046 - How to Facilitate Facilitators with Holger Nauheimer

Holger Nauheimer is one of the leading voices in change management and the founder of Berlin Change Days, a conference for facilitators and change makers – attracting 150 participants from all continents to Berlin. 

With over 30 years of facilitation experience, Holger is uniquely placed to talk about our passions and profession. So much so, in fact, that he has developed a reputation for facilitating other facilitators!

That’s why I was so happy to have him join me for this episode of Workshops Work. We talked about such a variety of topics, but the focus of this episode was facilitating facilitators.

Holger shares his thoughts on:

• What it means to be a good facilitator
• Intentionality
• Mindset management
• How he started Berlin Change Days and the lessons he has learned
• The role of control
• What failure really means.

I’m amazed by how much we managed to discuss!

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Questions and Answers

02:13 – When did you start calling yourself a facilitator?

04:13 – What does it take to be a good facilitator?

05:29 – What does facilitation mean to you?

06:41 – If you had to give yourself a hashtag, what would it be?

09:27 – Is intention part of the foundations of your work as a host, facilitator, and consultant?

12:41 – What would your advice be to a facilitator who finds themselves triggered by difficult moments in their workshops?

16:51 – How did you come up with the idea for Berlin Change Days?

19:32 – Why is 150 attendees the “magic number” for Berlin Change Days?

20:38 – What is the biggest lesson you have learned after 11 years of Berlin Change Days?

23:38 – Do events need a different design based on their audience?

26:13 – How do you find the balance between emotional and too emotional?

28:38 – Do you redesign the flow of a conference?

30:58 – Have you experienced facilitators trying to “co-facilitate” your workshops?

34:22 – Does the fact that facilitators understand facilitation make the workshop more difficult?

37:13 – What is your favourite exercise to push your participants out of their comfort zone?

40:05 – Do facilitators jump into activities more readily in workshops?

41:25 – What would be the worst way to introduce a warm-up exercise?

43:09 – Do facilitators struggle to give up control when they are not in charge?

48:10 – How do you select Head Facilitators for Berlin Change Days?

48:52 – What do you think makes a workshop fail?

51:31 – What is the first thing an aspiring facilitator should learn?

Links to Check

• Days of Change podcast
• Berlin Change Days
• Episode 28 of Workshops Work, with Pam Hamilton
• Nick Chater, author of The Mind is Flat
• Stephen Gilligan
• Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There

Connect to Holg