kerri
Oh, do you know I was one of those people who was like, you can’t facilitate online. Like, this is crazy! And up until the pandemic, I would have run a mile from doing anything online. And then, of course, the pandemic made us do it. And so I was forced to kind of play around and see what happens.
And my top tip, I guess, for facilitating online in an engaging way is go as old school as possible. Like we think that because there’s technology, we must use it. And what I find with some of the technology is like not everyone in the room is comfortable with it or confident with it. They then feel excluded, then they can’t engage as much and the whole dynamic falls apart. So I do a lot of things in online workshops where I’m like write on a post it note and hold it to the screen.
I take all that old school stuff and bring it or in person stuff and bring it to the online environment. I encourage people to move a lot. So I’m like, OK, so we’re going to go into breakout rooms now. I want you to unplug your laptop and move to a different space so that when you’re in the breakout room, you’ve actually moved like you would be in a breakout room. And so I’m often thinking, how would I do this in person? And then how do I mimic as much of in person as I can online?
Beth
I like that so much because I’ve thought about and done where you move into a breakout room, OK, kind of we go, you know, feel free to stand up as you go in. But I’ve never actually thought about inviting them to take their thing. I mean, if they’re on a desktop, I guess they’re stuck. But if they’re on a mobile or a laptop, yeah, go to a different room like you would if you were going to move to a breakout room. That’s so clever. So easy to do, right?
Kerri
Yeah. And it just, it just changes state and it … the more people are moving, the more you can’t be unengaged – Unengaged? Disengaged? – if you’re moving because you have to be present to what’s happening.
Beth
Yeah. Ohh thank you for just those few little tips, you know. They seem so simple as you say. And I always say just, you know, be a human being. [laughs] Like, just be a real person and you know it doesn’t have to be so formal all the time as well. For in person as well.
Kerri
Yeah. And authentic. I think I made a LinkedIn post recently: authenticity beats perfection every day of the week. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I think if we try so hard to be perfect and formal, it’s just it’s just stuffy and people want to feel connected to you and they can’t feel connected to you if you’re not being human.
Beth
Yeah, that’s what I always used to tell new facilitators and maybe haven’t thought of it for a while, but I used to say to people that: ‘The people that you’re working with, they want you to do a good job. You know, they want you to do well. They’re rooting for you. They’re not hoping that you’re going to do a terrible job because that’s really awkward and uncomfortable for all of us.’ Like, we don’t want that. And so if it helps people to give them that something to get up and work with the room, you know, whatever their rooms are, the people want your success. And then maybe it lessens some of that fear or failure that you were talking about earlier. That it’s OK. You know, we’re just humans and people want, you know, they understand. And we move on and it’s OK. We’re not gonna die up there. Although people say it’s like a really big fear, right? Right after dying. I don’t know if that’s actually true, but it’s a big fear. But can we just help them get over it.
Kerri
Yeah, and I think what has what has helped me in the past is reminding myself that this isn’t actually about me. This is about creating an outcome for the group. And if I just keep asking myself, what’s the most useful thing I can do for the group right now, then it takes the pressure off me. And it’s about being of service to the group. And that means that I don’t have to follow the plan because if that’s not what’s most useful for the group right now, well, then that’s fine. I’ll just do something different. Knowing that if that if you’re always focused on being on service to them and will always work out.
Beth
I love that you’ve grounded us in that and it makes me think about those times where I had a really cool activity plan, something I thought was really creative and for whatever reason in the end I decided not to do it because the group didn’t need that right then. Or, you know, maybe we ran out of time because we, the group kind of needed to do something else. Like the conversation took a turn and we really needed to stay in that for a while or and then you know you’re kind of left literally holding the bag sometimes of all your toolkit pieces you never got to use and there’s, like, a little tiny sadness in there. But it’s not because you went with the group and we did what the group wanted to do and it didn’t really matter that we didn’t get to use our cool activity. [laughs] Yeah. So grounding ourselves in that is a really great thing to keep remembering, thank you.
Kerri
You and you have reminded me of a time when I didn’t do that. There’s a couple of activities that I love to do and you know you have your favourite activities, right? And I remember working with this group of senior leadership team and I was like, oh I really need to fit this activity in and put it in the plan. It was going to be awesome and the workshop kind of went in a different direction. And I still threw that activity in. And I remember the feedback form one guy had written, “I’m not sure why we did this particular activity. It didn’t make sense.” And I was like, you are so right. Like it didn’t make sense. But I was so caught up on. But it’s such a cool activity! [with emphasis] And ever since then I was like, just get out of your own head. It’s not about putting on the best show or having the most fun activities about it’s about what makes sense and what is the most used to the group in that moment, and it might be different to what you had on your plan and that’s totally OK.
Beth
Yeah. Makes me think of who’s creativity, who’s innovation are we really here for? I mean, we kind of want, we want to be interested in what we’re doing for sure. We want to be excited about our work as facilitators. But it really has to be about the participants, about the group in the end, doesn’t it? We have to take the back seat to what their needs are. So great to to end that way. Kerri, what’s next for you in your creative journey as a facilitator? What are you going to be doing next? What are you excited about this year?
Kerri
Ohh, I’m always excited and I’ve always got something new on the go, so we’re currently working towards our Festival of Learning so we have our two-day facilitation matters, festival of learning that happens in July every year and I use that as a chance to try out all sorts of new and creative things with like 150 facilitators. So there’s no fear of failure because there’ll be other people in the room who go, ‘Oh you could do it this way. You could do it this way!’ So that’s really amping up my creative juices, right now. But the biggest thing that we’re working on is I’m working on is near the end of the year we’re working towards a week long facilitation retreat for just a small group of facilitators. And I don’t know what that looks like yet, we’re still in the really early stages of making that happen, but I’m really excited for what might come out of that.
Beth
That sounds wonderful. Maybe we better have you say where you are in the world in case anybody wants to join? Do you want to say? We haven’t talked about that yet!
Kerri
Yeah! So I’m based in New Zealand right at the bottom of the bottom of the world or depending on which way your map is. Right? And I do a lot of work in Australia as well, so New Zealand, Australia, Pacific. But we have our facilitators network, which is online and we’ve got members at dial in from all over the world. So don’t let New Zealand stop you.
Beth
I know many of us, probably. I’m in North America and the West Coast of Canada. And you know, many of us, it’s on our bucket list to go to New Zealand and Australia for sure. So someday we’ll all get there and maybe we can take one of your workshops and one of your trainings would be amazing.
Kerri
Love it. Love it.
Beth
Thank you so much for joining me. It’s been a pleasure and just another lovely conversation to get excited about fun things in facilitation and how we can all keep re-energizing ourselves in being creative and being innovative. But, as you’ve just told us and reminded us, we’re there for our groups most of all, aren’t we? Anything you’d like to say as we close our time together?
Kerri
I just want to say thank you so much for having me and huge congratulations to you for the time and energy and resource you put into this podcast. It’s funny once you meet someone and you then start seeing them pop up in all sorts of different places. And certainly there are lots of people talking about how wonderful this podcast is so thank you so much for the privilege of being on it and keep up the great work.
Beth
Oh, thank you. That means a lot to me. Lovely to have you with me.
Kerri
Pleasure.
[Episode outro]
Beth Cougler Blom
I loved my conversation with Kerri and look at what she did, just facilitating me through something where I played right into her little hands, showing how [chuckles] I so often and we so often just fall right into previous patterns in the way we think and how our brains work. Kerri said it’s because our brains are so pre-programmed to go where we think we’re going to find the answer that it’s a problem and that’s why it’s difficult for people to get creative. So I will just be the example for you to remember [chuckles] to break your groups and break yourself out of those patterns of thinking and help get yourself and your groups to the places where you need them and want them to go so that more innovative thinking can happen and actually it leads to bigger, more wonderful change in organizations or workplaces or wherever the change is going to happen. Thanks again to Kerri Price for coming and joining me and having this great conversation with me on the podcast and giving us so many ideas about how we can stay creative in our work. Thanks Kerri.
The next episode of the podcast is a solo one with me. I’m going to share some behind-the-scenes insights into the kinds of things that I do to keep learning in my field and how I actually fit that [chuckles] into my week and my month as I also try to work on client work as well and lead the team that I have in my growing company. I was actually asked in a recent request for proposals, an RFP that I was responding to, how my team and I undergo professional development in our field. It was the first time I had seen that type of question in an RFP and I thought, wow, it’s so great that they’re asking about that because they care about lifelong learning and they want to work with consultants who are doing that. And then my second thought was, I’m so happy that we actually have an answer to that [laughs] because we do a lot of learning every month and every year in various subtopics related to our field. And I’d love to share a little bit about how we make that happen if you’re curious. So come with me next time for a little peek behind the scenes as to how to keep learning in our field. I’ll see you then.
[Show outro]
Beth
Thank you for listening to Facilitating on Purpose. If you were inspired by something in this episode, please share it with a friend or a colleague to help them expand their facilitation practice too. To find the show notes, give me feedback, or submit ideas for future episodes visit facilitatingonpurpose.com. Special thanks to Mary Chan at Organized Sound Productions for producing this episode. Happy facilitating!
