A workshop can make or break the initiative you are trying to get off the ground — launching it into the stratosphere or exploding on the launch pad. Oddly enough, both can be great results for a workshop.
The goal, the result of any workshop, ever, is for people not wanting to leave it and for them to be talking about it the next day, with that in mind, here’s what you need to do.
Don’t Let the Details Sink You
Tables, Markerboards, working markers, chairs for everyone, a room big enough to fit everyone, paper, pens, refreshments — all these things are minute details that can sink your workshop,p derailing you with inane questions as you get started.
You don’t want that.
Think back to some of the well-executed workshops you’ve attended, did you notice the difference when refreshments were provided in the room and not in the kitchen? That’s by design, to keep you engaged, to keep you in the room, to keep you focused on what is being discussed and not leaving.
The details, the little things (a remote session that works the first time) these are what you want ironed out. Internet goes down (yes it does), have a backup.
Body Language
I don’t know about you, but I cannot sit still. I go up and down on my standup desk 3x a day, if only to shake up the day and do something different. Make people move around, get their blood flowing and keep them engaged.
You DO NOT need to do an interpretive dance — something as simple as doing group work, eating lunch with different people, doing a lunch time activity, switching seats in the afternoon — this all shakes up the status quo and addresses the need that some of us have.
Body language is the best indicator you have for how your audience is taking in what you are saying — you can read so much about someone’s engagement by not even talking to them or asking them a question — leaning back looking up at the ceiling, rolling their eyes, arms crossed, spinning in the chair — it’s all there, the cues for you to pick up on to see if maybe people need a change of pace in what you’re delivering or simply just a chance to standup and see things from a different perspective
