Facilitator Skills: How To Start Your Programs Powerfully - Facilitator Tips Episode 5

Facilitator Skills are something we take seriously here at playmeo, and I am always looking for ways to add value to our members. So here’s another one in our facilitator skills series for our members who are some of the best teachers and trainers in the world.

First impressions count, so how you start your programs can make a huge difference to what you and your groups can expect to achieve.

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Click play, watch & learn a simple, yet very powerful leadership tip that will help you start your programs successfully, in a fun, engaging and rewarding way. Reflecting the universal truth of 'environment dictates performance,' you'll discover one simple trick that will engage your participants quickly, no matter what your program aims to achieve.

This is just one of many dozens of leadership tips you can use to improve the participation, relationships and overall performance of your students, staff and team.

This Facilitator Tips video tutorial is presented by Mark Collard, one of the world most experienced & respected experiential trainers in the world. As a Master of Group Games & Activities, Mark can teach you how to help your team engage, interact & connect with one another more powerfully.

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Hello and welcome to Episode 5 of the Facilitator Tips video series.

My name is Mark Collard. I’m an experiential trainer, an author, and the founder of https://www.playmeo.com/, and today I want to talk to you about how to start a program.

It seems so basic but gets done so poorly on most occasions. I know in my experience I found the greatest success when I start a program by starting earlier. I even refer to it as my unofficial start. It’s kind of like the start before people realise what’s going on, before we formally actually get going.

So when you look at the normal way when you simply just wait, one of the issues you’ve got is that it’s very, very awkward, people just looking around, wondering what’s going to happen. There’s a lack of energy and it’s often very, very boring. And in my experience, that’s really unproductive time.

Whereas by starting a little earlier, getting people engaged, and often it could be very, very simple things laying on tables or on the floor or even a video or something that they can work with their hands can actually engage them immediately. And so they get started right away and that builds energy that builds momentum and then people are also attracted into that space. It makes it fun and here’s the most important part, it’s that the connections are built in that time, the unofficial start.

And at some point when you’ve got a critical mass or it’s the actual official starting time, you can get going and you’ll find that it’s a really successful way of engaging your group right from the beginning. As I say I call it the unofficial start.

Here’s my last minute tip. Use a puzzle like Wordles or Alphabet Equations. Check them out on Playmeo’s activity database to give you more details.

I also encourage you to check out our show notes. Go to playmeo.com/facilitatortips/episode5 for a whole lot more information and ideas about how you can unofficially start your programs.

Thanks for listening and I wish you all the best in the meantime.

Have fun. Bye-bye.

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