ALL THE DIFFICULT THINGS
(that happen in most meetings)...and how to deal with them
You will recieve access to a private course site with instructional videos, self assessment, tools and the 'facilitators' life ring'.
They interrupt. They won’t join in. The monologuer is doing it again.
Something feels tense. There’s a power struggle. Oh, no...not this again…
We’ll never get through the agenda at this rate.
And it goes on from there. We’re sure you can relate.
Gatherings of people are complex because people are complex, and when we get together in groups, the complexity of our relationships, personalities and agendas is laid out bare for all to see (except, usually, ourselves).
Add technology, a bit of uncertainty, and a dash of emotion, and YIKES, we are off to the races!
The good news is, the typical struggles you experience when leading or facilitating a group are totally normal, and utterly commonplace.
What’s more, there is a pattern in the chaos of all the difficult things that often happen in meetings. Which means there’s lots of simple adaptations we can make to bounce back, soothe the nerves, and get things back on track to keep everyone rolling.
We’ll take a good, clear look at the common difficulties meeting facilitators are always juggling, and how best to manage yourself so you can manage all of it with grace.
Your self-directed course experience will include a video recording from a live 90-min interactive, zoom-based teaching where Ten Directions will:
- Share practical insights and advice for responding to common difficulties.
- Offer a simple framework that puts all the challenges in context - and in relationship to your role as the facilitator.
- Suggest principles for how you can better respond to anything that is challenging for you.
- Divulge our single best way to bounce back from (almost) all mishaps.
If you're looking to expand your meeting/group facilitation capacity, I highly recommend this training (and pretty much anything else) from the Ten Directions folks. I participated in a form of this virtual facilitation intensive in March, which was pivoted to online at the last minute due to COVID. This ended up being a fantastic development, because it totally blew my mind around what was possible in a well-facilitated virtual learning space. It was a beautifully supportive and thoughtful intensive, which really up-leveled my capacity for meaningful facilitation (both in-person and virtually). They've also hosted a few 90-min virtual facilitation clinics over the past few weeks that have made a significant difference in the quality of the virtual experiences I'm able to host these days. So grateful to this group for what they're offering - so many of us need this kind of learning right now.
The session tackled some of the big challenges faced by virtual facilitators. All of the issues that were discussed were issues raised by the participants themselves based on their own experiences - and solutions emerged from conversation between participants. This made the session highly relevant and valuable to all of us. It also enabled us to establish trust and connection, even among strangers, even virtually.
Previous
Next
Our team of sincere, well-seasoned, wise, and appropriately-rascally facilitative leaders share what we’ve learned over decades of wrangling the most unruly, uncooperative, and unpleasant groups. Just kidding! ...Not really! But seriously — we’ll share our most illustrative facilitation failures, take a big picture look at the landscape of facilitator challenges, and illuminate the way we work with ourselves and the group to flip a challenge into a source of greater energy, connection, and engagement.
We’ll share with you how we work with difficulty in three dimensions:
STRUCTURE
Bring order to chaos
SPONTANEITY
Bring the energy in
SKILLS
Be better
And we’ll give you an opportunity to self-assess your most recent facilitator challenge, get insights from a co-created framework, and leave with a newly-empowered confidence so you can handle it better the next time.
What we cover in this course:
Together, we’ll bond over our facilitator nightmares while expanding your inner and outer toolkits by:
- Increasing your willingness to experience and adapt to failure
- Offering you a way to make quick sense of unexpected challenges
- Sharing a selection of core skills for addressing each of the biggest types of facilitator challenges (we call these the facilitator “rebound” skills)
- Suggesting practices you can start using to improve your skills immediately
- Leaving you with a palpable sense of relief and camaraderie knowing that you’re not alone, not crazy, and are fully equipped to handle the next difficulty that comes your way!
Uplevel your online facilitation now.
Once you’ve completed your purchase, you’ll receive an email from us with access to your self-directed course and all your course materials.
Questions? Shoot us a note anytime at:
[email protected]
“Thank you for pivoting and forging ahead with this. It provided much needed sanity as we head into the rapids. I was particularly struck by - and greatly enjoyed - the diversity that existed within the facilitation team (tone, energy, personality, style). Each member brought something unique!”
LL
“Your openness and commitment to our learning enhanced everything we did. I felt completely held by you all throughout the session.”
Teletha McJunkin
“You modeled an effective virtual meeting and taught me a variety of ways to engage my audience. I used what I learned in my next meeting, and I felt it was as effective as an in person meeting.Thank you!”
Mark TaylorVistage Chair
“It was really helpful to see how you all modeled fluidity, adaptiveness and responsiveness. I learned so much simply from being a part of the training.”
Jaime Westendarp
“The facilitators from Ten Direction are awesome - caring and proficient. They were modeling what they taught us which it's very important to me.”
Justina Liaw
“I got just as much out of your facilitation as I did from the class material. The way that you handled the virtual environment was great and I definitely took many things away I will be using going forward.
Thank you!”
AN
This session was a great experience in exploring on-line facilitation. While this was a short session at 90 minutes, it was jam-packed with interesting techniques, effectively modelled by the facilitators. The session was an excellent learning opportunity and I look forward to more offerings from Ten Directions.
Martha MuzychkaABC, MC, IABC Fellow, Praxis Communications
“Beautifully facilitated with authenticity, humor, vulnerability, transparency and masterful sharing of the content and the leadership!”
Belle Linda Halpern
Ten Directions has a unique approach that offers both philosophy as well as tactics that bring a fresh approach to facilitation. If you are looking to add creativity and expand options for your meetings - in-person or virtual - you should learn with Rebecca and her team.
Allan Fried Vistage Chair, NYC
“First time I experienced fun and warmth in a virtual environment :)”
Justina Liaw
“I’ve been awe-struck by the incomparable professionalism, uncompromising attention to details, and ultra inclusiveness demonstrated by the exquisite Ten Directions Team”
Joshua Voon
"This session was a great experience in exploring on-line facilitation. While this was a short session at 90 minutes, it was jam-packed with interesting techniques, effectively modelled by the facilitators. The session was an excellent learning opportunity and I look forward to more offerings from Ten Directions."
Martha MuzychkaABC, MC*, IABC Fellow, Principal, Praxis Communications
Previous
Next
Please share this invitation!
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn