Less is more

Ever wondered if you can get too much of a good thing?

Our guide for our hiking weekend said she used to cram too much in.

‘I’m pretty energetic and we wanted to give people heaps of value,’ she said.

‘We used to hike right up to 4pm on Sunday. But people went home wrecked for the week.’

So, they pared things back.

Saturday is still a big day but people end the morning hike on Sunday with lunch. They amble home with enough energy to wash their gear, cook dinner and do a little planning for the week ahead.

I think participants should leave a workshop feeling the same. The difference being that their brains have had a work out, not their calves.

A good litmus test of their energy levels and sense of fulfilment is to ask them what they will tell their colleagues or friends about what they did in the workshop.

I can’t picture positive responses to this question as I contemplate a client’s long wish list of topics for an upcoming workshop.

Perhaps our guide’s story will help to illustrate that a jam-packed agenda won’t guarantee value, just exhausted participants.

Exhausted hikers might take a week to recover. Tired hikers start the week refreshed and re-energised. They’re also more likely to also start planning when they can book their next hike.

Judging when enough is enough and less really is more feels intuitive, but can be learned. It’s one piece of the puzzle to effective workshop design which I’ll share in my Backstage masterclass series.

Over six weeks, I’ll unpack different aspects of workshop design. We’ll lift the covers on workshop purpose, promise to participants, openings, transitions, breaking down the big chunks of work and closings. We’ll talk storyboards, energisers and the power of great questions. How to design a plan that you can drop and follow the flow of a group. And a whole lot of stuff in between.

If you’d like to find out more, come to my taster on Thursday 14 January at 12pm. You’ll find out what you’ll get from a Backstage master class and decide if you’re up for one, two or the whole series of six.

Curious? Email me with ‘backstage’ in the subject line or comment below and I’ll send you the details.

Photo credit: Jacinta Cubis