A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to work with 41 brilliant presenters and
trainers. Our focus was on taking their current presentation skills to the next level and
training them to become Master Facilitators. Although I know that I was able to help
these 41 participants significantly up their game, they helped me up mine, too.
It was an amazing and humbling weekend for me. Their brilliance, energy and
commitment to learning was awesome! Each person’s growth was everyone’s growth.
Each person’s win was everyone’s win. Just their participation in the program has, as a
ripple effect, already affected the lives of thousands of people by these participants
simply acknowledging the unlimited capacity of others, and their confidence in their
ability to draw out the brilliance of those they work with.
Part of what I teach at the Master Facilitator Training Program is how to pull the
answers out of your audience/participants rather than focus on being the expert with all
the answers at hand. I gave this group many exercises to debrief and they showed me
over and over and over again that the answers I expected were just a few of the many
possible options. This is an experience that I have every time I facilitate a room- and it
is one of the main reasons that I continue to constantly expand my own knowledge. I
believe teachers are leaders and I also believe that by teaching others, we continue to
learn.
Facilitation is truly about pulling the brilliance and personal lessons and ideas out of
others rather than forcing your beliefs, solutions and personal experiences onto them.
We have all been taught through the traditional education systems that if we dont have
all the answers we are stupid, not good enough, and have little to contribute. From
that mindset, as teachers and presenters, we often feel that we are only doing our jobs
well if we can be the guru and have all the answers for any and all questions that may
arise in our rooms. But, what I have learned over 29 years is that the greatest gift you
can give others is the opportunity to experience a lesson and share what they learned
with the group for maximum learning and retention. Letting participants come up with
the answers allows them to be the heroes instead of it being all about the guru at the
front of the room.
When one becomes a true Master Facilitator, they accept that their job is not to
spoon feed answers or provide an entertaining show with a lesson, but to create
an environment that supports group participants in contributing their experiences,
expertise and ideas for the best results and personal buy-in among each member of the
group. This past weekend, 41 new Master Facilitators learned how to do exactly that!
