Virtual Retreat for a global NGO: it was all about preparation, and practicing what you preach

Last week, again we had the opportunity to practice what we preach every time. And learned a lot more. Here is our story.

What it was about

Virtual conference for a global NGO?working on all continents from the USA to Australia and all continents in between. I feel honoured to have their confidence every time. A wonderful?mission driven organization, as many in continuous search to get better. Their mission: Certifying environmentally and socially responsible seafood. Main topics:?training?on effective working, culture and?behaviour, and?strategy. And having lots of interaction and a good time together.

Duration:?3 x 3 hours in two days.

Finding the balance

Facilitating long live streaming conferences is all about preparation and finding the right balance between sending information, interaction, and energy. Training people in how to increase impact and engagement during meetings is one thing. Executing energetic and dynamic online conferences with clear results is something completely different.

Teaching is one thing, doing it is something else

That is why I love doing both: when teaching people, I am learning myself as well. And when I am facilitating, I gain the experience useful for our courses on facilitative leadership. Last week there was a lot of ‘practice what we preach’. And boy, it was so interesting and intensive.

Even after a dry run and walking through every step of the program more than once, we encountered some challenges. Due to thorough preparation, back up plans and extra material on hand we were able to solve little issues right away. Even without the participants noticing there was a problem in the first place.

Interaction in the training

The first day of the program we organized a training course on Priority Management by Michelle van Eijk of FranklinCovey . She had to deliver the three-hour course twice. Firstly for the eastern hemisphere, secondly for the west. And as with everything: repetition is the mother of skill. So, after a quick round of feedback, we adjusted the approach a bit, with great success. So once again we practiced what we preached. Even improved the graphic recording part, because we love that as well. So experimenting, giving things a creative twist and learning by doing.

Culture eats strategy for breakfast

I don’t know who stated this for the first time, but I love this saying. You can have ambitious goals, but without a supporting culture you can stop thinking about those beautiful horizons.

So, this is what we did on day 2:

1.????First we took time to look at?the harvest of day 1. So we looked at the key findings of how to work with more focus on priorities based on the Time Matrix. Then, in break-out groups the organizational teams brainstormed about their own priority management challenges.

2.????Day to day working on your real priorities had much to do with next topic: organizational?Culture and Behaviour. What is it that we want to achieve and how can we make sure we do the right things, at the right time and at the right way? Isn’t that a question we all ask ourselves occasionally?

3.????Finally, the?Strategy Refresh?by the leaders. The challenge here was to engage all 80 participants during all 45 minutes. The trick: we split the presentation into seven parts. After every part we asked 30 minutes of silence to digest it and write the reactions and questions in the chat. And so everyone did! So the leaders got a direct feeling how their message came across and could answer questions right away by replying in the chat. Tip: don’t forget to save the chat history. We didn’t indeed ;-)

A finish with Fun

The final twenty minutes, we split up in?three culinary break-out groups. Martina taught her colleagues to cook vegetarian, CEO Chris demonstrated how to marinate salmon and Charlotte tipped it off with the preparation of a cocktail that has been trending on TikTok.

Reactions the day after

I admit always looking for a little tap on our shoulder afterwards by reaction in the evaluation questionnaire.

?‘Very nice, very social, good topics.’

‘I really enjoyed and found interesting all sessions. I just wish it lasted a bit longer :).’

‘It was good to step away from the everyday work and think more holistically about how we work.’

Why I shared this

Now you might think: why are you telling me this? Why should I read about your experiences...? First, if you only picked one lesson for yourself here, I did a good job. Also, coming from a family of teachers I am used to an environment of learning by doing, analyzing my work and sharing my knowledge with others. I love this way of working, especially the sharing part. I truly belief in the saying: “sharing = caring”.?Writing this down, does not only mean that I don’t make the same mistakes twice, it also means that you don’t have to make the same mistakes as I did.

The lessons I learned

Sometimes you learn new lessons, sometimes you get confirmation of what is good.

Facilitate a soft landing

Starting the conference informally in small break out groups ensures a relaxed start of the online session. Especially when people are so much longing for real contact. It is like starting a face-to-face conference in the coffee corner, instead of walking into a presentation room and diving directly into the difficult stuff. I got this idea from Peter Shields when we co-facilitated the conference a year ago.

Breakouts: four people. Not three, not five.

Make sure you think about the number of participants in the breakout rooms. Obviously, the idea number depends on the situation. The number of topics, the number of participants and the time available for interaction. We often go for four participants in each room. When the number of participants is lower, there is a chance you don’t have enough diversity of ideas. Having more people in the room might increase the social loafing.

No escape of attention during a presentation

After every few minutes taking 30 seconds of silence to reflect and write down questions in the chat... Will do it the same next time!

A good co-host

Joline Bakker again was my co-host. With a continuous eye on the screen, managing break-outs and catching me when I almost fall. Important: make sure to have direct eye contact while sitting in the same room.

Use Zoom, not Teams

Personally, I love to work with Zoom because of its usability. MS Teams gives me headaches. Sorry, Mr. Gates! The Zoom breakout function for example works very fast, easy and flexible. Additionally, Zoom keeps on developing its system. Since a while it is even possible to give voice announcements during breakouts, what works very well in my opinion.

Next to Zoom I always use Google Slides with visual templates for interaction.

Reason 1: online whiteboard are too large to wrap your head around and need explanation. Slides are your screen size, which is perfectly to oversee.

Reason 2: no MS PowerPoint (again, sorry Mr Gates…) because Google is stored in the cloud only and PowerPoint sometimes has synchronization delays. In the chat I share the link to the document with a short instruction. In this way I see right away in which groups they are already writing down their ideas and questions. If I don’t see any movement in the slide, I know it is time to visit a breakout group to check how they are doing.

Does it help?

Hopefully, these tips help you to improve your own online meetings. And if you don’t need them, please care to share your do’s and don’ts with me. I love learning as much as I love teaching. ??

In conclusion, I want to thank these wonderful people for another great opportunity to learn and doing good.

Martina Spata Daniel (Richard) Ryan Alison Hutchins Charlotte Garfield Suzanne Rutland Clare Burton Chris Hirst Esther Luiten Michiel Fransen Willem de Bruijn Maurice Schneider