You're facilitating a meeting with attendees of various ranks. How can you ensure everyone's voice is heard?

One framework I find essential now comes from Nancy Kline’s work on creating Thinking Environments. These are places where everyone can do their best independent thinking. That must be the goal for any facilitator! Kline came up with 10 components that foster this. One is equality. Equality of time to speak but also doing away with hierarchy and establishing that everyone is an equal thinking partner in the room.

Round Robin can be done verbally or you can have everyone enter their response in the chat and then have a few share their responses verbally. This will allow you as the facilitator more control of the environment on who speaks and to what frequency.

To encourage shy or silent people in a group, many oral inclusion techniques exist such as "I would like to hear so-and-so" or "let's listen to so-and-so now" but the simplest is the written post-it note that the facilitator can then share orally. This way, even shy people can express themselves without fear of having to speak in public.

Using a tool like LSP can really get the 'quiet guy' in the room to contribute. Sometimes they have invaluable contributions that otherwise would be missed.

Make sure people are prepared. Some people like to reflect and formulate their thoughts so ensure your meeting/workshop has a clear agenda and include any pre-reading that might help people. Also ensure they understand their role and the reason they are attending so they feel supported to speak out.

?? Here's some thoughts about how to get everyone's thoughts during a workshop experience: ? Use a Me-We-Us framework that allows people to think individually first, not everyone thinks in public. ? When going into breakouts give time to pause and think before just breaking out, give some brain breathing room individually.

Important consideration: Recognizes the value of the group's time and uses it to the desired effect Remains neutral during group activities and does not try to influence the session's outcome Encourages all members to participate through interactive activities Delegates duties such as taking notes or keeping time for participants Has exceptional interpersonal skills ?and the ability to control group politics Is assertive without being overbearing Recognizes when the meeting deviates from its topic and takes action to return Remains alert throughout the meeting and can summarize what the speaker said for recording purposes Is a good decision-maker Ensures the meeting or workshop progresses toward the desired objective

Emphasize a common objective, focus on group participation, and if a safe space is not possible use anonymous participation (such as voting). Gamification can often work as well.