1.    Panic (it’s going to happen anyway, you might as well get it over with early).  Text your facilitator friends who are great at charades, tweet your plight, and if nothing emerges, proceed to step 2.

2.    Find links. Losing your voice is a fantastic metaphor for lots of things.  The workshop I lost my voice before was ‘Writing, Inspiration and resilience: mindsets and techniques to get what’s in your head out into the world’.  Rather perfect.  In addition to them getting out into the world what’s in their heads, they would also have to get into the world what is in mine.  And there’s the resilience thing.  Not resilient: stay in bed, eat chocolate-covered ginger and lament how it was impossible.  Resilient: proceed to step 3.

3.    Make it a game. You still have great stuff to bring – you just have a surprise obstacle in your way to deliver it.  How can you invite your shiny, smart participants to play a game with you where the explicit goal is to deliver a great workshop with their help on the topic you’re all there for? 

4.    Give it some structure. What are the parameters and resources of the game? Offer them a high-level agenda (what did you want to do in the beginning [e.g. introductions, idea priming], the middle [e.g. trying stuff out], and the end [e.g. discussing applications, asking questions]).  Key to the game – what do we have to play with? Who is in the room?  What do they know? Do you have slides you can amend as things emerge?  Flipcharts? What physicality can you use to signal useful things?  What playful roles can you have participants play (e.g. Facilitator (instead of horse) whisperer, Attention Getter, Royal Tea maker, charades interpreter…)?

5.    Let go.  Smile, relax, and play the game with everyone and see what happens.  It belongs to the whole group now.  You are co-creating an adventure…

Bookmark/Search this post with:

 |   |   |   |   |   |   |