The Fine Art of Working and Playing with Groups

Here are twenty-five tips to help you in your quest to be a better teacher, trainer, teambuilder, group facilitator, and staff development specialist.

As with many professions, effective teaching, training, teambuilding, group facilitation and staff development requires a variety of skills and competencies. Hundreds of books have been written on the subject of skillfully presenting content to groups, and you’ll find some of my favorites listed at the end of this chapter. For this article, however, I’d like to offer twenty-five tips to help you in your quest to be a better teacher, trainer, teambuilder, group facilitator, and staff development specialist.

As you practice your craft, you may start to notice specific patterns and behaviors emerging within your audience. The words you use to introduce an activity have a definite impact on the energy and outcome of that activity. The resources you use, the atmosphere and setting of the available space, the number of people in the room, the intensity of the experience, the time element, and many other factors can all affect the outcome of even the simplest program design. Use these factors to your advantage, and you are more likely to achieve the outcomes you desire. Fail to do so, and even the best activities may fall short of their desired impact.

25 Tips to help you become a better trainer

The following list reflects just a fraction of the knowledge I’ve gained while working and playing with groups for more than half a century. These helpful hints and best practices have increased my abilities as a teacher, trainer, facilitator, and group leader, and I sincerely hope that you will find them valuable as well.

Tip #1 – Squeeze the Lemon

When I want to make lemonade, I take a fresh lemon, cut it in half, and then squeeze.  Then I take the lemon juice, add sugar and ice, and make lemonade. Life is good! But if I squeeze harder, I get more out of the lemons.

When I choose an activity to share with my audience, I want to squeeze more out of the activity than just the activity itself. The harder I squeeze, the more I get.

You probably already know about various group activities, but perhaps you haven’t yet learned how to maximize the benefits of your favorite activities. By squeezing harder, you might just be able to turn a good activity into a great one.

The Story of Your Name activity is an excellent example of squeezing the most out of a situation. Not only is this activity an interesting way to learn the names of group members, but it also fosters respect. Quotes in Order is another example. Not only does a group learn how to problem-solve as a team, but a well-chosen quote can also inspire a group to achieve great things.

Which of your favorite activities can you “squeeze” to make them even better?

Tip #2 – The Law of Seven Minutes

Never perform a single icebreaker or an opening activity for more than seven minutes.  I would rather lead three activities in a twenty-minute period than a single activity for twenty minutes. The attention span of most people is fairly short. By limiting the length of an activity, especially an opening activity, you can maximize the energy and the engagement level of the group.

The Big Question is one of my favorite icebreakers, but if I play that activity for sixty minutes, trust me, no one will ever want to do the activity again. By switching activities just after the energy reaches its peak, participants will always want to revisit or replay the activity in the future.

I first learned of this principle in my youth, volunteering as a camp counselor for our local 4-H junior camp. One of our recreation leaders encouraged us to kill it before it dies.  Simply stated, this means to end an activity long before the group has lost interest in playing it.

Over the years, I’ve learned to be aware of the energy level of my audience and transition from one activity to another, just as the energy in the room peaks and begins to decline.  With practice, you too can learn to conclude an activity before it reaches the point of diminishing returns.

Which of your favorite activities would benefit from keeping it short and sweet?

Tip #3 – Simplify!

For most of the activities I share with groups, I can easily introduce them in under a minute. If you require more than five minutes to present an activity, you have probably lost some people in the process. As a facilitator, your role is to make things easier, simpler, more transparent, and better.

 I believe the reason I’ve learned to minimize the introduction of my activities is that I have often needed to work with a translator when visiting another country. The fewer words I use, the fewer words the translator needs to translate, and the clearer the message is for my participants.

One way to minimize your word count when introducing an activity to your audience is to demonstrate the activity, rather than just talking about it. Show and tell beats tell every time! This can be especially useful when working with international audiences that speak different languages.

Which of your activities takes way too long to introduce and how can you simplify that process and reduce that amount of time? 

Tip #4 – Flexibility

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

Charles Darwin

Be flexible.  Have a plan, but be willing to modify your plan as needed. Your ability to be flexible increases your value as a teacher, trainer, facilitator, and group leader. If you can modify your program quickly and quietly to meet the evolving needs of your audience, you will engage them at a higher level, and they will take more away from your event than if you stick to a less flexible plan.

In order to be flexible, however, you need some advanced preparation. That might include having additional activities ready, just in case they are needed, or modifying an activity if twice the expected number of people show up.

How can you add flexibility to one of your future program plans?

Tip #5 – Practice, Practice, Practice

It’s like the old joke that asks, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” The answer (of course) is practice, practice, practice. So, “how do you get to be a competent teacher, trainer, facilitator, or group leader?” Practice, practice, practice. In my opinion, people tend to get better at the things they practice. Practice long enough and hard enough, and you might even become an expert.

Which of your current activities could use a little more practice?

Tip #6 – The Value of Co-Facilitation

I love to read books, but I’ve learned more from co-facilitating with other talented teachers, trainers, and facilitators than from all the books I’ve ever read. Working with another person is an excellent way to improve your capabilities.  You learn new activities and discover new ways to introduce them. You learn new debriefing and reviewing techniques. You discover different and occasionally unusual props that will engage your audience in new ways. When you are presenting, your co-facilitator can be preparing the next activity or listening carefully to the audience to determine what needs to happen next. A co-facilitator provides an extra set of ears and eyes to hear things and observe things that you may miss while facilitating a group.

My favorite reason for co-facilitating with another person comes at the conclusion of the program. A co-facilitator is uniquely qualified to give you feedback on your facilitation skills. I value the feedback provided by my co-facilitators, and that feedback has helped me become a better facilitator.

Who could you invite to join you at a future program as your co-facilitator?

Tip #7 – Be All You Can Be, Read

There are two things that will make you the person you are going to be in the next ten years: the books that you read and the friends that you keep.

People often ask me how I create the activities that I use in my workshops. The answer is very simple, I read! I read everything I can find on subjects related to team building, facilitation, teaching, training, organizational development, leadership, communication, building trust, decision-making, outdoor adventure, puzzles, games, group dynamics, youth development, virtual facilitation, corporate training, and education. When I visit a bookstore, I am drawn to these subjects and constantly look for books that I have yet to read. Books inspire me.

I also scan the internet for articles and publications of interest, including books and articles from foreign countries (which some search engines can easily translate).

So, visit your local library or bookstore and see how many books you can find on your favorite subjects. Find an author you enjoy and read all their books. Ask your friends to buy you books for your birthday. Keep a wish list of books you want to read, and find time to read them.

Take a trip to your local library or bookstore and seek out books that will help you improve your teaching, training, facilitation, and group leadership skills.

Tip #8 – Try Something New, Often

Every time I facilitate an event, I like to try something new. It could be a new activity or a new prop. It may involve using a familiar activity in a new way to achieve a different result. Changing something each time I present a program forces me to consider other possibilities and outcomes. It keeps my work from becoming stale. Some of the changes are better than the originals, and I keep those new ideas for the future. Sometimes, the new version isn’t as good as the original, so I keep the older version as my preferred method.

By being flexible and open to new possibilities, I believe I have become a better facilitator.  My list of activities is constantly being updated and enhanced. I keep a document on my computer desktop titled ‘New Stuff’. I review this file regularly and strive to incorporate these new ideas into future programs.

When was the last time you tried something new?

Tip #9 – Offer Participants Choices

One of the simplest ways to increase the engagement of any group is to offer them the opportunity to make choices. When preparing for an event, you might have two activities ready for the group. By asking them, “Which activity would you like to do next?” you give them control over their destiny.

Choice is a simple yet powerful concept, and when utilized effectively, it can significantly enhance audience engagement. So, look for opportunities to give the members of your audience choices and decisions and invite them to join you in setting the course for your time together.

If you would like to dig deeper into the concept of sharing power in a learning environment, see the book When Students Have Power – Negotiating Authority in a Critical Pedagogy by Ira Shor.

What choices could you offer to your future audiences?

Tip #10 – Which Activity Should I Present?

The correct answer to the question, which activity should I present, is very simple.  You should present an activity that you are excited about. If you are excited about an activity, your audience will be excited about it, and if you are not, they won’t. Enthusiasm is contagious. Facilitators have more energy for an activity that excites them a,nd they typically pass this energy and enthusiasm on to their audiences.

Which of your favorite activities has the most energy when you present it?

How can you get this same high level of energy from all your activities? 

Tip #11 – Stand Back

After presenting the basic information for a group to begin working together on a team challenge activity, I physically step back and let them work on the activity independently.

I discovered, as a new facilitator, that if I remained a part of the group, participants would often direct questions to me rather than to each other. I am never far away, and of course, I will help any group that asks, but my goal as a facilitator is to help my group be independent of me. Then, when they return from this program, having grown confident in their abilities, they won’t need a facilitator to help them through the most challenging parts. Empowerment can be a valuable life skill.

Faith Evans captured this sentiment perfectly when she shared the following quote in the book The More the Merrier:

“Go to the people. Be with them. Learn from them. Start with what they know. 

Build with what they have. And, of the best leaders, when their job is finished,

their task accomplished, the people will say, we did this ourselves.”

Lao Tzu

As a facilitator, I believe you should try to make yourself as invisible as possible. Get out of the way and let groups have some autonomy. Only when given the chance to act independently can groups become independent, but don’t mistake invisibility for disinterest. The role of a facilitator is both important and critical. Just give your groups a little breathing room and allow them some independence.

Which of your current activities would benefit from standing back, just a bit?

Tip #12 – The Ultimate Goal

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”                                                                                                            — Thomas A. Edison

I believe that the following statement is true. The goal of a facilitator is not necessarily to help a team succeed, but rather to help a team learn as much as they can from any experience, even when they fail.

There are a unique set of skills that are valuable in life related to tenacity, perseverance, fortitude, grit, persistence, determination, diligence, endurance and drive. Learning how to recover from failure is as important as learning how to deal with success. The ability to try multiple times and to keep trying are valuable life skills. Thomas Edison didn’t stop the first time his incandescent light bulb concept failed.

It is not uncommon for a facilitator to want their group to succeed, but it can be even more valuable for a facilitator to help their group gain all the knowledge possible, even when they fail.

Consider a recent experience where participants failed in the completion of their task. 

How could you have helped them still pull something of value from that experience?

Tip #13 – PPPPP – Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance

“Good judgement comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgement.” 

Becoming a skilled group leader demands more than simply winging it. Proper preparation includes having a plan for the event, estimating the size, age, and skills of the group, preparing the necessary equipment and resources, practicing activities to ensure that you can create teachable moments with them, and building self-confidence when working with groups. By practicing each of these things, a group leader can improve their success rate with groups of all kinds.

After you’ve worked with groups for a while, you begin to notice patterns. Patterns of behavior, patterns of responses. You notice that when you introduce an activity a certain way, it enables the best possible outcome. A skilled group leader, like a good mechanic, knows every tool in their toolbox and how to use it properly to achieve the desired outcome. The only way to achieve this level of skill is through practice and preparation.

The next time you have an event on your calendar, consider expanding your preparation for the event. See if a slightly higher level of preparation helps you be more confident and relaxed on the actual day of the event.

Consider a time when your advanced planning was insufficient for the needs of the group. 

How could you improve both the quantity and quality of your next program planning?

Tip #14 – Take Your Time

Don’t rush to finish an activity and move on to the next if the one you’re currently facilitating is producing valuable results with the group. A standard error made by inexperienced group leaders is rushing through a pre-planned series of activities, thereby minimizing the richness of any specific activity while allowing participants to have a full range of experiences during the event. If an activity has created a wonderful teachable moment with your group, let your participants fully experience this moment before moving on to the next activity. In my opinion, it is far more valuable to participate in a handful of activities to their full depth than to race through a dozen or more activities and never fully explore the teachable moments they create.

Some facilitators stop just short of the promised land. By that, I mean concluding an activity before the group has achieved the ultimate insight or explored the teachable moments available to them. Don’t be afraid to let an activity run to completion. One simple question that a facilitator can ask their group is, “Are we done?”  This question does a powerfully simple thing. It empowers a group to make their own decision on when to move on.

Which of your current activities could be expanded to create even more teachable moments?

Tip #15 – Never Stop Learning

“Ancora Imparo.”

Michelangelo

On one wall of my office, there are several inspirational quotes. The one shown above, from sculptor, painter, architect, and poet Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, is one of my favorites. In Latin, the phrase translates as still I am learning. I think most people would agree that Michelangelo was one of the most influential artists of his time, and for someone of his talents to admit in his advanced years that he was still learning new things is both uncommon and reassuring.

PBS, the public television channel, has long claimed to be the lifelong learning channel, validating Michelangelo’s decision to keep learning throughout his entire life. Many people consider teachers, trainers, facilitators, and group leaders to be artists, with human interactions as their medium of choice, but when was the last time you learned something new? To paraphrase the words of Winston Churchill, “Never, never, never…stop learning.

Ask yourself, where can I go to learn more about teaching, training, facilitation and group leadership?

Tip #16 – A Controlled Stop

When you are ready to conclude an activity, don’t simply say, “STOP!”  Such an abrupt conclusion can cut short the discussion and interactions between the members of your audience. Say instead, “You have one more minute,” which will allow your group adequate time to complete their current activity or conversation.

Many group activities encourage communication between the members of a group, and once that conversation begins, it can be difficult to stop. Allowing your audience time to finish their discussions is both essential and respectful.

Which of your favorite activities would benefit from the use of a controlled stop? 

Tip #17 – Get Comfortable with Reviewing!

“Reviewing is not the thing you do at the end of an activity. 

It is the reason why you do the activity in the first place.”

– Roger Greenaway 

The final component of many group activities is known as the debrief or final review. This component of the learning cycle is often the most valuable part of the experience.

When I first began leading group activities, I have to admit, I was all about the activity itself. I loved activities, but in those early days, I often rushed from one activity to the next without ever pausing to review it after its completion.

Then I discovered some truly valuable reviewing techniques that I felt confident in sharing with groups. As my list of reviewing activities increased, so did my confidence with this component of the program, and the more I practiced, the better I got.

So, get comfortable with reviewing. The debriefing process encompasses dozens of valuable techniques that can be applied to audiences of all kinds. Look for teachable moments in all your activities and help your group discuss and learn from them.

For more reviewing activities, read: A Teachable Moment – A Facilitator’s Guide to Activities for Processing, Debriefing, Reviewing and Reflection by Cummings, Cain, and Stanchfield, and you can find additional reviewing techniques in the book Playback – A Guide to Reviewing Activities by Roger Greenaway.

Seek out new techniques for reviewing and try these during your next program.

Tip #18 – The Litmus Test

One test you can perform on your current list of group activities is to determine which ones generate great stories. You know you’ve got a great activity if, as a result of using it, you get to witness incredible events that are worthy of sharing with others.

Many of the activities in the book Extraordinary Facilitation have already generated great stories for me, including The Story of Your Name, Believe It or Not, The Soap Box, The Big Question, Quotes in Order, Let’s Talk About Character, Thumbprints, and Start/Stop/Continue/Change.

If you’ve an activity that hasn’t yet provided you with an interesting participant story, then perhaps you need to continue modifying it until it does. Continue working on an activity until it yields great stories to tell. An activity that generates great stories each and every time you use it is an activity worth keeping.

Which of your current activities has generated great stories?

How can you get this same result from other activities in your repertoire?

Tip #19 – What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

Being a competent or even a masterful group leader in the real world does not guarantee being a qualified group leader in the virtual world, and vice versa.  

The skills required to produce a talented facilitator in the real world do not necessarily translate into the virtual and hybrid worlds. Gone are the visual impressions, body language, silent reactions to every comment, and many other cues that are obvious in the real world but somewhat muted in the virtual world. In addition, the virtual world presents its challenges, including technology, videoconferencing software, internet access, Wi-Fi bandwidth, and a host of other non-trivial factors that can impact the quality of presentations and interactions within that world.

I mention this not to limit your explorations as a facilitator, but rather to prepare you for what lies ahead. Your present capabilities in real-world teaching, training, facilitation, and group work were perfected by practice. Luckily, your abilities in the virtual world can also be perfected by practice. Be prepared to start over from the beginning when transitioning from real-world to virtual-world facilitation.

As humans, we have a need, a constant desire to periodically reinvent ourselves in the hopes of becoming an even better version of ourselves. Migrating from the real world to the virtual world is just one more opportunity to reinvent ourselves, within an entirely new paradigm of opportunities and possibilities.

For more information about virtual facilitation, see The Learning Curve – Making the transition from facilitating in the real world to promoting in a virtual one by the Virtual Facilitation Practice Group, and the book Virtual Facilitation – A collection of lessons learned to virtually create connections and magic, also by the Virtual Facilitation Practice Group.

How could you use some of the activities in this book as part of a virtual presentation?

Tip #20 – Nobody Said This Was Going to Be Easy 

“It takes hours and hours of hard work to make all this look like it takes no effort at all.”

– Bill Henderson

Becoming competent or even masterful in any field requires effort. Teaching, training, facilitating, and group leadership are no different. Even after fifty years of working and playing with groups, I am still learning. I’m constantly reading, studying, researching, and collaborating. It takes hard work and effort to remain relevant in any profession, and in my opinion, the effort is well worth it.

“Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves,

Some turn up their noses and some don’t turn up at all.”

– Sam Ewing

If you hope to become better at teaching, training, facilitation, and group leadership, there is a long list of things you’ll need to do. Hopefully, the questions beneath each of the tips in this chapter have been helpful in your quest for self-improvement.

Identify some of the challenges standing in the way of your becoming a masterful teacher. Trainer, facilitator, or group leader, and begin chipping away at these obstacles, piece by piece, until you have conquered them.

Tip #21 – Plan Twice as Much Stuff

I cannot count the number of times this simple rule has come in handy during my career.  No matter how much time you spend planning and designing a program, some variations always occur. More people show up than expected. The weather forces your group indoors.  You arrive an hour ahead of schedule, and the entire group is already there, ready to begin. The leader of the group asks if you could extend the program by an hour or two.  These are just a few examples where having twice as much prepared will come in handy, and best of all, you’ll be viewed as a talented professional when you say, ‘Sure, I can do that.’

Two of the most often occurring variations in my typical programs include: more people showing up than initially scheduled, and programs expanding in length by an hour or two.  Both of these scenarios can be easily accommodated if you plan twice as much.

For your next event, prepare twice the typical amount of activities and equipment.

Tip #22 – Hope for the Best, Plan for the Worst

“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”

Murphy’s Law

It’s always a good idea to have a Plan B ready. Plan A is your primary plan, the one you fully expect to follow if everything goes according to plan. But sometimes things do not go according to plan. The power goes out right before your presentation, or the fire alarm forces the evacuation of your event right in the middle of your opening comments, or the technology fails, and no one can see your presentation.

I can’t even count the number of times I’ve watched a presenter in agony, trying to resolve a technology glitch between their laptop computer and the video projection system as the time remaining in their presentation counts down to zero. Don’t let this happen to you.  Always have a backup plan in case something goes wrong.

For your next program, prepare both a Plan A (your intended plan) and a Plan B (your backup plan). 

Tip #23 – Find a Mentor

Find someone knowledgeable in teaching, training, facilitation, or group leadership and ask them to be your mentor. Most of the professionals I know are happy to share their knowledge with others, including students, participants in their workshops and programs, teachers, trainers, colleagues, and other interested professionals.

A mentor should inspire you, make suggestions that will improve your skills, and make use of your talents.  You may keep a mentor for a long time, or to help you through the next stage of your development. A mentor is someone you can run ideas past, or ask to critique the design of your next program, or offer advice on specific subjects. In a pinch, a mentor might even loan you a helpful book or a teambuilding prop.

Identify three experts, based upon your personal needs at the moment, and ask one of them to mentor you.

 Tip #24 – My Favorite Activity

“My magic bullet won’t work in your gun.”

I discovered an unusual phenomenon in group facilitation. Most professionals have a favorite activity they like to include in their programs, but it is seldom that two group leaders share the same favorite activity. If you ask a master facilitator their three favorite activities, in the hopes of replicating what they consider the very best, you may be disappointed, because these are not the activities you find particularly valuable.

Over time, facilitators adjust the parameters of their activities, tweaking them until they yield the perfect outcome. They personalize activities, adapting them until these activities become an extension of their facilitation style.

Ask a musician to lend you their instrument, and you are unlikely to replicate their unique musical ability. It’s not just the musical instrument, but the musician in concert with the instrument that creates beautiful music. And it’s not just the activity that makes a powerful training experience, but the activity and the facilitator, working together to create something of beauty and value.

If you ask me my favorite icebreaker, I’ll tell you that The Big Question has always been my personal favorite. But as you read through the contents of my many books, you will no doubt discover other activities that pique your interest even more than my favorite activity.

Which activities have become your new favorites?

Tip #25 – The Make or Break Factor

In the summary of his extensive research on training programs, Dr. Richard Wagner of the University of Wisconsin notes that the facilitator is the key factor in determining the success of any training program.

Simply stated, you could have the best learning facility on the planet and still fail unless your program invests not only in the facility, but also in the skills of those facilitating these programs. Both are necessary for success, and according to Wagner, the most significant factor is the skill of the group leader.

For more information on this subject, see Do It and Understand – The Bottom Line on Corporate Experiential Learning by Christopher Roland, Richard Wagner, and Robert Weigand.

What can you do to improve your ability as a teacher, trainer, facilitator, and group leader?

This concludes my presentation of twenty-five tips for improving your skills when working with groups. If you enjoyed the content of this chapter, and want to further your education in the fine art of working and playing with groups, you can find 100 of these tips in the book Extraordinary Facilitation, ISBN 978-1-60679-507-1 by Jim Cain.

Jim Cain
Teambuilding Guru Dr. Jim Cain has been working and playing with groups for more than fifty years. His work has taken him to all fifty states, eight Canadian provinces and thirty-seven countries to date. He is the author of thirty-three well-loved books filled with team and community building activities from around the world, including such classics as Teamwork & Teamplay, A Teachable Moment, The Book of Raccoon Circles and Find Something to Do. His real-world in-person train-the-trainer events are legendary in the adventure-based learning community and his virtual activities are used around the world. Jim’s most recent books include: Extraordinary Facilitation, The Teambuilders Toolbox, The Adventure Trail, Print & Play and Building Character at Camp. And his latest contributions to the teambuilding world are a collection of brand new, next-generation teambuilding activities including Team Fusion, Tic/Tac/Team and Four in a Row.