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Being a moderator is nowhere near as easy as many people think. This article is meant to support you
in becoming a great moderator.
Everyone has at some point in their working lives come out of a meeting feeling that it was a big
waste of time. People get frustrated, bored, lazy or just plain cynical when meetings dont
accomplish much and theres little to inspire or motivate. So, we need to do something to break the
pattern of boring or unproductive meetings!
Seminars and workshops should be dynamic, entertaining, funny and brave. If you treat your seminar
like a lecture, your audience will act like bored students. But treat your seminar like a performance
and your audience will be grateful. They will notice the difference!
Often when people come together with widely differing points of view, its very hard to hear
the other sides arguments. What you are demonstrating by being objective and keeping an
open mind is that you hear both sides. By keeping an open mind yourself, you actually model
effective behaviour from your audience. In my experience, when this happens, it does calm
people down and helps them see that there is more than one way to do things.
Being objective and neutral also entails having the ability to craft how a meeting goes, rather
than imposing your will and your point of view. As the moderator, it is not your job to answer
questions but to raise questions for your audience to reflect upon.
2. Create a nice environment: since the idea is to ease the way for people, its important not to
put anyone on the spot, embarrass or humiliate them. If anyone at the meeting puts a
colleague on the spot, you can take the spotlight yourself or manoeuvre it onto someone
else who wont mind being centre-stage for a while. It's about creating a non-judgemental,
objective environment where people feel they can air their opinions without getting shot
down or humiliated.
3. Be clear: Your job is to visibly and audibly keep the panellists (or people who will hold a
presentation) on track, thus helping the audience feel safe and secure. So be clear about
telling people why they're there, what's going to happen, and when it's going to end. Let
there be no uncertainty that you're in charge and going to make this worthwhile. Ask short
questions and make clear statements.
4. Keep it simple: Clarify! Simplify! Sometimes a facilitator acts as a translator, not only
reflecting back what theyve heard, but also interpreting it in a way that other people can
understand. A good facilitator is practiced in understanding the differing nuances, jargon and
meanings in what various people are saying and being able to explain that difference to
others. A useful phrase is So what youre saying is.. This is because what people mean
and say will often be very different from how they are heard. Try to use analogies to help
people understand each other.
5. Be prepared: You will need to have a general understanding of the subject in order to be able
to steer the discussion. Have ready a set of topic-organised possible questions, provocative
statements, quotes from documents, or whatever conversation starters you think will work.
Be prepared, of course, to abandon all of them if the discussion takes an unexpected and
interesting turn.
6. Encourage conversation: This should be obvious, but so often its not. Too many seminars
divide the time up into a few little presentations. Instead of a dynamic conversation, the
audience gets a series of slideshows. Instead, you should encourage the panellists to respond
to each other. When one panellist makes a point, ask the other what they think. If you know
that one of them disagrees, point that out. Dont be afraid of disagreement! Smart people
disagree all the time. Get the presentations going as quickly as possible, so that you leave
enough room for discussion. People will often mention something that is confusing or
controversial, but will just continue as if its common knowledge. Dont let this happen, as it
leaves a huge gap in the discussion. If the question popped in your head, it has probably
popped in the head of everyone else in the room. Ask the question thats on everybodys
mind but nobody dares asking!
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7. Be able to think about more than two things at once: You will need to be listening to the
current discussion, while thinking about the overall planned discussion, the time, how long
the current discussion has gone on, and about where you want to go next on your way to
closing the workshop.
8. Be focused: As a rule you'll never get through more than three broad issues in a single
workshop or panel, so be careful not to over-stuff the thing trying to cover too many issues
at once. Sum up, when it looks as though there may be too many ideas floating around that
need clarification from people with differing points of view.
9. Be timely: This is very important. Get the workshop started on time, keep it moving, and
finish on time. Let people see you confidently check your watch. Let people know when there
is "only five minutes left". So if a panellist is going on too long, interrupt them. If someone is
boring you, theyre probably boring the audience too, so summarise and turn the attention
to someone else. If an audience member asks an uniformed question, rephrase it into
something more relevant for your panel. Interventions can take the shape of interrupting
someone, even when theyre in mid-flow, A good, gentle way to do that is to say, Im going
to interrupt you for a moment.
10. Be fun: There are enough funereal, unsmiling, self-important, and over-serious workshop
moderators. If you don't have fun, your panel won't have fun, and your audience won't have
fun. If you created a relaxed and fun atmosphere people will be willing to share and learn
and your workshop will more likely be a success.