Plan for FAILure

Know when to pull the ripcord.

In my Presentation Skills and Train-the-Trainer workshops we discuss how to prepare your presentation, what makes it good, how to plan and include activities, and how to handle problem participants (like the guy who won't shut up).

What about when your planned activity or icebreaker fails? You know -- you want to do the Human Rope game, but no one is up for it. Or this is the only activity you planned -- and only 4 people are in the room. (Too few.)

Plan for failure before the class. Have a back-up activity ready to go, or know when to say, "Okay, that's not gonna work, let's go back to our workbooks." Sometimes, in a really messy situation, there's beauty in just admitting that something didn't work, and "let's move on."