(Fl)awesome Facilitator
1:1 Mentoring Program
Elevate engagement and participant feedback.
Are you an expert who:
❌ Worries that you're overwhelming people with too much content?
❌ Feels like you're facilitating a bit by rote?
❌ Feels like a failure if you don’t get ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ from everyone?
❌ Is scared you won’t be asked back?
75% of us have had no training in how to facilitate a group and keep them engaged.
We are expected to know and it’s rarely taught. We make it up as we go and repeat the mistakes of others. As an expert, it probably feels too late to ask for help.
It’s never too late. Every single cause of low engagement in workshops can be fixed. Here’s a few:
❌ You haven’t told people what to expect at your workshop.
❌ You expect too much of groups: ‘they’ll get through this fast!’
❌ You don’t give people time to share and listen to each other’s stories.
❌ You have too much content. People leave feeling overwhelmed.
❌ Your workshop goes really well with one group, and pear-shaped with another. You don’t know why.
❌ You stick to the same old workshop activities. People get bored and so do you.
❌ You only hear from the loud people.
❌ You can’t get a peep out of the quieter people.
❌ Your questions land like lead balloons. Nobody responds.
Workshops where the expert talks more than the participants sap motivation and sink engagement.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Uncover the secrets to elevate engagement in your workshops with the (Fl)awesome Facilitator Mentoring Program.
Facilitation is a critical skill for any expert who wants to have a transformative impact on their clients.
Facilitation is less about what you deliver. It’s about how you deliver it.
Facilitation excellence is the secret to your clients not just learning your content, but experiencing it.
Facilitators know how to make content stick. Education researchers since Edgar Dale in the 1960s have shown that what people retain in learning increases by about 90% when they participate in their learning.
Facilitators know how to cut and dice content into engaging activities that appeal to different professions and learning styles.
They provide the structure for people to be able to touch and feel the content, look at it in different ways and share their stories to bring it to life. All while meeting learning outcomes and finishing on time, energised.
To have an impact on your clients, you must engage them first.
❓ How would you rate your facilitation capability?
❓ What do your participants say?
❓ What do your clients say?
✔ Gave people opportunities to learn from each other, not just you.
✔ Had the time and space to explore unexpected questions.
✔ Gave everyone the time and space to think and contribute.
✔ Were not dominated by the loudest voices.
✔ Heard from the quieter people.
✔ Left people feeling energised, not drained.
✔ Left people wanting more, not feeling stuffed.
✔ Featured creativity and visuals.
✔ Energised you.
You have complete confidence in your content. How confident are you in your facilitation capability?
Flawed: It feels like you’re herding cats, not facilitating. The most important thing for you about the workshop is just getting through it.
Awkward: You’re scared to go off your workshop ‘script’. You copy what you’ve seen other facilitators do, but neither you, or your groups, are at ease. You can learn how to hold your workshop plan ‘lightly’.
Adequate: You are going through the facilitation motions. Your groups ‘get the work done’ but people don’t leave energised or inspired.
Adept: Your facilitation fundamentals are solid and you are always well-prepared. But you leave little room to adapt and innovate in the moment.
Accomplished: An expert at this level make facilitation looks effortless. Your advice on facilitation is sought by your peers. You are disappointed if any workshop participant gives you only three stars in their feedback.
(Fl)awesome: Your mantra is to serve the group. You are comfortable with your imperfection, being vulnerable with a group and experimenting.
Work with Jacinta 1:1 to explore the question ‘what type of facilitator am I?’ and learn how to use the map below to help you navigate your response to it.
A (fl)awesome facilitator accepts that no group, facilitator or workshop is perfect. They know the only thing they can truly control with a group is themselves.
At their best, a (fl)awesome facilitator aspires to be like a guide with groups, while recognising that they can also be a crowd pleaser, a referee and a dictator. No matter how familiar they are with the territory, a guide needs a map. This map helps a (fl)awesome facilitator to navigate themselves. Highly self-aware, they know their default style, which type of facilitator they are being, or need to be, with a group.
As an expert, the one thing you can control in a workshop is yourself. In this program, you explore:
❏ Your facilitation style and approach.
❏ What impact this has on your groups and your workshops.
❏ What facilitation skills you would like to strengthen and learn.
- Uncover patterns and processes in your workshop designs to change and improve.
- Learn new activities and processes to elevate engagement.
- Identify your default facilitation style and what this means for your groups.
- Recognise facilitation red flags and opportunities, and how to avoid or harness them.
- Elevate your facilitation capability.
❏ Want to stand out from other consultants and experts.
❏ Want to create engaging experiences for your workshop participants.
❏ Embrace the opportunity to build, expand and extend your facilitation capability.
❏ Are satisfied with how you facilitate your workshops.
❏ Believe your content speaks for itself.
❏ Want to teach your content, not facilitate conversations about it.
The 3 month program includes a combination of 1:1 mentoring sessions, tailored content to suit your context, needs and interests, feedback on your workshop plans, workshop observation and a group mentoring session with a selected group of Jacinta’s mentees.
Over the program, Jacinta draws on the full suite of facilitation skills including:
❏ Design: workshop flow, variety of activities, transitions, timing, what to cut out.
❏ Workshop stages: open, connect, ‘the work’, synthesise, reflect.
❏ Visual facilitation to communicate memorable content fast.
❏ Group dynamics: group agreements and how to maintain them and balancing the loud and quieter voices
❏ Facilitation ‘red flags’ to look out for, avoid or negotiate.
ABOUT JACINTA
Jacinta is a creative master facilitator. She loves supporting experts, consultants and facilitators to ‘level up’ their facilitation capability.
Clients and groups love her energy, creativity and humour. Jacinta’s exceptional talent in visual thinking enables her to create captivating cartoons that simplify complexity.
With 25 years of facilitation experience, Jacinta has earned a reputation as a go-to facilitator, trainer and mentor for clients in diverse sectors including government, universities and community organisations, as well as consultants, technical experts and fellow facilitators.
Jacinta holds accreditations in community engagement (IAP2) and as a partnership broker, along with tertiary qualifications in corporate social responsibility, international relations and communications.
When not facilitating, or helping you learn how, you might find Jacinta on her yoga mat, in her art studio, on the tennis court or the tango dance floor.
What people say:
“Jacinta helped me take my facilitation of leadership programs up to the next level. She has a huge amount of generosity, knowledge, expertise, kindness, and empathy, that she brings into her mentoring around facilitation. Working with Jacinta has made such a difference to the leadership programs I deliver and I am forever thankful. My programs are now more enjoyable for participants, and for me, too as the facilitator. Thank you so much, Jacinta.”
Rita Cincotta, People & Capability Leadership Expert
“Jacinta’s session made me wonder if I’ve been looking at our team’s facilitation skills through rose-coloured glasses. It’s helped me provide much more targeted coaching to my team.”
CEO, Victorian state government agency
“Jacinta has been an amazing coach for me on a few occasions in the past year. She has the ability to listen, to understand, to support and to help you find your own gold. She helped propel me forward - extremely well prepared to face the challenge.”
Fiona Ellis, Victorian Department of Health
“With clarity and freshness, Jacinta overhauled my facilitation plan and really raised my session. I had boxed in my thinking and absolutely needed a good kick along.”
Joh Rienks, Coach and Facilitator
“Jacinta is like a modern-day Mary Poppins - providing a treasure trove of ideas that keep coming out to meet your needs. No sugar added - in a debrief call she really heard me in and helped me reflect deeply on my workshop practice. I really appreciate it. Thanks Jacinta!”
Angela McMillan, Organisational Development and Learning Partner, Planet Innovation
“Jacinta was fantastic in helping me adjust to a different phase in my work life. Jacinta helped me identify strengths that I had and to be comfortable to step out in my own individual style and passions. She shared her knowledge and experience generously. As I have implemented this it has built up my confidence and energy at work. Sincere thanks to Jacinta!”
Donna Boughton, HealthWISE NSW
Download the (Fl)awesome Facilitator Mentoring Program brochure HERE.