Facilitating Your First CliftonStrengths® Workshop (2 of 4)

And how you can change that

This is part of a short series for anyone planning or facilitating their first CliftonStrengths® workshop. This one is about the part almost nobody preps for. The first 30 minutes, before you have explained a single theme.

Every workshop has a first 30 minutes where the room is quietly deciding something. Not about CliftonStrengths®. About you.

They are asking: Is this safe? Is this person going to make me perform? Do I have to pretend to be an extrovert for the next four hours?

Until the room answers those questions, not everyone is really talking. Some are just waiting.

Here is what most first-time facilitators get backwards. They try to earn the room's openness by being polished. Credentials, a slick deck, a warm-up that asks everyone to share a fun fact. (How many of you loathe two truths and a lie now? Oh, that one is definitely a lie.)

But polish does not create safety. Polish creates distance.

What actually opens a room is vulnerability, modeled first.

So I open my workshops by being vulnerable before I ask anyone else to be. After performing a lot of workshops and trying all the "tell them a joke and imagine them naked" public speaking hacks, I tried something new. I shared about myself. At the time I did not even realize what I was doing, but I shared my own journey with Strengths. I explain how I was diagnosed with Asperger's, and that my best friend in college said talking to me was like pulling teeth. See awkward photo of me for proof. 

But then, I also tell them I became number one in sales, grew a successful YouTube channel (about cruising) speaking on camera, and became a confident public speaker. Then I stop talking and let them ask me anything they want.

Something shifts when I do that. People connect with me as a person, not a random consultant brought in to check off a workshop box. One thing I have realized recently is that my Relator® theme shows up here and gives me a way to click with many audiences (but not all).

Once the facilitator models how to be that open, the room decides it can be too.

This is not a personality trick. It is a design choice. Psychological safety in a workshop does not start when participants share. It starts when the facilitator does, first, and means it.

So if you are planning your first CliftonStrengths® workshop and you are worried about the quiet people, here is the reframe. Your job in the first 30 minutes is not to get them talking. It is to make the room safe enough that talking becomes the natural thing to do.

You go first. They follow.

That is most of the work, and it happens before you explain a single theme.

If your team is planning a CliftonStrengths® or first-time manager workshop this year, I would love to hear about it. You can find me on LinkedIn or reach me through the contact page, and I am happy to talk through what would make yours land.

Waiting for you,
Reuben

PS. One interesting thing about AI and the backlash against its overuse: it does not read as authentic. People–can–spot–em–dashes and know normal people do not talk that way. (There is the rare grammar nerd like me who actually loves them—but has had to quit.) These days people crave authenticity and real connection. One thing I learned growing my other YouTube channel is that it is often the unpolished videos, the ones where I left in the mistake I wanted to cut, that really land. My most popular video, with millions of views, has a stumble where I pause and read something off my phone. So do not be afraid to be yourself and make mistakes. Very often that is exactly what shows people you are human. And other humans are who we crave connection with.

More in this series:

Part 1: Facilitating Your First CliftonStrengths® Workshop: The Prep

Part 2: Opening the Room (you are here)

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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