HCD 101 Designing with people Human-centred facilitation Mentoring Build capability

Human-centred facilitation

Run compelling workshops that inspire change and deal with diverse groups, challenging leaders and complex problems while feeling confident and in control.

The key to masterful facilitation is you,
not tools or methods.

This course in advanced facilitation mastery developed by Huddlers with over 20 years experience in facilitation takes you far beyond the tools and the techniques and focuses on your development as a master facilitator.

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This is the facilitation training you're looking for

You're a person who is making change, driving collaboration or have a need to ensure people are aligned and supportive. You probably already know that running workshops can be a great way to ensure people feel included, inspired, and confident to see ideas turning into action.

Being a great facilitator feels amazing. Guiding a group through a complex problem to a clear way forward is one of the most satisfying things you can do as a leader of change. This is where change happens.

You are the key to better workshops, not tools or energisers:

Increase self-awareness and presence to create powerful interactions and a confident stance to hold the group through the most challenging discussions.
Develop an ability to read the room and respond to group dynamics to allow for a flexible workshop flow that remains focused on outcomes.
Practise inclusivity for engagement and contribution so that people feel included and value their time spent in your workshop.
Understand how to navigate complex situations and achieve clarity so that people feel like progress is meaningful and worth pursuing.
Move easily between big ideas and tangible outcomes so different participants feel like the right level of focus (big picture vs details) was provided and that clear actions are captured.
Feel confident to facilitate all kinds of interactions like stand-ups, pitches, stakeholder meetings so you become a valued and sought after facilitator of change.

Learn to avoid the reasons most workshops fail

Feeling ready and able to facilitate senior leaders or difficult people through complex decisions can be daunting. Because of this fear, many facilitators focus on the wrong things and end up either running a too-rigid workshop that has people feel railroaded, or run a workshop that feels too loose and has participants feel like it is a waste of time.

Ever had people unexpectedly leave early, or have people try to take over the workshop, or perhaps criticise you in front of the group? It's hard to recover from that.

Here are the top 5 reasons workshops fail:

Loss of control

Even if you've prepared a detailed run-sheet and have everything set up in the space, you can lose the participants if you're not in control of yourself, and in sync with your co-facilitator. When you feel confident and clear within yourself, and in complete harmony with your co-facilitator, magic can even happen without a run-sheet.

People become disengaged

People can become disengaged if you are focused too much on the activities and not them as people. Remember you're facilitating people, not a process. By understanding the journey that people will be taking through your workshop you can keep engagement levels high and build a great energy through the session.

Inability to deal with disruption

One of the most disheartening things for participants is a facilitator who cannot handle the participant who challenges the process and disrupts the flow. We've found that most often these disruptors feel like they are not being heard and hence continually disrupt. Learning how to read the underlying driver behind their behaviour can help you handle disruptions and turn them into supporters.

Too little time and too much to do

We're overly ambitious with what we set out to achieve in too little time, and as a result we don't get the group to where they needed to get. People leave feeling disheartened and unlikely to return to the much needed follow up session. By allowing the right amount of time and space for people to understand the task at hand, do the work, share the work and keep going, you can run a workshop that feels full, but not overloaded or rushed.

Lack of clear workshop purpose

People will feel like the workshop has been a waste of time if there is not a clear and compelling reason for the workshop. Importantly this reason needs to be meaningful for the participants, not just you as the facilitator. The question of "what's in it for me?" is important to address in your workshop design, and when done well will have the right people turn up ready for action.

You will learn how to prevent all of these and run workshops that generate fantastic outcomes.

What if you could learn how to get all these right from the start and run workshops that get results?

That's what we do. We'd like to help you learn to do this too. We call it human-centred facilitation.

Built on Huddle's 10 years of human centricity practice by senior Huddlers with over 20 years facilitation experience each, this course brings together the practices that will profoundly shift your capability and confidence in facilitating people through complex situations.

"This was not just the best facilitation course we've done,
this was the best training we've ever done."

—C. Veronesi

 At the end of this course, you can expect to be able to:

Maintain control of even the most complex of workshops and operate in harmony with your co-facilitator to create a magical workshop experience.
Keep people engaged and build energy in the group so they feel motivated to resolve complex challenges and follow through on the next steps.
Design the participants journey and allow the right amount of time and space so people feel like they are moving at the right pace and things are completed properly.
Connect people with purpose and why they are there so they feel valued and that the session is a meaningful use of their time.
Prevent (and deal with) disruption by designing a workshop that ensures everyone has a voice by improving your ability to read the room and design for inclusion.

You can develop your mastery in facilitation

Day 1

On the first day you’ll learn the mindsets and skillsets essential to facilitating in a human-centred way. You'll build and understanding of how this differs from the norm and why it’s vital to set you and your teams up for success in driving change.

Adopt the mindsets and skillsets you need for human-centred facilitation.

Understand how your buttons and biases impact your own delivery style. Learn how to relax into your natural style and find your flow.

Discover how to have empathy for all learning and communication styles to facilitate more meaningful experiences and better outcomes.

You’ll understand the differences between training and facilitation, and explore your style of human- centred facilitation.

You’ll also learn how to make the physical space work for you and the people you are in service with–not the other way round.

Learn how to read people in the space so you can adjust and manage energy levels and help people open and engage.

Day 2

On day two, we put theory into practice designing and running a human-centred workshop, and learn how to prepare yourself and the team to create the desired outcomes you're setting out to achieve. Your learning will focus on understanding through hands-on, standing-up experience.

Understand how to work with different emotional states and how to design and run a workshop for different emotional scenarios.

Learn about powerful questions and how they can unlock stuck issues and get to the heart of complex matters.

Understand how to incorporate flexibility and adaptability so your workshops are responsive to the needs and dynamics of the group.

Using the Huddle Thinking Framework to understand and communicate the connection to purpose.

Explore personal storytelling and the art of improvisation, and learn a range of new tools.

Bring it all together by rehearsing and delivering part of your newly designed human-centred workshop. Receive valuable feedback.

Meet your facilitators

Cam Incoll

Founder and Managing Director @ Huddle.
Learn more about Cam and see which upcoming programs he's facilitating here.

Steph Mellor

Design Director @ Huddle.
Learn more about Steph and see which upcoming programs she's facilitating here.

Huddle's purpose is to do meaningful work and positively affect humanity. We stand by our work and guarantee you will get lots of value from this training. If at the end of the training you feel that you have have not grown as a facilitator through this course, then talk to us at the end of it and we will give you your money back.

Here's what you'll get from this course:

Foundation training in human centricity
Advanced facilitation approaches backed by knowledge and 20+ years experience in the field
Mastery level facilitation practices dealing with emotional states, using physical space and incorporating flexibility
Practical hands-on and immersive experience to embed and embody your learning

Location: In person, Huddle HQ in Melbourne CBD

Duration: Two days, 9am-5pm

What's provided: Worksheets, all materials and food

What to bring: Yourself and a basic idea for a workshop or presentation you'd like to develop. You can work on it during the course, so bring your ideas!