Facilitate Like a Pro: Why Designers Must Step Up with Adam B. Cochrane

[00:00:00] Gerry Scullion: Welcome to this a Today. I'm Gerry Scullion, founder of the Human-Centered Design Network. This podcast is all about the world of human-centered design, serves, design and innovation, helping you bring meaningful change into your work and your organization. Now, before we dive in, a quick reminder, if you find this episode valuable, please like and subscribe to the podcast and share it with your network if you can as well.

And if you're looking to build your own human-centered service design approach, take the first step with my free five day email course. Check out the link in the description below. In this episode, I'm joined by Adam b Cochrane, an experienced design leader currently working at staff base in Germany. In this episode, we explore the role of facilitation and design and how it has evolved across organizations like Lu Tanza, Solando, and now staff Base.

And here are three key takeaways from this episode. Number one, the power of facilitation and design. How stepping up can facilitate, can really elevate your career. Strengthen [00:01:00] team alignment and improve decision making. And number two, encouraging introverted designers to facilitate why facilitation is not just for extroverts, and how introverts can bring a unique strength to the role.

And number three, building psychological safety in teams. We hear it all the time why trust and psychological safety are crucial to great facilitation and how leaders can create environments where voices are heard. Wouldn't that be fantastic? Let's get straight into it. Here's my conversation with Adam.

Adam, delighted to have you back in the show. It. I am gonna say over 12 months or maybe 18 months since you were on last in the podcast. Um, maybe for people who don't know Adam Cochrane, tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from and what you do, and also include the Australian part of it as well.

Don't say that you're in Germany and [00:02:00] leave it at that because we know you're,

[00:02:06] Adam Cochrane: I.

Born and raised, but I have been living in Berlin the last 10 years, which makes me a, an official Berliner. Um, however I'm yet to get my German passport. But, uh, no, I'm Australian. Uh, I have the accent to prove it, although lots of people when I get back home to Australia don't know where I'm from. So that's a great indication that I.

Really, I'm leaving my boss behind. Yeah. Really?

[00:02:34] Gerry Scullion: I only hear Ozzie, but I guess maybe I hear a little bit of a German twanging in there as well. But we're gonna go with the fact that you're Australian. German. Probably German.

[00:02:45] Adam Cochrane: Yeah, sure. German. Bit of my, my father's a British person. I was gonna say bomb, but uh, a British person.

So you can also throw that in there somehow as.

And then for [00:03:00] work, I, I work at staff based.

[00:03:01] Gerry Scullion: Staff based. Okay. We were chatting before that, like that's a, it's a SaaS product that I haven't, I wasn't familiar with, but lemme explain why I wouldn't be familiar with it. Most likely. Maybe tell us a little bit about the problems that staff base, um, solve and also what your role is within that, that ecosystem.

[00:03:19] Adam Cochrane: So, soft base is a, is a B two, B, C. We build, uh, app and internet for a wide range of big companies. And we help those internal communication teams, uh, to get their message out to their audience, which is their employees. So how do you make sure that everyone's aligned, everyone is hearing what you're hearing, everyone is understanding what the company's all about.

Um, how do you Yeah. Make sure that your employees are motivated, uh, understand where the company is going, responding to. That's kind of what we do. So if you have an intranet or an app that you use for your [00:04:00] company, there is a big chance that we've probably built it for you. Ah,

[00:04:03] Gerry Scullion: okay. How, how do people usually do that?

How do people usually, because I, obviously, I work for myself and I haven't used an internal internet, so I'm not really sure what the experience is like for employees at.

[00:04:18] Adam Cochrane: Um, I mean there was the pre pandemic state, which was I guess a lot of in-person meetings and a lot of putting stuff up on pin boards in the occasional email.

Yeah, I think COVID, uh, changed the way we work quite considerably. And so, uh, you know, keeping people informed up to date without bringing people face to face was a huge challenge for a lot of companies. Um, and then after that, um, yeah, a lot of people started to invest into these digital tools to help them communicate Slack and other ones.

More so on an official basis as well. Uh, so some companies use products like SharePoint, uh, poorly if anyone's ever used it. They know how difficult it is and, and how limited it is. [00:05:00] Um, other ones, they might just do emails, uh, or messages. Uh, they might have not. Any internal solutions, some tech companies might use something like Notion, but when you are dealing with companies that are a hundred thousand people across multiple nations in multiple countries, um, where you have, uh, people that are communicating and you've got leadership in different departments saying different things, um, how do you keep them all aligned?

How do you make sure that your comms are actually resonating with your audience and people are listening? Um, and what is the general consensus? Um, yeah, that's where we come in. So helping you actually understand what's being said, how people feel about it, if they understand it, if they take an action, kudos, comments, you know, participation, um, in this kind of way, because, you know, like the whole new work trend and everything is, is we, we know that people who are engaged to care about and understand why they're doing what they're doing.

Are better for the [00:06:00] company and for us as service designers. I guess we also understand this inherently, so, right? Yeah. If you're doing a service design project and you want to create a service for people, the people who are delivering that service need to know what their part is, why they exist there, what they should be aiming towards, what is the best experience they can create, how much freedom do they have?

So yeah, we help people get their message and we would say changing hearts and minds. Yeah. But yeah, on a practical basis, it's just about making sure that everyone understands what they're doing.

[00:06:32] Gerry Scullion: Yeah, I, I mean, typically when I look at those kinda systems, my experience with it was broadcast and hope so, like the teams would just broadcast a message and hope that it lands.

Yeah, yeah. And then it's just like, kinda like fleeting in the wind, kinda, oh, I've stumbled across it. What are the kind of metrics that a modern workplace use to measure the effectiveness of the communication? [00:07:00] That's something I've often wondered. Like, is it the fact that it's an open rate or a, um, you know, eyeballs, that sort of traffic on, on, if it's a, if it's a, an article on a, on a, is there a way of measuring the fact that the knowledge has been received?

I'd be keen to know what the modern metrics are around those, the effectiveness of that communication style.

[00:07:23] Adam Cochrane: Yeah. I think on that general basis level, you do have these open rates and click rates. I mean, if you talk to marketers and communications and even yourself, you probably track these solid metrics of open rates and participation rates and clicks, and I think that's the basis level on a, on a analytic.

One step beyond that, I guess, is then you have people that are engaging in comments and, uh, you know, reacting with the likes and celebrations and stuff like this. So you have the next level, which is engagement of posts. [00:08:00] And then where we go one step further is we go sentiment. So what is the sentiment of these comments?

Um, what is the general conversation around these? Are people within different teams posting different stories that align with this messaging or don't align with this messaging? Are they raising questions? Are they confused? Um, so that extra level is also about sentiment for us. So are people actually, how are they feeling about what you've written and do they actually understand what you've written?

Yeah, are the very high level. We have a great, uh, person called Frank Wolf. He wrote a book about the narrative age, about how. Understand what your narratives are, how to affect those narratives. So at the very higher level, when you get past sentiment, you also go, do people understand or what do people understand about your company?

What is the narratives? What's your point of view on them? And that's where we would like to go. That's our holy grail. But, uh, that's, that's hard and complicated, and that's really pushing the boundaries of, of internal communications[00:09:00]

[00:09:02] Gerry Scullion: has got service design function. Because a lot of, um, SaaS products that I'm aware of, first of all, they're either cutting or they have had maybe, you know, fleeting experiences with service design. And would it be fair to say, like in terms of the design maturity in the design team that's in staff base, it.

Are there many service designers or is it mainly still user experience designers that are kinda working to shape the digital experience?

[00:09:40] Adam Cochrane: Yeah, I would say it's product designers. I don't know if we distinguish so much between service and, and UX design. Uh, there are people that love the detailed design system work.

There are people that love, um. This kind of service design thinking, user journey, mapping this [00:10:00] experience. But I'd say largely we're still, well, we are within this, this trio of product design and stuff. My role there is manager.

Not a service designer, but my title does not reflect that. And that was the same with my experiences at Zalando and other companies as well. And at Lutan, I was also a strategic designer. So yeah, I dunno. This is a debate of do we need the title of service design to do service design work?

[00:10:27] Gerry Scullion: If it's important to the person I, yeah, yeah.

But like at the. You know, you could be, you know, a carpenter with service design skills and evoke change. Yeah, and I'm not so much tied on, on the titles. You are 100% a service designer from speaking to you. We ask the same type of questions that usually, you know, get a, a reflective response in some ways.

So talk to me through like what it's like at the moment when you're a product design manager. [00:11:00] Um, you've had multiple experiences working with pretty large organizations like Solando and One, and Luhan being the other. Um, how do you find the role of facilitation has evolved across the organiz? It.

UX designers in general. What's your experience and perspective on this?

[00:11:30] Adam Cochrane: Yeah, it's a good question. Um, I'm a, I, I love facilitation. I think the best way to create the designs is it's by facilitating the, the people to, to make those designs work. Um. I draw a lot of inspiration from, you know, AJ Smart and those, those people, um, yourself, Adam Morris, the great books by Adam, uh, uh, Adam and Mark and, and, you know, the service design doing.

They also have great chapters on, on facilitation as well. I think [00:12:00] facilitation has changed in terms of. There was a critical mass at some point that just got so frustrated at joining meetings that just didn't go where they needed to go.

[00:12:10] Gerry Scullion: Yeah.

[00:12:11] Adam Cochrane: And uh, when I first started as a designer, I got all of these tools and all these, these, uh, methods to make stuff work and bring people together and help make decisions.

And, you know, I started off in small companies and agencies and. There, you know, it became very, very evident that the designers were not empowered to actually run meetings and facilitate processes to actually, yeah, get out great outcomes. Atando. I started a training there, did it once a month for the entire time that I was there about enabling designers and PMs and tech people to better facilitate their meetings.

Starting with simple things like the Lightning decision Jam from AJ and Smart or other. Tools and methods that they could just simply do better. I think also there's a lot of [00:13:00] overlap and conflict with like agile design work methods and methodologies, and there's a lot of, you know, synergies that you can find there.

But now when I have switched from, let's say, so let Lufthansa, I was also helping in terms of facilitating, uh, entrepreneurs and developers understand what. Consultant as an expert in my field to help them. But now once I become a product design manager in this role, and I have designers that are working across multiple teams, it's more about facilitating as part of the team as well, uh, which is a very different way of, of working.

So if you come externally to facilitate, and if you are, let's say, enabling other teams to do this, you can kind of come with an outside. Let's say unbiased perspective. Mm. But now when you're in it, you're involved, you're also a leader. People are looking up to you. You can't just ask [00:14:00] questions because they look for you to have an opinion and make decisions.

Yeah. Uh, I think you need to also facilitate and host differently when you're in that role as well. So that's also.

[00:14:14] Gerry Scullion: When you're facilitating and you're facilitating that group, and they could be made up of user experience designers or product designers, whatever title you want to give the group of people that you're facilitating. To me, the success is when you're not in the room and the group can still facilitate themselves when you're in role that they're still able to follow the same kind of.

Curiosity and bringing people together and wearing that hat as the facilitator and less so around, I still know the answers to all these questions and like, oh, you're all wrong and so forth, which is a very common pitfall. I see. How do you ensure that the designers are kind of encouraged to step up, to facilitate?

Because I've noticed. [00:15:00] User experience, product design. People that I've coached over the years, they, they have less, less opportunities. It seems to step up because there could be product managers that's, no, I'm not being disparaging towards product managers, but just general lead level and they don't give the younger talent that opportunity to.

What advice do you give to those people in those positions to make sure that they can maintain that, that curiosity and that room to grow, um, as a facilitator within your organization? Because you're right, it is a critical skill and I'd love more leaders to, to provide that space. How do you do it?

What's, what's your advice?

[00:15:52] Adam Cochrane: Suggestions. I would, I mean, it's great if the PMs can stand up and facilitate and, and you can participate. And I guess [00:16:00] within a tech trio you might say, like, there's often quite a lot of rituals that happen and then everyone just kind of defaults to being a bit lazy, let's say. Um, but oh, do we need to do it, you know, with such detail?

Do we need to go through the processes? Let's just do it. Oh, we know what's gonna come out of the retrospective. Do we need to do that? Do we actually need to facilitate? And I think there is a lot of space of just designers putting up their hand and saying like, Hey, I'm happy to facilitate. Um, it might become the expectation and we can, you can manage that.

But, uh, I think there is just at the very basic, a space and space that if you're a designer in a team and you see, wow, we're a little bit lacking, we don't necessarily wanna like, just say, Hey, I, I can do it. Like, put my hand up, I can do this. I'll facilitate. Um, is that okay? So you can just ask for permission to do this.

The second one I would say is if you do have, uh, PMs and there's a shared role and there's also some, um, appreciation for [00:17:00] good facilitated meetings, yeah, you might wanna share this around. Um, but another thing you also you can do is just introduce new methods or new new formats, uh, with that. So, hey, I heard this you such and method.

Can I try this out with my team and with with us, and then we see how it goes to do this. And so you can kind of like pass over the, let's say the,

[00:17:27] Gerry Scullion: the Batten

[00:17:28] Adam Cochrane: Yeah, the Batten or the responsibility to something else and say, Hey, I just wanna participate or do this as well. Um, and then if you are, if you're still struggling, I would say, uh, in terms of facilitating, in terms of getting your voice there in the team together, I would say.

Look at it and ask them for the favor for, for you. So, hey engineers, I'm struggling to understand this, this, and this, and I would need your feedback. Can you give me some feedback? I've set up a meeting for us and it's gonna go like this. Hey, pm I wanna align with what your KPIs are and what you're wanting [00:18:00] to do and what you're expecting from me.

I've set up this, you know, so kind of asking them to support you is another great way that you can also get that permission to start facilitating.

[00:18:11] Gerry Scullion: So what does it. Designers in particular. Um, I know speaking to designers who maybe have been in organizations where they didn't have that growth opportunity and they arrived at, say, 10 years in the industry and they've facilitated a number of times, I.

And then when they want to leave that organization and they realize that, they realize and they, they listen to all these, you know, podcasts and read these blog articles. Facilitation is one of the key skills I. How, how do we make sure that that doesn't happen? How do we make sure the people listening who are in the, you know, the seats of power that can ensure that the next generation of designers can facilitate [00:19:00] like a badass?

How, how do we do that? How do we make more Adam Lawrence's?

[00:19:07] Adam Cochrane: Uh, as opposed to Adam Cochrane. Yeah. Um, yeah. How do we make Adam Lawrence, Adam Cochrane

[00:19:12] Gerry Scullion: as well? Send,

[00:19:12] Adam Cochrane: send them, send them off to, I mean, if you wanna make another, Adam Lawrence, what he does very, very well is improv. He loves acting. He loves comedy.

And you see him on a stage, or you see him a facility, he knows really great ways,

not necessarily skills. I think if you're a leader and you're thinking, wow, my team is, is not collaborating well, they're, they're struggling to align meetings of tedious. I have to step in a lot. You know, if you're, if you're a leader that has this and you're thinking, why are these young designers not able to take hold or participate or collaborate, then uh, one thing you can definitely do is to [00:20:00] send them to improv.

Get them out of their, out of their, you know, box a little bit. Uh, do some comedy, something like this, something of these creative arts, these performative arts can really, really help and make a difference to, uh, that yes. And yeah, hanging over the baton, bringing people in, naming people, looking people, body language, all of these great skills, um, that I think get easily overlooked.

So that's one thing I. Really would help a lot.

[00:20:30] Gerry Scullion: Yeah.

[00:20:31] Adam Cochrane: The second thing I would say is mentoring. And then the third one, which is a principle that I took from Zalando, is a high challenge, high support. You can just tell them that this is what they're going to do. Uh, stealing a little bit from radical candor.

Hey, I want you to do this. I'm gonna do it with you now and we're gonna do it together. And so I think when there comes moments to Yeah, facilitate. I. Of easy methods you can apply.

[00:20:57] Gerry Scullion: Yeah, absolutely. Who did you say that high challenge, high [00:21:00] support was from? I, I haven't heard that name before.

[00:21:02] Adam Cochrane: Uh, that's not a book, that's a design, uh, that's a working principle that I took over from, from Zalando.

They have these similar to Amazon, they have like these nine principles for work or something like this. Uh, disagreeing commit and uh, you know, default to transparency. It's one of those ones.

[00:21:18] Gerry Scullion: What was the phrase you said? Like high support? Um,

[00:21:21] Adam Cochrane: I challenge high support. I think as a leader, what you wanna do is you wanna say like, okay, I'm gonna challenge you this, what you're comfortable is this.

We're gonna take it a bit further, but I'm going to then support you into that. Okay. To say like, whenever I give you a challenge, we're gonna do it together. Not just, I'm gonna challenge you, good luck, see if you think or swim, but I'm gonna help you along the way.

[00:21:43] Gerry Scullion: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a really solid.

Solid take, like, you know, you're pushing people into that grid edge of, you know, what they're comfortable with. And that area of growth is, tends to be in the place where you're just comfortable but not comfortable enough, sit down. Um, so I really, really [00:22:00] understand that. The, the other that you mentioned there around improv, you might know Belina, Raffi Belina.

Oh

[00:22:07] Adam Cochrane: yeah. She's amazing. Awesome person. Yeah. So

[00:22:10] Gerry Scullion: I encourage people to, to check out Belina Raffi. Okay. Because Belina has done some cool stuff. Especially around comedy. Remember the first time I saw Lina work, I was like, oh my God, I feel like so vulnerable. And I was about comedy and it was done through Zoom and stuff.

Now I like to, anyone who's worked me knows that I like to to joke most of the time. Okay. I'm.

Their experience. What they brought to me was creating a space for vulnerability to, to kind of blossom and then everyone else's role is to support them. In that, in that piece, I wanna talk to you about creating those spaces because we like to think that we can send people to improv. We can, you know, set up a bunch of [00:23:00] principles and nine working styles or whatever it was, but still, like there's, you know, it.

Who speaks English. Um, and generally speaking, it's not always the case where everybody, every human can feel that level of safety and reassurance that they're not gonna, you know, make themselves look silly or any of that kind of stuff. And also put themselves in their mind of, you know.

How, how do we create those spaces? Because I imagine working with you is, is good fun, Adam, like, you know, I haven't worked with you directly and you're like, yeah, dead right. It is, it's a load load of fun. Um, but fun is one thing, but vulnerability and safety is another. So one of the things that I learned years ago was about setting those spaces up.

But I, [00:24:00] to understand perspective on.

Software, you know, environment. It could be some, some tech companies out there might not have the greatest culture that allows people to, to take the reins in this, in this space. How do they ensure that they feel

[00:24:18] Adam Cochrane: safe enough to step up? Yeah. Well, yeah. I think there's a number of things and it, I would say it's not easy all the time to.

It very much depends on the culture that you have within the organization overall and the department and how people feel and what is accepted as as okay behavior. I mean, there's a whole bunch of different things of, of culture. Yeah. So let's just say it depends really on how people feel about work on Monday.

Like how do they feel about Mondays starts from that point. But, uh. I think I referenced two people, two fantastic women, Corey Moore and Anita Volk. Uh, [00:25:00] both worked with them at at, at Lufthansa Innovation Hub and they do, uh, a course on psychological safety and they really nailed it for me in terms of building psychological safety in your organization, in your departments, and in your teams is really what will help people open up, say what they wouldn't normally say.

How do you get really these diverse inputs and people talking and the, the ability to be brave is by building psychological safety. And now we've probably heard these terminologies so much, and yes, we all agree that this is what we need, but really practically, how do you create psychological safety in your environments?

Mm-hmm. And when I do that with my teams, I try and understand the individuals within the room and create new teams with those individuals. And it is a bit weird, you have to admit, and probably from the, let's say the British UK side, we, you know, we know that life is a bit odd and a bit crazy and, and you know, can't be taken too seriously.

[00:26:00] But I think you're gonna collect a bunch of strangers all with different walks of life, all with different experiences. And then you're gonna put them in a room and say, Hey, you guys should work really well together. We're just gonna assume that you're all human beings. And we just kind of expect that to happen magically.

And for me, what I try and do is I try and create a new common language with these people. I set up new principles and boundaries, new rules of engagement, new norms, uh, new ways of working, but also a level of trust and understanding of something that we can all connect with and see, um, people that we would know and appreciate and that we have something to gain out of this collaboration.

And. There's a bunch of different methods that I normally employ for these kind of things. If I, it depends how random the team is, how deep I need to go with the team. Um, but also one of those things that, you know, you kind of, um, my psychologic, uh, my, my therapist would always say, but also the, the Anita says in her workshop is, you know, a little bit of don't open up [00:27:00] things that you can't also, uh, shut down or complete or finish.

So only go to the level which is needed. You don't need to marry all of your colleagues. You don't need to be in super deep relationships with them. You only need to go to the depth of which is reasonable. So in some ways you might, you know, need to go further. Some others you might not. But having good psychological safety and investing to that will make all the other work much, much easier.

[00:27:25] Gerry Scullion: Yeah. That's, that's I, I'm pondering and, and I'm reflective and I'm spinning wheels at the moment when I come up with my next question. But one of the things that really strikes me is not always, everyone thinks like this when I'm, when I'm looking at facilitating groups and I love it, one of the bits that I have noticed that.

And people look at me and they go, I'm extroverted, but I I, on my, um, with one of colleagues. [00:28:00] Remarkably shocked at how I want to retreat to my room and just kind of, you know, kind of get under the covers for an hour or two after doing workshops. It takes a lot of energy outta me. H and I have to switch that on.

Okay. Yeah. So when I facilitate, I, I, I put a mask on a lot of the times. H how do we. Make sure that we're not opening up the channels for the loudest people in the room and the extroverts only to step up because it is, um, it is daunting for some people to step up and be at the center of a room of maybe 50 people and pulling them together, and it takes a little bit of a, a leap in some, some ways.

[00:28:44] Adam Cochrane: Is

[00:28:44] Gerry Scullion: it fair to say that I'd love to consider, um, encouraging introverted people to become facilitators? Or is it a case that introverted people just, and this is such a broad question, please, Jerry, I'd like, what I, what I don't [00:29:00] want to do is like, pontificate about facilitation, um, and extroverted people just kind of gravitate towards it and.

How, how can we make sure that doesn't happen? And I don't know if you can reflect on your own experiences and how you probably see yourself, but what, what does it look like for you when you're taking that step up to facilitate large groups? Um, and how can we make sure that there's loads, especially how do we make sure that introverted people feel supported enough?

[00:29:36] Adam Cochrane: The on. Act all the, like, they're stepping into this role and I think like, I'm also much the same actually. And it's really funny if people have met me at the service Design Jams or, you know, moderating the conferences or anything like this, they think, wow, this person is a born extra. And I, I would say I default, I'm a little bit more on that, but you know, it's a bell [00:30:00] curve.

Most people sit somewhere in the middle, not on. You know, it's, it, it is actually something that I put on and step into this role, and I get a lot out of it. And of course, we, I, I appreciate that the feedback and I can rev up a crowd and I can deal with multiple people, but there is still this complete Whoa, I'm so glad that's done and bomb out and I don't wanna see anyone and I'm gonna lock myself in the basement for a.

Depending on the workshop. Exactly, and, and I would say like, I totally get that as well. And, and I don't know, I think for, for introverts they might just think like, wow, these extroverts not have any recovery time is not, it seems so effortless for them, but I think for the most people it does take effort.

And I haven't met anyone that can just, without any preparation, jump in, get lots of energy and keep going afterwards.

It is a, an investment and I think like let's just be all on the [00:31:00] same page. The facilitation role isn't always something that directly gives back, and sometimes, sometimes people might just not be so appreciative that you. Yeah. But I think there is a benefit always for doing this. And this is saying this, I was a kid in high school and I would, I would get so anxious that I would close my eyes if someone was presenting at school.

'cause I was so nervous for them. So like, wow. You know, it's a skill that you can develop, you can work on, you can get there. So I just, I totally get what you're saying. Yeah. Uh, with this as well, actually a few of my friends that I met at the Jam, they later thought. After I met with them, you know, in a one-to-one basis, they thought, oh, this guy doesn't like me because he's not this same bubbly, jokey, highly animated person.

They just thought I was really bored. Yeah. They're like, no, no, no. Like you see the both sides of my, my personality and I think, I think when I talk to introverts about facilitation, they just need to be more, let's say, focused and clear that they're gonna step into this role and then they can step outta this [00:32:00] role.

[00:32:00] Gerry Scullion: Yeah.

[00:32:01] Adam Cochrane: And that they need to prepare themselves for this different way of working and different, um, let's say, functioning to do this. And probably they would need more preparation, but that also makes them better facilitators. So quite often I will look for an introvert to co-facilitate with, um, because I tend to wing it too much and they would tend to overthink it too much.

Yeah. And uh, so when I can see an introvert, a facilitator, they tend to be more detailed focused. They tend to planned out a lot better. Yeah, and this makes them just generally better facilitators as well. So

[00:32:34] Gerry Scullion: yeah.

[00:32:34] Adam Cochrane: Pros and cons, I would say,

[00:32:36] Gerry Scullion: I mean this whole phrase, the rockstar facilitator, um. When I, when I see it, I'm just like, well, I don't know anyone who's a rockstar facilitator, everyone I know.

[00:32:46] Adam Cochrane: Gary, come on.

[00:32:47] Gerry Scullion: No, no, I'm not. I'm definitely not. I've, I've seen some people who I just kind of go, wow, you're, you're really like, at a different level. Like, you know, they can, they can make these things happen. Um, and I think it's [00:33:00] really important that we just don't talk to,

gravitate towards. Like anyone else and do a really bad job. Um, to, to me like the, the introverted perspective, and I'm glad you said that, bring different perspective.

What's the, the challenges that you face now at the moment because you, you're relatively new into staff face, um, the last couple of months, you know, as people are getting to know you and you're working out, you know, new styles of work and, and so forth. What's the, the prep work like going towards setting that up?

You know, when you're, you're looking at the team and you might say, you know, some people are naturally probably gonna be great at this and some people may not have been given that opportunity. How do you, how do you balance giving people who [00:34:00] are really good at it more time and they probably should, and balancing it with tried yet, how do.

Do you know what I'm saying?

[00:34:13] Adam Cochrane: Yeah. How, how do you kind of like people that would gravitate to certain roles, how do you give them, like in terms of facilitation? Yeah. Or

[00:34:20] Gerry Scullion: do, do you give like the, the people who are natural facilitators the platform and then do you say to people who are actually just not really that interested in, okay, well you don't have to do it.

Is it something you see like as.

Who may not be natural facilitators to still do it because you know, and I know if they were to leave, it's a really nice thing to have on your resume to be able to facilitate. It's still, from my perspective, one of the core skills of the great designers.

[00:34:56] Adam Cochrane: Everyone I think can facilitate. I definitely believe that.[00:35:00]

Uh, so everyone should be able to facilitate, um. I think people will definitely gravitate towards it more and use it more than others. Uh, use it more to their advantage than other people will. Sure. Um, but as a manager, I try and. I am trying to highlight these people that have an interest and see the value.

[00:35:21] Gerry Scullion: Yeah.

[00:35:22] Adam Cochrane: Um, because it's easier to teach people that are motivated and willing to learn than it is to push people that are, I don't see this as valuable to my design career, and I don't wanna invest into it to try and convince them that, hey, this is really important. But, um, so normally I would go after these people that are, are a bit more motivated in interest and really boost them.

Generally, those ones make theirselves pretty known. You facilitate something yourself. They say, wow, you're so great at this. How did you get that? And then you say, okay, well what makes me great at it? You can also do this. And so they made themselves pretty known, I would say, in terms of this. And they will seek mentorship.

So these ones I [00:36:00] by default go after. But then there are a few candidates where I think, okay.

These that as their responsibility to facilitate and to be able to bring people together to make themselves great designers. And those ones I also try and identify and go after in terms of helping them see the value of what they're trying to do, get their designs through, get feedback, get buy in, and making facilitation that tool that can help them do that.

[00:36:31] Gerry Scullion: Okay.

[00:36:32] Adam Cochrane: That might not be so obvious for them sometimes that, oh, facilitation is the thing that I need to learn. Yeah. But when you connect it to what they're trying to achieve as a designer, then that's generally where they start to pick up the motivation, pick up the importance of it as well. So there's the, maybe there's two groups of people that I would say I generally go after.

[00:36:50] Gerry Scullion: What kind of training have you done? I know I know the answer to one or two of these already, but I'd love to know improv you mentioned there, but what other [00:37:00] trainings have you done? Have you ever done Toast Masters, for instance?

[00:37:03] Adam Cochrane: Oh, I'd love to do Toastmasters. Um, I haven't, no, um, bit of improv. Uh, my biggest training I would say was working for a couple of years in summer camps in Germany and working with about 200 teenagers.

Oh, wow. Uh, and kids for a couple of months through summer, if you can. Wrangle and get their attention and lose yourself amongst teenagers and get them to, you know, listen, uh, you can do that with any size group of adults. I mean, uh, they're not so different actually, surprisingly, or not surprisingly, but, um, yeah, that's definitely where I learned a lot of it.

Um, I would say like I grew up a little bit, uh, religious and also did a lot of youth work when I was younger as well, so it's always been a part of myself, but in the professional context. I would say, um, a lot of trial and error and a lot of mentorship. So I always sought out and looked at the ways in which other people did facilitation and workshops, you know?[00:38:00]

Yeah. I followed Adam St. John Lawrence around, and I put, you know, Deano, who's another great facilitator, and I kind of like watched how they do it. What did they do well? How do they structure their wording? What activities did they do, how. Still like an artist is always what we say. So kind of do this as well with facilitation.

[00:38:20] Gerry Scullion: It, it was remarkable. Um, the shift to online During the COVID? Yeah, during the, the COVID as I started to refer to as, but the time, the time where, I don't remember. Um, but moving it back into online or into, into the face to face was kind of like this. Just a different, different world. And it was someone I still prefer, obviously still prefer face to face.

Um, how does it shift for you? Like is your new role, are they primarily online, like people working from home? So is the facilitation opportunities tend to be within the browser, and if so, how [00:39:00] does it shift? How does the, the kind of style, um, shift of behind facilitation.

[00:39:11] Adam Cochrane: Yeah, we're a distributed team, so we have global offices as well. Um, so a lot of the communication work is done online. Um, what do you lose, Adam? Like just you lose so much,

[00:39:25] Gerry Scullion: what do you lose? Because gain a lot.

[00:39:28] Adam Cochrane: It's this, there's pros and cons and, and I would say I would prefer an in-person workshop, but what you lose with an in-person workshop is the digital documentation.

I mean, documentation. On digital platforms, communications, um, this kind of level is, is just so much better than the documentation you have to do in processing. I mean, before COVID it was a lot of taking photos, writing stuff down, capturing stuff to the board, you know, all this kind of stuff. But documentation for online stuff is just.

Really it's there, you know, a lot of it is is done and you [00:40:00] can use, you know, great AI tools and you can use synthesis tools and, and stuff like, so it's there. And also with online tools, you have like the hand up icon and you can call people out and. There's, there's so many tools now that you can use for, for online workshops, but still reading body language, um, is so much more harder and it's better in person shifting people physically around a space.

I mean, people are spatial thinkers. Yeah. We, we, we have a 3D model in our brain where things are, and we, we, we kind of also think in this way as well. You know, we kind of move around a three dimensional space. And in the 2D digital world, you kind of lose a lot of that as well. And then attention, a attention in a physical space is captured just so much better than if you're on a digital space.

I mean, looking at different tabs, notifications, icons, all of this kind of stuff. Yeah. So.

[00:40:53] Gerry Scullion: I love that. I was doing a workshop this morning actually for a client, and I've got a little screen over here with my [00:41:00] camera bind and my main screen is over here. And so I was throwing my eye back and forth to see who was speaking half the time, and I was looking at one person and he like this, and I'm like.

That's not matching with the voice that I'm hearing. I was like completely disconnected. I was like, I had to lean in and I was like, oh, that person's on a phone call. They're doing an entirely different session. And I'm like, oh, um, who am I speaking to? Because I couldn't see it. It was on, it was on a different platform to to be usually what I'm used to.

And I couldn't believe it. And that's the thing about the distractions I find like online going off.

I, I find it just really, uh, it sometimes it can be really sort of disconcerting that maybe people aren't actually kind of with me on this. Whereas I feel when you're in the room, the proximity, they can feel the energy and it's, it's closer. And the conclusion that I've come to on that, I'd love to know your thought of this.

If you're relatively new into an [00:42:00] organization and trust is still being built, it's still better to do this stuff. Face to face until you build that trust, uh, and that reliability, that they can actually trust you and they know what you're talking about. You're not some waffle, um, which is a very phrase, a waffle.

You. A waffle, you like, you, you know, talking crap sort of thing. Um. Where does trust come into this? Um, for, for you, like within the facilitation role? Like how do we design trust as part of our, um, facilitation design, if you want, uh, with both clients and, and employees?

[00:42:37] Adam Cochrane: I think trust is a huge thing and um, I think people need to know that you actually care about who they are and what they're doing before they will participate.

Yeah. Um, and care about their point of view. And I think trust is a huge thing in terms of, as a design manager, you need trust from your stakeholders for your peers, and then people that are overseeing your work, but also for the people that look up to you. [00:43:00] Sure. Um, a lot of my work has been building commitments and understandings that build trust.

So going through our design process, going through. Going through experiences, um, you know, fun things, social things, uh, understanding what, what you know is going on in their personal lives to a degree, uh, also really helps build those layers of trust. I, I'm not of the opinion, you have to be friends with all your colleagues and, you know, but it does help to like the people that you work with.

I. Yeah. And yeah, so I think that level of trust is really, really good. I mean, facilitation and being able to facilitate these exercises really, really helps as a skill for that. But if you want to have the good facilitation, it's great that if you have a layer of trust to work on already. If you wanna get anywhere as a designer, even if you're an IC and all you do is pixel pushing and all you do is this, and that's all you really wanna concentrate, you're still gonna need stakeholders and people to help make you [00:44:00] successful.

You don't get to live in a vacuum. And, uh, but that's, uh, I think also as a facilitator, you come with that realization, but you can't just jump into a and facilitate and. You need to build relationships. Yeah,

[00:44:14] Gerry Scullion: absolutely. Now we're coming towards the end of the podcast. Okay. And I want to, I like leaving people with one juicy bit of information.

Now, if you are listening to this podcast and you want to know what the first step should be in taking that first step into facilitating, maybe putting your hand up in the next meeting saying, I. What advice would you give to those people, Adam? And is there any one resource that you keep going back to that you might be able to recommend to people, to taking that first step to facilitating?

[00:44:49] Adam Cochrane: Um, I think, I think for me, like the, the, the best place to get started, I mean, a couple of things, uh, for me, the best place. [00:45:00] workshop.com. They have a lot of great resources. Um, you know, buying this services I'm doing and having 'em read through that or reading any of the facilitation books, watching a lot of YouTube videos is also a great way just to understand how people break down workshops, the different stages that you might have, the dnce between a diverging method method in a converging method, whatever.

Um, but I think mentorship and talking with people face to face, go to a meetup, have a chat about how they facilitate things. Um, in your local area, go to a DP list, which is a mentoring platform where you can find free mentors, look up facilitation or workshops, and yeah, speak to some of those people. Um, but I think connecting with people that have done this and seeing their experiences, um, is a really great way to build confidence and familiarity.

And then, yeah, put your hand up, volunteer yourself. Do something great. I remember when I started my second design job. The person who ran the all hands meetings had just resigned and there was no one, and the discussion I sat in on my very [00:46:00] first meeting was the entire company, a hundred people who wants to run this event for us.

Bringing everyone together, making sure that I said, yeah, I'll do it. Like, oh sure. I don't know what it is about. I don't know how it's gonna go. But then I was like, yeah, I'll do it. And put, put yourself out there, I think is the the way to,

[00:46:20] Gerry Scullion: Adam, I'll put a link to your LinkedIn, if that's okay, into the, is there another website or anything else that you wanna promote or anything else that you wanna drop into the show notes?

Tell people about.

[00:46:30] Adam Cochrane: Nothing too much. You can find me on a DP list. If you wanna book, book a session. Uh, you can see when, when the available slots are there. It's free. You don't have to pay me anything. I'm committed. Come with questions. Um, besides that, that's all

[00:46:43] Gerry Scullion: absolutely brilliant. Listen, thanks so much for your time today.

Give me your energy and your, your vulnerability, allowing me to go all over the shop with my questions. But I really appreciate you coming on today and giving us an absolutely cracking episode. Thanks so much.

[00:46:57] Adam Cochrane: Thank you, Jerry. It's always a [00:47:00] pleasure.

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