Unprofessionalism
Most career advice tells you to hide uncertainty, perform confidence, and never let them see you sweat.
This podcast is about what happens when you ignore that advice.
Unprofessionalism is a series of conversations with people who broke professional conventions and discovered something better on the other side: the designer who ignored the 'approved tools' and saved thousands of hours. The founder who built a practice by openly admitting gaps in expertise. The consultant who called out dysfunction everyone else had learnt to work around. The people who recognised that professionalism had become performance theatre: a mask hiding the messy, human work that actually creates value.
Hosted by Dr Myriam Hadnes—behavioural economist and founder of a global leadership training practice—each conversation dissects a specific moment where someone chose effectiveness over appearance, then reverse-engineers what made it work.
You'll hear the friction before the decision, the immediate aftermath, and what changed months later. The pattern recognition across these moments becomes your playbook.
If you've ever sat in a meeting thinking 'this is broken but I can't say it', this podcast tells you what happened to the people who did.
New episode every week.
Unprofessionalism
017 - Master the Room! How to Create Engagement with Your Audience with Derek Bruce
In this episode, I talk to Derek Bruce. He is a Leadership Development Director, and has worked in HR, Learning & Development and is also an expert keynote speaker and event moderator and host.
Derek and I speak about the importance of engaging the audience - whether it is in a workshop, meeting or at a conference. When our audience feels engaged, they will listen to us and interact, they will feel enabled to act upon the content we try to bring across.
Besides engaging the audience, Derek and I touch on a million other topics: the skillset of managers to survive the “future of work”, the impact of preparation on our mindset and the workshop atmosphere, and: why you may want to ask your audience to take a selfie.
Don’t miss the part when Derek shares his lessons learned from facilitating a workshop where half the participants were physically present and the other half joined via video call. Tune in to learn how to assure that the virtual participants are as engaged as if they sat in the same room….
Questions and Answers
[1:32] If you were a hashtag, what would it be?
[1:53] What is your story? Where does your energy and your skill to engage the audience come from?
[2:56] What have you learned from your roles in HR and Learning & Development about facilitation?
[4:34] Where do you see the challenges and benefits of being a corporate versus an external facilitator?
[8:02] What is your experience in collaborating with an external facilitator?
[8:52] How do you measure success?
[10:32] What does it take to engage an audience?
[12:54] To what extent does seating matter and how do you set up the room?
[14:06] Do you use different approaches to engage the audience depending on whether it is a meeting, workshop or conference?
[19:50] When you say that engagement starts within the first minute and you often use humour. What have you learned from improv or stand-up comedy about engagement?
[22:59] Stand-up is scripted whereas improv is not. Would you script your first joke when coming on stage?
[24:41] So, does “humour” boil down to “authenticity”?
[25:35] What makes for you a good facilitator?
[28:26] Do facilitators of e.g. Design Sprints need different skills than facilitators who teach groups?
[31:18] How did you connect the virtual and physical participants in the beginning? What were the exercises?
[33:41] For anyone who hasn’t facilitated a partly virtual workshop – what would you advise?
[35:40] What is your opinion on the statement that in the future of work, every manager must develop facilitation skills?
[38:22] What’s the difference between soft and emotional skills?
[40:40] Are these emotional skills then also the ingredients you need to engage the audience?
[47:59] What’s your silver bullet exercise?
Related links you may want to check out:
Our sponsor Session Lab (affiliate link)
Other shows we mentioned:
Episode 016 with Tamar Broadbent: Why every facilitator should take improv classes”
Episode 007 with Jeremy Akers: Mindset Management
Connect to Derek:
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You can now find the podcast on Substack, where your host Dr. Myriam Hadnes is building a club for you to find fellow listeners and peers: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/
