This is the first piece in a series called “Facilitating Life”, which will introduce you to our brilliant facilitation cast at e!. I thought it would only be appropriate to kick this series off with an article about our foremost veteran and lead facilitator, Ron Christian.

Ron has been working with e! for nearly a decade and has been part of its growth in becoming a company that works with managers and leaders across the world. Ron began facilitating 20 years ago and has degrees in psychology and adult education. A number of years ago, when ample, voluminous mustaches were very much still in style, Ron had begun doing public education workshops. Looking back, this experience segued him into the management training and development world, a path that would eventually lead him to exper!ence it.

It’s hard to describe what being a facilitator means, especially one at e!, where the job requires you to wear many hats (figuratively, and literally). “I struggle with describing what I do to people. I’m very broad. I say I’m in management training and soft skills. Then cleverly I say, ‘But soft skills are the hardest!’ I go on to explain how I work with mid-level managers from across the world and help them get good at what they do. The ‘how’ is easier to explain than the ‘what’ because we’re all over the place; it’s the moving target. The ‘who’ usually stays the same.” Being constantly on the move has become a big part of Ron’s life. He had just returned from India after extended stints in both the Detroit area and Cincinnati when I initially requested this interview.

When I asked him what his best moment on the job was, he thought about it for a quarter of a second and recalled a memory from his earliest days with exper!ence it: “I had just met (e! president) Don Jones who had designed an excellent simulation called Bridgetown and I was trained to deliver it. Don observed me, which made me a little nervous. Afterwards, he came up to me and said, ‘You did a really good job. I hope we get the chance to work together again.’ And here we are, ten years later.”

I asked Don Jones if he had a favorite memory of Ron and he said he had many, but one of his favorites was, “Coming down the hallway in the beautiful Boeing Leadership Centre, after a day of co-facilitating with Ron. I hear laughter, music and singing in the distance. I know before turning the corner who is at the heart of this. As I turn the corner, I see what I have seen so many times now: people embracing Ron in his musical world, while he sits and plays the piano and gently cajoles others to join him in his mirth and his music. That same night, the CEO of Boeing and about 25 other leaders, who may or may not have sung out loud in years before and perhaps since, did. They wont forget Ron – no one does and I am fortunate to work with him. He is one of the best facilitators I know, but he is an even better person.”

Ron always brings an immense amount of positive energy to his facilitating. With hundreds, or as legend would have it, thousands of facilitating simulations under his various belts (he has, after all, facilitated as a pirate, a secret agent, a butler and a troubadour, all of which require different mechanisms to hold up the corresponding pants), Ron has become adept at bringing somewhat reluctant participants out of their shells. “It’s kind of my sweet spot,” he suggests, “I use charm and humor, which goes a long way towards easing them into the experience. It shows them that they are in a safe environment. I also ‘jump into the pool’ first.” ‘Jumping’ is a term that describes a key e! philosophy.

Nevertheless, being a facilitator doesn’t always entail a life of glory and epiphanies. Naturally, there is a lot at stake with all of his engagements; not only does Ron need to be well-rested for his high-energy facilitating sessions, but he needs to know his material inside and out so that the clients get their well-deserved learning outcomes delivered clearly and effectively. It gets to be the hardest for him when his batteries are completely worn down. This usually happens as a result of dashing back and forth between continents and rolling out e! simulations. “Sometimes I’ll have a wide range of projects going on at the same time. I might have an Infinity Inc. engagement in Malaysia, a Sales Championship in Cincinnati and a Maxx in Montreal, all within a matter of weeks.”

All of this could present a stressful burden to an unseasoned facilitator. But Ron has some coping strategies for life on the road. “I start by de-stressing,” he explains contemplatively, “Of course I go over my notes, meet with the client, ensure that the onsite preparations are completed… and then, I do some ironing.” It’s statements like these that bring the rest of the delivery team knocking on Ron’s hotel door with creased khakis and wrinkly silk ties the morning of an event.

When it comes to describing the key elements that comprise a great facilitating session, Ron places the main emphasis on one word: ‘caring’. “Really caring that participants get the learning that they are supposed to from the simulation is number one.” Ron also suggests “seeing yourself as a part of the design and the environment that is created” and “making a demarcation between yourself as a facilitator during the simulation and during the debrief” as core components of a well-executed session.

“The experiential simulations we do are truly powerful learning experiences. We at e! are positioned to make a very positive and powerful impact.” Perhaps the wisest thing I heard Ron say during the course of this interview was his advice for up-and-coming e! facilitators: “Jump! Jump big. Don’t be afraid. That’s at the heart of my advice. It’s easy to say that because exper!ence it’s programs are so strong and well-designed that you can trust the process. You don’t have to know everything. Knowing too much can lead to over-teaching and over-facilitating. It’s discovery learning, and the participant is supposed to discover a lot on their own. We are the guides.”

I finally asked Ron what song lyric best describes facilitator life. In true Ron Christian fashion, he pointed out three Beatles songs: “A Day in the Life”, a song that exemplifies the unpredictable nature of day-to-day life, “The Fool On the Hill”, which undoubtedly represents his good humour and “We Can Work it Out”, which depicts his never-ending optimism and hopefulness. “I consider myself very fortunate to be doing this work in such an innovative and exciting company,” Ron concludes, “so to quote another Beatles song, I look forward to doing this work even, ‘When I’m 64’.”