Engaging With the Disengaged.
One of the top five communication challenges I heard from coachees this year tied to engaging with a checked-out audience. Why? Because if we fail to interest our audience in our topic, we feel less confident and more inefficient, because we must re-explain things later. One coachee compares that feeling that comes when her audience doesn’t connect with her to quick sand. “Confidence becomes replaced with full self doubt. I literally implode,” she says.
And yet connecting with audiences, especially unfamiliar ones, has become tricky and stressful. Presenters lament that audiences often check emails or task during presentations. Others become passive listeners and input nought. When cameras stay off vs. on in remote meetings, the feelings compound. The Gallup Status of the Workplace poll reinforces this finding with only 21% of employees engaged at work. So how do we get our audience to engage with us? That’s what we’re exploring in this week’s festive season post: Five ways to hook and retain an audience.
Use the Trickle-In Time Well
When teaching and facilitating courses and workshops online, I often used the unguarded settle-in time to bond with my audience. As a reporter interviewing business leaders, the first opening minutes of the appointment also felt pivotal because the interview had not yet begun. I might ask them about their week or a recent trip or plans for the holidays. Or, I’d offer something small, funny, or personal.
Not only did this pre-event chit-chat reduce my nerves by taking the attention away from me and on to the individual or group, I could determine the energy, mood, and communication style of my audience. With groups, this insight helped me determine who to draw upon once the session begins and on what topics. With individuals, I could read their patience level, which might change how I order questions.
Create a Poll (online or in-person)
When working as a professor or corporate trainer, I found polls super helpful for aligning the group on our mission and cause. Poll results yield fodder for the opening conversations and then the lecture of the workshop or course. If you choose to poll your audience, consider a few small tips:
- Make the poll relevant and insightful. E.G. For a workshop on business email etiquette and tone in writing, I might ask which style rule feels hardest to remember: Passive vs. active voice, fake vs. real verbs, active vs. weak verbs, etc.
- Keep the poll short. Provide only 4–5 options.
- Add humor and/or lightness. For instance, one option for the which style rule evades you poll might be: All of them! I’m stuck. Help!
- Keep the poll anonymous; but feel free to ask attendees who voted for what, if it works.
Send a Short Explainer Video Prior
I learned this idea of creating and sending a short explainer video for your event from my dear coach Anita Rodrigeuz, an expert workshop host and trainer. Rodriguez says that if we set the precedent and purpose for the event prior to the gathering, you’re getting the audience excited and motivated. I’ve found that the explainer video also reduces the surprise factor that I’m a New Zealander vs. American. Some small best practices for your explainer video follow:
- Keep it short. 60–120 seconds tops!
- Greet your audience as part of the video and take care of the background, which says something about you.
- Show your own enthusiasm. Come in high energy so you can get your audience interested in what you hope they’ll learn. I’m offering a sample video I produced for fodder.
- Give them something to ponder upon. For instance, when hosting an active listening workshop, I asked the group to think of a time when they felt truly listened to — and get ready to share how it made them feel.
Set a Precedent of No Wall Flowers
To get everyone conversing, you might also consider stating at the front end that you expect (and need) everyone to contribute. I absorbed this idea from my group coaching trainer, Shawn Preuss, who recommends that we insist on everyone fully engaging for us to succeed as a group. Preuss reasoned that if a group’s coming together to grow and learn about a chosen challenge or topic, then it must become a group effort. If you’re keen to try this idea out, a few rules follow.
- State the ask for everyone to participate with affection vs. sternness.
- Show and state that you understand introverts struggle with engaging; but that’s part of the learning. Do what’s comfortable, but do engage.
- Share that contributing enriches the learning for everybody. We all have unique offerings and perspectives.
- Offer parameters and state (for remote meetings) your rules on camera on or off.
Ask Open-Ended Questions and Cold Call
I suggested polls and an explainer video as ways to hook your audience to your topic prior to the event. Using open-ended questions during the event works well, too. For instance, if you’re presenting on ways to feel more comfy with difficult conversations, ask within your talking points what feels hardest about disagreeing with a peer, direct report, or boss? What’s behind that fear? Or, what can we learn from those who seem comfortable in these moments? One short, open-ended question on a slide opens up robust discussion.
With that, cold call for responses. (It’s ok! And provided you set the ‘no wallflowers’ precedent early on, your audience won’t mind.) As you engage with your audience through cold calling, try:
- Responding first to those with raised hands; but then moving to others with short probing questions like, what else?
- Doing so in invitational vs. instructional, bossy ways. E.G. What’s coming to you, Masa? Anything additional or different to add?
- Referencing others expertise in kind vs. shaming ways. E.G. Sasha, what have you seen from your vantage point as a financial analyst vs. Sasha. You should know this answer if working in finance.
- Responding to and noticing body language and other non-verbal cues, both negative and positive ones. E.G. Nicole, I see a smile. What’s there? Or, John. What furrows your brow? Where have I lost you?
I chose how to get a non-talkative audience talking as my thought leadership topic this week because of the struggles I see in the field. The first I’ve already spoken to: Presenters struggling to engage with others. The encouraging and additional trend ties to executives wanting to feel collaborated with vs. lectured to. (Some insist only on one vs. multiple slides.) So we have an opportunity and gift before us. Pour in less. Facilitate and engage with our audiences more. Let’s go! Hopefully this week’s tools give you something to plug in and play with in the new year.
Debbi Gardiner McCullough coaches and trains immigrant leaders to become more confident, concise, and mentally fit communicators. From Wisconsin, she owns and runs Hanging Rock Coaching and serves as a communication effectiveness fellow coach to leaders all over the globe with BetterUp.