We value others who can help us. We do not instinctively value those who are smarter, better, especially those who say that they are! We value what we value, not who or what they want us to value. As Nido Qubein from High Point University advises: we the audience members, not the presenter, are the value interpreters.
This may seem like common sense but consider how some experts treat you, your teams or their audiences. Some consider themselves as full vessels, filling up the empty vessels…us!
This mindset of how we approach others signifies how we regard and value them. This has impact immediately. Have you ever felt talked down to by someone? How quickly did you recognize this was happening? This is called vertical communication with the superior one on the top and the inferior one on the bottom. This was a traditional teaching technique for physicians in residency where they would be grilled by the senior doctor, often then leaving them feeling less than adequate, humiliated, or worse!
But the successful facilitator speaks on a horizontal plane. If I can get the other to articulate what they think, feel and know, then I as the facilitator will be in a better position to teach, discuss, and encourage with mutual respect. To do this however, means to give up the natural urge to be on top. Instead, it means you are willing to listen, to really hear, and perhaps to learn yourself. Fearless facilitators who work on the horizontal plane learn something new every day, even about the area in which they are the expert!
For example, those resisting the Covid vaccines need to be first listened to, not preached at. Like our children, our spouses, our colleagues we all act in a logical way - a privately logical way as Alfred Adler taught. It may not make sense to everyone else, but it makes sense to me. Given the time and the respect, being listened to can provide an opportunity to consider change.
In our corporate meetings the same is true. Facilitate what is privately logical, listen, allow for input, allow for diversity of thinking. This is the gift of facilitation. No motivational speech is really motivational unless it allows me to change my own mind.