Facilitator U.: Are You Too Smart for Your Own Good?

PHOTO COLLAGE by Matt Andrews Photography. © All rights reserved.

Ever feel like you are speaking to a room full of warm bodies, but no one is home? 

Feel like you poured your life experience into your presentation, crafted every bullet point for maximum impact, practiced your speech to perfection, suited up, showed up, but no one is even listening up?

Steve Davis of FacilitatorU.com reminds us: "Speakers and seminar leaders don't need to know everything." 

Below, Davis shares insights on how to engage participants as an authentic facilitator (rather than facilitating through speechifying).

Group Dynamics Skill

I still attend workshops, seminars, and speaking engagements where the presenter seems compelled to talk at the audience. Though I do believe they're expressing a sincere desire to teach, enlighten, and inform others with the best of intentions, how often have you actually been inspired by shear quantities of information? 

I don't give "speeches" anymore. When I'm asked to give one on a topic I feel comfortable with, I accept but when introduced as the speaker, I love to twist that perception a bit. I've been know to say, "Yes I'm going to stand in front of the room today, but I don't plan to be your speaker. Instead, I hope to serve you better by being your listener." The rebel in me revels in this!

I sincerely believe that my success as a "speaker," facilitator, trainer, teacher, whatever, rests more in my ability to hear what people need and to create an environment where they can get that from whoever can best deliver it at the time. 

Now of course, if I've shown up for a speaking gig in the hopes of getting lots of attention and ceremonious fluffing of my expert ego, I certainly wouldn't employ the above approach. But if I want to respond to the interests of the audience, then I'm going to continually refocus my attention on them. We're going to have discussions, demonstrations, and exercises and only enough focus on me to maintain the energy of focused connection and involvement among the participants.

Application

I remember once attending a workshop with an energetic healer and her husband, a psychologist, who were offering a new technique to assist people to return to their essence, and to lessen the influence of their personality and coping mechanisms that they had developed through childhood.

While I was most interested in the topic, and they had a lot of valuable information to share, they almost lost me. There was very little experiential interaction or none at all as they talked for over an hour about their mysterious techniques. It was apparent that most everyone there was puzzled and trying to figure out what it was all about. They kept asking but the explanation got more and more obscure and it felt as we were being marketed to death. 

Finally, during the 30 minutes of the 2-hour presentation, they offered an opportunity for everyone to have a short reading. Lo and behold, the seminar picked up strength, everyone started asking questions and were very involved. It was evident now through their work on us that they were quite talented and had something to offer that all the words in the world would never have conveyed. Several people even signed up for individual work afterwards.

Why do people insist on telling us when they can show us? Maybe it's just the way that we were taught, or maybe it's just the best way we know. Whenever you get the chance, teach people a facilitation tip that will make their presentations more powerful and engaging with less effort.

Tips to Engaging Participation 

• If you have the choice between showing and telling, show first, tell later. Then people know and feel what you're talking about. Also takes a lot of pressure off of you to entertain. Once you impact people with a physical or emotional experience, they'll have lots to tell themselves. 
• Talk to your audience. Ask them more about themselves and what they're interested in learning at the beginning and adjust your approach accordingly.
• Don't talk so much. Check in with your audience periodically and see what they have to say about what you're saying. Are they getting it? Do they have something to add that can amplify or validate your point?
• Get them talking to each other. Use simple methods to get participants talking to one another about their experiences, what they're learning, what they want, etc. This brings more energy and attention to the group, can mine new perspectives, and can improve the experience for everyone.