“We want this session to be interactive”

Yes. We do too! 

There’s only so much listening or just watching of slides we can handle. Meeting after meeting or an all-talk workshop can become a bit much ... after a full day of it, a week of it or six months of it!!

So, plan ahead for interaction. 

🌟Ask a question and for the response to be in the chat box or to share an emoji

🌟Ask a question via a poll and see the results 

🌟Share a story and ask for stories

🌟Use the Spotlight feature (in Zoom) to feature a few people at a time in panel style, group share or a fishbowl conversation 

🌟Hear several people’s stories and weave them together, finding common themes or threads 


If you’d like the session to be interactive, you can be sure the team, guests and participants will probably want it to be interactive too. 

🌟Allow the time. 
🌟Vary the activities. 
🌟Encourage ... and then let the interaction happen. 

Loosen the grip on controlling all of the information. There’s some magic waiting there to be made. 

More conversations - less presentations

As more of our meetings are online, there’s also an increase in the number of times we’re disappearing down a deep hole of ‘share screen’ and PowerPoint. 

Our meetings shouldn’t be all about the presentation, the monologue - just one or two voices. 

We can have better collaboration and co-creation online and remotely by having more conversation... the dialogue, many and all voices. 

This means we have discussion, debate and exploration of a topic and people’s perspectives of that topic. 

As we witness and experience disconnection and disengagement of people online, we’d do well to try for more conversation than presentation. 

But the pressure !!!
- what questions should we ask
- how do you get the conversation started
- how do you open things up
- and then what
- how do we summarize, synthesise or bring that information together
- what will keep it going
- and how do we wrap it up?


Each of these is a nuanced skill of facilitation - always balancing and rebalancing, conversation and making progress towards outcomes - ebbing and flowing. 

Instead of defaulting to sharing your screen, giving a presentation, try something new and default to conversation. 

Move beyond the clichés

- Let’s take it offline 
- I hear what you’re saying
- Let’s car park it 
- I’ll take it on board

These meeting clichés can be said to dismiss, defer or redirect attention. 

We might be economical, to “keep things moving”, so we use clichés for convenience. 

But they’re overused, unoriginal and predictable. 

Clichés might be convenient for you but they’re not so good for genuine, human conversations and interactions. 

People zone out. It doesn’t connect. 


Why not say what a human would say to another human, in a normal conversation style. 

Speak originally and genuinely, leaving ‘cliché city’ behind! 

The distances between us call for greater humanity and originality.

In a world where connection with each other has been impacted, it’s worth us trying to communicate in more human ways ... not less. 

How do you plan to include people

It sucks to be forgotten, ignored, excluded or left out. So in a team or group meeting, how are you planning to include people? 

In meetings and workshops we may have presentations scheduled, information to share and decisions to be made. 

But how will you involve and include people in the session? 

Inclusion happens better when it’s by design. 

We know that people get excluded, overlooked and forgotten if we leave it to chance, or our bias and ego. 

Take that meeting agenda you’ve got and work out when and how you’ll deliberately include and involve people. 

Where can you :
- Ask people their thoughts and opinions
- Encourage them to share stories
- Invite comments, answers and suggestions
- Welcome questions, queries and insights 
...and more. 

Too many meetings have the ‘any other questions?’ footnote at the end as a way of involving people. 

But by then, it’s kind of too late. 

Start sooner. Right off the bat!

Create opportunities for involvement, participation, contribution and inclusion. 

It makes for stronger engagement ... as well as better outcomes. 

Frame the reason

Received an invitation for a meeting recently and there’s nothing but a vague title of the meeting? 

The convener or caller of the meeting may know what the meeting is all about... but those expected to attend may not. 

Fast forward to the actual meeting, and it’s worth explaining some more : why we’re meeting, what we’re going to do and how we’ll do it. 

When you’ve got a room (or zoom) full of people, they need to know what this is about and why they should care. 


FRAME the reason you’re all there, what’s behind, what’s ahead and what you’re expecting or hoping for. 

That frame is a structure, a context and a framework. It supports a system. 

And that meeting is a system. 

Frames are powerful Sensemaking tools, engaging people and switching on their curiosity. 

And they’re too often left out of the work we’re trying to do together. 

Remember, you might understand why ... but they may not. 

Thankfully it’s easy fixed - with a decent frame.