Effective Facilitation with Tony McGaharan

Matt: Tony, my man, thank you so much for this opportunity to get you on the other side of the mic for a change. And welcome to the three points podcast by people playbook.

Tony: This is very weird being on the other side of this table but, jokes aside, I'm really pleased. You've obviously been producing our podcast from the start. And I'm really grateful for you being interested and open to interviewing me as part of our podcast. Genuinely delighted.

Matt: Absolutely. Well, like I'm just chuffed that I get to ask the first opening question that you've asked every single guest we've had so far. And it's a good one. It's a bit of a belter on it's simply Tony McGaharan. What has been the most embarrassing moment of your professional career so far?

Tony: Well, it's a long list to choose from Matthew. And I was coming into work this morning. And I was thinking which story you know, really sticks out as, as the most embarrassing, right? The most embarrassing. It goes back to my days working in Singapore I was working in. I was working at Google in Singapore as part of a grid people development team. They were absolutely brilliant. And it was one of my, I think was my first it was my first trip to Sydney, Australia. Sydney, Australia. So yeah, absolutely delighted to go. And so as part of going for the work trip meant that you know, I was going to be in Sydney and I asked my managers, do you mind if I stay on for a couple of extra days on my own dime? Matthew, obviously, I have to pay for that. You know, Google's not, Google's not funding my holiday. So I went to Sydney for work. And I stayed on for a couple of extra days right? Now you've worked with me, I'm not the most organized person in the world. It got to the very final day of the work trip. And you know, I met some people in the Sydney office. And it's a really nice office, by the way, just like any Google office, super plush, lots of comfortable spaces to kind of sit and work from.

Matt: I just see the beanbags and the slides in my head. It sounds good.

Tony: No slides in that office, but lots of beanbags. And so I ended up then after work on it for a few drinks in Sydney, which is a great city for a few post-work drinks. And we went out and then it hit me it kept me by 10 pm I had yet to book a place to stay. I was like, ah, I'm gonna have to figure this out. So I was at the bar and I put it and pulled up my phone. I started looking at booking.com and various other sites. And the hotels were just extortionate. I mean, I think that the cheapest was $300. And I wasn't prepared to pay it. I was like, no way. So then I thought, right, option number two, and you know, I was a bit younger, back then. I thought You know what, I'll do we'll stay in a hostel. It's only for I think we've got two nights there in Sydney. So it'll, it'll be fine. I'll find a hostel. The hostel's map were still upwards of $100. And I was like, come on? That's like a five-star hotel back home. Hey, it was super expensive.

Tony: So true story. I decided to return to the office that night. They had a really nice, comfortable kind of nap area. And so let's just say I took a very extended nap or an eight or nine-hour sleep in the Google office in Sydney. And so far, I know what you're thinking this isn't particularly embarrassing. I thought I got away with it. So I have my laptop there and I won't listen. I didn't wear my pajamas. But I did wear shorts and a t-shirt. I woke up nice and early thinking right I'll get up early and I'll get out of there. No one will ever do that. I stayed overnight in the office. I go into the desk area where I left my bag. And you know all of us were over for this trip from our people development team, including our fearless leader at the time, our director, and so I walk in, she's already on her computer at 7:30 And I've just woken up all I want to do is grab my toothbrush, my change of clothes at my desk, this is true. And I walk in, and I sort of put the head down and start gathering stuff. And she catches me and she says, Tony says, how are you? Good morning? I said, yeah, good. She says she kind of did a double text. Did you? Did you actually, did you stay here last night? Do you sleep over? And I was all I said was, honestly, don't be ridiculous. So I was able to maintain truth, although there was certainly an omission of the truth. But yes, that's probably one of the most embarrassing moments for me.

Matt: I love that mate so many things about that. I love like, you know, but the question that like comes into my head is like, did she sleepover as well? Like was she is a different part of the building that we don't know what about, was there another nap area

Tony: I tell you why after this when this podcast is released, I'm gonna message and ask her but no, I think we were all jet-lagged, you see everyone who kind of flew it in so I think people were up at weird hours during that trip.

Matt: Well, the thing that you're going to share with us today, as we've already mentioned, in the intro of the show, is this idea around effective facilitation. And I know, this is something that you're incredibly not only passionate about but really world-class to do in yourself. So I'm excited to learn as somebody who interviews people for a living. So I have my new book right in front of me here. And I'm prepared to take some notes. But let's kick off with why this topic, you had the option to talk about anything that you wanted today. Why is this one so important to you?

Tony:  Yeah, thanks, Matt. I have just loved this idea of facilitating, you know, group sessions for as long as I can remember? Well, no, I do it every day. But that's the short answer. I do this every day. So it's something that I think about, I dream about I want to develop and become even better. I think it's a skill that is just constantly requiring attention in order to be as effective as you can in terms of facilitating, I think, for me, it starts off at school, right? I mean, we had, you know, the school system of sitting back and kind of trying to ingest knowledge. And that whole learning experience wasn't always the best. So I think it probably stemmed from there. And then I went into basketball coaching, which is arguably, again, some sort of facilitation, right, bringing people together heading towards a common purpose, a common goal. And then obviously, as you know, and I do it in the in kind of the workplace environment, with organizations across public, nonprofit and private, as well as some of the big tech companies, including my former employer. Really, why is it important to me, because we spend a lot of time in group scenarios, whether it be you know, anything to do work, any work to do with strategy, or perhaps a workshop. And oftentimes, they're incredibly boring, they're incredibly poorly led. And it's about it's always, at times felt like to me that a facilitator has come in just to speak at you. And so I feel like it's my mission to kind of come in and change the way that we do these group meetings and the way we facilitate their learning, or whatever it might be for a specific outcome.

Matt: So cool, man, I think this is really relevant for almost everybody who's going to listen to this, you know, like, if you're in the workplace, and you host anything, whether it's a meeting, or you have some sort of information to communicate, or you're trying to develop a new product, or iterate something, these skills, and these points that you're going to share today, I think are going to be really on the money. So let's just get into it. We'd like to stay straight to the point here. And point number one is be empathetic because it's not about you. So unpack that a little bit for us.

Tony: Yeah, thanks, matt. You're right, this absolutely will appeal to almost all of us because at some stage, we have to lead a meeting, we have to lead something with a group towards a specific goal or outcome. Yes, be empathetic. I always tell people when I'm hosting or facilitating this is going to be quite high, low facilitating about facilitating, I'm helping develop, facility synopsion it's a lot.

So when I'm working with other facilitators and helping them to grow their skills in this area, I always say starting right off the bat, it's not about you. So in this particular session that you're facilitating, whether it be leadership development, or whether it be anything else at all, this isn't about you. This is about the people that are in that group, that have showed up to get to this school. So the first thing is you have to be empathetic, you have to really put yourself in the shoes of others right and put yourself in the seats of others.

And that in itself just reorienting our mindset is really important. Really the first thing you should do when you're asked to lead any form of the group session is that you need to do your research. Who's in the room? Why are they in the room? You know, what's going to be useful for them? What's worked well, in the past? What hasn't worked well, all these types of questions are just so important in the vet, not just sort of, you know, going in with a mindset of empathy, but really practicing it, you know, putting it into practice, really understanding, we sell time user first, right? So understanding your end-user, you know, what do they need from this time together? The second thing that I do whenever I'm thinking about facilitating In fact, I was just having this conversation this morning with a client. It's a mere leadership team from engineering from a tech company, a software company. And the question that I really like, is like what unites or unifies this whole group, like what's common across everyone, whether they're coming from Amsterdam, or whether they're coming from Berlin, or London or Dublin, you know, what brings them all together? Because that helps me start to design in a way that is right for the group, it really puts empathy into practice.

And I guess the third thing about being empathetic, that I find Matt this really, this came to me from my own coach, who is an expert facilitators been doing this work for 30-40 years. And, you know, I come from a kind of a multi-national tech company, and we like to use sometimes we'd like to use fancy language, right? And we try and we try and make these things really complex. But what I love about my own coach, Fran Allison, is she simply starts off with asking the group right, and this is tremendous empathy. What do you want? And what do you not want?

Matt: Wow. I know, revolutionary session, right? There is that's a million-dollar question right there?

Tony: Well, what you don't want, you're absolutely right, that has often proved to be the most useful as I've implemented that a little bit into my practice. And you're right, and it really creates an environment for the group to say, well, I don't want to go for two hours straight on a virtual session, I will want to break right, and you really get some of this stuff, right? And that alone, if you can implement that into your practice with a group, what do you want, what do you not want, you're going to be a far more effective facilitator.

Tony: Wow. And what I love about this point is like it's a complete paradigm shift to maybe a culture that we would have been brought up in through the corporate world where it's all about what you can get, and you know, you're the person at the front, you're the important person, it's only, you know, the top level leader that gets the opportunity to talk to people and share their knowledge on what you've done to me with your facilitation, not only with this topic that you're talking about today, but also with your entire business, is you've shifted it on its head, and instead of making yourself the hero of the journey, you are the mentor, you're the person that kind of walks alongside and puts the client in center stage. You know, I'm a Lord of the Rings guy. So like Lord of the Rings language, it's like, instead of trying to be Frodo, it's like you're Gandalf. And you're like, How can I how can I let these clients go off and have their own amazing journey?

Tony: Yeah, thanks for the Gandalf the gray area coming through? Yes, well, no, thank you for that. And you obviously know, that's what we're really trying to do. And you know, I think that you mentioned why this is important. And I said, well, we I do it every day. And I'm super excited I don't take any of this for granted. Because if you're going to ally me time with 10 of your leaders or 10 members of your team for two hours. That's such a commitment and investment to business. So I really may seem on the surface, certainly. And I think sadly, it is to be incredibly empathetic. And it is a little bit countercultural about showing up and saying, this is about the group getting to the outcome. And my role is to be Gandalf and to help them get there. You know, it's absolutely critical to be empathetic. And one of the lessons that I learned when I was first learning, learning about learning I was becoming a teacher and a past life was that people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And I find that to be even more relevant in adult learning or adult education or anything with adult kind of group facilitation because adults we don't care.

We are voluntarily joining and participating in a session with you as a facilitator. And therefore, you know if it feels in the first couple of minutes that the facilitator is actually going to be a speaker or a lecturer. You quickly find especially in the hybrid environment that people will go off-camera they will start doing their laundry, a friend of mine in Ubisoft is one of my best friends. He said that he was at a session before and that it was clear that there wasn't going to be anything useful for him. So he went off camera and started hanging up his laundry, that's a true story. So, you know, I want to make sure that when I'm entering any sort of group session to facilitate that, I immediate, I first of all, before I get to, before I get in the room, I've done my research as much as possible, not always possible. Sometimes you don't get the time with people before to really understand where they're at. But definitely, in the first couple of minutes and moments, established that I'm here to support and to serve you. This isn't about me.

Matt: That's great. And, you know, for all the facilitators here, listen to this, I think to call back a previous episode that you did with Lesley Pyle, you guys talked about, the bar is so low in this space, you know, like, you just got to mention it, they're like the low bar is, can I convince people not to use this time to hang up their laundry. So you know, if you can go above and beyond that, and not just have someone sit through, whether it's a Zoom meeting or something in person, without their mind, be instructed, but actually get them to really enter into it and be so engaged and facilitate that transformation or that learning. It's such an exciting opportunity. And I want to jump into your second point here because I think it's a good time to do that. And it's this idea of being present. And you've put alongside that you can't be here if you're elsewhere. So if we want our participants to be present, then I guess a big part of that is us kind of showing up and being in the moment as well.

Tony: Absolutely. Well look, Matt, think about, you know, think about and for everyone listening, think about a time where you've had an incredible experience in your life. Was your inbox open? Were you on Slack? Were you, you know, sending another pointless message in your Whatsapp group? No, you were probably incredibly present, you were in the moment, you were invested, you were engaged. And you were loving it. And I think that too often we show up. And this is a cultural and systemic issue in the workplace. And again, specifically, even more so in the hybrid environment. Although I do think there's a bit of course correction going on, thankfully, that you're going back-to-back meetings. And so our expectation is that it's good, you know, each meeting is going to be not particularly effective, but we just kind of go with it anyway. And I think if we were to turn the lens back on, you know, my role as a facilitator or your role as a facilitator, it's really important that you role model and demonstrates and put this into practice yourself, right, be absolutely present, be in the moment, be focused.

A couple of things that are really practical in this space to help you get there. And again, this is obvious stuff, but it's really critical.

And you know, we were, we were just chatting and I have posted on my screen. And the reason I have posted so on my screen is for my own notes. Rather than having something distracting me on my other monitor, figure out a way to shut everything else down, especially if you're delivering remotely or in a hybrid environment,  from your office or from wherever you're facilitating and just be incredibly present, right. And it's very difficult to do when you have your phone nearby even an eyeline turning off notifications if you've got a smartwatch, all this stuff is just absolute, you know, it's hygiene, right, it's absolute hygiene, is to be focused. The second thing around being present that I have find specifically in the last couple of years that's really helped me be a more effective facilitator is to be entirely committed and invested in the goal of the session. If I go into a session, and just beforehand, even when I get into the weeds and the details, and this is a trap that we can all fall into, we get into the weeds and the details. And sometimes we miss the big picture of what are we actually trying to accomplish? I often just a couple of minutes before a session, I really just anchor on the goal. I get very mindful about okay, what is it? We're here for 60 minutes or 90 minutes or two hours? What's the one-two, no more than three, as you know, no more than three things that that we're going to accomplish today in this session. That's its very own brand, isn't it?

Matt: I was laughing I don't know if I was on-screen or off-screen when I was laughing there. But like, yeah, it was very on-brand. I like the consistency you know.

Yeah.

Tony: So just really focused on what you're here to achieve. And again, building on point number one, Matthew, hopefully, you've done the research and if you haven't been able to do the research, you've arrived in the room and you've understood what it is that folks want from the time together so that you're really focused on that and everyone's aware of it and we're all kind of working towards that common and shared purpose or goal.

Now a couple of really practical things that I do. And this is going to be awkward if you've been in a workshop with me, you will have seen me do this. And now you're going to know that it's very much a hack for me. And it works, right. So I struggle sometimes, as you all know, Matthew, having worked with me, and those of you that have worked with me or know me intimately, hopefully not in the professional sense. But personally, people that know me, I'm very excitable, I jump in, often cutting people off. Now, I know that in my work, that is like a no-go, you can't do that. Because you're not present in the moment, you're not really listening to people, if you're just starting to process your own thoughts, and you're already ignoring what the person is saying because you're trying to get to what you want to say. That's absolutely high to be ineffective in facilitation. Instead, what we want to do is we want to slow down, we want to be present. And a couple of things, a couple of things that I do to help me manage my being overly excited, right, and to stop me from jumping in. The first thing is very, is very tactical, and it's very specific to the hybrid environment.

And then I'm gonna share one that works. One other hack for me that works in person or virtual. If you're doing something virtually or online, when you ask a question to a group, put yourself on mute, put yourself on mute. And this does two things: one is it slows you down from jumping in which is really important when you're facilitating and then the second thing it does when I go on mute, it actively encourages, if not requires others to then answer the question. I'm super comfortable with silence Matthew, and I have no problem. I have no problem sitting on mute for 45678910 seconds longer if needed. Now, I don't just sit there entirely in awkwardness ofcourse, I've got a couple of little techniques that I use to encourage others. Yeah, in fact, I'll just tell you this one, it's sort of off of our point. But in terms of being present, you know, when I asked a question to group and I go on mute, I often caveat and say to the group that they can either use chat or come off mute. The beauty of virtual facilitation is that for those of us that are introverted, more introverted than extroverted, and really prefer not, or maybe perhaps English isn't their mother tongue, I work with a lot of global teams, I want them to have the option to type in their response, they shouldn't have to feel like they've got to come off mute, in order to contribute. So that's something I do. But yes, the mute thing, the mute thing really is, is an incredible hack to be more present. The second main one that you can do in person, or you can do virtually, is again, a way to await a forcing function for slowing yourself down. And listening and being more present is to have a glass of water or a bottle of water nearby. And obviously, this isn't topped up. So this is bad practice. So make sure you've got to make sure you've got a full glass, but he's a thirsty guy, give me give him some break.

If you have a full glass of water, you're able to use this whenever I ask a question that requires the group to answer or to reflect or to think and I don't want to jump in too early. I have a big sip of water. It's so silly, but it really, really works. And I encourage anyone to do this. If you're a leader, or if you're in a team and you've been asked to host a team meeting or you've asked to facilitate just bring a big glass of water a bottle of water. And when you know really planted it that you know when you're going to ask a question, take a sip of water, big sip of water, slow your breathing, relax and allow people to answer the question. For me in terms of the opposite of being present and being ineffective in terms of not doing these things. And it's really a pinpoint for me. And I've co-facilitated with a lot of people over the years, probably decades at this stage almost. But when you ask a question and you keep going, and I know you don't do this, you're a very good facilitator and host. You know, if I was saying that, so like, you know, what do you think is most important for today? Okay, but tell us more like what were, you know, tell it think about this, and you keep talking and keep talking and all you're doing is adding noise. And it's really difficult then, for someone to pause, reflect and answer. So, with that, I'll stop speaking. I think that's our second point wrapped up.

Matt:  Yeah, man silence is so powerful. You know, and if you can build your tolerance to good 5678910-second silence like you said, magical things start to happen. People start speaking that would never speak otherwise. I'm going to kind of throw you under the bus here a little bit. In a good way. I'm gonna like command it. Another quick little actionable tool that I see you deploy all the time and you did it just before we started recording. You put your mic off, you put your camera off, you walk around the room, and you said look, I'm just gonna take a couple litle breaths. And that was just a way that you really anchored yourself and you thought about the goal. And I just wanted to say that because that's so simple, that's so obvious. But there's a big difference between knowing these things and doing these things. I think everything that you've laid out so far is they're so accessible. But it takes us to actually take them in our hands and deploy these tools, rather than just have them swinging in the tool belt. Okay, so third, and final point, one last tool for us to explore with you on this topic of facilitation. You have here be funny, and be fun. If you approach with lightness, it will feel light for others. Talk to me.

Tony: Oh, this is the third one, which I debated. I mean, as you know, I have probably a good. I mean, I've written down at least 10 kind of key principles of effective facilitation. I mean, who knows, one day, I may turn this into a 10 day program and do a course because I'd love to share it more. But this third one, this third one I was debating putting out there because it is a little bit more nuanced. It is perhaps a little bit more complex, where you might you know, the initial response from someone I'm working with. And this has happened in sessions where I'm training facilitators where they might say, I'm not funny. I'm not a funny person. And that's grand, not everybody. Not everybody is, I'm not particularly funny as well. But I spent a lot of time you know, thinking about the role of humor when it comes to learning and memory and retention and recall and how you create an environment of psychological safety. I mean, there's so many things, good things that come from this instead.

First, Matt, let me tell you a story of, of how not to be funny in a way that disrespects or doesn't disrespect? Yes, it does, actually, it disrespects people, or it makes them feel uncomfortable and unsafe. And then we're in big trouble, we're really in big trouble. Because when you try to be funny, and if it does, if you do it in a way that isn't really mindful and thoughtful, or it lifts people up, you can you can find yourself unable to come back from so I'll give you an example. So I was working at a conference recently, and there were about 100 leaders in the room. And the emcee for the day actually noticed that there was a table at the front of the stage that was empty. And so they were just about to introduce myself onto the stage. But before they did, what they did was they made a joke about hi, there are people at the back of the room. And you know, it was an attempt at being funny and being playful, which I thought actually the first instance I thought that's quite funny people at the back, that's fine. Then what happened was, they went that this particular emcee facilitator went a little step further and said, I actually want a big step further and said, look, why don't you folks at the back come all the way to the front and fill this table? Yeah, exactly. Imagine, right?

You're an adult, you're a senior leader in your organization. And at the very start of today's conference, you're being asked to move from the back of the room to the front of the room and feel like an obstinate school kid in the process. And feel exactly as you describe, right, it's really, you know, I talked about creating room for introverts earlier, didn't I, that's, that's again, something that I pride myself on because I am not, but it is my role to be a guardian of kind of the diverse range of personalities and preferences within it within a group.

So this was how not to do it. And ultimately, what happened was the, the emcee, the facilitator, waited patiently while others and kind of egg them on and sort of cheer them on to come up to the front, the rest of the room, I mean, that you can feel it. And that's the thing, you know, as you mentioned, there, you know, lightness can be wonderful, but when things like this happen, there's a heaviness in the air. And reluctantly, a group of group of senior leaders didn't make their way to the front of the conference. And it was it was really uncomfortable. And I felt you know, that there was an embarrassment for the people that had to grab their stuff. I think there was generally a sense of, I can't believe I have to get up and do this. This feels like I'm not being treated like an adult or respected. And then I think you know, I think thirdly, it really affected obviously, this group's willingness, openness for the next speaker, Matthew, that was me I was the next facilitator. So anyway on to work the room for you you're like no, set up warm up. They got cool done.

We were starting 10 points diamond to use kind of a sports reference. We entered the game and we're already 10 points diamond or if you're a football fan we were, it was on aggregate, we were dying to get to goals to nil. And I had an opportunity here and I let me just really importantly, say that this facilitator, I got to see work and they were brilliant. Overall, I think this was a, this was a misstep. And we all make mistakes that we really call that out. Because I've had many mistakes, I hope I continue to make mistakes. Because as I think John Wooden says, one of my favorite leaders as the most winningest basketball coach in college basketball history, he said something along the lines of, if you're not making mistakes, you're not doing anything, I'm positive, a doer makes mistakes. So I want to applaud that facilitator, they took a risk, I don't think it paid off. So then I am not getting on stage to, to then, you know, try and be fun and to be funny. And all I did was say, you know, I paused. I looked at the table in front. And all I said was absolutely hats off to you for getting up and moving. You know, I'm not sure I would have everyone erupted with laughter. And it was like, it was like, you know, the tension was just gone. And it was the room calm down. It was it was absolutely incredible.

So you know, back to our point, be funny. Be careful about being funny. It really is about and Jarred Christmas kind of our resident comedian, of people playbook. He always says, you know, you can make fun, but you never disrespect the work. And another mantra of ours in people playbook is that we're really serious about fun. So even if you're thinking, Tony, I don't want to try and be funny, because I don't want to make that mistake. That's okay, then what you can simply do is lean into the fun element. Fun is such an overlooked quality when it comes to anything in the workplace. I think there's a real craving right now in the world for more fun. If there wasn't, we probably wouldn't be getting as much work as we're getting. Right.  So there's this there's this deep desire to bring a little bit more lightness, lightheartedness and fun. And so we say we're serious about fun. So what I mean by that in practice, so if you're less of this, you think, right, I want to facilitate, I want to be fun, I think you've got to start with your design, for whatever session you're doing, you got to take your time, you got to be really thoughtful. And then you've got to take an exercise. And then you've got to think about okay, hi, can I make this more fun, and it's that simple.

Now, I was on a session earlier with another colleague, and we were talking about this, and one of my other mentors in kind of learning design said, once you've written out your session plan, then look at it and then do the opposite of what's expected. And it sounds silly, but it really, really works. And let me give you a good example of that. So, you know, oftentimes, I'm working with leaders, and I'm getting them to think about how they show up as a leader, and how they want to be viewed and their leadership style. That's a really good question. That's a really effective question to get a leader into the mindset of, okay, who do I want to be as a leader? What's important to me? What values am I bringing into, to my team or organization? Now, that's one way I've done has asked the question, you could do a little breakout. That's really good, by the way. And that's all good stuff.

One other way to do it that I have experimented with over time, I'm still trying to figure out which digital tool works best for this, but why not? Have the leaders draw themselves in the way that they want to be seen by their team? Wow. Is that not a much more engaging, fun thing? Now what that does is a couple of things, right? One is it required one is it requires them to be present. You talked about that as a key point of facilitation, they then have to go, oh, gosh, I got to draw this. And when you're trying to draw something, and you're on the timer, and you said I've got five minutes, I gotta, I gotta draw, like, go for it. Right. So they're really focused on the task, they're really present. And it's much more fun night, I should caveat and say, this requires the empathy as well, because you've got to create the safe space where people are happy to take risks. You can be a bit funny and say, This isn't an art competition, you know, I you know, but if there is a Picasso here, I'm going to sell your artwork, whatever you want, you can have about it. You can be funny in that too. But isn't that a much more interesting and engaging way to get them thinking about something that's very serious, something that is very heavy? Who are you as a leader? That's a deep question, having someone draw it out. That's quite light, doesn't it?

So that's kind of point number three.

Matt: I'd love to kind of zoom in a little bit more on I had the opportunity to, for the first time be a participant in a workshop that you guys were facilitating on I mean, this was a really start about a serious room. They were really, really senior-level leaders and really important positions all across the country. And I walked away from that. And I remember the first thing that I said was, why did this feel like I've just gone to see like a stand up comedy show because I like the amount of fun I had was outrageous. And the thing that impressed me the most was your use of technology. And I think that that is something that I definitely took away after experiencing it for myself, and I think people listening would really benefit from so give us a few. I know, we're kind of sneak in at the end here, we give us a few kind of useful tools or pieces of software that you use to really spice things up.

Tony: Yeah, thanks very much, Matt. Absolutely. And it is, and again, in this virtual and hybrid environment, which many of us are working in you know, technology can either help or hinder your session plan and your sort of advancement to achieving your goal. So I'm really glad you call this. And yes, the good thing is Matt, like there are loads of good things you can use. So again, if you're thinking I'm not really sure how to how to be super fun or funny, using technology can really help. So a couple a of my go tos one is Google jam board, I find to be a really great whiteboard tool. Yes, I did work for Google. No, I'm not on commission, I just find it to be more simple and less complex than some of the other whiteboarding tools, having sticky notes, people throwing stuff around, it's really great, you know, simply get people in a room, give them a task, have them use stickies, and it's really useful.

The second tool that has become a kind of a staple for us is Mentimeter. It's a scandic tool. There's a couple of scandic tools coming, but it's really effective for designing engaging tool, an engaging tool for it's like.

Matt: Audience participation almost is the way I experienced that.

Tony: That's exactly right. Thank you. Took the words out of my mouth any more coffee? Yes. So it's an audience, audience participation tool, and you can get really creative, and they actually have templates and things that you can just take off the shelf and play with. So I absolutely would recommend, recommend Mentimeter. Another scandic tool is Kahoot. And Kahoot is a quiz application. And, again, I mean, I'll just reiterate the point and say that you can have these very serious things that you're covering in your session and do them in a quiz format, you're still going to get to the same outcome, but the experience is going to be magic. Yeah. Yeah, right. So take a different path to get to the goal in the outcome. Use a quiz use audience participation that's really effective. And then I think the last thing, I'll actually give a plug because I really, this is a brand new tool that they have a small team of 19 people, we've started using them and people playbook. And the name of this collaborative video conferencing tool is called butter. And it is fantastic. It's from Copenhagen. So again, another kind of Scandinavian tool. I don't know what's going on up there. But it's a really effective way that effective tool for combining all of these sort of audience participation collaborative tools in the one spot, and I met with one of their team recently to give some feedback. And I'm really excited for how they're going to develop their product. But yes, thank you for bringing it up. Because I do want people walking away from our sessions feeling lighter, happier, healthier, more optimistic about their work that's really critical to everything that we design, and critically how we facilitate.

Matt: Absolutely. And I think the last thing I'll say before we move into the final question is, whenever it comes to things like that of a public speaking nature, or a meeting or some sort of like learning session, memorability is so, so important. And sometimes it just takes a couple of those that are unique and different approaches. And I remember that session like so clearly in my mind just because of how different it was. And I think  that's a really useful thing and a useful tool that people can take away after listening to your points today. So look to any final question. It's a question we always end on. And it's simply this, if we all were to implement these three points that you laid out today, if we actually did them instead of just listening to them on this podcast, not only how would we change? How would our teams change? How would our workplaces change? But give us this is your big moment, right? Give us the big, big picture, how would the world change Tony McGaharan?

Tony: Wow, no pressure at all. I'm not realizing what we ask our guests on the podcast is a bit is quite heavy. Well, look, let's let's call it out here. First and foremost, life is really hard. Sometimes life is really difficult. Work is incredibly challenging. It's frustrating. Burnout is on the increase, and what an opportunity you have If when you're facilitating to have a positive impact and to, you know, combat some of these challenges, like work should be better work should be more fun work should be more enjoyable. And I think that if you're to become more empathetic as a facilitator, if you are to be present really actively in the room, virtual or in person, and if you are to attempt to be fun or funny, and bring some lightness to your role as a facilitator, I think people are going to feel heard, they're going to feel much better connected with one another. Remember, it's about the group. And third, thirdly, and lastly, they're gonna have more joy. And goodness knows, Matt, we could all do with more joy in the workplace.

Matt: Absolutely. Tony, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for doing this on. I really appreciate everything you've shared with us today.

Tony: Thank you so much for for turning the tables producer, Matt, and interviewing me as part of our Three Points Podcast. It's just been an absolute delight being interviewed by you. You're an absolute expert. And if you haven't folks clicked up Matt's podcast Best Of Belfast. I'm a big fan of it. Give it a lesson. You're doing absolutely great work. And we're so glad to have you on the team.

Matt: Awesome, man. Thank you. I'm definitely holding you to kind we're gonna get this facilitation program out there because I think you've got more to say on this

Tony: Thanks, Matt.

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