Ask, Not Tell

I am now working on a 5-days workshop in Shanghai with a few other facilitators from different countries.   I am a bit anxious since they are all good facilitators.   But when I think what I learn from them on facilitation skills, I feel great!!   I shall find time to blog my learning later… but in the mean time got to put long hour into the workshop!!

我最近在上海与几位来自海外的培训师一起进行一个5天的工作坊。因为他们全也是很好的老师，我是感到一定的压力的，但当我想到我可以在他们身上学到的，我就精神大振。我一定要事后在这里分享我学到的…. 但现在我就要为这工作坊努力准备！

I recently came across a wonderful free-of-charge software called ‘Cool Timer’.   You can keep your activity  instruction on PPT on the slide whilst at the same time show how much time is left.

我最近用了一个免费的软件 – ‘Cool Timer’。 使用这软件，你可以同时在屏幕上显示例如你的活动指示，和该活动还有多少剩余时间。

Let me continue to write about my learning from the recent offsite meeting experience.  See this first post for background.

My 2nd piece of learning – Take note when you facilitate discussion!    Or I would say – Whist this blog is called ‘Ask, Not Tell’, my learning is ‘Not Only Ask Question, But Also Take Note.’     OK, let me tell you how I learnt this from the offsite meeting experience.

Like most team building event, I ran a team game.  It is called ‘Broken Square’ and its main aim is to bring out the importance of ’sharing’.  It went very well.  During the debrief session, the participants were stimulated to voice out their thoughts on ’sharing’ e.g.

• ‘Why should we share?’ (This is the first question they asked after I gave the instruction.   A powerful question for debrief purpose!)
• ‘We got to understand what the common goal is before we can all work toward it.’
• ‘They (a sub-team) refused to share, after they have completed their own square.’

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