Workshops as catalysts for innovation with Brittni Bowering

In this episode of Delivered, you can learn how workshops can serve as powerful catalysts for creating winning digital products.

We sat down with Brittni Bowering, a master workshop designer, facilitator, trainer, and event host with a background in B2B content strategy and standup comedy. Her superpower is bringing people together to achieve great things, and she helped notable brands such as Twitter, Lufthansa, and Procter & Gamble do just that. 

Key learnings:

• Understand the benefits and different formats of workshops
• Discover how different workshop setups lead to different outcomes for your team
• Find out how workshops help brands like LEGO overcome challenges
• Learn how to deliver memorable experiences with a peak moments strategy

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About Infinum
Delivered is brought to you by a leading digital product agency, Infinum. We've been consulting, workshopping, and delivering advanced digital solutions since 2005.

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Transcript

Hi, Brittni Bowering, welcome to Delivered.

Hello, Chris Bradshaw. Thank you so much.

It is wonderful to see you, and thank you for taking the time to be part of this occasion. And I would love to just to get to know you a little bit first for all the listeners and just hear a little bit about who is Brittni, what does she do, what's her superpowers?

Wow. Well, I am a workshop. What I do professionally is I'm a workshop designer, facilitator as well. And I also host events. So I do kind of everything that involves bringing people together to either achieve something great or have a good time or get to know each other, something like this. And I love what I do. I think that is actually a key to why I love what I do so much is that I think it is my superpower, the kind of gathering people getting momentum, getting people excited and kind of bringing us together to a place that we've decided to go. So that's what I love doing and it's lucky that I actually get to do that for my profession, for crying out loud. 

Yeah, that's a great thing. I mean, to be honest, I love workshops. I know you love workshops and it's quite a weird thing to love, isn't it? I think people are kind of like, what do you mean workshops? But you're right, isn't it? But how do you bring people together, harness their superpowers and make something great at the end of it? So I feel the same as you. We're very lucky to have this as our job essentially. But I just want to jump into the workshop thing. So people that haven't been in the workshop, they've heard this word, it might sound a bit fluffy. Could you give me your rendition of what is a workshop? What does it actually deliver for people?

Yeah, I think it's funny because I think a lot of people have been part of different kinds of workshops and the term gets really thrown around quite loosely. I think anytime you have a long meeting, I think people just decide to call it a workshop quite often. Or there's also, of course, different type types of workshops when it comes to creativity and learning something new. But when I talk about workshops, what I'm referencing would be when we bring a group of people together in one room, whether it's remote or live in person, and we are working together on a specific project task, challenge, and we're really dedicated to that and we're doing the work together in the room. So I think the difference between a meeting and a workshop, often meetings are very much about getting updates and all that kind of stuff. Workshops are actually about getting into the thick of it and really getting something done. So that's kind of what I am talking about when I reference a work workshop. It can be half an hour, it can be five days long, but the idea is just that we are going to accomplish something, hopefully, something great together in the room, which is just so powerful.

Yeah, I think you just explaining that with the passion and rigor of you, you can’t fake the excitement. It gets me quite excited actually. I'm like, let's just go and workshop something right now. You're right. And I've been in meetings, I'm sure everyone's had this where meetings can be very laborious and a bit unstructured and sometimes it's the most loudest or senior person. So I do love the workshop way to unlock that. I feel when people do workshops at the end of it, they're kind of surprised with themselves and they're like, ah, we did make something really great. So I, I'm really actually keen to do one quite soon now because of you.

I mean you do workshops a lot too with your work though as well.

Yeah, since 2017 I've done workshops, so yeah, I had to actually read…

You're very familiar.

Yeah. Yes. On a holiday. That's how cool I am, on a holiday reading sprint book. But yeah, love workshops

Oh Chris. I'm disappointed in you.

I know it's what I do, but I think you're right. I think, and equally my lens on this, and maybe you're the same, is it's less about so much doing the workshop. It's about the people and the potential that you can unlock, that I think sometimes they're quite skeptical about, they don't really think, why am I drawing things and doing post-it notes and dot stickers and I'm a senior VP of X. I feel like that surprise at the end is what I love the most, it’s great.  

It seems that no matter how much people sort of trust you or they see you as the expert, there's still always a little bit of doubt there's, even if it's not just under wraps. And subconsciously there's a little bit of doubt usually with people running through a workshop because there's always some activities that feel disjointed or something that feels a little bit like, oh, this is very fluffy. But you're right at the end every time. And usually your biggest skeptic is then becomes your biggest believer at the end of the workshop. They're then your biggest fan and the biggest fan of workshops. And I love that too.

Love it. Preach. So benefits. Let's get into the benefits cause we know the benefits we do it, but let's talk about how would you see the top, I don't know, four or five benefits? What do you feel is the outcome here that we're trying to unlock from all the different people we work with in workshops?

Yeah, I think that the benefits that I see every time kind of over and over and over can kind of be boiled down to, I think it's about three or four. So the first one is definitely alignment. I think that's the biggest one that everybody sort of sees immediately is the fact that once you get everybody in the room, there's no more miscommunication. There's no more, oh, you were working on that thing in this way, but actually everybody else was doing this other thing that was pushing us in a completely opposite direction. So all of a sudden all of that is gone. And that is so powerful because misalignments, misalignment on teams, misalignment in companies is one of the biggest things that actually just stops us from moving forward and stops us from actually solving big challenges. So alignment huge. I think the next one is just focus.

We're so used to working in on different things throughout the day and all of these context switches and going from one call to the next on completely different topic and you're losing momentum. You are losing energy every time you do that. And so it's so rare that we actually get to be in a space where we're working on one single task for an extended amount of time. I feel like mean we do, we've done that ever since school days. But whenever you get into that focus flow, I think it's just that momentum is very, very powerful. The other one is definitely kind of twofold is I think just engagement in the challenge where also I think the term buy-in also kind of comes into play here. So everybody seems to be in a workshop scenario really engaged in what we're doing. And so everybody gets really well excited and they're really rooting for the challenge to be solved and we're kind of all in it together.

And when it comes to getting buy-in from whoever you need buy-in from, I always think the best way to do that is to bring that person or those few people into a workshop and let's all just solve the challenge together. Because once you have those people in the room, it's like all of a sudden we have this IKEA effect thing that happens that I know you've probably heard of. People tend to prefer the furniture that they built themselves than the furniture that they just bought off the shelf. And it's the same thing with solutions, with ideas. If they're in the room when the idea has been crafted or when the solution is being built, they're so much more likely to be bought into that idea and to push it forward. So that for me is the biggest one that I think a lot of people underestimate. And then just general, I think having fun together, working in a team environment, there's kind of this comradery that just doesn't happen when everybody's working at their desks. So for me it's like all of those together, the perfect work scenario for me personally. And that's why I guess I just love and believe in workshops so much.

That's great. Get the tingles when you think about it that way, where it's like what we're, we're in work and we're having fun, dare I say. And that's what I love about the process you run actually where I know it's peppered with peak moments, for example, and fun. It's not just this stale, let's have a meeting and an agenda. It's actually let's build together. And I feel like where we come from in the Infinum world is cause we work in innovation quite a lot. Again, another big fluffy term. It's really hard and I feel like people want to be innovative, but it's not a switch. You can’t just say, I'm going to be innovative today and turn it on. You have to foster that culture. And that really to start from my opinion, my humble opinion is, it starts in that room, in that workshop, it's the stakeholders, it's the various heads.

That's where the innovation starts. Because as people we're problem-solving together and creating things together, even had someone frame some work at the end of it, the sketches and stuff you do, I don't know why they would do that, but they've done that. And I think you're right. I love your metaphor, building their own furniture. I think that's the power of workshops essentially, is it starts with us going, let's do it together. High five. And for us, when we do innovation, that's the bedrock. And then we promote quite a lot the continuation of that always. So it's never just discover and deliver. It should be cyclical, always discovering, delivering round we go again. So it's about, again, always making sure people are just involved and not this passive, let's do it together but then forget about it. Cause I think you're right. I think having people just enjoy it and have fun, and you're right, I feel like the best places I've been to do these things are really not what I expect. New York skyscrapers with executives of big titles in the kind of blue suits, drawing pictures and sticking dots on the wall. And they're the ones that've really lent into this and said, actually, I felt like we've done something really good today or this week. This week. And it's the most surprising where I would never have thought in my kind of early career that will be the way to go. But that's

Crazy. Yeah.

But I guess that's life, isn't it? It's no art to planning everything. I think the best things do happen out of surprise. And yeah, I guess the flip of this is, okay, benefits are great, everyone's super excited and wants to do workshops and bring Brittni in to have fun, and it's all great. What about the people that turn around and say, I understand that, but it doesn't quite feel for us, the skeptics in the room. So taking it from the optimism of benefits, how would you deal with the pessimism of workshops, which we've all, I'm sure, encountered once or twice in our career?

A hundred percent. The thing that I find about skeptics is that, or just generally people who maybe have a little bit, they're less open-minded, say so they hear something, or they see what we're about to do, and they're like, they see post-its markers, and they're like, okay, as if we're going to get some real work done here today. And I took time out of my schedule, and they're already starting at this annoyed level. The thing that I think we often don't think about is they're not just sitting there wanting to be a skeptic or wanting to be negative. This is coming from a place inside of them, either an experience they had or several experiences built up to this point where they just don't believe in any kind of different way of working. So for me, it always goes back to expectation setting. And also not only that but because often you'll always set expectations at the beginning of a workshop.

And that doesn't mean that you're not going to have any sort of troublemakers on your hands, but it definitely does start with setting the appropriate expectations with your group and getting everybody to agree and participate in that. So it's not just standing there being, here's what we're going to do. It's about having a little bit of a group discussion around what are you expecting to get from our time together? Okay, cool. What are you expecting? Okay, well, we're not quite going to do that, but we are going to do this. And sort of making sure that everybody's on the same page is so important. So it comes from that. But once you are in the workshop and you still have somebody you know bring up an exercise or about to do it, and they're like, no, we've done this before, it didn't work, or no, we shouldn't do that.

It doesn't make any sense. Why would we do that exercise? That all comes from them having some negative experience. At least that's what my experience has to taught me. So what I like to do is just ask them about that. So I like to just approach it head-on in a very neutral and friendly way. So I'm not getting aggressive with anybody. I'm not going to try to convince them, but one thing that I just like to do is just ask them about it. So it's like, yeah, I'm going to ask them about their question or about their them sort of their interruption. What is it about this exercise that you think isn't appropriate or won't work, right? And it's like, okay, let's dissect that. And the more that you ask, the more you'll get to the root of the actual issue, which might be that they did a similar exercise for a different challenge, and it didn't work well.

Okay, this challenge is a little bit different. And then you can get to explaining why we're actually going to move forward with this. The other thing that I really love to do at the beginning of workshop, especially when I know I might have a couple of people who might be a little skeptical in the room, is I like to start with a little bit of storytelling. And this is something that also sounds a bit fluffy. So I would never say that to the group. I'd never be like, and now I'm going to start with some storytelling, but I would just kick off by being like, so here's the thing, we're about to run a workshop together and I know this term can sound a little funny or weird or a bit fluffy. And I totally, I'm with you. The first time that I went into a workshop, I had the same feeling.

I thought, what a waste of time. I'm coming taking a chunk out of my schedule to be here with this group. I could do so much more if I were just at my desk in a focus flow. And so right now I'm hitting all of these points that they're probably thinking and they're looking at me being like, oh, she does actually get me, or she does understand where I'm coming from. And then I'll say, but actually my experience with workshops and why I run them and why I love them so much is that they do this and this and this, right? Then I explain the benefits. So I'm getting them on board with me. Storytelling is so powerful and that way it's kind of crazy actually, when you tell a story to a group, even just a short little one about how much you love workshops and how your first experience with workshops, you were skeptical and then you overcame the little story arc. All of a sudden you have people, it's really crazy. People's brainwaves actually align if they're listening to the same story. And I just find that so powerful. I talk about it all the time. Ever since I discovered that, I was like, what? So now I just use it all the time and it really, really does work. It's very rare that I have a really big problematic troublemaker in the room with me that I can't diffuse. Very rare.

I love that. I love that. And it's funny, you make me think about A, the metaphor thing you talked about before, and B, storytelling, which is so right, it's unlocked and many, many things for people to go, oh yeah, I see what you mean. So usually in the past, when I've done workshops, and this is also met with slight skepticism, sometimes they get it, but it's like, okay, let's just start with what we're doing here similar to yourself, and cue the slide with Gandalf is there. And they're like, haha, okay. And I'm like, okay, so there's Gandalf here, there's Frodo, and it's the fellowship. And it's like everyone's in this movie, everyone has seen the movie. It's like, we're the fellowship trying to help Frodo, who's your customer, the hero. And I'm just the guide, weirdly, cause I like Gandalf anyway. Or Yoda, your best guide person. By doing this kind of metaphor storytelling linkages, they're like, oh, I see, okay. So we are all together. And I think that helps break down the barriers of us and them. It's like there's no us and them. It's like for this one week, two weeks, whatever it is, we're going to take Frodo to Mount Doom and save the world.

A hundred percent. Exactly.

Yeah, as you do, so workshops can save the world. Yeah, maybe they can. 

I really, I'm really so sorry I haven't seen the movie.

Really?

Isn't that hilarious? When you were like, everyone has seen the movie. I was thinking, well yeah, everyone has, except for me. I know that I'm strange. I haven't seen it.

Oh man, you need to see the movie. Okay, so

Good.

We'll, so I guess if we step out of the pessimism of workshops and talk about delivering success stories, and I think this is where we're trying to home around with our webinar, it's what makes things different to the ones that fail. And obviously, there's lots of failure in the industry, with startups and digital products failing and digital transformation failing. So what we're trying to understand is what are those success stories? And I feel like you may have one or two success stories. Cause I heard a rumor you may have been somewhere quite fun recently with a rather exciting company that everyone would've heard of, I'm sure more than my Lord of the Ring reference. So what is a success story look like for Britney and what did you do to help that company?

So yeah, I mean think that's such a great question. What does success look like? And for me, obviously success is helping my client help helping my team get to where they want to be or get them closer to where they want to be. So I have quite a few really cool, I mean for me, workshops are so powerful because they move you so much faster towards your goal. And that's what people always say. They're like, wow, we just got so much more work done. We got months' worth of back and forth and emails and meetings discussions and brainstorms. We got it all done within a half day or a few days or whatever it is. And that is so cool. And I think that's why people are starting to really, workshops are starting to get a little bit more momentum. People are starting to realize how awesome they actually can be, which is great. So yeah, success stories. I mean, I was recently at LEGO, I think that was what you were referring to. 

I didn't want to say

Yes. What's super cool about this company, I mean, I definitely want to work at LEGO one day now I'm like, I think I'm like, I'm going to give it all up and I'm just going to go work at LEGO. Oh God, if they would have me. Honestly, this place is incredible. So the company themselves though, they are very, very innovative. Their whole DNA is all about innovation and play and they're constantly workshopping. They have a huge group of agile coaches, a couple hundred I think it is. Wow. Yeah, within this one company. And so they're constantly, the agile coaches are moving from team to team, getting their people together, running lots of sessions, facilitating a lot of different kinds of workshops for them as well. So what we were, or what I was doing, I was coming in just to visit on their agile day, which was a day where they just got all their agile coaches together and was about learning and inspiring and just having some fun together.

So I just came and did sort of a talk slash workshop all about developing your own sort of workshop experience. So how to elevate your workshops to deliver something a little bit more powerful, a little bit more fun, get people a little bit more engaged all in your own way. So we did some little exercise all about how to bring more of yourself out, bring more of your own facilitation style out in your workshops. So that was super, super fun. And I mean success, there was really just inspiration. I went into that experience, very nervous, obviously. I was going into a group of people who are not only super intelligent and really lovely and nice, but they facilitate things all the time. So I'm coming in as someone who also facilitates a lot, but it still is very intimidating. So for me, I was like, success here is I'm going to go in and I want to, for the people who are less experienced facilitating, I want to provide them with a lot of really tangible advice and helpful tips for the people who are more experienced.

My goal for them is that I inspire them a little bit. Maybe I talk about something that they hadn't thought of before, or even giving them one thing, one little nugget that they can take with them was my goal. So it was great because it was a very successful trip in that respect. I think I delivered on what the plan was. Everybody was very happy and left energized. I think at least I left extremely energized. So that's one style of work that I do, which is a lot more about having some fun and bringing a bit of inspiration. The other side is you go into a client's situation, a team situation where it's like we have this really massive, huge expensive challenge that we have been just growing money into for a long time, and it's gotten to the point where we need to solve this challenge or get out of here.

So you go in those situations and it's a very high-pressure situation. There's a lot at stake, people are a little bit more stressed. The energy in the room is a little bit different obviously, when they know that we need to have a really solid outcome from this session. Yeah, right. So those kinds of success stories for me when I go into those situations, for me usually it's about helping the team learn as much as they possibly can. So a lot of times I'm going in and running workshops where we're coming up with a solution idea, whether we're running a design sprint or something similar to a design sprint. It's like we're coming up with a solution idea and we're going to talk to consumers about it and we're going to learn as much as possible so that we can kickstart, we can jump ahead of where we're at right now and we can get going with the launch of the marketing campaign or the product or whatever it is, right?

But I've been doing a lot lately, which I'm really excited about because my background is in communications and marketing. So I've been doing a lot of workshops around the kind of launching of a product into market. So it's like we have the product already. We have an amazing technology, we know it's good, we know it's better than the competition, but how do we actually launch it properly? What are the communications around this product that are really going to hit consumers hard and get them to actually maybe change brands? So recently I was working with this company and they were launching a new product into the market and it was like their competitive brand was the market leader, and they're coming in as the underdogs. Okay, still, very well known and very profitable, but not the, it's like the Kleenex versus another brand of tissue, right?

Yeah. It's like, yeah, it's exactly like that actually. So basically David and Goliath almost. Yes. And it's like how do we come into the market with a product we know is better than Kleenex? We know it, we, it's like all the tests prove that our product is better than Kleenex, but how do we get consumers to switch from the brand that they know and they love and literally it rolls off their tongue and they don't even look at any other brands. They literally go to the shelf and they grab their Kleenex and I'm using I'm, it wasn't Kleenex that I was working with, but I'm just using that as an example. Surprise. But it's like, yeah, so how do we actually get consumers to make the switch? So we were working on that challenge, which was a big one. So we came up with different marketing routes, different sort of communication plans.

We tested them against each other with consumers and learned so much. And basically what we did was we came up with, I think it was six different sort of ways to talk about the product we developed like mini, they were kind of mini commercials actually. We got an illustrator in to design key images and we kind of strung them together with a bit of voiceover and some music. So we were kind of mimicking a TV commercial, a video ad. I saw it was cool and we had six of them. It was insane week. We only actually with four days. It was insane. So we created these six and tested them with consumers and two or three came out on top. So what we did there was we iterated on what we learned and then put those into a quant test. So we first did qualitative testing where you're talking to consumers in a very open dialogue way.

We're sitting down with them for an hour, and then after we figured out what's working and what's not, we iterated and then quant tested them. So in all, my client was so happy with the outcome, he was really wonderful actually, and kept saying how he's like after this workshop, my career, just my career trajectory just skyrocketed. He was so happy. So, but that's what happens in these situations, right? Because the team has been working on this trying to figure out how can we communicate, how are we going to beat out our competitor? And then we all come together and we're just like boom, boom, boom. For a few super solid powerful days. We're all working on this challenge and we're going head first into it and the outcome was incredible. So now they're into the point where they're putting millions of dollars behind this marketing campaign and it's working, the results have come back and it's actually changing the way consumers react. So that's how powerful it really can be with real hard, intense, critical business challenges.

And I love the fact, you touched on it really well. Yeah. Sometimes it's about building stuff to launch and it's about building campaigns to launch, and it's about proving all that, de-risk it, which sounds very dry, but it's true. But fundamentally, what the workshop and what we do is kind of consultants, workshops, et cetera, it's really just empowering the person, isn't it? So I feel like, answering my own question from earlier, what does it bring to skeptics? Our job really is to help you with your business really is to make you look good. That's why we’ll come in.

Hundred percent.

It might just be one of us. It could be a super team of superstars and different disciplines. I always reference the Avengers quite a lot in my world, to bring a metaphor to it. It's like, well, superpowers and different things, we'll wrap our arms around you and your team and get you to something fast and thereby enable you to look great for your business to succeed. Thereby you get all the high fives and promotions and obviously you don't want to kind of say that to them directly in that way, but that's really the truth of it, isn't it? It's like, how does this help you? Help us help you? That kind of classic Jerry McGuire. Anyway, it's under the movie reference.

A hundred percent. No, a hundred percent. Yeah. That's what I think we often forget is that's when, especially as a consultant, as someone coming in from the outside, it's all about making whoever you're working for, look fantastic. And it's like you're going to do everything you can to make everybody around them be like, what's going on over there? Yeah. How did that person get her? And how's that all happening? And it's all about creating that kind of buzz around the person that you're working for. And I think it also feels really like that's what I love about being someone coming in from the outside because you really can have a big impact and then you leave. I mean, at least I do. And then I'm like, see ya. Have a great day. 

Lights a candle and watch you walk off the distance slow clapping as you leave. Exactly. Yeah, it's so true. And I always think of it as I think of a metaphorical circle. It's like you come in on the outside of this circle, on the perimeter and everyone's a bit skeptical who you are, especially when you're a consultant. Why a consultant? I feel like the journey you take is a journey to the middle. If the middle is trust, if you're heading towards that center of the circle, it, it's about enabling people and it is about getting things done. But I think getting back to feelings and emotions and stuff, I think it's true with story. It unlocks trust. Oh, not in the product to do things or the campaign, but just in the people you're working with and us. And I think if we can use that as a tool just to build trust and make people feel better and have fun as well, I think that is a good day's work.

And actually I feel like I said at the start, it's a privilege to bring that as a job and bring that and be paid for it. And I guess where we come from, the level of digital innovation, software products, Infinum, it's kind of like, yes, we want to build a trust first and foremost, and we have a process where you look at the business first, then research the market, state of affairs, then validate it from a design sprint point of view, then build that package solution. And every time we do one of these steps, it's a ladder of trust building up as you go through it. So when we go to launch, they're like that, you've got our back, we've got your back. It's a nice way to be. And I feel like it's to, well, I hate to say going to war, it's very aggressive, but you've got something left of you and the right of you are protected.

So that I think is really a plus that necessarily doesn't get talked about too much in workshops, but it's so true. At the end of it. I suppose to kind of dial it back just to innovation, because we're talking about innovation a little bit, what innovations, you don't have to talk about AI and machine learning unless you want to, but have you seen any trends in the kind of workshopping space world now things are starting to get a bit more artificial and there's all these other things like web three and blockchain, and have you seen any lean towards that in your world?

So I have seen some new kind of interesting tools coming up that are all about mimicking a real-life scenario of being in a workshop together. And I think that's cool. A couple of them were really, I was impressed and I thought that's kind of neat. It's kind of video game style almost. You know, have an avatar, and you're sort of in the space together, and you can explore and all that stuff. And I think that that's really, really interesting. I think what makes workshops really special though, and maybe I'm being old fogey here,maybe I'm being a super lame old lady, but I think it is the fact that we are getting rid of all of that stuff in my workshops, we don't even really use our computers. You know what I mean? You leave your laptops in your bags. So for me, it's like that's what, that's powerful about them.

What gets people excited is actually working almost with your hands and using your brain and everybody kind of contributing and that kind of vibes the old way think old way. I think that's why workshops are becoming so popular because it's like we're realizing that's how people used to, it used to work. We used to be often in a room too. There were no emails back and forth. It was like we had to see people and work together. I mean at least that's what I'm imagining probably with nothing like that. But anyway, I just think we're going back to basics and that's why it's working. I think when it comes to the future of workshops or my predictions for what's going to come, I think that companies, and I'm already seeing this, so it's actually not coming up with this just out of nowhere, but companies are sort of developing their own workshop toolkits.

So they'll have their own sort of company-style workshop for a brainstorming session. They have their own workshop for format for meetings, they have their own workshop format for when we have a challenge and we need to come up, you know, and they're sort of building these toolkits for themselves so that when people start working at a company, they sort of learn the tools and then they can also facilitate themselves these different sessions. And it's like everybody's kind of familiar with the session, the types of sessions, and you can really get a lot more done a lot faster by just being like, oh, I needed a brainstorming, I'm just going to grab this session here and do that with the group. Yeah. And also I see companies hilling up this facilitation, hiring, even hiring facilitators. Certain companies actually just have roles for facilitation, which shows me that they understand the power in it. So I think it's more, for me, it's more in that direction. I mean I know we've got the new Apple, whatever, what is it called?

Oh, Vision, I think it's it Vision Pro. Yeah, the Vision Pro, yeah. Cool. Yes.

Which I mean I can see that happening for sure. Some workshops where everybody's got their Vision Pro on and they're in the for sure, Hey, why not? But it's not hat. Yeah.

I do think, gosh, so funny when you say things like this and they're being recorded because you're like, I might be wrong, but now it's recorded. So it's think there will always, there will always be a place for the tried and true, getting into the room together in person, real life where you can actually see each other and feel each other and have a bit of that energy in the room. The one thing that just doesn't happen when you're virtual, and I run remote workshops all the time, and they're very, very powerful as well. They are great. It's a great alternative to having everybody in the room if it's not possible to have everybody in the room. But what you're missing there, and I see it all the time, is you're missing that, it's just that energy exchange that can't happen through a screen.

Yeah, you're right. I feel like that artificial trust through a Zoom call is somewhat stayed and still to compared to that moment in person. And you're racing to maybe get a solution on the board or someone comes, oh, but what about this? And you're right. It's like kind of, I say it's the old way, isn't it? I suppose that for me, I prescribe for sure for that. And I think we've spent, all the human species has spent their entire well history doing that, right? Collaborating, et cetera. Maybe less post-it notes, et cetera. But we've collaborated together in the space. So it's like, let's not mess with biology too much and keep it that way. And I think what I really love is your reference to LEGO actually was really interesting to me. Purely because they're a big company, everyone knows who they are, they're super successful, super cool to go to.

I saw your Instagram post, it looks great, and it's like you have coaches, lots of coaches, and they're just there to optimize and figure things out and test ideas all the time. And I think what I encounter a lot in, at least in my space, is trying to transform these companies that are trying to be more say agile or innovative or transformative. Pick your favorite buzzword. But it's like by building something like a product, that's only a step, that's a tool to help be better or faster, innovative. And it's not that actual, you're saying that toolkit inside the company to foster the innovation, the cult of innovation and then break out into this, let's do more thinking, more learning that continuous discovery and delivery. I always preach all day every day over here and I think people are probably sick of it, but I think that's the way forward and that's giving you that detox from the digital overload of, okay, for the next few months, I'm deep in a project, I'm on my computer all day. I think having that breakout space for a day, a week, whatever is a liberating creative space. I think that's a good balance to be. And if we can foster that into a companies and hire facilitators, maybe

A hundred percent.

Think that's a great way to be. Always fun.

Yes. Always a bit of fun. I love a bit of fun.

For sure. Of course, of course. And I suppose really just to, we'll, just to wrap things up, I suppose this is something I'm really personally keen about. I love how you talk about the peak moments in workshops and you've delivered that quite a lot. And I think that is, it doesn't have to be a super technical advancement, I think it's the small things in life that kind of make the difference. So I'd love to just hear lastly about your peak moment strategy or what you do in workshops just to express that to the audience.

Yeah, so first of all, if you've never heard of peak moments or you're, or just to be clear about what that is. So peak moment is something that happens during an experience that is out of it. It's, it surprises people, it throws them off a little bit. They weren't expecting this to happen. So we're hoping for peaks and not valley moments. We want to have peak highs. So something that makes people laugh or surprises them or makes them feel a little bit more emotional or makes them think more than they were, make some consider things a little bit more. Anything like that will actually, in the end, people will, your participants or the people who are experiencing whatever it is that you're delivering will remember the experience as being better than it actually was. So they'll remember it as more positive overall than it necessarily was, right?

I'm not saying it wasn't a positive experience, but they will remember it as like, wow, that was just incredible when really it was just great. Maybe it wasn't incredible. And it sounds kind of funny and it sounds like you're sort of manipulating the audience a little bit, but that's how humans work. We remember the peaks and we remember the valleys. We don't remember the middle of the road. So that's what we need to think about when we're designing anything that has to do with humans. We need to think about how we can create more peaks for them to remember us a little bit better or remember the experience a little bit better. So when I'm delivering any kind of, even if it's just a one-hour talk or if it's a one-week workshop, I'm always thinking about the moments where people might be feeling a little bit tired or maybe they're kind of disengaging or it's been a long day or whatever it might be.

And I'm thinking about ways that I can surprise them a little bit. Surprise and delight, let's say. Yeah. And these can be, like you said, super small things. When I'm running a design sprint, it's a long week. So usually I'll start the day by bringing something, if I'm traveling, I'll bring something very specific from Berlin that you can only get here and I'll bring that. And it's a cute little thing that they see when they sit down, whatever, that's super simple, very easy to do, but is already a little bit of a peak. They're like, oh, how thoughtful that she thought to bring this stuff for us. Okay, that's very easy to deliver. Usually at the end of day, it's usually at the end of day one that I do this actually because day one, if you're doing a four-day design sprint, it’s absolutely exhausting.

And it's the end. Everybody is totally drained and basically dead. They're dead people in the room with you. So what I like to do is I give them a little gift and sometimes I'll give them a book that I'm reading or a book that I love, something about creativity, something that makes sense for what we're working on. And that for me is really on brand because I love learning, I love creativity. I think I also love reading. So for me it's like it's really important that my peak moments speak to who I am and my brand, let's say. Yeah, got it. So little things like that. So I give them a thing and then they're like, they really, really weren't expecting that. It's something that totally throws them for a loop every time. And they're like, oh my gosh. And they leave that instead of leaving so exhausted and feeling like, whoa, we really got worked.

They leave being how nice, cool, I'm going to put this on my desk or I'm going to do whatever. So those are the kinds of things, and that's what I'm talking about are very, they can be very basic little things and they don't always have to be gifts. Could be that you start off, you're feeling like everybody's a bit low, so you do this fun sort of brainstorming activity or you do something where everybody gets out of their seat. Anything like that, yeah, really works a treat. And what I like to think about when it comes to peak moments is, and I kind of mentioned this, but I really like to think about how I can design them so that they bring my own sort of brand, my own facilitation style to my values. I want them to bring those to the surface. So I want them to feel like the peak moments are really telling in who Brittni is as a workshop person, as a facilitator, and then that's a branding moment, it's an experience moment. Everything's kind of coming together and it's very powerful.

I love it. I love it. Cause it really resonates with me to think about what we do as a workshop facilitator or just delivering services. It's not to treat it like it's just a transactional exchange, which we know it is under the surface. Of course it is, that's what business is, but treating it like an event or an experience that you put the effort in. Like you're saying, the small things that make that slight difference actually could make it memorable and ultimately makes the whole thing better for people whilst in the experience after the experience, the referral part of that. And I always think about that as a way to go. If we're going to do some really difficult together clients, can we give something back to you to make it like you say? And yes, we could do a remote session if we have to, but actually we're fortunate I guess at Infinum, we have a New York, a Croatian office, a London office, so we're like, I'll just fly you out and come and do it in person because it's the experience already and it's better and it's more fun. And at the end of it, we can send you a load of a load of merch, whatever you want. We have a bunch of merch here and things, speaking of which I'll have to send some to you as a peak moment. 

I would love that.

You can decide if it's a peak moment or not. We have a lot of good branded things here, so I will make sure you get a goodie bag as a minor peak moment.

I think one thing also, just to sort of piggyback on that, it's creating the experience not only creates these peak moments for the people in the room and give them this sense of, wow, that was really great, but it encourages them to talk about what you went through together. Right? And I know that's kind of a maybe sneaky way, but I mean God, referrals are the name of the game. And if you deliver something that people are excited about and that they're talking about and you give them something to talk about, it's amazing how much more all of a sudden you're going to be like, oh, this person told me that. Oh, that person. And all of a sudden you have this referral machine working for you and it all starts, obviously it doesn't start after the fact and then asking for a referral, it starts from day one when you meet with whoever your client is, right? Yeah. The more that you can deliver something exceptional, the more they're going to be willing to pass your name along.

That's such a good, that's such mean, I think doing that from the beginning that, in my mind, is the way, because I think you can't fake those sorts of things. You can't make someone go give me a referral or say I'm a good person or say I'm whatever. Yeah, you have to earn that kind of trust. I think that's why I'm really passionate, got to earn it, got to work for it. So I guess to wrap it all up then, I'm just thinking about what have we talked about today that kind of delivers lots of things, peak moments, value to businesses, value to people injecting fun into your work? I feel like those are key moments, what we can talk about, and is a Delivered principle that I love that we've gone into really. So I'd like to say thank you for your wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm for workshops, which I’ equally excited about.

I know it is a little bit weird, it's a little bit weird how exactly, but I mean, I feel like it's only weird if you haven't been a part of a lot of workshops because the moment that people see how workshops happen, then they, they are onboard and they're just as excited as I am.

Totally, totally. So, no, I think you're right. I think encourage people to at least try it once and see, but I think people will be surprised that their problems can be solved better, easier, faster in that space. And dare I say, it's a bit more fun as well. 

Absolutely.

I guess on that pitch for both you and I do for a living, we'll wrap it up. And Brittni, thanks again for being part of Delivered. It's been great to speak to you as always and have a super rest of the week.

My pleasure. Thank you so much. It was really a lovely chat. Always love talking about workshops.

Love it. Great stuff. Thank you, Brittni. Take care.

Bye.