Unprofessionalism
Professional performance is exhausting. Maintaining the mask. Editing ourselves. Pretending we know when we don't.
This podcast is about people who dropped the performance. And what happened next.
Each episode features someone who broke professional conventions and found something better on the other side: the executive who disclosed grief in a corporate setting and found it opened new ways of relating; the coach who realised her authority came from integrity, not compliance; the designer who ignored the 'approved tools' and saved thousands of hours.
Conversations circle around three questions:
- What does it cost us to perform professionalism instead of showing up as ourselves?
- How do we create spaces where people can bring their full attention and humanity to work?
- When is the “unprofessional” move actually the most responsible one?
If you feel the tension between who you are and who you're expected to be at work, this podcast shows you what happens when people stop managing that tension and just stop performing.
Hosted by Dr Myriam Hadnes—behavioural economist and founder of workshops.work. New episode every week.
Unprofessionalism
050 - What happens when you get 11 facilitators into an organised but unstructured group conversation?
50 episodes of Workshops Work – wow! What a joy every episode has been. Thank you for joining me on this journey – whether this is your first or fiftieth time listening.
To mark this milestone, I brought together ten Workshops Work alumni for a fishbowl discussion about facilitation.
We covered a range of topics in such detail, it’s a struggle to summarise it in these show notes. If you are interested in hearing what a room of facilitators has to say about the complexities, joys, and novelties of our profession, I am very happy to present to you this episode.
Thank you again for helping me on my journey to 50 episodes. Here’s to the next milestone…
In this episode, we discuss:
- The different roles in workshops
- Why it’s so important to give participants and their discussions space
- Whether neutrality should be the facilitator’s goal – and whether it is even possible
- How best to tease out conflict in a safe and healthy manner
- Our experiences of our discussion – from excitement to discomfort
Don’t miss the next show: Subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.
A huge thank you must go to SessionLab, the sponsor of Workshops Work. Claim your free two months of SessionLab Pro now – this deal is exclusive to Workshops Work listeners!
Questions and Answers
[03:23] How do you ensure everyone in the room has the same understanding? Do you do so before or during a workshop?
[08:08] How do you make sure everyone has a role?
[11:51] What is your experience of wanting to act as a facilitator but knowing that you should not?
[13:10] How do you deal with having assumptions about participants?
[14:41] Neutrality and conflict
[21:52] How do you make space for people in a fair and balanced way?
[25:39] Neutrality, readiness, and being present
[30:51] Reflecting on the experience of the fishbowl
[40:54] What brings you the most joy from the transformation in the room of your workshops?
[41:56] Coming back to discomfort
[49:21] What do you do to limit yourself and avoid taking too much space when speaking?
[51:54] Do you have any short lines you use to transfer power in the room?
[53:11] Checking in on the participant’s experiences of the discussion
Links to Check
007 – Mindset Management – with Jeremy Akers
011 – How to design brainstorming sessions for huge groups – with Frans Scheepens
020 – Create experiences for your audience to achieve results – with Rein Sevenstern
021 – How to use Liberating Structures to translate the purpose into a process – with Max Brouwer
030 – The day after! How to effectively document to achieve results – with Mireille Beumer
037 – How to facilitate group decisions in 4 easy steps – with Marjolijn de Graaf
041 – Presence, Mindfulness and Facilitation – with Amaranatho Robey
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If you miss the "workshops work" podcast, join us on Substack, where Myriam builds a Podcast Club with monthly gatherings around old episodes: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/
