 In this video, I'm going to share with you our top three favorite books that are going to make your workshops more impactful. If you're a coach or a facilitator, or if you're just looking to improve your meetings, then you need to read these three books. Here at AJ & Smart, we absolutely love reading books on facilitation. As you can see behind me, we have so many books, but today we're going to look at three of our top favorite books that are going to make your workshops more impactful. So first up is The Power of Moments by Dan and Chip Heath. This is one of our favorite books of all time. In this book, Chip and Dan talk about improving experiences for others, and they explore what makes occasions unique and memorable. Psychologists have found that when we reflect on our experiences, we tend to remember two moments in particular. The peak, the best moment of a positive experience, and the ending. Peak moments are things that happen that are out of the ordinary. They're unexpected and a bit of a surprise. These moments really impact how we remember an event. And they make us feel excited, motivated, and surprised. So here's a question for all of us. Are we paying enough attention to these moments as facilitators? And are we consciously creating peaks for our customers or participants? You could run an average workshop and you could stick to the agenda and everything would run smoothly. But if you've designed your plan to include a few peak moments throughout, people are going to remember this workshop to be an incredibly special and memorable workshop. They're more than likely going to want to have you back to facilitate another workshop for them in the future so that you can recreate this unique experience for them. So how can you create these peak moments in your workshops? Start your workshops strong. Make sure you make the group feel welcome when they arrive at the workshop. So what we did in a recent workshop to create this sort of peak moment at the very beginning was that we made a welcome poster with all of our participants' names on it in fun, colourful writing. Another thing we did is that we had a little goodie bag on each person's chair for them to take home. This was filled with simple things like a notebook, sharpies, post-its, and our own AJ and Smart stickers. Another workshop, we had everyone wait outside the room and we blasted some high-energy music and let the participants come in. We high-fived every single person as they came in and everyone was super pumped before the workshop even started. These are just some ways that you can create a peak moment at the very beginning of your workshop. Another thing you can do is celebrate wins and milestones. Make sure to celebrate when a group finishes an exercise with a simple high-five. Get everyone up and out of their seats and praise their efforts by taking a nice break outside of the office space. You could take them to go and get ice cream or go for a nice walk together. In a recent workshop, actually, we rented an ice cream van and let the group know that on their 15-minute break, they could all go outside and grab an ice cream and sit in the sun. Here, we created a peak moment that they won't forget. The third thing is create playful experiences. Add playful elements to your workshop so that participants can feel like children again. Some people might be hesitant at first, but I guarantee you once they get involved, they're going to love it. And most importantly, they'll remember it as a positive, fun experience. Recently, I ran a workshop where I set up a table filled with arts and crafts materials. I had beads, feathers, coloured papers, stickers, pipe cleaners, everything. Everything you can imagine. And I got my group to make hats that represented who they were as facilitators. This was the biggest peak moment of that workshop and everyone loved the activity and everyone had just so much fun. They also had something tangible to take away from the workshop, which was really nice. And we also took a big group picture at the very end of the workshop where everyone was wearing their hat. And finally, end your workshops on a high. This can be really simple. You could get people to reflect on their key highlights and share them with a group. Another nice way to celebrate the ending of a workshop is taking your group picture together. Or you could celebrate by opening a bottle of champagne and playing some music. It can be anything, but make sure to mark it in a nice way so they'll remember how great this was. Another really nice way to end a workshop on a high is taking your picture at the very beginning of a workshop where all the walls are completely empty. Of course, this is very suitable for an in-person workshop, but at the very end of the workshop, they take another picture of the walls completely covered in post-its and all of the participants' work and show them the comparison of the two pictures together. And this is a really nice way to celebrate their achievements. So the next book I wanna talk about is called The Art of Gathering, How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker. It's actually behind me right now. That's why I don't have it in my hands. And it's not because I actually forgot it at home or anything like that. So this book explores how we can create meaningful, memorable experiences in any group setting. Parker is a professional facilitator who has dedicated her entire career to understanding what makes gatherings successful and she shares her insights in this insightful book. In this book, Parker argues that most gatherings are ineffective because they lack a clear purpose and she challenges us to rethink the way we normally do things and instead focus on the desired outcome of our meeting or event that we have. She provides a range of principles and tips to help create meaningful gatherings, whether it's a dinner party, a business meeting, a workshop or a social event. So how can this book be useful for facilitators who run workshops? Let me tell you, for facilitators, The Art of Gathering is a treasured role, that's hard to say, of insights and ideas and understanding the principles Parker outlines can help you design and run workshops that are more engaging, effective and memorable. So here are some practical ways you can apply the key learnings from this book. So first up is define your purpose. Before planning your workshop, get clear on its purpose. What are the outcomes that you want from this workshop? This will guide everything from the content to the structure of the workshop. Number two, design for the experience. So consider the atmosphere and environment you want to create for your workshop. This might mean picking a specific team, setting up the room in a particular way or introducing certain rules or rituals. We here at AJ and SMART always like to create ground rules with participants. Number three, very important, encourage engagement. So create a safe space that encourages everyone to participate. This might mean setting ground rules, using icebreakers to build trust or structuring discussions to ensure everyone's voice is heard. Workshopping is amazing for this anyway because all of the discussions are going to be visualized by you, the facilitator. So that means that everyone's opinions are going to be shared and listened to. Number four, embrace conflict. If your workshop's purpose involves dealing with difficult topics or conflicts, don't shy away from them. Facilitate these discussions in a respectful, constructive way. And finally, create memorable moments. So try to incorporate elements that participants will remember long after the workshop. We've already mentioned a few ways that you can do this in your workshops when we were talking about the power of moments. So to conclude, the art of gathering teaches us that every gathering is an opportunity to create a meaningful, memorable experience. And as a facilitator, you have the power to shape these experiences and make them count. And finally, we have made to stick why some ideas survive and others die by Chip and Dan Heath again. It's a compelling exploration of why some ideas become popular or stick in our minds and why others fade away quickly. The authors delve into six key principles that make an idea sticky. This book is built around the acronym success. The S stands for simple and this means that ideas need to be both simple and profound. The authors use the term simple to mean finding the core of the idea. The U stands for unexpected and to remain with us, ideas must be surprising and novel. The C stands for concrete. So ideas have to be concrete and tangible, not abstract. The C stands for credible. For an idea to stick, its truth needs to be believable. The E stands for emotional. So people are more likely to remember how they feel rather than a string of data. And finally, the last S stands for stories. Stories stimulate and engage multiple parts of our brains, making information more memorable and more engaging. So how can this book be useful for facilitators who run workshops? Four facilitators made to stick provides useful insights into how to create content and facilitate workshops that people will remember long after they're over. So here are some practical ways to apply the key learnings. Number one, keep it simple. Start with the core idea you want your participants to remember and design your workshop around it. Number two and something we've touched upon already is surprise your participants. Break that routine with the unexpected elements or activities. This is gonna make sure that your workshops are more engaging and more enjoyable. So number three, use concrete examples. So replace abstract concepts with concrete examples, case studies or exercises and this is gonna make your content more understandable and relatable. So for example, if you're doing a lightning demo exercise, make sure that you as the facilitator have some really good examples to show participants so that they know what they're meant to be doing. Number four, establish credibility. So bring in an expert opinion, use reliable data and establish your own credibility as a facilitator. This makes your content more trustworthy. Number five, make it emotional. So find ways to connect with your participants on an emotional level. So this could be through personal stories or doing activities that elicit emotional responses. And number six, tell stories. Use storytelling as a powerful tool to convey your points. Stories are easier to remember than facts or figures and can illustrate complex ideas in an engaging way. Made to Stick teaches us that what we say matters less than how we say it. By focusing on how your ideas are presented and understood, you can make your workshops more engaging, memorable and effective. So there you have it, our top three favorite books on facilitation that are gonna help level up your workshops and make them more engaging and impactful. These three books share an underlying theme of understanding human connection, interactions and the moments that make oral lives more memorable. So if you liked this video and you wanna learn more about facilitation, then head to our free community facilitator club where you're gonna have the chance to talk to thousands of other facilitators who are talking about resources like these and plenty more. The link is in the description below. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time. Bye. Throughout your workshops, did you see that spit? Have a picture of all the... No, not saying that.