How can you facilitate a discussion with participants of varying power levels?

Power is in many ways a social construct, that is it is something we have made up as human beings, ideally to help us, although when it comes to power there is often a very dark side to the way it is deployed. A suggested starting point would be to clarify the purpose of the conversation. Why are these two, or more, people talking to each other at this time, in this way, what do they hope to achieve from entering a dialogue with each other. Then I might ask, on a scale of 1-10, how open are you to hearing what the other person has to say, what would move that number up the scale? Trust works both ways and it is just as likely that the person with less "power" will dismiss what the "more" powerful person has to say as the other way around.

9 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE FACILITATORS Facilitating large groups is a highly delicate endeavor, where a single mistake, an erroneous judgment, or a lack of response can lead to losing the group’s commitment forever. With two decades of experience as a professional facilitator of innovation, I have led over 1000 workshops globally. Through numerous mistakes, unexpected challenges, and encounters with diverse human behaviors across cultures, I have gathered invaluable insights. I have distilled 9 essential habits of highly effective facilitators for you in this article: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/9-habits-highly-effective-facilitators-front-end-innovation-fztuf?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&utm_campaign=share_via

This is a bit simplistic. It ignores the reality that what is inclusive to some may be excluding of others. A topical example is that gender-neutral language tends to exclude gender-critical people, who say that sex matters, and our language (pronouns etc) should reference that, not prioritise gender identity over it.

In my experience, the simplest and best thing to do is employ the appropriate Liberating Structures for the facilitation. Open source solutions. Just search for Liberating Structures.

Here again, Kline's work is invaluable. Clearly, the emphasis on sharing the time equally that is inherent to her approach is important. But so too is the insight that our participation is equally giving others our attention whilst they are talking. Thus we should all be participating all of the time (and banish interruptive technology - people playing on their phones, laptops etc....).

Fisher and Ury's framework and principles, in Getting to Yes, is invaluable for this. This springs from decades of work at the Harvard Negotiating Project (an unimaginative name, perhaps, but it does what it says on the tin!)

It is often valuable to encourage reflection in the group on what assumptions are being made. So "what might we be assuming, that stops us being as effective as we might be?" is a fabulous question. Invite everyone to offer their views in a Round, before a more open discussion and the exploration of other possible assumptions that might be more empowering of all.