Train the Trainer

During the expert session, Rod Ben Zeev engages the audience through a reflective exercise using the Mentimeter app, small breakout rooms for sharing experiences, and a Q&A session. Rod discusses facilitation techniques, including building psychological safety and active listening exercises like "Divergence and Convergence." These interactive activities help participants grasp effective communication strategies, inspire them to apply these skills in their work, and address any questions or concerns about the topic.

• Building Psychological Safety: Engage in activities that foster trust and openness among team members during virtual meetings, as psychological safety is essential for effective communication and contribution within a group. Try using the "36 Questions" activity suggested by the expert to build connections between strangers, adapting it to your team setting.
• Mastering Active Listening and Agreement: Practice active listening and agreement during divergent phases of team meetings, allowing for the generation of numerous ideas before attempting to converge. Use techniques like "that's right Bob" exercise, which encourages acknowledgement of each other's ideas and incorporating keywords from their partners' sentences.
• Personal Growth in Facilitation: Identify your unique challenges in facilitation and envision potential solutions through reflective exercises and open communication with peers. Continuously practice and seek feedback to improve your skills, focusing on creating an inclusive, effective, and engaging team environment.

In this expert session, Rod Ben Zeev shares insights into the art of facilitation in an online environment. Rod distinguishes between facilitating smaller groups and larger ones, emphasizing the significance of building psychological safety and understanding participants' unique communication styles. He explains the importance of psychological safety in enabling individuals to contribute fully during meetings, leading to more productive discussions. To build this sense of trust within teams, Rod proposes an activity based on a New York Times article about questions that can lead to feelings of intimacy and connection between people.

 

Rod also discusses the concept of facilitation as a training topic, breaking down its various elements and explaining how to design effective trainings by deciding on the desired outcome, reverse engineering the session, and creating a flow. He reflects on his background in improv comedy and how it has shaped him into an accomplished facilitator.

 

During the session, Rod introduces an exercise called "Divergence and Convergence." In this activity, participants take on the role of television presenters named Bob while adhering to two rules: agreeing with what the other person says using "that's right Bob," and incorporating at least one word from their partner's sentence in response. This exercise aims to practice active listening and agreement during a Divergent phase to generate numerous ideas, which can then be converged upon for decision-making. Rod stresses the importance of acknowledging each other's ideas and allowing them space to grow before attempting to converge.

 

Rod then leads participants through a series of reflective exercises aimed at identifying personal facilitation challenges and envisioning potential solutions. Using the Mentimeter app, he poses questions to help focus on individual situations and encourages sharing experiences in small breakout rooms. Rod emphasizes the importance of imagining what success would look like and taking a small step towards achieving it.

Feedback (with breakout rooms)

How do you give and receive feedback? We often find it difficult to tell someone what we really think. And when we do, the receiver is not always open to it and in the end, nothing changes. What is the right way? Rod gives an interactive session full of insights about human behaviour. Based on true stories, some even with disastrous results, he shows how important it is that we are able to give each other feedback in the right way. Easy and fun exercises help you understand how you can give valuable feedback, so that both you and others can continue to grow, develop and learn. This session contains 2 breakout rooms.

Mindset for Collaboration (with breakout rooms)

In a few interactive, playful exercises Rod shows people how to switch from ‘Yes, but’ to ‘Yes, and’. Learn how to use active listening techniques to better communicate with others and build on each others ideas. Rod uses renowned techniques from improv to facilitate leadership and talent development. The result? A more pleasant way of working together and better communication. Also, in this session you will gain a broader perspective on discovering new possibilities and will learn to feel more comfortable when making a mistake. The online version of this session contains 2 breakout rooms.