Case Study #3: Leading a custom workshop for an AAPI ERG
One of my favorite things I get to do is design and facilitate custom workshops, most often for Employee Resource Groups. As a former nonprofit community activist, I have a lot of love for ERGs. They play an important role in not only creating belonging in our workplaces, but also organizing for greater advocacy and influence.
Over the years, I’m proud to have been invited by numerous organizations to speak, including Rivian’s AAPI ERG in May of 2023. As with all my learning and development clients, this process began with me asking lots of questions about their community and objectives for a workshop. Everything I facilitate is always customized for each and every client’s unique needs - I take the art and skill of facilitation seriously and I seek to provide powerful experiences every time.
See below for two artifacts from this project that will show insight into my process.
3.1 Workshop Outline
Partnership and collaboration are important values for me in how I approach this work. As a result of that, prior to facilitating any engagement, I always prepare an outline to share with my client project team to show what I plan to present. This outline allows us to approach the workshop with complete alignment and trust in its value to the audience.
It’s also a way for me to ensure that as a visiting guest, I am able to ask for and receive the necessary context to facilitate a valuable workshop. I want to know ahead of time if certain vocabulary will or will not resonate, given the industry and audience.
Click on the image to the left to see full details.
3.2 Workshop Deck
Here’s the slide deck I used. Compared to other speakers, , I tend to have less slides in my presentations. This comes from my training as a public school teacher where I learned, your participants can either read your slide or hear your voice - never both at the same time.
I also always make my slides available to my clients after each workshop. To me, this is part of what it means to serve diverse learners. There will be many who benefit from visual processing after the workshop, not to mention those who were unable to attend.
Click on the image to the right to see full details.