Myriam Hadnes is the host of the Workshops Work podcast, where she talks to guests about facilitation and collaboration. We also talk about the role the podcast has taken in developing her business and community, why she has sponsor breaks and how she uses a visual map to guide people into her show.
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Pilar met Myriam when she hosted on her show, Workshops Work. Myriam doesn’t often get to talk about podcasting, so she welcomes the opportunity to talk about how her show originated and evolved.
Workshops Work was part of Myriam’s business communication, and a year and a half into her podcast, she actually changed the name of her business to match the podcast. Her business supports facilitators, who are people helping groups achieve a goal or solve a challenge by helping them through their group process.
The idea for the podcast was born around a mastermind table. Myriam didn’t know what a facilitator was until she read the book The Art of Gathering, and realised she was one! She realised that few people knew what a Facilitator was, and she wanted to raise awareness around the profession (to help her promote her own practice too).
Her first guest was her mentor, who also introduced Myriam to workshops. She then reached out to her close community and friends. (Pilar’s first guests were also people she knew, to make sure she felt comfortable.) Myriam thought the subject would only extend to about 25 episodes, but she soon realised how much more there was to learn about the subject and practice of facilitation – she’s now about 160 episodes in, which she releases weekly – her longest episode is 2.5 hours long.
The show structure has become freer now – Myriam has gone from scripting all her questions and following the script, to sending some questions through to give “the illusion of preparation” and be able to steer the conversation. The juicy bits of the conversation usually happen about 40 minutes into the conversation, so she now lets the episodes be as long as they need to be.
Myriam invites her guests through recommendation or her community. When she sees something about an individual she likes, she invites them onto an exploration call, to see whether there is chemistry with them, and whether there’s enough in the dynamic to generate a conversation for the show. The moment her curiosity gets sparked during the call, she stops the conversation and so she can take the conversation into the episode.
“I’m looking for the spark. I want to be curious, genuinely curious about my guest.”
Pilar suggests that a good fit for the podcast is about will the audience engage with them, and can we, as hosts, have fun with them, even at the email request point, is our heart beating faster?
Sometimes we are surprised and people we think won’t be a good fit end up being great guests.
Every now and then, Myriam realises that a potential guest is not a good fit because there’s not enough content in the conversation. She asks them to listen to some specific episodes and get back to her when they have a content suggestion; if they’re not a fit, she will tell them that she can’t feel the fit; and even after recording, if she doesn’t enjoy listening back to the conversation, she will let the guest know she won’t be publishing the recording. (This doesn’t happen often, but sometimes it does.)
Pilar is very impressed that she does this, as she, for a start, rarely doesn’t publish a recording, and even less often she lets someone know the recording won’t be published. Myriam thinks that having these difficult conversations is a good muscle to train. And she gives an example from her personal life where this helped.
“Our audience share their two most important resources with us: their time and their attention.”
17.50 mins
Through podcasting, Myriam has also learned “the art of taking space”, a concept she came across through improv. By being vulnerable and sharing her own perspective, she supports her guests by helping them to play with the content, instead of being responsible for creating the content for the episode. Being of service to the other person is also something that comes from facilitation.
Pilar was glad to hear this – she loves contributing to the conversation with her own perspective and stories. But it’s a fine line between taking over and creating a conversation dynamic rather than a question-answer. In any case, we try to make our guests look good. Pilar does some of this through the editing.
Myriam edited the first 25 episodes herself, which is important, to get a real sense of your own presence and the conversation dynamics. “We don’t want a thinking break to be confused with a tech issue.” She used to take 4 hours per hour of episode. She used to overthink her own contribution, and even moved her questions and interjections around. She now has a great editor who cuts the erms and pauses out, but leaves Myriam’s contributions in. She’s got used to taking the space.
27.30 mins
When conversations are long, the episodes are split into two shows, as Myriam asked her audience about their preferred length – they said 40 minutes and that it would be good for longer episodes to be split into two. This shows there’s all kind of preferences, and it’s worth asking your audience.
The length of introductions in an episode, or the introduction to the guest is also something that we have preferences over. Myriam doesn’t provide long introductions to her guests so as not to influence the audience over who the guests are. Pilar agrees! They both prefer for the human being to unravel during the episode. However, when listening to other shows, Pilar finds the introductions interesting…
There is of course a difference between reading someone’s bios, and giving the audience context of how we know the person.
32.36
From the beginning, Myriam tried to keep her guests close, as the relationship is worth maintaining. Then, a few years ago, Myriam went to a conference and was so dissatisfied that eventually, after being prompted by a guest, she set up her own conference. She invited her guests to do something at an event, where they would do something that had never done before.
By doing something that they’d never done before, they increased the chances of really learning together. Also, by inviting guests, the participants can check out session leaders beforehand by listening to the show. The first 24 hour festival took place in November 2020, and now it’s evolved into this whole thing, the Never Done Before community and events: https://neverdonebefore.org/
Guests become part of the community, and members of the community become podcasts guests. Myriam reflects on the fact that many new podcasters want high profile names to come on the show so that they will share the episode, and the number of listeners will grow. However, high profile names tend to appear in lots of podcasts, so they rarely promote your own show. But by brining in less well known names, the audience connects with them more closely, and also, the guests are more excited about being on your show, as it’s not just one of many.
Pilar shares how nervous she was when she brought in a guest who was high profile in the writing industry. Myriam has got over her nerves, but Pilar hasn’t and so now she tends to invite people she already has some sort of connection with, to avoid getting nervous.
40.50mins
Myriam talks about how she decided to get her listeners used to “sponsors breaks” since the first episode so that, if at some point she could sell sponsorship onto the show, the audience would already be used to it.
Having a sponsor can also give the impression that your show is already popular. Myriam reached out to Session Lab, who have a large follower base and create a product for facilitators, her audience. Having a sponsor for Myriam is about growing and serving an audience, rather than making a bit of money – sometimes she has an affiliate code for the product, or gets it for free, though sometimes she just enjoys promoting a product she likes.
Pilar also used to have a sponsor for 21st Century Work Life podcast, at a time when podcasting was quite new and having a sponsor sounded good, but eventually she dropped it because the service was not aligned (it was an ok fit though) and it would be more beneficial to promote her own business instead.
46.50 mins
Myriam has a wonderful visual map on Mural for her episodes. She talks about how it developed. It’s divided into a few themes, and you can find some episodes in more than one theme. It’s designed to help new listeners navigate the content.
You can find the map on https://bit.ly/podcast-map , but here’s a screenshot to give you an idea of what it looks like:
Finally, Myriam talks about what she likes best about having her show: those moments when her and the guest forget that they are recording and have a vulnerable, or incredibly fun conversations. Some of her favourite moments are her conversation with Meg Bolger, with whom she recorded for two hours, and could have kept on talking. Also with Howard Gray, where they talked about what facilitators can learn from DJs, and the conversation went on for an hour, the more they explored, the more they found the richness and more… Those guests with whom she’s built a deep connection have become part of her own network and her community.
You can connect with Myriam on LinkedIn, and also check out her site Workshops Work.
Get in touch if you would like some coaching and advice on podcasting yourself or connect with Pilar on Twitter @Inpodcasting
If you want to support this show and are looking for a media host: I recommend Buzzsprout, and for web hosting, I recommend Bluehost (affiliate links).