A live interview (recorded October 10th, 2016) with entrepreneur, author, and experiential facilitator Michelle Cummings. Michelle Cummings is the founder of Training Wheels LLC, creator of many folks go-to facilitation tools, and long-time leadership, team building, and experiential learning facilitator. Hosted by Meg Bolger and Sam Killermann of FacilitatingXYZ.
To read more about Michelle and follow her work check out Training Wheels website or Facebook page. You can also follow her on twitter @MichelleCSocial.
Show Index
Michelle’s intro.
How did Michelle come up with the name “Training Wheels”?
What is team building (vs. team bonding vs. team development)?
What led Michelle into facilitation?
How much training did Michelle have when she started facilitating?
What is it about experiential educators?
How to address resistance in participants:
What allows Michelle to realize that people have bad experiences and others don’t have that awareness?
What are some of Michelle’s favorite intro activities?
How does Michelle help new facilitators learn without the experience?
Advice for new facilitators for getting the most out of their conference experiences?
What should you do before your get to a conference?
What would you recommend for people new to facilitation who want to get in touch with more seasoned facilitators/mentors?
Michelle’s example of adding a metaphor for integrity to an activity:
How can people connect with facilitators they admire at a conference?
How do you debrief differently with a co-facilitator vs. a group?
What is helpful to focus on (or not focus on) in debriefing?
How long do you let people go down the rabbit hole?
What can all facilitators learn from experiential educators?
How to balance not giving people an answer when trying to prompt participants?
Michelle’s favorite wrap up activity—the body part debrief:
Michelle’s advice for facilitators looking to make a workshop their own:
Michelle’s most epic facilitator story ever!
How to throw questions back to the group:
How to work with large groups as a facilitator?
Rapid Fire Questions
Three words for facilitation:
One ground rule for the entire world that everyone would have to follow, what would it be?
What do you still need to be reminded of as a facilitator?
What do you do right before a facilitation and right after?
What is a piece of facilitation advice for your 5-years-ago-self?
What stresses you out as a facilitator and how do you handle that stress?
What’s a unique place that you’ve facilitated?
What’s a non-facilitation related experience every facilitator should have?
What books do you recommend most to others?
Online resource recommendations:
Piece of advice for everyone listening:
Links
A Teachable Moment: Processing and debriefing activities
“Sit and Get” Won’t Grow Dendrites
Worksheet’s Won’t Grow Dendrites
Train Wheels Store
Playmeo database
Transcript
Coming! Youtube auto-transcribed closed captions available now.
