Plan for More Than You Need
Facilitator Tips Episode 18

Top Tip: Plan for More Than You Think You Need

This week’s Facilitator Tips episode explores the value of always creating a plan for more than you think you need in many different ways.

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The best group facilitators are always prepared because they have more up their sleeve than they think they’ll need.

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Video Transcript

Hi there and welcome to Episode 18 of the Facilitator Tips video series.

My name is Mark Collard, I’m an experiential trainer and author, and I’m sharing a variety of tips that I have found valuable in my career. And today I want to focus on this tip about have more up your sleeve than you think you need.

Now I know that just sort of says about being prepared and it is, it is about being prepared but there’s also another value to actually having more up your sleeve than you think you need. And when I say that it’s about the activities, it might be the ideas or even just the references that you need to draw on at any particular moment, because if you are truly dealing with experiential or adventure-based learning, that is unanticipated outcomes, you can’t know for certain exactly where your group or a particular activity’s outcome could land.

So stuff happens. It could be things like time. Maybe the bus arrived late or it was early or the room was smaller than you imagined or the equipment you went to go get is broken. And so now your program has just gone out the window. Having more up your sleeve will always help.

But it’s also about performance. You can’t always know exactly where the pitch of the activity could land for your group. And so you might now need to pull out another activity to use the right activity at the right time rather than running off your schedule based on what you thought could’ve happened. Having more up your sleeve will always help you in that space.

And here’s my last-minute tip. It is always better to say “Geez, I didn’t get through half what I expected to deliver today,” is much better than going “Quick, quick, what else can we do, we need another activity right now, I’ve run out of ideas!” Then that really puts you under stress and there’s no point in being in that space.

I hope you find that valuable. If you would like to leave a comment, please do. If you would like more information or to follow on any of the links that we share, go to our show notes at www.playmeo.com Episode 18.

And I look forward to seeing you in the next episode. Have fun in the meantime.

Bye for now.