October Clinic: Fearless Facilitation

Wednesday, October 17, 2012 (5:30 PM - 8:30 PM)

Presenters: Cyndi Maxey, CSP and Kevin E. O'Connor, CSP

Engage your audience to make your message memorable. You'll learn to unify the group in the first four minutes, use activities that honor the experience of your audience and inspire creative thinking at all levels. Find the fearless facilitator in you without overused techniques and expensive assessments and tools.

Fearless is a strong word, perhaps even a strange word, to describe this skill of facilitation that by definition means, “to make easy.” Yet, many facilitators today are “fear-full”. They are wary of stopping talking, stopping their slide show, or departing from their agenda in order to find out what their people really think, feel, and are prepared to do.

They fear because they don’t know how. They fear that somehow their adult audience will either not participate or will hijack their meeting. Nothing could be further from the truth. Adults require two things in order to learn: they want to feel included and connected. This is never accomplished by lecture, silence, slide decks, and a tight agenda that permits nothing but lifeless “yes’s.”

Leading and facilitating a meeting, event, training session, or webinar to a successful outcome is a challenging task for even the most talented of facilitators. To add to the challenge, growing numbers of meetings, events, and training sessions are being held online, on the phone and in chat formats, making it difficult to simply monitor audience, let alone involve them!

This presentation will open your eyes to terms and techniques you may not have encountered before such as: organic facilitation, breaking the fourth wall between you and the audience, tapping into the natural resources of the group, how conversation and facilitation skills intertwine, how to work with a largely introverted professional population, setting up activities “gently”, how to “listen live” as a talk show host does, how to “go with it” as the improvisation artist learns and more. You will learn to unite theory and activity, engage the facilitator with the audience, and create memories that result in enthusiasm and action.

Presenters:
Author, coach, and professional speaker Cyndi Maxey, MA (Northwestern U.), CSP (Certified Speaking Professional) has addressed CCASTD volunteer leaders and members at national and local conferences throughout her career.

Kevin E. O'Connor, MA, CSP is an established speaker and leadership coach who works frequently with medical and scientific professionals. They speak frequently together and have co-authored books, including Present Like a Pro (St. Martin's Press/NYC), Speak Up! A Woman's Guide to Presenting Like a Pro (St. Martin's Press/NYC) and Ten Steps to Successful Time Management (ASTD Press, 2010), Their new book, Fearless Facilitation, will be released by Pfeiffer/Wiley spring 2013.

Location:
Harris Bank
BMO Financial Group
700 E. Lake Cook Road
Buffalo Grove, IL 60089

Schedule:
Registration, Light Buffet, Networking: 5:30pm
Program: 6:30pm

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