‘Any questions’ isn’t the only question

If there’s silence, people may not know what to ask; perhaps they don’t have anything to ask!

Maybe they’d like to share a story or an insight or make a comment. 

Comments and opinions have had a bad rap over recent years. 

Remember what would happen at a conference? Someone would approach the microphone and they didn’t have a question; they had a comment. They wanted to add their view and we’d get snappy about that. “Hey dude, questions only please!”

Why don’t we want to accept comments and opinions? Why are we only after questions? 

Question and answer is an interview or interrogation. It’s not really a dialogue or conversation. 

It’s a limited view of contribution, participation and interaction. 

Let’s allow anything!

I’ll often say ‘so ... questions, concerns, comments, compliments, complaints?’ 

That usually brings a smile to people and opens up the scope for all that is invited and welcomed. 

And then come all of their wonderful contributions, stories, learnings and insights. 

Magic!

‘Any questions’ is not the only way we can engage and connect with people. 

Invite more. 

“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. 

Who engages first

In a meeting or conversation, who goes first? 

Should I be actively engaged, in anticipation that you may or may not be engaging? 

Or should you be so engaging that you capture and hold my attention? 

Or can we both pay just enough attention to get by? 

So who’s job is engagement? 

The crowd says, “it’s everyones job!”, yet we still kind of suck at it. Engagement levels continue to remain low in Organisations the world over. 

Paying attention is one thing; being interested and connected to a topic, project, people or idea over a period of time is something else.

It takes work, energy and ongoing attention. 

How do we engage with people more effectively? 

Some say 
- Tell more stories
- Show more empathy 
- Have more conversations
- Ask more questions
- Focus on what’s in it for them. 

And what else?

What’s your tip - how can we be more engaging in these times?

Why aren’t they responding

Online meetings can give us the vibe that people aren’t listening, are disengaged or don’t have much interest in what the meeting’s about. 

It’s a natural response, though. We can’t pick up on those micro cues of body language that we might pick up when we’re all in each other’s company!

But don’t let this deter you from designing and delivering highly engaging experiences online. 

If you’ve asked the team a question and you aren’t getting a response ...
wait longer. 

Maybe they’re still thinking. 
Give them time to respond. 
Give them time to prepare. 

Your rush for a response might not be a match for their need for thinking time. 

Some people think before talking. Some people talk before thinking. 

To support and include all sorts, ask and wait. 
Or ask and come back to it later. 
Or ask well before the meeting and hear from people in the meeting. 

And of course, it could be the question. 

Prepare beforehand and work out what questions you’ll ask. 

We can always ask a better question. 

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.