Celebrating the first Liftoff Masterclass

Some weeks ago (I don’t know why it took me so long to write this up!) Diana Larsen and I hosted the inaugural Liftoff Masterclass to teach people about launching new high-performing teams within the framework of a “Liftoff”.

We had 9 participants from a range sectors: starts-ups, banking, international development, big tech and further education, across three continents. An almost perfect mix.

It was a joy host our participants and I think I must share some gratitude - it does take a certain type of courageous and adventurous person to sign up for a completely new untested type of workshop with quite an ambitious remit.

Of course some things went better than expected, other parts were a bit clunky.

Simply, the idea was:
- Everything you need to know about Liftoff (familiarisation)
- Pick a section of the Liftoff (commitment)
- Practice that section with our AI personas online (novel experimentation)
- Now do it live in the session and everyone else will role-play a team member (do it)

Probably the most fabulous part was actually getting down to it and facilitating together. It was fabulous to see people getting involved, getting out of their comfort zones, trying new stuff, asking hard questions, and also taking the role playing ultra-seriously too. We were all dancing, learning, grokking and belly-flopping together.

And like everything there’s a balancing act between the time available and what we can realistically achieve. Our intention was to get people up and running in a day. That might be a little bit on the ambitious side! But we cannot know for sure until we’ve tried. It’s probably still possible but maybe via rearranging some content and front loading a few things, too.

What comes to mind is the advice from a friend (teacher trainer). In these situations the temptation is try to bring in too much (a fear of finishing early). Instead: take less content, but do a lot with it. So the next session will probably be a little bit longer, have a little less content and even more doing. The goal remains the same: you could start up a successful team next week.

Dates for the next session coming soon. Spring time.