What do you need to think about when planning a team workshop?

The Thinking Focus team have facilitated workshops all over the world.  We facilitate thinking for companies large and small, as well as charities, and government bodies; if you have something that you need the team to think about, then the team can help.

In this short series, Paul talks to Richard and Rob to understand how master facilitators work, giving you some inside tips on how to be a better facilitator, so you can get better outcomes in the meeting you are running.

This first podcast explores the thinking of the facilitator when they are planning the workshop, from the goal to the group; what do you need to know?

How do you switch off autopilot?

We spend most of the time with our brains on ‘autopilot’.  We are thinking at a subconscious level, causing us to act without being truly aware of what we are doing.   This handy little trick helps us get through the day, making the most of the energy available and freeing up our conscious mind to work on the more important stuff, like ‘what’s for dinner?’.

Rob and Ricky explore in this podcast how you can turn off this automatic process, so you can take conscious control of the things that you really need to think about, not just respond to.

Why is reflection so important for embedding learning?

Every time we learn something new we have to connect that to our world, to understand how that new piece of information or skill will work for us.  Knowing is not enough, we have to integrate the new into our existing understanding of the world.  That takes reflection.

In this podcast, Ricky and Rob explore why reflection is so important and offer up different strategies that will help you reflect, and therefore embed, your learning.