Facilitating
When the date for an organisation’s annual conference is announced, the venue is booked within days, closely followed by the entertainment. The organisation’s all-important message to the staff, however, is far more likely to be left to the last minute along with the speakers’ presentations. Add to this the fact that the delegates assemble fully expecting to be talked at for a whole day (at least) by a series of people they may know by name, be left sitting in the dark (perhaps in more ways than one!) and spend a lot of time scanning the agenda to work out when to nip out for a call/coffee/ciggie.
“A fantastic facilitator at our latest Finance seminar which gathered 120 people from all around the world. Although not a finance specialist, he dug into all topics ahead of the seminar and - thanks to meaningful briefings - identified key messages and directions for discussions. During the seminar, he managed to break the ice with good jokes and got us out of bad situations when speakers needed to be controlled.”
Chris works to make the delegate experience quite the reverse. He interacts with audience and speakers alike to energise the event, making it more dynamic, invigorating and, ultimately, making the audience feel like they are involved.
In this role he’s been called an animator, a facilitator, a compere, an MC, a linkman – and a whole lot worse. However you describe it, Chris has overseen conferences in all industries for almost 25 years. Everything from straight linkman in the hospitality world via facilitator/quizmaster for a utilities giant to hosting a retail conference as a multi-character, interview-style animator. (Best ask him what that is.)
While Chris never professes to be an expert on the client’s industry, he is an expert facilitator. He immerses himself in the company’s culture as well as their event objectives and works with a client, as much as possible in advance through meetings and rehearsals, to ensure he has all the relevant information and background so he’s credible on the day. Consequently, Chris is often approached post events by delegates who ask which department he’s in and why they haven’t met him before!
With his fluent French and smattering of other languages, he has comfortably hosted pan-European and global conferences with multi-lingual audiences for corporations including AccorHotels and Microsoft. He would say, however, that he is primarily able to communicate across cultures thanks to his lightness of touch and humour – laughter being a common language that brings us together.
He is often employed by the client in the creative planning of the event in order to help align the speakers, their presentations and the event itself to the company’s objectives and outputs so there are no mixed messages, unnecessary repetitions and to to ensure the conference’s most useful impact.