How to Moderate with Matt Abrahams (a16z Podcast)
The ability to paraphrase is the most essential tool a facilitator needs to have
Listen to paraphrase — this means you’re thinking “what’s the bottom line?”
Don’t listen to reply
Extract something of value, highlight, and then link to a different topic
All a good facilitator does is connect. It’s a mindset. You have to go into the situation thinking this way.
Common mistake is that facilitators go into calls with a “contributor mindset” and it’s different when you are actually in the role of moderating the call
Think: “why does anyone care?” this is the #1 question
Tip: “Bottom line is for me…” is a great mantra to deploy when you’re looking to make sure the audience gets the most important nugget
How to end meetings you’re facilitating
Endings should be concise, clear, and thought of in advance on how you’re going to end
Include gratitude: “thank you for your time and hope you’re leaving knowing [this], feeling [this]"
Do not include new information in the conclusion
It is OK to say “we’re going to cover XYZ more next time”
What to do in advance, during, and after your communication interaction
In advance, know:
who your audience is
what’s important to them
what themes do you want to get across
what’s the goal (goal = information, emotion or action - so what do you want people to know, to feel, or to do?)
do and know — we’re good at saying “here’s what you need to know and here’s the action we’re driving towards”
feel **largely underrated**- think about tone, the feeling, what kind of emotions are you looking for your audience to have?
are there any ground rules you want to establish?
During the communication interaction:
your biggest skill is your ability to listen, paraphrase, link, and bridge ideas
Afterwards:
how do you follow this up
how do you make sure the information is acted upon
how do you set yourselves up for success for the net interaction
Moderating a free flowing call vs. a more structured one
In a casual, free flowing call, your job as a moderate is to guide and steer the conversation in the direction everyone is taking it
In a panel, decision-making meeting, your job is to be more directive, monitoring the contribution, agenda and time, etc.
Techniques for linking or bridging back to central ideas:
if you have themes you’re driving towards (whether you made them or other participants did) these are the anchors you link back to
as different points come up, the moderate always comes back to that
example questions to help link back: “how does that link back to our goal?” “so how do you think that helps us achieve the goal we’re striving for?”
Visual - how people see you
You want to come off composed, be balanced
Head still, shoulders square, bring your shoulders away from your neck
Now with Zoom - we’re not used to seeing ourselves as we speak, it activates a different part of our brain we’re not used to using when we’re usually speaking in-person. Tip: better off turning on “Hide Self View” so that you’re more focused on looking at the camera
Vocal - How you sound
Human ears need vocal variety, we’re wired to habituate to things that stay the same very quickly. We need novelty and change.
Use emotive words (ie. adjective and adverbs like “really thrilled”)
Important to have vocal stamina
Recommendation: read out loud for 10 minutes a day at least a week before you’re moderating on air
Power of the pause
If you don’t pause while you speak, the listeners also get fatigued because there is no rest. Sometimes they need time to take it in.
Their pet peeves:
MATT’S BIGGEST PET PEEVE: In presentation, meetings, and panels starting with “Hi my name is and today I’m going to talk about…” Action movies start with action. Start with something provocative, interesting.
SONAL’S BIGGEST PET PEEVE: Moderator having the guests introduce themselves. This risks not setting the tone that you want. Moderator should do the intro for the guest and free the guest up to say the most interesting first thing to hook the audience. Not a good use of time to begin the conversation.