We are wired for social connection.

According to the polyvagal theory, our nervous system is built for social connection. Dr. Stephen W. Porges explains in his book on the topic that our vagal nerve subconsciously evaluates risks and safety for social connection, like a sixth sense.

Social interactions are at the top of the list of things that make us feel happy. Even brief and superficial interactions have an impact on our happiness. There doesn’t even have to be an exchange of words; seeing a friendly face creates a sense of social bonding.

Our capacity to bond and collaborate has even led us to world domination. As Yuval Harari explains in his book Sapiens, “The real difference between humans and all other animals is not on the individual level; it’s on the collective level. Humans control the planet because they are the only animals that can cooperate both flexibly and in very large numbers.”

If social bonding is at our core and essential in human society, it puzzles me that more than half of the conversations during meetings and gatherings I attend do not give me a feeling of fulfillment at all.

Conversations. This supposedly beautiful moment when our minds meet can become a wonderful human experience of creative exchange generating dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins. Or they become cognitively draining moments of dispute, argumentation, and disconnect catalyzed with a cocktail of cortisol and adrenaline.

How do conversations go sideways?

Imagine you are facilitating a gathering or workshop. Introductions have just finished, and the conversation is about to open up; some attendees have concerns, some are elsewhere, some are out of their comfort zones, and some just want to get things done. The conversation starts, and multiple variables now come to play, influencing the dynamic between the attendees. Here are some examples of aspects that will hinder a good conversation:

People love talking about themselves. Revealing personal information to others produces high levels of activation in neural regions associated with motivation and reward.
The prospect of disagreement with other people, and thereby the prospect of more cognitive load, can keep attendees from engaging fully in conversation. When people agree, their brains show synchrony; when they disagree, their brains show a lot more activity, planning strategies for response. When people are out of their comfort zones or don’t trust the other attendees, they expect exhausting conversations.
All the distractions from devices and our shortened attention spans make good turn-taking difficult. A fundamental feature of good conversation is taking turns in speaking in a precisely coordinated fashion. This happens based on sensory cues, especially auditory cues, but only happens elegantly and productively when people are not distracted. Full presence is required for a group to have a proper conversation as a single unit, passing the mic intuitively and providing enough space for everyone to express themselves. Bad internet connections or technological feats during online meetings certainly do not help here.
Different personalities have different ways of communicating. Some people start rambling when stressed, while others shut down. Some people like to think out loud, hoping that their talking will naturally converge into a good point to make. Others only speak when their thoughts are completely crystallized. Some people tend to easily get lost in their train of thought, and others tend to say things to the point. Some are great listeners, while others only hear what they want to hear.
Different types of voices and appearances have different levels of impact on the conversations. For example, a loud or deep voice commands attention more easily than a softer voice. And a lot has been written about the correlation between height and interpersonal dominance or perceived social status and influence.
When psychological safety is lacking, side conversations occur whereby people look for allies, for support.

I probably haven’t covered half the different variables that make up the conversational dynamic between people. Without facilitation, conversations don’t always, or maybe even rarely, reach their full potential.

What makes for a successful conversation?

Keeping in mind there are a lot of variables beyond our control as a facilitator, what should we consider before even trying to facilitate a group conversation? Again, this might not be an exhaustive list for everyone; there might be some extras you might want to add from your experience. As food for thought, here are the five most important things I consider when preparing to facilitate conversations:

Psychological safety, aka the “Safe Space”, is never a given or permanent. It goes up and down and needs to be monitored and managed throughout the gathering. People feel safe when they feel fully accepted in the group. It is a sense of significance and belonging you are cultivating among all attendees.

| Safe space opens the door to people’s minds.
Purpose is the reason why people want to spend their time and effort engaging in conversation with each other. It brings them together. Within the context of purpose, there is a chance for unity and combining forces.

| Purpose opens the door to synergy.
Diversity allows for enough variety to come from different minds and allows for balance between different types of personalities. A polarized group, for example, only men, only women, only engineers, only marketers, etc., will lead to polarized conversations. And although human brains look the same, and one is not more or less compassionate than the other, compassion is expressed in different individuals in different ways.

| Diversity opens the door to new possibilities.
A playbook is a set of agreements about how an interaction should happen. It should be unique to the constellation of the group and therefore co-created with the group. It provides ways to signal undesired behavior or situations playfully, nurturing instead of hampering connection (see A playbook for cognitive flexibility for more).

| A playbook opens the door to flexibility and creativity.
The size of a group can be a make-or-break situation for good conversation. If the size is too big, there might not be enough space for everyone to express themselves or respond to others. If the size is too small, there might be insufficient diversity to unlock new insights. In my experience, five has always been the magical number; six could work; and seven can be too many. Four might just work, while three doesn’t provide enough challenging perspectives.

| Size opens the door to balanced “turn-taking”.
Visual contact improves the level of bonding significantly. Seeing someone’s face makes a huge difference when bonding; it helps people feel connected. Really good conversation, then, also relies on eye contact. When people gaze at each other, this is the moment of peak focus on what’s being said, often followed by breaking eye contact and a decline of focus to allow for the next thing to be said. This making and breaking of eye contact is typical for good, focused, and connected conversation.

| Visual contact opens the door to deeper connection.

After opening all these doors – and some might be harder to open than others – at the other end, you will find the group’s collective intelligence to tap into. These doors lead to full presence and full engagement of all attendees for the given time of conversation.

Tapping into the collective intelligence of the group is done by something I like to call “conducting”. The word conduct implies you manage and guide the conversation. It also relates to the word conductive, referring to the quality or power of conducting electrical current or heat – in other words, transporting energy.

Where attention goes, energy flows

Where attention goes, energy flows. And where energy flows, things grow. In the same way that a plant in your home will grow faster if you give it love and attention every day, in conversation, a topic will grow if it gets attention from the group. If you allow participants to keep repeating themselves, so that the overall conversation only covers a couple of perspectives repeatedly, these perspectives will be the only outcome of the conversation. By intentionally directing your participants’ attention toward some interesting or new perspectives, you can have them invest more energy in a broader and richer conversation, resulting in a more robust conclusion in the end.

How to direct attention

Directing attention can happen in a couple of ways. First, it can be necessary to direct attention to a blind spot. A blind spot might be the perspective of a key stakeholder to consider; it might be a strategy that needs to be taken into account; or it might be important objectives, like sustainability targets. When a group of people gets deeply immersed in conversation, they might lose touch with the bigger picture. Directing attention to important blind spots can be done by asking a trigger question, which is a question that triggers thinking about the specific blind spot. For example: “What would our customers typically say about this?” or “Can this help us lower our emissions?”

Asking a trigger question to direct attention to a blind spot can be very disruptive. You can run the risk of killing the momentum of the conversation. If your question is not very clearly expressed or is too complicated to think about on the spot, it might bring a good conversation to a halt. The intention is to stretch the thinking but avoid overwhelm or confusion. If the trigger feels right, the timing still needs to be right. Launching a trigger question too soon will not be appreciated because some things still needed to be said, which may get lost. Launching a trigger question too late will feel like it stalls the conversation. But the right trigger with the right timing can boost a conversation beautifully.

With different personalities in the room, some people might not get all the attention they deserve when making a point. It can be necessary to direct attention to a point someone just made. It can be a breakthrough point but is not expressed with sufficient strength and therefore doesn’t attract the necessary attention. It could also happen that the group doesn’t see how one point made by someone completely contradicts or undermines another point made earlier. The facilitator needs to direct attention to both points again with the help of the involved participants to make sure they are taken on board.

It can also be necessary to direct attention back to the key objective or purpose of the conversation, especially when the conversation is derailed. Another good practice can be directing attention to a short summary of what has just been discussed to ensure everyone is still on the same page.

Conducting by deliberately directing attention enriches conversation in a way a group wouldn’t be able to do themselves. The facilitator is not taking part in the conversation, but they are the most engaged person in the room with the best view of where the conversation might be heading.

As the architect of the moment and the guardian of purpose, the facilitator has the ideal position to direct attention in the right way and fuel the conversation for the best outcomes.

This position also holds a lot of power and influence. If the facilitator is attached to specific outcomes, being biased due to personal interest, there is the risk that the triggers influence the conversation for the wrong reasons. It is imperative that the facilitator is neutral to any decisions. This is the “Captain’s code”, a promise to be an unbiased, trustworthy facilitator.

Conducting saves time

Directing your participants’ attention in different ways can feel time-consuming. Often the result is the opposite. Time spent in conversation will be spent more efficiently if someone points toward important clues at the right time. It is like getting important hints that lead to the right conclusions much quicker. It also uncovers angles on the topic that would otherwise get lost or come up too late to be considered.

I often see facilitators observing from the sideline when conversations take place. They are probably watching the time or thinking about the next activity, while the conversations are the essential part of any meeting or workshop. It is the moment where the group can fall into a lengthy discussion or cohere into meaningful new interpretations and conclusions. It can make or break co-creation. During the conversations, the facilitator must be on full alert to conduct.

In sum…

A facilitator can add the most value to a team when they conduct a conversation well. The level at which a facilitator can direct a group’s attention will determine the quality of the outcome of the co-creation. No one else during the gathering has a better position to do this. Being the architect of the moment, the guardian of purpose, and the owner of time makes the facilitator the most important stakeholder of the outcome of the conversations and, at the same time, the best fit to make the difference by conducting. It is the crux of facilitation, the art of connecting people for higher interpretations. A higher interpretation is a collective understanding which is reached by building on and fully embracing each other’s input without compromise.

When a facilitator truly understands the meaning of “where attention goes, energy flows, and where energy flows, things grow”, they will never allow attention to go to waste on irrelevant or repetitive things during conversations.