Skip to content

Back to overview

Episode 158

March 30th, 2022

158:Facilitation Beyond the Workshop with Marilyn Zakhour

Sign up to download the free 1-page summary.

    Intro

    What will the most successful teams look like in the future of work? How is consultancy changing? How can businesses improve their knowledge management and sharing?

    Believe it or not, Marilyn Zakhour and I manage to fit all of these topics (and several more) into this episode.

    Marilyn is a fascinating person – from her multi-hyphenate career to her ease of conversation.

    Since 2020, when she left her role as Head of Dubai Opera, she has been working with top executives to help them step into the future of work and prioritise collaboration over co-location.

    Our wide-ranging conversation about big ideas felt more like a casual chat with a friend – and there are plenty more seats at the table for you to join us.

    Find out about

    • Why consultancy is increasingly about change and project management
    • How the best remote teams embrace newness, rather than replicate tradition
    • Why context is an essential precursor to outcomes in a workshop
    • What happens when participant hear you use buzzwords and acronyms
    • How Marilyn designs her workshop debriefs to encourage long-lasting behavioural change
    • What great information management looks like in businesses (including facilitation ones!)

    Don’t miss the next show: Subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.

    A huge thank you must go to SessionLab, the sponsor of Workshops Work. Claim your free two months of SessionLab Pro now – this deal is exclusive to Workshops Work listeners!

    Exclusive offer from Facilitator Cards for workshops.work listeners you can get 15% off your entire purchase at shop.facilitator.cards by using code workshopswork.

    Questions and Answers

    01:35When did you start calling yourself a facilitator – in fact, do you? 03:57What’s the switch been like between management and facilitation? 09:24 How do you help clients bridge that gap between knowing and doing after a workshop? 11:56Do you find that all managers receive well the prompt that they’ve forgotten something? 17:11When do you determine that a project is finished? And when did your consulting business become an ‘interim management’ business? 19:23This sounds a lot like change management – would you say that’s accurate? 22:22How many people affected by the outcome of a workshop can you legitimately include in said workshop? Isn’t there a tipping point? 25:44What makes a workshop or project fail? 25:17Could you do this tandem exercise with two people? 27:19What’s the cost of a failed workshop? 27:59 What would your advice be to a facilitator whose workshop has just failed? 01:07 Can you share the story behind your company’s name – Cosmic Centaurs? 05:44 What are the key ingredients that can make a remote team fail? 09:49How can an organisation design a work interface that is instantly ‘gettable’? 16:25What would you say is a quick win or starting point for knowledge management? 19:15If you were creating the perfect remote team from scratch, how would you start? 23:58The irony of excessive acronyms in a profession that prides itself on simplification and creating clarity. 27:36The relevance of friendships in our workplace communication. 30:43Why disagreement is healthy when we have a connection. 32:11What’s the future of work?

    Links

    Cosmic Centaurs website

    Aion Teams website

    Connect to Marilyn

    On LinkedIn