Start you very own "StageX Workshop"

Start your very own "StageRebels Experience" Tim Vriend

After a very successful pilot of our own, I decided to share the knowledge on how to start your very own StageX Workshop!

What is the “StageX Workshop”?

Full transparency… It is a rip off from the worldwide initiative called “ToastMasters”, but it is a very good rip off :)
In Dutch we have this saying “Beter goed gejat, dan slecht verzonnen”, which translates to something like “Better steal it properly, than invent it badly”… Well something like that…

Anyway, what the StageX is, is basically a gathering of a few people (up to 8) that want to get better at public speaking (in all it’s form & glory) by sharing experience and knowledge, asking questions, practice and most important, share constructive feedback. Basically a self-service workshop.
This gathering can be done with friends, family, coworkers or even with complete strangers. Whatever suits your need.

The possible benefits

Because of the small, but very collaborative structure, there are many benefits to it and these come very soon after the start of the first workshop.

First things first, the most important thing to get right is the trust. People in the group should learn to trust each other as there will be sharing of feelings (fears and nerves) and putting yourself in a vulnerable place. In short, trust is important!
Somehow, given the small size of the group, this trust comes very fast, nearly instant. Some of the participants I worked with, said that it is because of the very first question I ask, which right away pushes a mirror in everyone’s face and shows from the start that trust is important. (Question will follow later, building suspense)

Next is off-course the obvious benefits that any and all actions that bring you in touch with a subject you want to learn, in this case public speaking, will enhance your knowledge or understanding on that subject. For the StageX this enhancement comes in the form of action by practicing and constantly sharing feedback. Add to this the sharing of knowledge, experience and the questions, and you get a mix of items that are 100% aimed at what you need. Not about the things in a textbook, which don’t apply to you.

Last but not least, the costs. Given you don’t need professional coaches, you will save money. Off-course, you can always ask a coach to show up as a guest appearance so you can ask questions, but this is optional. Given the size of the group, you don’t need to have a large space either, although it would help if there is an option to recreate a stage (but again, this is optional). Basically, the only investment is the time of the people, which you would have anyway if you sent them on training as well.

How to set it up…

Setting up your own StageX is really simple, but it does take a little of preparation.

First, find out if there are people interested in the initiative. The best way to do this is by simply asking around. For example, if you want to set it up for work, simply ask some of your coworkers if they would be interested. In general, ask the coworkers that work on nice projects or those that stand in front of groups of people (Internally or externally) and explain the benefits. You will find that many coworkers would love to get some sort of a coaching in this field and are more than willing to participate in your workshop.
Try to keep the first version to a group of 4 to 8 people. Anything less and it will not have a proper effect, any thing more and it will be too busy.

Next, together with the participants, find the best day and time to come together and plan it as a recurring event in the calendars. We started with 6 sessions of 90 minutes for our pilot, which gave us more than enough insights into the benefits and to request permission to expand the workshop for the whole organisation. The frequency we put on every 2 weeks, but this was because of an upcoming event. In general, the advice is to do it every 3 or 4 weeks, or on the same day every month. Try not to put it to far apart..
Make sure to put some information in your invite to prepare the participants on what to expect. See the information below about the first session to get some inspiration.

When it comes to the space, try to find a quiet, but also a but more informal surrounding. We are lucky on this part as we build a sort of a bar in our basement. This space only gets used for parties and a bit of storage, but in general nobody goes there. I doubt everyone reading this text has that kind of a space available, but try to at least find a space where you will not be disturbed, preferably with a bit of an informal setting. So no sterile meeting rooms or anything,

When it comes to the first session, there is some minor preparation to do as well.
What we did to add a bit of fun and relaxation is appoint the “Cookie Master”. Basically one person gets assigned each session to bring some sweets to enjoy at the start of the session. As the original facilitator, you should be the “Cookie Master” for the first session, but try to appoint someone else each session. We made it a contest of baking your own cookies and see who was the best baker.

Another thing I did when sending out the invitation for the first session, was give a little bit of homework.
The first assignment was for the participants to think about two questions, so we right away had a nice first topic.

Do they experience any fears or nerves when presenting in front of a group of people? If so, think about the top 3
What do they hope to get out of the sessions?

I also added the link to the “Death by Powerpoint” video from David JP Philips and ask all the participants to watch it prior to the session. By doing this, you have your second topic for the session right away as well.

The third thing I did was add a link to an internal page where the workshop, including its modules, was explained. Participants were asked to read this so they knew what to expect, but in all honesty, only a few people did.
Off-course, you can also just use stagerebels.com and ask them to go there for more information…

Next to this, I decided to leave the planning for the session as it was and keep it a bit flexible, which proved to be very valuable as the homework itself was enough to keep us going with questions and the likings for the full 90 minutes.

This is it for the preparations, lets continue with some more basic information which you can use during your sessions.

Modules

Each session is basically as set of modules. In the original ToastMasters, these are time bound and they are very strict on time. I found that keeping it flexible works just as good, but you do need to keep an eye out on where the discussions are going. If you notice them going far off topic, steer it back immediately, otherwise you will not get the benefits out of the workshop.

Below are the modules you could touch upon and I can really advise you to touch all of them at some point in time, but also select the ones that are most applicable to you and your participants.
There is one module however which you cannot skip as this is your most important one… Practice rounds… And specifically within that one is the feedback part of it…

Practice Rounds
Something you should do as often as possible is let people practice standing in front of the group and tell a story. This could be a full blown presentation, if they have one coming up soon, but also simple things, like introducing themselves or present something about their hobbies or sports. Maybe about the work they do.
The best practice sessions are done by having people present something to the group for around 4 minutes.
During the presentation, the rest of the group is silent and makes notes on the things that were good and things that can be improved. The focus of these notes should be aimed at things like body movement, facial expressions, the use of voice and even if the story that was told made any sense and was interesting.
These notes are used at the end of the presentation to provide constructive feedback. Each participant will give his or her feedback, without being disturbed by the others, but it needs to be in a constructive way. If something was good, why was it good and if something can be improved, why should it be improved and how?
It is this feedback that will teach you the most, so make sure it is constructive and honest!
Disclaimer: Even though the intention is to actually practice, it should always be seen as optional and you should never make it mandatory for people to perform a round. It will come when they are ready for it.
Basic Speaking Skills
In this modules it is all about discussing the theories of basic speaking skills and mixing it with experience and knowledge from all of the participants. You will find that people have different insights and preferences in these subjects, which actually can open up really nice discussions with different perspectives.
The skills to discuss here are;
1. Body Position
2. What to do with your arms & hands
3. Eye contact with the audience
4. How to overcome the “Uhmmm” and “Ahhh” (filler words)
5. Etc etc
Using your Voice & Body
For this module, just use the information that is already written in the articles on StageRebels.com which explain everything there is to know about "Using your voice" and using what is called "functional gestures".
Use these articles to your benefit and let the participants read them. After this, you can start up a round of discussions or try it for yourself in some small excersices.
Using humor
Again one to discuss, what is the best way to introduce humor into your presentation.
What is the right timing, how often and does kind of questions.
Discuss them as a group and see what you come up with…
Icebreaker Speeches
Basically these are practice rounds, where you practice to break the ice.
Not completely what they were meant for, but in our session the discussion in this module became very much focussed on 3 items, Openings, Endings and Introductions. We discussed and practiced how it feels when you open a presentation with an introduction and then did the “opening” of the presentation and vice versa. The same for how much details needed to be added and so on. We found that specifically the ending was very powerful when kept short and to the point. Try this module out, start with a discussion and than make it a homework assignment for the next session for a few participants to try different things and provide feedback on those.
Impromptu Speaking
Often seen as the holy grail of public speaking is Impromptu Speaking. The act of giving a presentation or a talk without practicing. This one is insanely good to practice as it will boost confidence, but it is a very nerve wrecking assignment as well. Check out “Impromptu Speaking Article” on StageRebels.com for more information. I can strongly advise you to do this one, but make sure to keep it fun!
Guest Appearances
Every organisation has people on board that seem to be natural born speakers, so invite them to your session. Ask them to prepare a 5 minute talk and be open to feedback and questions from the group afterwards and simply follow the same rules as with the practice rounds when it comes to the feedback. Also allow time for questions from the participants as they get a chance to talk to an experienced talker or presenter.
Another option would be to invite external people with some kind of interesting expertise to the subject of public speaking. I am now working with a life coach, who is specialised in identifying the source of fears and take action to overcome them. She is more than willing to drop by one day in our sessions (free of charge) and share some insights, which I believe will be very valuable for our group!
Table Topics
I guess the title says it all, just let the participants ask questions or bring in stuff they want to discuss. Nothing more, nothing less. Just make sure it stays on topic…

Your first session

When we did our first session, we started with the cookies, as mentioned before, but while everyone was enjoying the cookies there is one question I threw in the group right away at the start. “What is your biggest fear when it comes to going on stage”.
Basically the question that was part of the homework, but still, so early in the process we tackled a very personal item. At first it felt a bit uncomfortable asking this question, but it was out of my mouth before I even realised how personal it was (typical for me). Later on I learned from the group that they thought this was the best opening. They right away understood what this workshop was about and how close to the heart it would become. All of them answered the question and this right away became the first table topic which started flowing very naturally. We found that most of us were inline with the fears, but also some differences and it really gave the feeling that we were in this together. Team bonding was done in that split second!

After this, we discussed the “Death By Powerpoint” video, which not all of the participants watched, but some did and that created discussions again with very different insights into the different topics. This in turn sparked the interest of those that didn’t watch the video, so they went to see it as well after the session.
This somehow flowed into some other table topics which were really interesting and I think it was this moment that the group realised the power that could come out of these sessions and they started asking if we would also actually practice presenting or not.

Given time flew by, we were pretty much running out of time already, so we went on to the planning for the next session. We decided it would be could for everyone to prepare a little talk about themselves that would last around 3 or 4 minutes, which they could practice in front of the group during the next session.

After this, we shut down the session with one final question about what each of the participants were hoping to get out of the sessions.

In the original setting, I had the goal of not always being the host myself, but let the group be the host themselves. I noticed quickly that when it came to planning and deciding on topics, that this would not work. At least not during the pilot, so I kept the role of hosting each of the sessions.
In short, I closed down each session with a draft agenda for the next session and we appointed the “Cookie Master”, a very important role.

Power it up!

There are ways to make the sessions more realistic and get even more benefits out of it. Below you can find some of the things you could do to power it all up!
Minor disclaimer, always ask the participants of they want you to use these power ups, don’t just push it into their faces.

Record it all!
Everyone has a mobile phone with camera nowadays, so this is the simplest thing to do and it adds a great deal of power!
Simply record people during their practice round and share the video with them.
The reason for doing this is double.
First, it gives them an opportunity to watch back their own practice round and see where the feedback is based on. It gives a different perspective when sitting in the audience compared to standing on stage, so this adds a lot of benefit.
The second reason is to hold on to that recording and compare it with later recordings.
This way you can see clearly how someone grew over the weeks and how their performance became better! Fun to see, but it also build confidence.
Want to go even more professional? Add a real microphone to the mix, like the DynaBrights that I use. They enhance the audio and give another realistic dimension to the practice rounds. Put a big camera on a tripod in front of the stage to bring up even more nerves our take pictures with flash.
All these things that are happening with a real audience as well you can mimic during your practice rounds.
Beam me up!
If you have the option to do so, setup a beamer and hook up a laptop. This way, people can practice their slides as well. Use one of these presentation clickers to make it even more realistic!
Another benefit, if you have a beamer, you can actually use it as a spotlight as well instead of a beamer. Let people feel how it is to have the spotlight on them :)
Build a stage
If you have the option to do so, build a stage!
I mean, really… Let the people stand a bit higher on a stage and put chairs in front of them for the other participants to sit on. If your goal is to get people on stage, better to let them feel the difference already and trust me, it feels a lot different!
It doesn’t need to be back or very high. Even a 10cm increase already feels different.

Share your experience!

Please, share your experiences and any possible feedback to improve the workshop even more! Like you, I am always learning and the more experience we combine, the better we can make the workshops!