🧊Kicking off with a quick check in or an icebreaker
🗣Continuing with a lengthy monologue
👥Throwing in a Breakout room discussion
⁉️ Closing up with Q&A.
Sounds familiar?
People know it as well and they are not intrigued – they are simply turning on the consumer mode! We don’t spark their curiosity, we don’t involve them in this way. We mostly overwhelm them with tons of information.
Let’s reinforce engagement instead!
Here are some ideas for remote and face to face environments:
Start with a surprise
🎶I love putting on music – especially when people don’t expect it! It relaxes people and creates a nice mood
👥You can follow up with breakout rooms, so people can “arrive” and meet new people and set personal goals for the workshop.
Do small chunks of theory and after each follow up with an exercise, so the participants can practice the new input.
🙆🏻♀️ Extra bonus if the exercise is Embodied, so people can move and allow the new learning to settle in their bodies. As such they use their embodied cognition (significant decrease of feeling overwhelmed)
🎮 If the topic is too theoretical try to gamify it with a poll or a quiz.
Q&A not only at the end! Ask people all the time. They can ask questions in the chat.
❔ If the question allows it, try to approach it as a coaching question (so you support the participant to come up with their own answers)
🖐🏼 If possible try to engage the other people in the question. So you use the group intelligence and create more engagement.
Reflection is key!
🎈If you have a designated time for questions, give people 3’ to reflect on their learning and think of the questions. Like this they can prepare themselves and not feel rushed. Put some soothing music in the background to avoid awkward silence.
Allow the new learning to sink in.
🧘🏻♂️Do a short and sweet meditation at the end to recap the new learning.
📑You can follow up with a Miro board where people share their takeaways and how they want to apply them.