Workshops · 5 min read

Running a workshop that people stay awake in

We host a lot of workshops and watch a lot of facilitators. The good ones nearly all do the same handful of things with the room.

Change the arrangement at least once

A room that stays in one shape for six hours tells people nothing is happening. Our tables have legs at two heights, so mid-morning at a desk can become mid-afternoon on cushions around a low table. The physical change does more for energy than a coffee.

Put work on the walls

Large sheets of paper, standing up, beats a shared document for anything generative. People contribute more when they are on their feet and can see everything at once.

Plan for the 2pm dip

It arrives regardless. Schedule the thing that needs the most from people before lunch, and something physical or discursive straight after it.

Use the other rooms

Breakouts genuinely break out. There is a lounge, a library and a separate meeting room with a round table. Groups that split into corners of the same room end up listening to each other.

Lower the lights for anything reflective

The lighting goes from daylight to warm. For a closing round or a quiet exercise, taking the room down two notches changes how people talk. It sounds like a gimmick until you try it.

Tell us the setup in advance

If you want cushions in a circle, tables in a horseshoe, or the screen up and everything else cleared, say so when you book and it will be like that when you arrive. Twenty minutes of moving furniture at the start is twenty minutes of your session.

Written by the House of Transformation team.