Facilitating Your First CliftonStrengths® Workshop (1 of 4)

The Prep That Separates a Smooth Workshop From a Scramble

This is Part 1 in a four-part series on facilitating your first CliftonStrengths® workshop, covering what happens before the session, opening the room, running the middle of the day, and closing strong. New parts publish each week in July.

Here's something I don't say often: I once delivered the wrong workshop to a room full of people who run companies you'd recognize. Names that would mean something to you. I can't tell you which city, which company, or which room. NDA. But I can tell you what happened. I didn't prepare enough, and I found out in real time that I'd built the wrong session for the wrong audience. That one still stings (a little, ok a lot).

Contrast that with Pathfinders Apprenticeship, a mastermind I've been facilitating for years. The people who run it told me my prep was one of the reasons they keep bringing me back, not just to their own events but to all the masterminds they do across three (soon to be four) states.

Before the session(s), I spend about an hour going through every participant's CliftonStrengths® results and what they do. Not memorizing a script. Just learning enough to speak to each person's actual top themes and help them accomplish what they are actually trying to do, the reason they joined the mastermind.

Here's the thing about that hour. It used to take me a lot longer. The more workshops you facilitate, the faster you can spot patterns in someone's Top 5 or Top 10 and know what it probably means for how they lead, communicate, or get stuck. But any preparation time you spend is very helpful. It's the difference between talking AT a room and talking TO the people actually in it.

One of the things I used to do (and still do sometimes) is really deep research on talent themes I'm not as familiar with. I'll throw on Gallup podcasts while I'm driving or flying to soak in or remind myself about those themes.

Most facilitators, especially first timers, skip this step entirely. They walk in with a general sense of the themes (or maybe not even that), and they deliver a workshop instead of a conversation. The room can tell. Every time.

If you're planning to run your own first CliftonStrengths® workshop this year, I put together a free checklist that walks through exactly what to do before, during, and after a 4 hour session, including the prep work that actually moves the needle: Grab the Facilitator Checklist here

More in this series:

Part 2: Opening the Room (publishing week of Jul 13)

Part 3: During the Workshop (publishing week of Jul 20)

Part 4: Closing Strong (publishing week of Jul 27)

If your team is planning a CliftonStrengths®, team development, or first-time manager workshop this year, I'd love to hear about it. Reach out here or connect with me on LinkedIn.

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