Working with Craig

Craig’s sessions are tailored

Craig wants to know your objectives – why you want this meeting, training, or talk – so he can deliver a session that will be highly relevant and valuable for your people.

Craig’s sessions are interactive

In Craig’s talks and training sessions he shares knowledge, tips and stories from his own experience, yet also facilitates your people sharing stories with each other; the best way to learn. Meetings that Craig facilitates are highly inclusive and dynamic.

Craig’s sessions have products

Craig prepares highlight notes of every meeting and he provides handouts for every training, talk, or keynote.

Craig’s sessions are efficient

“I can’t believe how much we got done” is a common sentiment on Craig’s evaluation forms. His meetings are highly efficient and his talks and trainings go by fast because they are packed.

Craig’s sessions are good for life

Craig models and teaches best practices that are useful at home, on the field, in the band, and in all kinds of group settings in addition to the workplace.

Keynote Expectations

With every talk and keynote you can expect robust planning, memorable delivery, and audience impact. Craig will work with you in advance to tailor the topic and interactions to be highly relevant. On site, he wants to get to know folks. After, he will provide links to notes and resources. Learn about Craig’s talks and keynotes here.

Meeting Expectations

Here’s what you can expect with every meeting.

Tailored Meeting Design

Agendas match objectives. Meticulous advance planning. Rapport with key players and issues.

Craig begins every project with an advance planning meeting to discuss objectives, scope of work, logistics, and other considerations. Ideally this planning meeting takes place with a small group of people who know the project and the desired outcomes. Craig asks: “What do you want to achieve? What would success look like?” Answers to these questions help him design the session to match your objectives. Craig develops a draft agenda for your consideration and revises it in collaboration with you.

Inclusive, Efficient Facilitation

Craig uses many techniques for airing all views. He respectfully guides difficult discussions.

Craig prepares handouts, charts, slides, shared online spaces, and other materials as appropriate. He becomes familiar with the meeting facilities or online platform in advance so he knows what to expect. If he drives to your meeting, he brings all his own equipment such as easels, computers, projector, and screen. He arrives early and sets up the meeting room. He provides name tents and tools for brainstorming, multi-voting, table-top surveys and other group decision techniques.
In-person and online, Craig offer the four essential functions of high quality facilitation:

Provide Structure
Reflect the Group
Encourage Participation
Move the Group Forward

Themes and Conclusions On the Spot

Stuff gets done. Things get decided. Conclusions emerge.

Craig documents key findings, themes, conclusions, and agreements for all to see on the screen or on his special “greenwall.” As decisions are made they are written on the spot for all to see in order to maximize shared understanding and agreement.

Exceptional Meeting Reports

Professionally formatted and organized for later reference.

For every meeting that Craig facilitates, clients receive a Highlights Report that includes all themes, conclusions, and agreements that he captured in the meeting. Reports are well-organized and nicely formatted, suitable for distribution and useful for next steps and accountability .

Highly Satisfied Participants

Meeting objectives get met. Participants feel engaged and heard.

Participants feel a sense of ownership of meeting outcomes. They leave meetings feeling that the process was a good use of their time, and enthusiastic for more work together. If you want and for no extra charge, Craig will encourage participants to fill out an online anonymous evaluation of the session and share the results with you.

Training Expectations

Here’s what you can expect with every training session or workshop.

Planning

In order to tailor the session to your needs and make it highly relevant, Craig would like a planning meeting so he can understand your objectives, challenges, and ideas about the training. He will share with you his ideas based on your needs. He might ask you to come up with some scenarios that we can use in the session. Optional add-on: sometimes it works well to survey participants in advance to ask about their training desires.

Promotion

Based on your training objectives discerned from the planning meeting, Craig will draft promotional language for the session that describes what participants can expect. Sometimes this will even include a little agenda for the session. He will refine the draft language with you by email and/or phone calls. He will also provide a bio and headshot. Optional add-on: sometimes he makes a 1-minute promotional video that shows who he is and encourages people to register for the event.

Delivery

Craig will lead the training as designed. The training session or workshop will be interactive, relevant, and memorable.

Handouts

Each participant receives a handout (paper in person, PDF online) that highlights key themes of the training. Often, an additional handout is provided after the session that includes on-the-spot conclusions, additional stories or tips, and references to relevant resources.

Satisfaction

95% of our meeting evaluations report that the training objectives were met.

Participants feel valued. Participants learn new things and appreciate the opportunity that’s been provided. They leave meetings feeling that the process was a good use of their time, and enthusiastic for more work together. Often, participants experience behavior-changing break-throughs. Optional add on: Craig will encourage participants to fill out an online anonymous evaluation of the session and share the results with you.

Types of Meetings and Training Sessions

Click here to see the types of meetings Craig facilitates and his most popular training topics.

Learn about Craig’s Talks and Keynotes.

Client Results, Comments, and Cases Studies

Click here to see how our clients have been impacted by our work.

Meeting Room Set-Ups

We believe that how a room looks, feels, and functions all have a big impact on the quality of the meeting. Especially for facilitated meetings, Craig likes to be involved in choosing the meeting room and how the tables and chairs are arranged. Depending on the meeting design, he might have specific audio visual needs.

Click here to see a 2-page handout and some videos on how to set up a meeting room.

In the case of online meetings, Craig’s preferred platform is Zoom although he’s able to facilitate meetings on other platforms also. If a hybrid meeting is required – with some folks gathered in-person and some folks participating online – he sometimes requires a second facilitator so that all participants have full and equal access to the process.

Contracting

For facilitated meetings and training sessions, Craig typically charges a flat fee for delivering on a specific set of expectations, described above. The fee is determined by the length and complexity of the meeting or training.

For talks and keynotes Craig typically charges a flat fee based on the size of the audience and host organization.

For consulting, coaching, and gathering and analyzing stakeholder input, Craig typically tracks time and charges by the hour.

Please reach out with what you have in mind and we would be happy to give you a cost estimate.