📚The 2023 Quest Essential Summer Reading List
18 books that will help you design and lead exceptional live sessions (and become an all-around better person:)
There are a few books that have led to major breakthroughs in my facilitation practice.
They have inspired concepts and activities for my Breakthrough Facilitation course. And they have taught me life lessons that have made me a better person. I have them all within arms-reach of my desk where I lead most of my live online sessions.
None of them actually have "facilitation" in the title. But each book reveals the secrets to leading exceptional group experiences. Listening, asking powerful questions, authenticity, presence, self-awareness, gathering people, creating memorable moments, and more.
By the way… if you are interested in facilitating and leading live online sessions you’ll love my free newsletter The Quest where I share actionable insights and tips every Monday. You can subscribe 👉 here.
I am excited to share the list with you. You’ll find a summary list. Keep scrolling down for a short description of the book, how it helped me design and lead better workshops, and my 3 favorite insights for each book.
Before we dive in…
This is not an exhaustive list. There are facilitation and experience design topics that aren’t covered in these books. I am always on the lookout for books that uncover new aspects of the fascinating practice of leading groups.
This is not a representative list. Many of the authors on this list are white Western authors. There are important voices that would add diverse perspectives to design and facilitation practices - and make this a better list. I am on a Quest to find them.
Are there books that have influenced the way you lead groups? I’d love to hear about them. Drop them in the comments below.
Okay, here it is... 🥁The 2023 Quest Essential Summer Reading List!
🎨 The Art of Gathering , Priya Parker
💡 The Power of Moments , Chip Heath and Dan Heath
💪 The Coaching Habit , Michael Bungay Stanier
🔎 Insight , Tasha Eurich
🙏 Thanks for the Feedback , Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen
❓ Questions are the Answer , Hal Gregersen
🔥 Embrace Your Weird , Felicia Day
⭕The Creative Act, Rick Ruben
🗣️ Find Your Voice , Caroline Goyder
👀 Seeing What Others Don't , Gary Klein
💡 Lead Conversations that Count , Carolyn Ellis
🍸 2-Hour Cocktail Party , Nick Gray
🧭 The Heroine’s Journey , Gail Carriger
🏃🏽 Move! Caroline Williams
🪄 The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures , Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless
🙌 Get Together , Bailey Richardson, Kevin Huynh, Kai Elmer Sotto
🤝 Connected from Afar , Kat Vellos
😌 Siddartha , Herman Hesse
1. 🎨The Art of Gathering, How We Meet and Why it Matters by Priya Parker
What makes a gathering effective and memorable? That’s what Parker explores in her book The Art of Gathering. I read this book when it came out in 2018. And I have re-read it several times since.
I have used AoG to design facilitation workshops. It was also my guide for designing my son’s virtual graduation and my mom’s virtual 80th birthday.
My favorite insights:
Have a clear purpose. Knowing your “why” is how you will know what is right and wrong for your event
Don’t be a “chill host”. As the host, it’s your job to set up the rules and set the agenda “selflessly for the sake of others”.
Don’t be afraid of the heat. “Good controversy can make a gathering matter more” when some good can come out of it.
2. 💡The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
What makes for “defining moments” and how can you create more of them? That’s the question that the Heath brothers answer in their book The Power of Moments.
This book helped me to start thinking in moments. It’s helped me shift from designing workshops to designing experiences.
My favorite insights:
Design defining moments. Build “peak experiences” by adding interactive elements that spark emotions.
Break the script. Disrupt routines and welcome humanity and spontaneity into the system.
Create shared meaning. Design a mission that binds people together.
3. 💪The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever by Michael Bungay Stanier
To be an exceptional facilitator you need some coaching skills like active listening and asking questions. In the Coaching Habit, Stanier has distilled the 7 core questions at the heart of exceptional coaching.
These questions have helped me lead better group discussions. It also helped me to understand how asking powerful questions can create conditions for breakthroughs to happen.
My favorite insights:
Stop giving advice and start asking questions. Asking the right question will lead others to find the right solution to the right problem.
Ask what not why. “Why” puts people on the defensive. “What” opens up a conversation.
Get comfortable with silence. Silence lets people think and creates space for learning and insight.
4. 🔎Insight: The Surprising Truth About How Others See Us, How We See Ourselves, And Why the Answers Matter More Than We Think by Tasha Eurich
Self-awareness can be one of those fuzzy concepts that’s difficult to wrestle down. That’s why I loved the book Insight by organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich. She unveils the secrets of self-awareness, what it is, and how to build it.
This book reminded me how crucial it is to keep developing self-awareness to increase safety and trust with groups.
My favorite insights:
Self-awareness is a developable skill. It can be long difficult, and messy. And It never really ends.
Reframing helps increase self-knowledge. Looking from new and different angles gives us an opportunity to grow.
To be truly self-aware we need to know how others see us. Seek out feedback from people who will tell you the truth.
5. 🙏Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen
I like giving feedback. But when it comes to receiving feedback, well, that’s a lot harder for me. That’s why I was so happy to discover Thanks for the Feedback by Harvard profs Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen on how to receive feedback well.
This book has made me more open to receiving feedback. It has also helped me understand how to set up a framework for peer feedback in my groups.
My favorite insights:
Understand the feedback. Be curious, ask questions, and understand what they are recommending.
See your blind spots. Ask what others are seeing that is getting in your way.
“Right size” the feedback. Be aware of your own distortions so you can hear the feedback more clearly. And remember – you decide whether you take it or leave it.
6.❓Questions are the Answer: A Breakthrough Approach to Your Most Vexing Problems at Work and in Life by Hal Gregersen
A book by MIT prof Hal Gregersen that explores the power of what he calls the “catalytic question”. It’s the kind of question that helps us to dissolve barriers to thinking and limiting beliefs. The kind that helps us question our assumptions. And that helps us to channel creative energy down more productive pathways.
The result? Better answers.
Asking powerful questions is a facilitator's superpower. Gregersen’s book gave me a whole new understanding of how to get better at it.
My favorite insights:
Getting the right question is key to getting the right answer.
Questions help us re-examine fundamental assumptions.
Questioning is a muscle that we can all strengthen with deliberate practice.
7. 🔥Embrace Your Weird: Face Your Fears and Unleash Creativity by Felicia Day
Day writes a hilarious and profound book about embracing your “weird”. By that, she means the things that make you unique. She argues that your weirdness is the fuel for your creativity. It’s one of the best and most practical books I’ve read on authenticity - yet another one of the exceptional facilitation superpowers.
My favorite insights:
Being weird is about being yourself. Channeling that uniqueness helps others build trust in you.
We need to know the truth about ourselves to create. That means taking time to build our self-knowledge.
Self-awareness is a muscle we need to flex. It will make us more comfortable expressing our point of view.
8. ⭕The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Ruben
My first facilitation mentors showed me that leading groups is a highly creative endeavor. I was reminded of them when I read The Creative Act by nine-time Grammy-winning producer Rick Ruben. In it, Ruben shares his lessons on creativity from years of getting the best out of groups of musicians.
This book helped me understand the often invisible elements of being an effective guide. Especially being willing to listen for the things in groups that want to be said that haven’t yet surfaced.
My favorite insights:
Look inward. If we focus on what’s going on inside ourselves - sensations, emotions, the patterns of our thoughts - a wealth of material can be found.
Lower the stakes. Setting the bar low, especially to get started, frees you to play, explore, and test without an attachment to the results.
Accept self-doubt. By accepting self-doubt, rather than trying to eliminate or repress it, we lessen its energy and interference.
9. 🗣️Find Your Voice: The Secret to Talking with Confidence in Any Situation by Caroline Goyder
What really helps you connect to your relaxed, expressive, confident power? That’s what voice coach Caroline Goyder reveals in her book Find Your Voice.
Find Your Voice taught me how voice and breath are connected to presence – yet another facilitator superpower. And thanks to Caroline I now sing before every live session to help me tune up my voice.
My favorite insights:
Your voice is an instrument that improves with practice. The best way to practice is to sing (I have tried it – it works!).
Your diaphragm is the “king of confidence”. It helps you to control stress and keep calm in front of an audience.
We breathe our thoughts. Understanding how to use your breath is the secret to developing your presence.
10. 👀Seeing What Others Don't: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights by Gary Klein
This book by cognitive psychologist Gary Kein explores 3 key questions about insights: What are they? Where do they come from? Can you have more of them?
Seeing What Others Don’t gave me a whole new understanding of breakthroughs, and how facilitators can create the conditions for them to happen with our groups.
My favorite insights:
Insights shift us toward a new story. They help us challenge our core beliefs. They can shift us to a new set of beliefs that are more accurate, more comprehensive, and more useful.
Insights can’t be taken back. They are irreversible. He quotes Hilary Mantel in her book Wolf Hall “You cannot return to the moment you were in before”.
Insights become valuable when they are translated into action. You need to connect this new data to a challenge in order to have a breakthrough. Otherwise, they don’t count for much.
11.💡Lead Conversations that Count: How Busy Managers Run Great Meetings by Carolyn Ellis
A book by facilitator and coach Carolyn Ellis about how to transform meetings into “productive and powerful events” that people look forward to attending. She zeros in on the role of the person leading the meeting.
Thanks to this book, I gained new strategies for assessing my internal thoughts, feelings, and beliefs before my live sessions so that I can be fully present during the session.
My favorite insights:
Take time to calibrate yourself. That means preparing your awareness and perspectives, not only your agenda and ppt slides.
Check your blind spots. Notice and name your areas of discomfort beforehand rather than becoming reactive in the moment.
Create a clear intention. Notice any potential blocks or biases that may be clouding your awareness so you can be fully present.
12.🍸The 2-Hour Cocktail Party: How to Build Big Relationships with Small Gatherings by Nick Gray
A book about how to be the person who brings people together. Gray gives you a simple formula for hosting parties. Parties that help you meet people, strengthen your existing relationships, and make you the person everyone wants to know.
This book helped me understand how to apply the timeless principles of good hosting to make group experiences so much better. And that my loyalty as a host is not to a single guest <participant> but to the party <group> as a whole.
My favorite insights:
Hosting is a skill that you can learn. There are specific tactics that you can learn to get better at gathering and connecting people.
Use name tags. It’s the single biggest trick for facilitating new conversations.
Icebreakers change everything. They massively improve the odds of new connections and conversations.
13. 🧭The Heroine’s Journey by Gail Carriger
You may be familiar with Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. It has shaped modern storytelling and moviemaking (think Star Wars). And it can teach us a lot about how to design transformative learning experiences.
But as an individual quest, I always felt that there was something missing in the Hero’s Journey. Why? Because group work is both an individual journey and a collective quest.
That’s why I had a major “aha!” moment reading the Heroine’s Journey by fiction writer Gail Carriger. It’s a book for fiction writers. But there are also profound lessons for people who lead live group experiences. Especially when it comes to the power of networks and community in becoming better versions of ourselves.
My favorite insights:
On strength: Requesting help from others is a sign of strength.
On power: The heroine has her most powerful moments with others.
On endings: The heroine is more likely to get a happy ending surrounded by friends and family.
14.🏃🏽Move! The New Science of Body Over Mind Caroline Williams
Move! by science journalist Caroline Williams explores how the body can radically affect the mind.
I believe that movement is the facilitator’s secret weapon - especially in online sessions. I have seen and experienced the immediate benefits of adding movement to a live session. And this book helped me understand the science that explains why.
My favorite insights:
Movement can spark aha moments. Moving can temporarily reduce activity in the prefrontal cortex which involves inhibiting new ideas and creativity.
Dance helps groups bond. When we move together we start to lose the distinction between “us” and “them”.
Stretching can act as a body reset: A good stretch is the fastest way to use movement to change the way you feel.
15.🪄The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures: Simple Rules to Unleash a Culture of Innovation by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless
A book by two seasoned veterans of organizational change and innovation. It gets to the heart of how to engage people so they can collaborate, learn, and discover solutions together.
This book helped me understand how to tap a group’s collective intelligence. And gave me simple and easy methods to do this.
My favorite insights:
Structure helps get things done: To get the best out of groups you want to aim for well-structured and distributed control (not too much or too little control).
Engaging people is not difficult. Liberating structures are techniques that are easy to learn and apply without special skills or formal training.
In person time is for interaction. Time together is best used be used for discussing, collaborating, asking, and explaining - not lecturing.
16. 🙌Get Together by Bailey Richardson, Kevin Huynh, Kai Elmer Sotto
“Although communities feel magical, they don’t come together by magic”. In Get Together, People & Company founders Richardson, Huynh, and Sotto dispel the magic of how to cultivate community.
In this book, I learned actionable ways to create a community with people, not for them.
My favorite insights:
Spark the flame. Pinpoint your people, do something together, get people talking.
Stoke the fire. Attract new folks, cultivate your identity, pay attention to who keeps showing up.
Pass the torch. Create more leaders, celebrate together.
17. 🤝Connected from Afar: A Guide For Staying Close When You’re Far Away by Kat Vellos
A beautifully designed guide to cultivating your most important relationships by experience designer, speaker, facilitator, and entrepreneur, Kat Vellos.
The book contains activity and discussion prompts to help you deepen existing relationships from a distance. It gave me a bunch of ideas for connection activities to do in pairs for groups who already know each other well.
My favorite activities:
Highlight Reel: Come up with cherished memories or highlights that you have with the other person. Come up with a creative way to share these memories with the other person.
Brag, Baby: Tell each other about a time that you did something that you were really proud of. The person listening is an amazed, enthusiastic, effusive superfan. Then switch.
Quotable: Come up with a wise, clever, silly, or sage saying that the other person has said (or would say) that everyone in the world should hear and repeat forever.
18. 😌Siddartha, Herman Hesse
You may be wondering what Hesse’s epic book on enlightenment is doing on our facilitator reading list. Good question!
This book helped me understand some of the more profound concepts of exceptional facilitation that are not always easy to grasp. Concepts like attunement, deep listening, curiosity, engaging our many ways of knowing, and more.
My favorite insights:
You cannot learn by studying alone, nor only through life experience. It is the combination of the two that leads to true understanding.
We all have many ways of knowing. Finding out how to engage these ways can help you examine your own assumptions and free you of the expectations that others have of you.
Nature is often our best teacher. It was a river that teaches Siddartha his most profound life lessons.
Gwyn Wansbrough is a Facilitator and Experience Designer based in Barcelona, Spain. She helps online professionals design & lead instantly engaging virtual group sessions with training and coaching. She runs an online cohort-based course called Breakthrough Facilitation. She writes a weekly newsletter called The Quest with actionable insights and tips on leading exceptional online sessions. Visit www.gwynwansbrough.com to learn more.