Big Five Series

Intros: I like the ‘warts and all’ in the intros. People want to know about the real-life scenarios more than the theories. People learn when they get real using examples. You gave lectures at school about Business Process Re-engineering (BPR)? I find your mission goal very interesting e.g. enabling line manager to coach because the more immediate the coaching the less problems later.

Part I 50 Fabulous Facts for First Time Corporate Facilitators

Fact 1 Ground Rules: Mostly in the order of: Expectation (with intros) | Icebreakers | Objectives. What is Pascale (reference 15) describes a ground rule introduced to enhance effective collaborative work in groups as “no delegate can be sent”? No need for ground rules in our group.

Fact 2 Expectations: After expectations have been clarified, the participants would be able to answer “by the end of this we will…” Would expectation where you would tailor workshop content to suit the knowledge of the participants?

Fact 3 Objectives: I want to talk about Objectives. You mentioned it could take half a day just to clarify and agree on the objectives. We never really had to do that. I would like to hear stories or real life scenarios when objectives were not agreed and clear in the beginning. What happened?

Fact 4 Icebreakers: I like it that you summarized Icebreakers as a way to reach common ground with the group. That is really the only outcome we want from icebreakers at the end of the day. I want to go through each icebreakers exercise with you. I want to also share my insights and how I have grouped icebreakers into categories. Each category has a specific goal. Also, now that we are working remotely, virtual workshop is now a norm. Will be good to add some examples for virtual workshop icebreakers e.g. jar of positivity, bingo.

Fact 5 Venues: I kinda skipped venues as I never really had a lot of experience working in different venue settings. Most of the time I will use the same boardroom at my office. And the recently workshops I ran were done remotely on Microsoft Teams. I think it will be good to include some tips and tricks for virtual workshop.

Fact 6 Needs Analysis: I like the outcome you mentioned for Needs Analysis: This means a greater possibility of implementation after the workshop. I would like to talk about each of the needs analysis methods below:

  • What keeps you up at night? For business management
  • Miracle questions? For end-users
  • If user says something is not intuitive/user-friendly/clunky, Compare to what?

Fact 7 Preparation: There are quite a few steps to preparation. I would like to talk about toolkit for a facilitator would consist of a well tried and tested exercise for each of these situations.

  • Creativity – Edward Dibono – 6 Thinking Hats. The purpose is to get people out of the comfort zone. Now that you’re in that frame of mind, what comes out? Brainstorming technique. The next step is to validate the ideas using sticky notes this technique can be called Market Place. Open Space Technology. Read Dave Gray’s Gamestorming (worth buying!)
  • Problem-solving – Market Place. 3 teams to add sticky notes on the white board. Swap the board so other team can comment on the sticky note. You leave 1 person at their own white board to ensure continuity so they can present to new team and defend what is on their white board. Same as Open Space Technology except anyone can walk anywhere.
  • Build Trust – Read Patrick Lencioni | Covey’s 7 habits of highly effective people (deposit and withdrawals)
  • Conflict – Thomas Kilmann
  • Assertiveness – Read Eric Burn’s Transactional Analysis – Adult (Always ask question) | Parent (Critical e.g. Can I get an answer from someone else? or Nurturing e.g. Ty for the excellent answer) | Child (icebreakers, team building)
  • Type – DISC | Myer’s Briggs | Sparketype
  • Strategy – SWOT | 7 ‘s’ model. Have a look here.
  • Team building – Read Patrick Lencioni. He is the guru for anything on team.
  • Leadership – Kenneth Lanchan | Johari – Know when to share or not share.
  • Coaching – GROW (Goals (use SMART), Reality (the why?), Options (solution), Will (how will I know that you have done it?))
  • Energizers – Mexican wave | Stretching | Stand in a line giving back rub | Brain teasers
  • Feedback – Shit sandwich | SBIN (Situation, behaviour, impact, next steps) – this could be better by adding a positive reinforcement
  • Career – How you keep tab of all your skills acquired from all your projects? Allocation of skills. List 10 skills for unique selling proposition (USP). Writing ability. Leadership skills. and interests e.g. writing or story telling. It’s about capturing what I can bring to the table.
  • Role clarification – Only big in Pharmacy industry. Objective to make sure everybody knows what they are working on. They use sticky notes exercise for this.
  • Action items for Tina F.: 1. Come up with my own toolkit spreadsheet | Learn the questions under GROW e.g. you need to customize the questions based on the coachee’s DISC profile

Fact 8 Structure: The structure broken down into beginning | middle | end really helps to group the objective of each section clearly.

Fact 9 Skills: Different skills were mentioned. Some of which I have applied previously.

Fact 10 Variety: It’s interesting to know a variety in the content and process of the workshop appeals to different group of people. And you would even use Myers Briggs to understand the type of participants in order to tailor the workshop that appeals to the participants.

Fact 11 Motivation: I would like to go through each possible motivation with you. I resonate especially to – See how the content relates to their job and goals.

Fact 12 Handling Difficult Participants: We spoke about this a few times before. Although difficult participant had never really been an issue so far. The irony is the most difficult participant I’d had to deal with was my supervisor. And she’s also my mentor. I think taking a break and summarizing the achievement so far is the most straightforward way dealing with this.

Fact 13 Teamness Level: This is the fact that I’m not quite familiar with. Is the purpose of this to determine the dynamic in the group in order to identify the most appropriate approach/agenda to workshop?

Fact 14 Stress Management: This is important. For me, it’s the time before a workshop starts. This is the part I’m struggling with.

Fact 15 Facilitator’s Block: Does this happen during the workshop? I have had this a couple of times when I got paranoid during the workshop.

Fact 16 Context: Isn’t this just one of the facts Motivation (Fact 11)? Not sure what this means “

Context can be further clarified by contracting with the client on what the specific role of the facilitator will be and the outcomes required.

Fact 17 Conflict (Toolkit Content): I like the part about “

It is a good idea to meet with all the participants beforehand. The facilitator needs to understand the situation from as many perspectives as possible. This way the facilitator can start to see where the common ground exists and, when the workshop happens, help participants to see it too.

Fact 18 Culture (Toolkit Content): This maybe the part that is least applicable to me. However, at the last training in Orange. I observed a slight culture difference in the group.

Fact 19 Trust Building (Toolkit Content): I never thought that trust can be measured. It’s something you cannot see. You can only feel if someone can be trusted.

Fact 20 Creativity (Toolkit Content): I like the definition of Creativity: Creativity comes from the way they use the props available. I want to talk about using Lego. I’ve always visualized the use of Lego as a team building/icebreaker game pre-workshop.

Fact 21 Problem Solving (Toolkit Content): A team may approach a facilitator with a problem they need help in solving. Sometimes a fresh point of view brings new approaches.

Fact 22 Assertiveness (Toolkit Content): I can recall Glenn suggested me talking to you when I went to him with my assertiveness issue. The coaching sessions you gave me helped me immensely.

Fact 23 Type (Toolkit Content): Honestly, I haven’t really used this before. Is this similar to DISC? I’m interested in finding out “What has been the most useful tool so far?” they will say “type”. I’m keen on the statement below “

It provides them with an ongoing development plan which they can easily implement because there is so much information on each type and how to work together.

Fact 24 Strategy (Toolkit Content): Honestly, not very applicable to me now. However, when I’m working in the Strategy Horizon, then this would be something I need to use. It always involves looking at external

Fact 25 Team Building (Toolkit Content): Working remotely means physical activity is unlikely. Maybe virtual physical activities? Process mapping as a fun physical activity to team build is an interesting concept!

Fact 26 Role Clarification (Toolkit Content): The only person who knows about my role and job description is Debbie. No one else in the team knows. It’s interesting when people who works with you don’t have clarity on your role boundaries. Kinda defeats the purpose?

Fact 27 Job or Position Descriptions (Toolkit Content): Not sure why I always think this is confidential between me and my manager. It should be widely known and understood by everyone in the organization!

Fact 28 Performance Management (Toolkit Content): I’m happy with my performance review on monthly basis with Debbie. We talk about stop, start and continue pretty much. The only thing we’re not doing well is career progression. What’s 360 degree feedback?

Fact 29 Continuous Improvement (Toolkit Content): We are currently doing it as our monthly Retros. What’s recognition for high potentials in the talent pool?

Fact 30 Project Management/Time Management (Toolkit Content): Not sure why I always see project management as a cursed task.

Fact 31 Vision and Values (Toolkit Content): The first workshop I ran at Armidale, the icebreaker was: If you were a cartoon character, what would it be? And why? At times of difficulty, what mantra do you use to get you through?

Fact 32 Marketplace (Toolkit Content): Is this world cafes?

Fact 33 Negotiation/Influencing (Toolkit Content): Is the purpose of this to negotiate with the group to the outcome of the requestor?

Fact 34 Leadership (Toolkit Content): I always get systems | procedures | policies | processes mixed up. I understand the purpose of this leadership workshop is for groups of leaders wanting specific skills identified in surveys or from performance review discussions.

Fact 35 Career (Toolkit Content): Share the Build your career workshop I attended in 2020.

Fact 36 Coaching/Mentoring (Toolkit Content): Not very applicable to me but sounds good.

Fact 37 Energisers (Toolkit Content): I’d like to talk more about icebreakers for the purpose of energising the participants.

Fact 38 Feedback (Toolkit Content): For me, I can basically use the model of Stop | Start | Continue to facilitate this. The purpose of this is to know what to do more of or less of at the end of the day.

Fact 39 Process Mapping (Toolkit Content): It’s very clever to use Post it notes as a step in the process and then draw arrows between the post it notes on the white board. I can see it becomes easy to move the Post it notes around rather than having to rub the rectangle step every time. Haven’t even thought about using sticky tape to hold the post it notes overnight. Your story about how the outcome of the process was already decided but participants were still encouraged to map process at workshop was very interesting!

Fact 40 Insights, Patterns and Trends: I am interested in the part about “

to spend more time on and which not and useful to the client because it is information that can often only come from an external or outside player,
someone who is of it, but not from it. Comments from an objective, qualified voice can be more easily listened to and so progress can be made.

Fact 41 Rapport Building: This is something we seldom do. Debbie didn’t do as much as I expected. Maybe because she knows a lot of the participants already. I think the part about “Give them an indication of what is to come.” is a great way to do this. I think it will be good to include tips for virtual workshop since most of our workshops will be conducted online after the COVID.

Fact 42 The Participants: I’m sharing my experience with a SharePoint trainer up in Orange. He kind of read the material word by word. He didn’t understand what the participants wanted to learn. A lot of the stuff could have been skipped if the participants had a say in the content. I think the part about “Having had the freedom to make suggestions and choice” is very good! He could have tailored his content to the audience by giving us choice.

Fact 43 Process: I would like to talk about the part about “The facilitator weighs up Process vs Content.” Does this mean the facilitator is deciding if they want to take on the role of Process Facilitator vs Content Facilitator?

Fact 44 Communication (Toolkit Content): This is something I think Debbie and I and doing really well in. Especially when managing performance and defining key performance indicators. She didn’t tell me how to measure my KPI. I had to come up with it. It then become very clear to me what was expected of me in my role. And how I know I have met expectation.

Fact 45 Facilitator Role: I agree with your statement “… The more interactive the workshop the better.” As I was going through the many contributing factors for workshop to be experiential. I can recall you used all of the methods listed here at your workshop I first attended at ACE.

Fact 46 Attitude: I understand the open, friendly and flexible attitude a facilitator must possess. When the facilitator sets the agenda, does that mean they become a Content Facilitator? Can you be a Content Facilitator without being the Process Facilitator? I’m interested in the “no hoper” manager in the example 🙂

Fact 47 Knowledge: I want to talk about the greatest compliment a facilitator can get is the ability to manage to balance process and content. I never thought of a workshop as a split between process and content. You always talk about process and content. It’s interesting! In the list of study a facilitator can delve into to increase their range and add to their toolkit, I find the below most useful to me:

  • Interventions – brainstorming and teambuilding
  • Psychology – human needs and motivation
  • Organisational – Process mapping

Fact 48 Language: I have never had to research the organisation before the workshop as I’ve only ever run workshop for the organisation I’m already working in.

Fact 49 Take Aways and Transfer: Where I’m working with Debbie, how we have been transferring the take aways from workshop to workplace is by creating action items. Any outcomes from the workshop, either we have an action plan to implement or we just don’t have the time or resources to implement. I want to talk more about road shows which follow the workshop conveying the messages throughout the organisations. This could be a lesson learnt after BCM was cancelled. Values added were not highlighted to the senior management to understand what we have built.

Fact 50 Myths: Some facilitators are fun-oriented that an adult can feel like they are in nursery school again. I do use to entertain the myth that a facilitator must love talking. I think these myth-busters really help me in building my self-image as a facilitator that is realistic and close to who I am 🙂

Part II 20 Tips for Transition and Change Management Facilitation

Tip 1 Stakeholders: It’s all about finding the right stakeholders. Try and find some way of categorising the stakeholders. Some ideas for categorisation are level of power and interest in the change process.

Tip 2 Buy In: Once you identified and invited the right stakeholders. The next step is pretty much getting their buy-in! I like the part about “(Shipman & Kay, 2009) The concept of moving upwards has been replaced
largely by the concept of moving in any direction.” Another technique to consider is WIIFM. And I also think that “Your skills go with you wherever you go. No one can take them from you.” is a great motivator for almost anyone. Especially me. I’d like to talk about a role-play exercise: Facilitator: “You are being interviewed by a current affairs programme on Television – tell them how successful you have been – describe how you did it.

Tip 3 Methodology: I’ve always been interested in methodologies for change management below:

  • Business Process Re-engineering – It means your vision is probably a performance oriented or customer service culture.
  • Six Sigma or Lean – It can mean that you want more efficiency.

Adizes (1989) is a life cycle approach. One can use this model to diagnose where the organisation is in terms of their life stage in the organisational growth cycle?

Tip 4 Rituals and Rites: On hindsight, we should have done something like this for BCM?

Tip 5 Rewards: Recognition like a certificate would help.

Tip 6 Support: Currently, we have one at our organization. The external support is run by BeneStar.

Tip 7 Vision: Visions make people feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves. The vision must link to something greater than the individual. Managers need to discuss each employee’s link to the vision.
What is the WIIFM for each employee?

Tip 8 Momentum: I noticed you mentioned role clarity a few times throughout this change management process. Yes, I agree with you about hot desking when you can end up sitting with anyone in the organization. Most of the time we don’t need to sit together. We can always meet remotely or meet in another room when we need to collaborate with another. By sitting next to someone new each day gives you a chance to exchange new ideas.

Tip 9 Measurement: KPI I still believe is different for different workers. A lot of my KPIs can only be measured by quality and not quantity. Debbie and I have spent a big chunk of our time agreeing on my KPIs when I first started my role. However, I don’t think we spend too much time refining my KPIs when we meet every month. I kind of used our monthly PDP to talk about my Stop | Start | Continue.

Tip 10 Process: Debbie initiated a talk on this grieving process after BCM was cancelled.

Tip 11 Feedback: In agile development methodology, it’s all about feedback. It’s only with feedback you can improve on your product. Otherwise, you would just keep doing the same thing expecting different results. What is one to ones (121)?

Tip 12 Training/Education: This is less of an issue for me now. I used to hate training especially in a workshop setting. Now, I seek out for it! The process is more like I seek out for training and education and then FYI to Debbie. And then it’s up to her to say yes or no. But she’s been supportive of all my training so far. Not just training but also other involvement like LGBTQ community activities.

Tip 13 Trust: My current role at DPI is basically all about building trust. It is with this intention in mind that I am able to carry out all my other tasks on hand. My other tasks are almost secondary to building trust. I find that part about “Changes sometimes come in cycles and if you are a long term manager you may be discussing the same change with the same staff twice in a decade e.g. centralisation versus decentralisation.” very interesting!

Tip 14 Branding: To me building a brand is essentially building trust. They go hand-in-hand. One could be the by-product of the other. It’s a bit out of the context you have described in your book.

Tip 15 Communication: Yes, I agree with you on the part about “Certain stakeholders will be communicated to on certain subjects. If all stakeholders are sent all the information they develop information overload and start to be disengaged and can stop reading the communications.” On hindsight, I was communicating using this cascading method. I didn’t do this strategically, however, it was more about thinking the audience who will be consuming your content. Only send to those who will be interested and has a vested interest in the topic.

Tip 16 Boundaries: I’m not following this concept very well. The story told here is about some CEOs who has so much power that they can implement a change without consulting anyone else in the organization.

Tip 17 Top Management Support and Leadership: I’m still trying to get a grasp on the group of players in this whole change management process. I can recall committee, board, CEOs and project managers. But not sure what is the best dynamic between these group of people. One thing I like for an ideal leadership is “They could all communicate and translate strategy into operational language using real life analogies and situations.”

Tip 18 Prioritisation and Integration: Prioritisation has always been a struggle in my role. Debbie removed a lot of this issue as she understands how the organization work and influence over other stakeholders.

Tip 19 Barriers to Successful Change Management: One of the biggest barriers to BCM I still believe is lack of test pilot. I want to talk about how I have managed changes while working at Westpac | ACE | SASSI.

Tip 20 Critical Success Factors: This is not something I have experienced yet. On hindsight, the roll-out at AOC could have been managed better by visualization. I believe that when Bek can present what she had been through, it would have felt much more powerful. I’m not sure how we can feel or touch a change process but will be interested to find out. I think getting pairs and teams to figure out an answer to a question and then present it is a good teambuilding exercise.

Part III 30 corporate coaching facts

A1 Types of Coaching: You should add one more in this list, Mind Coach. A lot of the issues I’ve struggled with is mostly my inner critic and fear. It’s all been about conquering my fear for the last 2 years in my current role. A mind coach is not a shrink as they are usually for people with mental illness. This is more for people who are already mentally sane but just need a boost to be better than everyone else. Were you my performance coach at ACE?

A2 Critical Success Factors for a coaching relationship: These are based on partnerships.

A3 Choosing a Coach: For me, it was word of mouth.

A4 The Role of the Coach: I think the coaching relationship that you and I have is ideal. Possible Solutions from corporate coaching: I think help with getting to direction I want is the main solution I’m after.

B5 People Skills: I can’t emphasize enough this is one of the most important skills I have tried to develop over the last few years. My focus had always been of task-oriented and then it has now changed to people-oriented. It mentioned corporate coachee needs to be free of anxiety. I have been working with my mind coach about anxiety. Isn’t this just Positive Psychology? I’m curious about the part about “The coach needs to work closely with all the stakeholders including the line manager and Human Resources manager (learning and development if there is one) so that there is no duplication of effort or crossed lines.” Would it make sense to go through each key accountability and challenges in the role description with the coachee and identify any gaps?

B6 Organising skills: Not too relevant in a way that you and I have always do Stop | Start | Continue at the end of each session so you can prepare the agenda/objective for next session. Unless I needed something urgently in between the sessions. Ideally, it would be good to group all the different skills that I’m learning in a main topic. So it’s easy to track which skills I’m developing in the most. The expectation is set whenever we do Stop | Start | Continue.

B8 Questioning Skills: Is this mostly about the GROW questions?

B9 Communication: Coach is always respectful.

B10 Feedback: Yes, I agree with you that feedback is really about the behavioural improvement or reinforcement of a positive behaviour.

B11 Change Management: It’s all about giving a vision to the Coachee and then ask the Coachee to come up with ideas and action plan to reach the vision.

B12 Meeting Management: It’s easy to manage when it’s one-on-one.

B13 Atmosphere/Environment Management: Mutual respect working environment is important here.

B14 Emotional Intelligence (EQ): I have read Daniel Goleman’s book on:

  • Self-awareness
  • Social-awareness
  • Self-Management
  • Relationship Management

B15 Listening: The Coach needs to listen so they can help the coachee gain clarity and perspective.

B16 Contracting/Negotiating: Interesting that the measurement of success is whether the Coachee is more of a team player and more assertive as a result of the coaching.

B17 Mental Toughness/Resilience: I would like to talk more about Positive Intelligence. I did my PQ test and I’m a Hyper-Vigilant! Not sure what to do with this result.

B18 Cultural Competency: The Coach outlines the dimensions of culture:

  • Power distance index
  • Individualism vs. collectivism
  • Uncertainty avoidance index
  • Masculinity vs. femininity
  • Long term orientation vs. short-term orientation
  • Indulgence vs. restraint

What are these?

B19 Conflict Management: The only conflict I’ve ever had to resolve was by saying “Let’s stick to what we proposed!”. I think in one of our first few sessions, we talked about Thomas Killman model.

B20 Career Management: I understand the STAR technique and I’m practising it. I’m in interested in the part about “Another approach is to ask the coachee what their values are and what values mean.”

B21 Leadership: The biggest tip to leadership is the Caldini’s WIIFM. The five finger approach: W – What’s I- In I- It F – For M – Me. And how do you figure out the WIIFM for different group of people? You can use DISC! Depending on their profile, compliance or risk management (C) or rewards (D) or goals or teamwork (S) or status (I) may be what gets them to agree or implement. Another tip is use logic, just watch 12 Angry Men the movie.

B22 Time Management/Project Management: I don’t think I’m slower than my team mate. On the contrary, I think I outperform. However, I could do better.

B23 Problem Solving: I’ve been solving problems all my life. It become evident I have developed a good problem solving skills when I was responding to emergency e.g. Serpentine Leafminer and COVID-19 Contact Tracing.

C24 Chemistry and Partnership: I’m surprised the HR doesn’t have a Coach/Coachee program. Other than BeneStar, they don’t have anything specific. Debbie knows about you and I’ve mentioned you to her a few times. She is aware of the work we have done so far.

C25 Goals: Goals need to be SMART!

D26 GROW: Should we start using GROW?

D27 Needs Analysis: Many needs come out of 360 assessments, Myers Briggs, DISC or assessment centres.

D28 Tools: I understand the usefulness of each tool. I would like to understand in what context would you use each.

D29 Visioning: This is essentially asking the miracle question?

D30 Evaluation: Relationships between coaches and coachees are often life long and sometimes they employ each other at various organisations as they know how well they work together and have a common language. Very interesting!

Conclusion: The story you told is great here. Makes me want to get that pointer mouse so I can walk around the room and orate to the audience. This story is powerful!!