Last week marked my return to face-to-face facilitation. It’s been a few years for me since my last role didn’t need me to take to the front of the room very often as I managed the people who did and then I was living overseas. I was understandably nervous about it. Did I still have “it”? Could I engage with the audience, get the point across and create a valuable experience? To add to the pressure this is a major initiative for the organisation and we don’t want to poison the well with sub-standard learning experiences. It’s also a sort of justification for my very existence at this organisation. No pressure then.
It went OK. I was hoping for fantastic – as we all do, naturally – but it was just fair to good. It was the first run for this program that I designed myself. I think I knew it when I left the room actually. I just didn’t get the vibe that the workshop had hit the mark. I was disappointed, searching for answers to improve the situation and wondering if I’d lost my facilitation mojo. The feedback from participants helped. Luckily many people were willing to offer feedback about what would improve the workshop for them. I am always grateful to those people. There were a few passionate haters. About 3 out of 22 based on the feedback I saw. Not a significant sample but still made me wonder. Was it me? Was it the content or activities? Were their expectations different to what was delivered? I may never know but I certainly gave me food for thought.
I next run this workshop in 2 weeks interstate. I’ve made some changes based on my own observations and the participant feedback but I’m still nervous. I’ve had my confidence dented a little but as they say, you need to get back on the horse.
Like any good learning geek I’ve reflected on this experience to see what I can learn from it. Here it is:
- You just don’t always hit the nail on the head. That’s OK but you need to make sure you learn something from the experience
- Be open to feedback, even if you’re not sure you want to hear it
- Be open to changing the way you do things
- Ask for feedback to see where you can improve
- Be really clear about expectations. Talk about it, then talk about it again. Sometimes no matter how much you state what the workshop covers some people still don’t feel like they got what they wanted/were promised
I’m not perfect, I don’t know it all, and I’m thankful in a way to have this sort of experience to remind me. We all have average days sometimes and that’s OK. Wish me luck next time!
Six degrees of learning 