In its essence, being prepared is about getting yourself AND your participants ready. When this is done well, your event, meeting or class will feel like it is running itself. While you cannot prepare for every possibility, you can mitigate a lot of headache by thinking through exactly how you are going to show up and facilitate. Think of it as looking at a map and checking out Yelp before you embark on a vacation in another city. The more you know, and therefore the better you plan, the more smoothly your engagement will run.   

Action Step: It is tempting to underplan.  If you usually spend an hour creating a meeting agenda, spend two hours on your next agenda. Then, after the meeting, reflect: Did it make a difference to have spent longer in the planning? If so, what kind of difference did you notice?  If not, why do you think it didn’t make a difference to be better prepared?

I used to show up to meetings and workshops about 70% prepared. I’d usually have decent goals and objectives on paper and a general idea of what I would cover under each bullet point I’d outlined. I was good enough. As soon as I started co-facilitating workshops and meetings with my colleague, now business partner, Oscar, that all went out the window; you can’t run a two-person show without a script. And once you start working off a script for your meetings or workshops, you will never go back, because the quality of your engagements will increase exponentially. Being prepared in this way assures that your points will come across clearly to participants, and, perhaps even more importantly, shows them that you care enough about what is happening in the room to have done such a thorough job getting ready for them. They know you are prepared and engaged, and they rise to meet your level of commitment.

Transformational facilitators can sometimes almost seem invisible during a meeting or workshop, but they still always own the space because they have spent the hours prior to the engagement constructing it. Think of preparation as if it were a car. Anyone can get in and drive the car, but without all of the hundreds of little parts planned out and put together, the vehicle won’t run. A car that is poorly built or missing parts becomes hazardous for the driver. A car that is hastily put together a few minutes prior to being driven is likely to fall apart on the road.  

Not only that, but a transformational facilitator doesn’t build the car alone. No! A transformational facilitator engages the driver(s) in helping her design and put the vehicle together. She may bring parts or help organize tasks, but in order to have the best vehicle for the end-users, she knows she must involve them in the building. Again, this cannot be done a few minutes before turning on the ignition. It needs to be done well before setting out, to allow time for it to be tested or reviewed by the drivers.

Being prepared also means getting yourself into the right mental and physical state to show up 100% for your participants. I’ve organized dozens of conferences over the years, and at the events people always comment to me, “You seem so calm!” because I’m not running around and in a sweat. And I feel good and am having fun, most importantly. That’s what being prepared does.  

By now I hope you’re wondering how, exactly to prepare so that you can, too, can be the calm, cool, collected facilitator who has everyone’s rapt attention. Alright then, let’s dive in!