How to Facilitate Group Dynamics in Workshops & Sprints

People behave differently in groups than when they are on their own or one-to-one.

This episode is a deep-dive into group dynamics for workshop facilitators. I’ll share some fascinating and useful insights into group dynamics that are invaluable for remote and in-person facilitation.

Themes include:

• How our human need for social connection influences our behaviors in a group setting
• Insights into group psychology
• Creativity and the group norms
• How to structure your workshops, sprints and meetings to support collaboration, innovation and achieve results

Group dynamics are a key element that we work with every single day as facilitators. I can’t wait to see your comments and questions. As always, it’s great to hear from you.

You’ll also enjoy my article here on how to facilitate group dynamics and creative tension:

https://bigbangpartnership.co.uk/do-people-behave-differently-when-they-are-in-groups-insights-into-group-dynamics-for-facilitators/

For free facilitation and team building resources, go to https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/resources/ and fill your boots with lots of great stuff!

To find out more about my virtual facilitation, have a look at https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/virtual-facilitation/

I’d love to hear from you and answer any questions you have. Please do let me know what you think in the comments.

Strengths-focused Innovation, with Andy Jenkins

Join me and my special guest, Andy Jenkins of MyLeadership Strengths, for this episode on strengths-focused innovation.

Leading innovation in organisations brings great responsibility as well as opportunity.

 In Andy’s decades of work developing leaders, he’s seen a common response to that responsibility: leaders strive to be good at everything. Research, and his experience, show that the ‘perfect’ leader does not exist. In fact, evidence shows great leaders:

• Have a strong understanding of their own unique strengths and capitalise on them
• Address their most important individual weaknesses
• Understand and tap into the strengths of others

In my conversation with Andy, we explore:

• How strengths-based leadership is an essential ingredient for high-performing innovation teams, and successful innovation outcomes
• How you can identify your own innovation leadership strengths, and how to put them into action to get the best results
• Ways in which you can spot and leverage the strengths of the people around you to harness the collective capability of your full team
• Tips and techniques for strengths-focused facilitation

To get in touch with Andy:

hello@myleadershipstrengths.com

Links to Andy’s information and resources: 

https://myleadershipstrengths.com/resources/

About Andy:

Andy is Co-Founder of My Leadership Strengths, who enable busy managers to prioritise their own development and make learning happen at work. Combining business design with organisational psychology expertise, Andy has built leadership capability in SME’s, not for profit, public and private sectors in the UK and Australia. He is at his best working with individuals and organisations setting up for growth, navigating unfamiliar organisational challenges, and public sector transformation. Andy is a Chartered Member of the CIPD, a qualified strengths practitioner and coach. People who have worked with Andy describe him as curious, insightful, practical, intelligent, fun and open

For free innovation leadership resources, go to https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/resources/ and fill your boots with lots of great stuff!

 To find out more about my virtual facilitation, have a look at https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/virtual-facilitation/

Guide to Psychological Safety and Teamwork for Innovators, Facilitators and Change Makers.

Psychological safety is the key ingredient of high performing teams. It is defined as "a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes” (Professor Amy Edmondson, Harvard Business School).

This episode is a great guide to psychological safety for innovators, facilitators and change makers. I share:

• A definition of and deep-dive into psychological safety, plus why it is important for team working, specifically including innovation, business growth, design sprints and learning environments.
• Spotting the signs of psychological danger and psychological safety in teams.
• How to nurture a climate of psychological safety in remote, hybrid and co-located teams and in virtual and in-person workshops and innovation sprints.

For free facilitation and team building resources, go to https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/resources/ and fill your boots with lots of great stuff!

To find out more about my virtual facilitation, have a look at https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/virtual-facilitation/

To explore more content on how to get ideas flowing in online meetings, you might enjoy this article, too https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/how-to-get-ideas-flowing-in-online-meetings/

I’d love to hear from you and answer any questions you have. Please do let me know what you think in the comments.

Facilitating a Business Strategy Workshop

In this episode, I share all the essential information you need to know to do a brilliant job of facilitating a business strategy workshop, either for the company you work for or for your clients.

The tools, tips and techniques I share can be flexed for virtual / online, in-person and hybrid or blended meetings.

I’ll help you to think through:

• The purpose and objectives of the session
• Planning, preparation and delegate pre-work
• On-the-day facilitation

I’ll go through a suggested strategy workshop agenda, and detail each of the activities I recommend that you consider for your delegates.

For free facilitation and team building resources, go to https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/resources/ and fill your boots with lots of great stuff!

To find out more about my virtual facilitation, have a look at https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/virtual-facilitation/

To explore more content on how to get ideas flowing in online meetings, you might enjoy this article, too https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/how-to-get-ideas-flowing-in-online-meetings/

I’d love to hear from you and answer any questions you have. Please do let me know what you think in the comments.

A Guide to Hybrid Working

Hybrid working, which is sometimes called “blended working”, is a form of flexible working that allows employees to split their time between attending the workplace and working remotely (usually from home).

In the current climate, more and more teams are considering or doing hybrid working.

This week’s episode is a guide to hybrid working – the upsides, potential downsides and how to make it work for you and your team.

When some team members work remotely for some of their working week or carry out other forms of flexible working, performance can be harder to observe and collaboration more challenging to achieve.  Effective team leadership of hybrid-working colleagues therefore requires a different approach, although many of the fundamentals of good performance management (objectives, feedback and timely conversations) remain the same.  The tips I share can support you in managing hybrid teams effectively.

For free facilitation and team building resources, go to https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/resources/ and fill your boots with lots of great stuff!

To find out more about my virtual facilitation, have a look at https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/virtual-facilitation/

To explore more content on how to get ideas flowing in online meetings, you might enjoy this article, too https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/how-to-get-ideas-flowing-in-online-meetings/

I’d love to hear from you and answer any questions you have. Please do let me know what you think in the comments.

How to Be a Great Facilitator

In this week’s episode, I share some of my facilitation techniques, skills and tips to help you take your facilitation skills to the next level.

Facilitating a workshop or meeting can be challenging at times, and that’s why I’m here to share my experience of facilitating thousands of people in different sectors in countries all over the world.

For more free innovation and facilitation resources, go to https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/resources/ and fill your boots with lots of great stuff!

To find out more about my virtual facilitation, have a look at https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/virtual-facilitation/

To explore more content on how to get ideas flowing in online meetings, you might enjoy this article, too https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/how-to-get-ideas-flowing-in-online-meetings/

I’d love to hear from you and answer any questions you have. Please do let me know what you think in the comments.

How to Write an Innovation Business Case

You’ve got a great business idea…

How do you know if it stacks up financially? What about the other, non-financial risks and benefits?

How do you decide if it’s a go-er or not, and how do you influence the people you need to support you and maybe even invest in your innovation?

These are the questions that I’ll help you to answer in this week’s show.

I’ll walk through how to create a realistic, credible business case for your innovation that not only gives you confidence in your decision-making but also helps you to engage and influence your key stakeholders.

For more free innovation and facilitation resources, go to https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/resources/ and fill your boots with lots of great stuff!

To find out more about my virtual facilitation, have a look at https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/virtual-facilitation/

To explore more content on how to get ideas flowing in online meetings, you might enjoy this article, too https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/how-to-get-ideas-flowing-in-online-meetings/

I’d love to hear from you and answer any questions you have. Please do let me know what you think in the comments.

How to Lead and Manage Change

Leading and managing change is one of the most essential skills leaders, managers, innovators and entrepreneurs need in business today.

Everything around us is always changing, and our businesses need to be able to respond dynamically to those changes.

Plus, resistance to change gets in the way of great ideas happening. Imagine if all the unused, uncommunicated great ideas that people in the business had thought of over time were stacked in a room.

Not all of them would be gold dust, but the combined potential of the best ones would be massive.

Often people have great ideas that just don’t go anywhere due to lack of confidence, know-how or self-imposed constraints and limiting beliefs. Sometimes because of the fear of how leaders might react.

This episode will help you to become a driving force for the business ideas you believe in, becoming a stronger, positive changemaker for your business.

The purpose of this week’s show is to give you the tools, techniques and confidence to develop, communicate, and influence to make your great initiatives and progress happen within the business.

Content includes:

• Blockers and accelerators – and what to do with them.
• Implementation bulletproofing, and stakeholder engagement.
• Understand resistance, why it happens and how to overcome it to motivate others to get on board and act.
• How to influence peers, leaders and the wider organisation with integrity to make new initiatives happen.

For more free innovation and facilitation resources, go to https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/resources/ and fill your boots with lots of great stuff!

To find out more about my virtual facilitation, have a look at https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/virtual-facilitation/

Business Storytelling for Innovators, Facilitators & Change Makers

This week’s episode provides innovators, facilitators and change makers with the tools and confidence to engage, inspire and move others to make progress, take action and get on board with new initiatives through the power of stories.

Business storytelling is a powerful communications tool for connecting with and moving people, and it’s a learnable skill.

It includes:

Why we are all wired to engage with stories, and how to apply that to the work environment.

How to use stories to support innovation, transformation and change.

How to use stories to make strong connections with teams, including when working remotely.

For more free innovation and facilitation resources, go to https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/resources/ and fill your boots with lots of great stuff!

To find out more about my virtual facilitation, have a look at https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/virtual-facilitation/

To explore more content on how to get ideas flowing in online meetings, you might enjoy this article, too https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/how-to-get-ideas-flowing-in-online-meetings/

I’d love to hear from you and answer any questions you have. Please do let me know what you think in the comments.

Mixed Mode Meetings - How to Combine Virtual and In Person Meetings

As the world is fortunately starting to open up once more, many workshop facilitators need to lead “mixed mode” meetings. These “mixed mode” meetings combine some delegates attending virtually, others in person.

The advantages of combined virtual and in-person workshops are that people across large distances can connect. Mixed mode does need special consideration and planning, however, to make sure that everyone gets the best experience from the meeting, and that you achieve the target outcomes from the meeting in your role as workshop facilitator.

Tune in to learn some really useful tools, tips and techniques that you can use to make your mixed mode meetings and workshops a resounding success.

For more free innovation and facilitation resources, go to https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/resources/ and fill your boots with lots of great stuff!

To find out more about my virtual facilitation, have a look at https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/virtual-facilitation/

To explore more content on how to get ideas flowing in online meetings, you might enjoy this article, too https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/how-to-get-ideas-flowing-in-online-meetings/

I’d love to hear from you, and answer any questions you have. Please do let me know what you think in the comments.