Why I’m so in love with workshops, their ability to align teams and shift company culture

Workshops done well can be uplifting, powerful training sessions where participants leave with actionable frameworks and teams are more aligned than at the start, which in turn encourages breaking down barriers, better more open communication and a stronger culture when they go back to their desks.

I recently sat in on a two hour zoom training workshop about storytelling. This wasn’t from a stranger on the internet. This was someone within a wider London network who runs bespoke workshops that agency leadership had invited in.

What happened next was surprising. The skeptic in me was gently melted away as she took us through slides, through exercises, discussion and breakout rooms. In doing so, the discussion gently started free flowing in a relaxed and chilled manner, all over Zoom, with team members in and around the UK and Singapore who have in some cases never met in person.

As participants we started to connect. To bounce off each other. Many of us aren’t writing stories day to day, but producing them in video format. So it was interesting to note the powerful insights that came from everyone.

Don’t get me wrong. This wasn’t what you might imagine a brainstorm to be. I’ve sat through too many brainstorms that either end up churning the same old ideas, have the loudest people in the room be the only ones dominating or the worst — have many moments of just silence where everyone is scratching their heads.

It got me thinking: What makes a great workshop? What outcomes can these have for teams?

I’ve run many creative strategy workshops, some informal, others more formal and no matter what the subject matter, there are some key qualities you should look for — and I strive to include in my own workshop design.

Here’s an overview of the essentials:

Set the rules and expectations for everyone at the start

It’s an obvious one, but regardless of extrovert, introvert, seniority, etc. the facilitator should skilfully include everyone. That could be done by explaining the rules of the game at the beginning. At one independent agency that I’ve worked for, the facilitator would explain four main rules:

1. No deltas — don’t be neggy.
2. No flogging a dead horse — say your thing, move on.
3. Parking lot — if it’s too difficult to solve or a significant tangent we’ll note it down and move on.
4. The classic “be present” — mobiles off and laptops closed. If you need to take an urgent call or email, go off camera or take it outside

One of the other ones I like is around “not talking over each other”. One client I worked for had people around the world and was very familiar with video conferencing. They were experts long before the Pandemic.

They would all jump on a call and you could see their Zoom etiquette in action right away. Everyone automatically muted. People would use the hand raising function and the facilitator would keep an eye on the notification — and skilfully manage the queue.

Genuinely inclusive warm-up / get to know each other, 5 mins

In person or on video look for a facilitator who quickly and gracefully includes everyone on the video call or in the room.

Ideally they use people’s first names, however difficult they are to pronounce. As someone with a difficult name, I see facilitators shy away from saying it, but say all the easy names. Even Virgin Media staff are trained to tackle this one and get it out the way fast.

If you’re presenting from a slide deck, go to presentation mode / full screen

As a UI designer by training I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to sit there and stare at all that Keynote chrome making the content smaller in the process.

A wider point here would be get control of the technology as much as you can. Learn how to set recording, manage chat, do breakout rooms. Maybe practice.

Have some “wow” nuggets early to get people listening to your expertise, 3 mins

I don’t mean a quote from Steve Jobs or Seth Godin. Something that gets people really thinking. In the storytelling workshop the facilitator had a great one: As story tellers relate their words to you, your brain patterns begin to mirror theirs. She showed an image revealing brain patterns. This was a really interesting piece of “expert proof”.

Get into an exercise fast, and keep switching between exercises and knowledge delivery, first 10 mins

We all know this. We’ve sat through so many meetings that could have been an email. Workshops that could have been a PDF. But when it comes to designing them, so many people revert to delivering an essay in front of the class.

For this purpose I keep a collection of exercises handy, that can be repurposed for different scenarios and situations. One nice one for video calls is to use the chat functionality to ask people to quickly list answers to a question.

Another technique I’ve seen work well in the age of back to back video calls is doing something physical together, on mute, e.g. a simple stretch. Or “find a piece of paper and pen and…”.

Design your workshop to foster true alignment and make it memorable through simple frameworks

Working through mis-alignment and allowing participants the time to explore concepts is the whole point.

This can be tricky when you’ve got a lot of knowledge to impart, so you need a workshop light on knowledge, with just the right amount of actionable frameworks to be memorable.

If you get it right, workshops can transform team dynamics for years to come.

Fearless Works is a behaviour change creative studio. We help creative strategy teams do their best work. https://fearless.works