I facilitate a lot of workshops as part of what I do and so I was really looking forward to speaking with facilitator extraordinaire Alison Coward who works with a wide range of teams to help them work better and achieve their goals. Alison’s just written a new book (out this week) called ‘Workshop Culture: A Guide to Building Teams that Thrive’ and in the latest episode of Google Firestarters Alison talks about the role that workshops (and well run meetings) can play in changing team culture for the better. She makes the point that the team environment that a well-facilitated workshop generates – one that is often characterised by empathy, connection, psychological safety, creativity and commitment – can be a catalyst for much broader benefits in supporting team performance and culture.
I agree with Alison that workshops are undervalued. They are excellent tools to achieve specific outcomes, but the opportunity is also to use them in a much broader way to build connection, to act as a catalyst for change, and to build a culture for high-performance. My thanks to Alison for being a part of Firestarters and for her excellent insights. Don’t forget that the full playlist of Google Firestarters episodes can be viewed over on YouTube, and if podcasts are more your thing you can subscribe on your favourite platform here.
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