Episode 79- (Fl)awesome Facilitation Expert, Mentor, Coach & Trainer, Jacinta Cubis

28 Jun

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In this Jane Anderson Show episode, I'm glad to interview Jacinta Cubis. Jacinta Cubis is a facilitation expert who lights up the room and the screen with her energy.

She loves being a guide for groups on their journey to make decisions, generate ideas and solve problems.

She facilitates for you and builds your facilitation capability to:🔸 Lead workshops and meetings with authentic flair.🔸 Elevate engagement, boost collaboration and expand thinking in groups.🔸 Get more value from, and have more fun in, meetings.🔸 Deepen a team’s sense of belonging and how to work effectively together.

One of the things that sets Jacinta apart is that she thinks in pictures - fast! Her cartoons make it easy for people to talk about the hard stuff. Her illustrated e-book HUM helps fix problems with your online meetings.

With 25 years of facilitation experience, Jacinta is trusted by clients in government, universities and the community sectors, as well as thought leaders, experts and facilitators.

Jacinta has accreditations in community engagement (IAP2) and as a partnership broker, along with postgraduate qualifications in Corporate Social Responsibility and International Relations and a BA in Communications.

Jacinta lives in Naarm (Melbourne), in Wurrundjeri Country, and works anywhere - online and on-site.

When Jacinta is not facilitating, or helping you learn how, you might find her on her yoga mat, in her art studio, on the tennis court or on the tango dance floor.

Key Takeaways from Today’s Episode:

Jane Anderson introduces herself and her podcast, the Jane Anderson Brand New Show, aimed at experts seeking to enhance their impact, influence, and income in their businesses and careers. She emphasizes the importance of personal connection in business transactions and welcomes the audience to join her in amplifying their presence in the world. The show primarily features interviews with women who have consulting practices, typically after spending about 20 years in corporate roles and deciding to share their expertise. These women work in the B2B space, often with medium to large businesses, focusing on facilitating decision-making, idea generation, problem-solving, and team strategy. Today's guest is Jacinta Cubis, a facilitation expert, who excels in energizing groups and teaching facilitation skills to leaders and organizations, aiming to enhance collaboration, engagement, and inclusivity in meetings and workshops.
Jane Anderson introduces Jacinta Cubis, highlighting her expertise as a facilitation expert who brings energy and creativity to her practice. Jacinta specializes in working with organizations to facilitate decision-making processes, idea generation, and problem-solving sessions. She also teaches facilitation skills to help leaders enhance collaboration and engagement within their teams. Jacinta's unique skill lies in her ability to use visuals, such as cartoons, to facilitate conversations and simplify complex topics during meetings. Additionally, she has authored a short ebook titled "Hum," which addresses challenges in online meetings. With 25 years of experience in facilitation across various sectors, Jacinta brings a wealth of knowledge to her practice.
Jane Anderson begins the interview with Jacinta, discussing her background and expertise as a facilitator. Jacinta explains that her practice focuses on facilitation for organizations and building the facilitation capabilities of teams. She emphasizes her skill in thinking visually and the value it brings to facilitating group discussions. Jacinta shares her journey into facilitation, initially resisting the label but later embracing it as a crucial skill for effective leadership and collaboration. She highlights the difference between facilitation and training, noting that facilitators guide group processes to achieve a shared purpose, whereas trainers focus on delivering predetermined learning outcomes. Jacinta stresses the importance of adaptability and empowerment in facilitation, allowing groups to drive their own processes while providing necessary support. The discussion also touches on pricing differences between training and facilitation services and the role of experiential learning in enhancing engagement and retention.
Jane Anderson and Jacinta briefly discuss the distinction between training and facilitation, focusing on pricing considerations and the importance of experiential learning in both contexts. They acknowledge the role of licensing intellectual property in training services and the challenges of pricing facilitation services based on specific client needs and outcomes.
Jacinta encourages the audience, especially those who believe they can't draw, to embrace visual facilitation. She shares insights from her "Facilitate with Visuals" program, emphasizing the importance of engagement over perfection in visual facilitation. Participants are encouraged to start small, using words and simple drawings to convey ideas effectively. Jacinta dispels the notion that drawing skills are essential, highlighting the currency of engagement in facilitation. She introduces the concept of a flawsome facilitator, acknowledging that facilitators may exhibit various characteristics, including being guides, referees, dictators, or crowd pleasers, depending on the situation. Jacinta emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and agility in adapting facilitation styles to meet the needs of the group. She shares a simple visual map that helps facilitators recognize their default styles and adjust accordingly to best serve the group's objectives.
Jane Anderson prompts Jacinta to reflect on her practice and the lessons learned from client engagements. Jacinta emphasizes the importance of following one's intuition and recognizing red flags in client interactions. She highlights the necessity of clear purpose and co-creation with clients, especially in facilitating decision-making processes. Jacinta acknowledges the challenges of selling her facilitation services, which often require a customized approach tailored to each client's unique needs. She underscores the significance of client willingness to invest in the facilitation process, including being open to changing perspectives and questions to achieve meaningful outcomes. Jacinta shares insights from her collaboration with clients, emphasizing the value of joy and authenticity in fostering productive facilitation experiences.
Jacinta discusses client feedback and her approach to managing expectations. She shares testimonials appreciating her ability to turn discussions around to meet the clients' needs, even if it involves a bit of tough love or challenging discussions. Jacinta reflects on her role as a facilitator, emphasizing the importance of co-creation with clients and managing expectations around facilitators being perceived as magicians. She stresses the need for clients to understand that facilitation is not a silver bullet solution but a collaborative process aimed at achieving meaningful outcomes. Jacinta highlights her preference for working with clients who are willing to actively participate in the facilitation process, including engaging in creative exercises to appreciate the value they bring. She advises facilitators, especially those starting out, to focus on building connections with participants and staying connected beyond the facilitated sessions, emphasizing the importance of building a client base and maintaining communication to sustain their practice.
Reflecting on her career, Jacinta shares a valuable lesson learned from her early facilitation experiences: the importance of building and maintaining connections with participants. She regrets not leveraging opportunities to connect with participants and build her network early in her career. Jacinta acknowledges the irony of her expertise in facilitating large groups contrasted with her initial lack of confidence in building her own practice. She encourages aspiring facilitators to consider how coaching principles can be applied to group facilitation and to focus on the unique benefits that facilitation offers compared to other forms of training or coaching. Jacinta concludes by advising facilitators to avoid micromanaging and to trust the process, giving participants space to engage and learn without constant intervention.

Full Show Transcript:

Hi there, my name is Jane Anderson and this is the Jane Anderson Brand New Show. It's the podcast for experts who want to have greater impact, influence and income for their businesses and careers. As experts, we know that people buy from people and work with people who they know, who they like and who they trust.

So I'm so glad you're here because it's that time again now to really amplify how you show up in the world. Hi there and welcome to the Jane Anderson Show. I am so thrilled that you are here.

This is the show where I interview people, in particular women, who have consulting practices. And they've typically spent about 20 years in corporate life and then have come around to going, well, I think it's my turn and I'm ready. I think I've got something to share with people.

So they have consulting practices and they come along to share their stories. I interview them about what they're doing in their practices and to share their successes and learnings along the way. They typically work with medium, large and sometimes even small business as well.

But what they all have in common is that they're working with clients in particularly the B2B or business to business space. So our expert today that we're interviewing is someone called Jacinta Cubis. She's a facilitation expert and she lights up the room with her energy, whether she's on the screen or in a physical room.

And she just loves working with groups, with people who are trying to get to decisions, generate ideas and really solve problems. So she typically works with organisations who are trying to get someone to work with them to facilitate perhaps around team strategy days and things like that. But she also teaches that skill to help leaders and organisations build that capability of facilitation.

So instead of it just being one way communication is that when people gather is that they actually walk out from those meetings with gold as opposed to feeling like it's expensive to get people together in rooms today. So they get more value, they get more engagement, collaboration and to really expand their thinking. And big one too today is really about trying to help people to feel like they're in a place where they belong and they're heard and they have some way to contribute and make sure all that is captured.

One thing that sets Jacinta apart is that she's really great with visuals. So I've seen her draw incredible cartoons, but she uses them to really help people to create a conversation and to get people talking about something that might seem hard and complex, but to get it down on a piece of paper. So she thinks in pictures, which is a real skill that she has.

And she's written a really great book. It's a short ebook actually, it's called Hum, which helps people fix some of the challenges they might be having with their online meetings. She spent 25 years as a facilitator with government, universities and community sectors.

She's also helped build the capability and skills of thought leaders, experts and facilitators themselves. She lives in Melbourne and she facilitates live, face to face and online. And if she's not facilitating, you'll typically find her on a yoga mat, art studio, on a tennis court or on the tango dance floor.

So please join me in welcoming Jacinta Cubis. Welcome.
Thank you so much for joining us today, Jacinta.

It's such a pleasure to have you. Oh, thanks so much for having me, Jane. I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm in a long line of great interviewees on your podcast, so it's a real honour to be here. They're in great company. Jacinta, first of all, looking at your background there, I'm looking at all these amazing things on your wall.

This must give us some indication about the type of work that you do. Tell us a bit about what you do, your area of expertise and how did you get into it? Well, Jane, thanks.

Yeah, my background sort of says it all, really. It's hopefully very energetic and creative. And I am a facilitator.

My practice is a facilitation practice. So that means that I facilitate for organisations. And while I've been doing that over the years, I always get feedback from clients that they love how I built the capability of their team while I was in there facilitating.

So that opened up a whole world of, ooh, I can help other people, like people in your audience, for example, build their facilitation capability. And I think the thing that is special about me, and it's taken me a while to embrace it, is that I do think in pictures fast, hence the little cartoon. And embracing the imperfection of my drawings, they work, people love them.

And so, yeah, I'm sort of being a bit more out and about with that and sharing that expertise with people as well. And one of your questions was, how did I get into it? Shall I jump into that?

Yeah, far away. It's only in hindsight, like some of your other interviewees have said, that you look back and you go, how did I fall into this role? I remember taking a leadership course when I was an employee at an organisation, and the trainer said to me, you're a born facilitator.

And I resisted, Jane. I resisted because I thought facilitator, I mean, they just play with sticky notes and stuff. It's much more than that.

What I now realise is that it's actually a sticky note mindset. Like you can replace the word facilitator with leader because facilitation is one of the most overlooked skills that we all need at work and in life. Like I wish I'd written Priya Parker's book, The Art of Gathering.

Like that just sort of sums it up. It's a skill for life. So reluctantly, drag, kicking and screaming from being, I guess when I started my practice in 2015, I was a consultant.

And a bit like one of your interviewees, I think it was Elena who said, you know, like that scarcity mentality. So it was a focus on, I'm an accredited partnership broker and I've come through community engagement. But really, I could help anyone.

But I narrowed it down pretty quickly to facilitation because that's where the energy was. That's what people asked me for. And then I spent the last, I guess, several years unpacking exactly what it is that I do so that then I could be better at building people's capability and facilitation.

Yeah. So, yeah, I guess, does that explain how I sort of fell into it? Absolutely.

So you've probably got that classic sort of corporate journey where you've used the skill that you've got. And whilst it might not have been that actual title in a role, you pulled out and identified a specific skill in an expert's practice or a thought leader's practice. This is a specific mode of delivery that can generate so much in terms of your practice.

Like, why would we say, and this might sound like an obvious question, but for those who are listening, they might go, well, isn't that kind of training? Like, why don't I say, well, why would I call myself a facilitator? And is facilitation income different than training income for a practice?

Oh, yeah, I think it is. And that's a great question. And I think the biggest difference between facilitators and trainers, and I'll credit this to attribute this to Brandon Klein, who wrote a great book called Facilitating Collaborations.

If a trainer asks a question, they generally know the answer to it. If a good, authentic facilitator asks a question, and they know the answer to it, they're not facilitating. So that, for me, is the biggest difference.

You, of course, can be a facilitative trainer. I describe a facilitator as like a guide, a guide to help a group work effectively together to achieve its purpose. A trainer, more simply, is there to deliver learning outcomes, if that makes sense.

So that's a bit of a difference there. But we're both interested in engagement in the room. We're both interested in interaction.

And sometimes trainers need a little bit more oomph to level up on their facilitation. And if a facilitator is training, so some of your audience members might be having a bit of a blend, when are you teaching content and when are you bringing it out of the group? Right.

And actually, a nice difference there I could think of for your audience is that many of them are sharing their content, right, like teaching their experts in their content. A really easy way to create more content is to let it go and see what the group does with your content. So instead of talking them through a model, move them around the room, get them to stand in the model, for example, and they'll stand somewhere different.

And they'll ask questions about the intersections that you may not have thought of, because they're there in their body, if that makes sense. So it's a blurred distinction. But when I walk into the room and or onto the screen, when I'm facilitating for an organisation, not building capability, then I step into the trainer space.

But when I walk into the room, I hold my workshop plan really lightly, because then I can improvise and I need to be able to go with the group. So I'm in service of the group. And it's a little bit like a coach would be one-to-one, a facilitator is one-to-many.

I don't know where they might go. I really don't know where they might take each other and themselves. We have a desired outcome.

We have a purpose. But the workshop's nothing without the people in the room. So my job is to serve them.

Whereas a trainer, yes, learning outcomes for them, but their job is to convey that content. So I'll put on a trainer hat when I'm building capability. But I'll do it in a really facilitative way.

That's a really valuable distinction, Jacinta, because there's an opportunity sometimes, like you said, to integrate the two or really understand what the client's looking for so that you can make that distinction of what they're actually buying. Because they may need capability building. But actually for this purpose here is actually what you're asking for is facilitation.

And sometimes for us as experts, we have a bias perhaps that we go, oh, yeah, I just need a day. I can do blah, blah, blah. But actually being able to just stop and listen to what they're trying to do could mean the difference between actually what outcome are you trying to get here?

Well, actually training isn't going to solve that problem.

[Speaker 2] (10:31 - 10:31)
Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (10:32 - 12:16)
Facilitation, because it's got to come out. It's that whole, I guess, ask versus tell method. Yeah.

Are you putting content in or is it coming out from the audience? Yeah. And as a facilitator, we're at our best when we're like a guide.

And a guide can be really close, but not so close to be a helicopter parent. Right. Like if you're a helicopter parent, you're too close.

But you can be close enough to help the people need a little bit more help. Like, oh, can you repeat that instruction? Or why are we here?

Or I don't quite know why we're doing this. And then there are others who are running ahead. So you just step right back.

And I know that I'm doing a good job if I can leave the room and leave the group to it, because they've been empowered to do the work. The instructions are good. They feel safe enough.

There's enough structure for them to work on their own. So I guess it depends what the client wants. But whether you're a trainer or facilitator, there's something about the experience.

So the more interactive and the more engaged they are, whether you're a trainer or a facilitator, the more likely they're going to retain that learning or that insight or those ideas or that experience exponentially by 80%. We remember something like 10% of what we hear and 20% of what we read or the other way around and 60% of what we see. But it's all increased if we experience it a little bit, like I said before, like get them to stand up and be your model rather than show them your model.

And you've talked about, oh, sorry, go on, Jane. No, go ahead. You've talked about the difference in pricing point for what it might mean for pricing.

I guess from a training perspective, and many of your audience are much more expert in this than me, but they would be talking about licensing their IP as trainers perhaps.

[Speaker 2] (12:16 - 12:17)
Yes.

[Speaker 1] (12:18 - 13:42)
Facilitation, yes, I could in terms of capability, but facilitation, oh, it's very hard to price, but it depends on what the purpose is, how many people might be in room because if there's more than 30, I need support. And I think it was Lisa O'Neill who said her energy increases for the number of people in the room. But I do have standard pricing points, but it very much depends on what the purpose is.

Sometimes I think with a two-hour workshop, they can get this outcome, whereas I'm going, you'll be lucky if you build trust. One-day workshop will be something else, or it could be a series of workshops combined with a bit of mentoring and coaching and content like in training. So I think the difference might be licensing.

You could license your training program. I don't have an online training program because it doesn't really go with the sort of facilitation I do with organizations. That may come with capability building, but it's a bit of a work in progress.

Yeah, I like the distinction that you make. And just even looking at the images behind you, you spoke before that you see in pictures. And do you have to be a good drawer to be a good facilitator?

Oh, my gosh, it's one of the things that I address, like that thing of I can't draw. I give people like a three-minute exercise to show that they can. And with your audience, it's probably more likely to be it's got to be perfect.

[Speaker 2] (13:42 - 13:42)
Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (13:43 - 13:53)
By me, I mean, this is a facilitator. This is what I use for my Facilitate with Visuals program. It actually involves the heart, but also, you know, it comes from the heart, but also what you notice.

[Speaker 2] (13:53 - 13:54)
Right.

[Speaker 1] (13:54 - 15:22)
One of my participants the other day said this. People in the room, it's a bit like public speaking. They all want you to do well.

So if you put out the marker and start, they're with you as you sort of fap around a bit or sort of don't quite get it right. Okay. The thing I teach people like in your audience who think it has to be perfect, start small.

Right. Words and pictures, infographics are fine. We can't all be Picasso.

And if you can't get it fast, just copy. Like the reason the Japanese are so good at drawing is that they've got a culture of copying the Magna comics. So we sort of lose that as kids.

So I can't draw is rubbish. You don't have to be an artist to be a facilitator. The currency is engagement.

Like I don't charge a day rate. I charge like an engagement rate. And so the more you can do to get people and different learning styles back to the trainers in your audience.

We all know different learning styles. They need something else. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that you don't need anyone control.

Pick up the marker. Have a go. But I encourage people to start small.

Just take your own notes and make sure you have a blank notebook. No lines. Oh, I like that.

Then you're freer to do it. And you start for yourself and then you move to the group. Okay.

They will support you. And also you can pre-prepare a whole lot of stuff like I do. Yes.

Just warm yourself up. So I've got lots of pictures up my sleeve. And I'll bring them in and I'll copy them even if I need to if I'm a bit.

[Speaker 2] (15:22 - 15:22)
I do.

[Speaker 1] (15:22 - 17:05)
Like do you have a little journal or something that you. Oh, I take all my little. So this little guy is.

That's how most people feel in meetings. I think I'm going to do an internal mini masterclass. I'll take him me.

So I draw in the same way. Ah, okay. Mind myself, but I literally have the hard copies.

Cause some reason it comes to life. If they're in hard copy, if they were photographed, not actually find them. So I know one of the things you talk about, you've written a really some really great IP around the type of facilitator.

You talk about this concept of a flawsome facilitator and the type of facilitators that you see. Are you happy to share a bit about that? Because when you're seeing the type of facilitators we see this, we think there's kind of sometimes one that's this absolute Nirvana and perfection, but possibly there's other ways of thinking about that.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's because Jane, most of us have never been taught.

Like most of us has never been taught. I think it's professor Steven Rogelberg who wrote the surprising science of meeting said that 75% of people have never been taught how to host a meeting. Imagine if those people then asked to host a workshop, like about a controversial topic or to generate ideas or a leadership away day, like, how do you do it?

You copy what you've seen before. And if you're lucky enough to have a great leader, wonderful, you've learned from them. But if not, how do you know?

Like, and so the most important thing that you can bring if you don't have training is yourself. Even if you have training and Dale Hunter, who's a facilitation elder from New Zealand says itself, awareness is the most important asset of facilitator needs. You don't need markets.

You don't need a workshop plan. It's your state.

[Speaker 2] (17:06 - 17:06)
Right.

[Speaker 1] (17:07 - 19:32)
So, and that's about the only thing you can control in a group. You can't control anything else. You can control yourself.

So that's a long way around of saying, who are you? And I said before that our best facilitators are like guides. And that led me to thinking, well, what's the opposite of a guide?

And I've seen it came because I was working with a CEO who said, oh, I ran a great session. They just weren't interested. And I went, oh, that's a bit of a dictator.

I went, yeah, no wonder. Can you hear yourself? And I went, that sounds a bit like a dictator.

And so I thought the dictator and guide were complete opposites. And then once when I was in a workshop and I said to the group, you know, in the interest of time and a community member said, can you not say that? Cause it's just making me feel really rushed and I'm panicking.

And I can't think. And I went, it's a bit like a referee, you know, like I was just blowing the whistle then. So that was another one.

So we've got guide, referee, dictator. But right at the start, I reckon most facilitators are crowd pleasers. A bit like comedians.

We just want to be loved. So I thought this was your audience will understand this. I thought this was a bit of a judgmental quadrant.

But the reality is when I tested my little match, you got guide up there, dictator down there in the opposite, referee above the dictator. Cause they want the group to work well, but they've got the whistle. And right down in the corner is the crowd pleaser who wants high engagement.

Their contributors become an audience. It's still all about your own ego. And I realised that when I shared it with the global community of facilitators that I'm part of, it made me aware that it's actually you can be all four at the same time.

Sometimes a group needs you to be a referee. Like a group I was working with the other day, the energy was so low. And I literally had to say, right, I'm putting the marker down.

And my tone of voice changed, right? I said, I'm going to have to be a bit of a referee here. Here, you take the marker and off you go.

And they just all, and then they went and then the energy lifted. And I thought I had to do that. I couldn't be this gentle hippie trippy guide, like sort of gently moving.

It's like I had to step in because, you know, we had two hours. They're busy people. We had to get some stuff done.

But it made me aware that actually you need to step into all four. Dictator sounds harsh, but I'm pretty simple. In the middle of a room with 30 to 60 people, I can only remember four pictures.

So it's easy to remember which one do I need to be?

[Speaker 2] (19:32 - 19:32)
Yes.

[Speaker 1] (19:32 - 21:02)
Which one do your audience need to be? Which one are you being? How do you get out of bed in the morning?

What do you need to do about yourself to be the one you want to be for that day? And someone I work with said that she is a default crowd pleaser. She turned up one day as a crowd pleaser to something that she normally does.

Every month goes really well. It didn't go so well this week because she found herself asking permission of the group. I don't know.

Should we do this? Should we do that? Typical crowd pleaser.

So then, of course, the loudest person steps in and takes over. Yeah. They want someone to take the lead, right?

Like to take control if it's not progressing? Yeah. They take control like Priya Parker says at a dinner party when the host leaves them with the question.

If the host doesn't stay and give a bit of structure, the loudest person will take over or people will leave and do their own thing. And it'll sort of go that feeling you have and your audience may have experienced this. You're delivering exactly the same workshop to a different group of people and it's not working.

It goes pear-shaped. And the only thing you can really control is yourself. So this little map helps you say, what was I doing there?

What words were coming out of my mouth? What sort of characteristics? What was I doing?

So I sort of spell that out for people about the different things each does, the different words that come out of their mouths, just so that we're more self-aware. And it helps people ask the question, what am I doing now? What's needed now?

That's the best question a facilitator can ask you.

[Speaker 2] (21:02 - 21:02)
Can you say that again?

[Speaker 1] (21:03 - 22:08)
What am I doing now? What's needed now? What am I doing now?

What's needed now? Yeah. And then it's a case of, oh, I'm being a bit of a dictator.

Is that what they need? Why am I being a dictator? Like, this is all happening very quickly in your head.

And how can I step into the guide? How can I get a bit closer to that? So I was being a guide with that group.

They needed a referee. I literally changed my tone of voice, handed over the marker, was more directive, and off they went. That's what that group needed.

Yeah, so it's real agile. You've got to be pretty agile. Yes, well, there's only four.

Imagine if there were 12. Oh, my God, you'd get completely lost. So it's a gentle, simple map.

Gentle is probably the wrong word. It's a simple map that people tell me they can remember because it's visual. And they come up with their own characteristics.

They build on it each time I work with them. I've got a whole list of the different characteristics. And up the top, it's all about the group, and down the bottom, it's all about me.

And I agree with the guide, it's about engage, and with the dictator and referee, it's about instruct. They're not different. They're just different.

[Speaker 2] (22:09 - 22:09)
Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (22:09 - 28:41)
So, yeah, I hope that the feedback I've got is that it helps people know maybe what type of facilitator they are, how they wake up, what they might need to do to shift to wherever they want to be for that group on that day. Yeah, I love that, Jacinta, really thinking intentionally about whilst I have a default or something that is a habit of how I show up is stopping and thinking, well, what is this group really going to need? And, Jacinta, if you think about like based on the work you've done, because you've been doing this for a really long time, the IP that you've unpacked around this is phenomenal.

What have you learnt with your practice? What are some of the things that you've found, you know, the type of buyers that you work with? What are some of the best things that you've found that have worked with helping you to be able to develop your practice to where it is now?
Some of the best things and the buyers. Wow, that's a big question. I think looking for joy with, I mean, there's a scarcity mentality, you know, we've got to keep our practices sustainable.

But if there's a sense of, you know, when you have that clicking meeting or you have that sales meeting, are we the right fit for each other? It's to follow your gut. So if I think there are red flags, it's either factoring the time for addressing those red flags honestly with your client or is it a case of maybe not for me, maybe that's for someone else?

Because earlier on in my career, I think I might have ignored a few red flags and done stuff that the purpose was not clear, we weren't sure who should be in the room, and it's very much up to me. If there's a lot of effort on the day, I haven't done a good job and we haven't created it together. But back to your question with the clients, it's are they prepared to, they know they need to get a group together, they know what their problem is, but what's the purpose of that particular group?

How much time are they prepared or effort? It doesn't have to be time, but, you know, effort, energy, space and heart to co-creating it with me because it is a bit of a blank canvas. That's why sometimes my practice is a bit hard to sell when I'm facilitating for an organisation.

I help governments and community consult community organisations, consult their stakeholders, their teams to help them make decisions that stick. But that decisions that stick is not an off-the-shelf program I can give to them. We start with a blank canvas.

Are they prepared to invest in purpose? Are they prepared to change their mind about what questions might need to be asked? As Justine said, who worked with me, she said, we thought we had all the questions done.

She said, then Jacinda comes in and she turns it right around the other way, but we get what we need. It's also an appreciation, I think, of Peter on one of the client videos testimonials said that I do a bit of tough love. So I guess going back to my little map, I might be a bit of a referee or even a dictator sometimes in terms of I'm sensing 10 purposes here and we've got people coming next week.

What's our one purpose? So being prepared to work with me together to get the outcome that we want. Sometimes facilitators are called magicians, and I think managing expectations.

I've actually got a couple of testimonials saying that I'm not and none are. So it's managing your expectations around that. We're not a silver bullet.

If you hear that word get a facilitator, it's often like we've got a problem, you can fix it. It's like, no. So the sort of clients I want to work with and work with well are the ones who are prepared to co-create with me, sit down and do the experiences with me.

So if we're doing drawing workshop, I get to do it, whatever the participants are going to do, so that they can appreciate the value that might come from some slightly creative processes. Some of the things that have worked well that you've implemented and for those seeing they're sometimes starting out, sometimes they've had their practice for a little while, and sometimes they may be thinking about introducing facilitation that can be an opportunity for them. If you had your time again, would there be anything or what might be anything that you have learnt that you wish you'd learnt earlier?

So simple. I wish I'd asked the first time I did my first ever solo commercial workshop back in whenever it was. 40 people in the room, government decision makers, academic high flyers, researchers.

I wish I'd found a way to get them onto my blog list. I didn't. Doing something, I think the danger of facilitating sometimes is that I am there to serve the group.

Like a lot of your audience talk about service, but facilitators are there to serve the group. We like to be in the background. That's my background, always being in the background, not out front.

But at the same time, put on your practice hat and go, now these are 40 people in the room who have had a great experience. How am I going to stay connected with them? So I have my client, but there's the people in the room as well.

I wish I'd got those 40 people on my list. It's funny. I met with Sean Stevenson who passed away a couple of years ago, but I met him at PSA, NSA over in America, which is the big speakers conference.

He's done the 10,000 people at conferences, and I couldn't believe I was sitting beside him. Is that Sean Stevenson? And you're right, the same thing I said to him.

If you had your time again, I asked him the same question. If you had your time again with your practice and if you had to start over again, what do you wish you'd done? He said, I wish I'd built my list right from day one.

Yeah, that would probably be my biggest drawback is that it's very interesting understanding. It's the irony of expertise, as I think people talk about. Lack of conviction, lack of confidence, but I have to go into a room with 500, 330 suspicious distrusting people, particularly of government, and I do it every day.

And so why can't I do that in my own practice? I'm certainly getting better at it. But also stepping into the running a practice, you're not just facilitating groups.

So Wyman really enjoying building the capability. So if your audience was bringing facilitation into their practice and offering it to their clients, I think the best advice I could give there is they've all done coaching probably, so if it's one-to-one, how would that work for one-to-many and why are they doing it and what's a different benefit that the client will get that might be different to training? So that would be possibly some useful advice I could give them there on why facilitation.

And to shut up and only give three instructions, let it go.

[Speaker 2] (28:41 - 28:43)
Oh, I love that. Don't be a helicopter.