If you lead meetings, trainings or events, this 60-second strategy will transform the way people engage with you. It is called the Context Hook, and it takes less than a minute to implement, usually less than a minute to prep, and it will double the buy-in people have in your next gathering.
Why No Tactic or Trick Can Make People Care About a Meeting
Here is the hard truth: there is not a tactic or a trick in the world that can trick someone into caring about a meeting. You cannot force engagement. But what you can do is give people the choice to play the same game that you are playing, to fully buy in to the purpose of your gathering.
That is exactly what the Context Hook does. It is a 60-second strategy that reframes the purpose of a gathering to create instant buy-in. And when I say engagement, I mean the real kind. Not polite nodding. Not half-hearted participation. I mean genuine, voluntary investment in what is happening in the room.
A Real-World Example: The Toughest Meeting Scenario
Let me give you an example in the hardest possible scenario.
You have a meeting that people are mandated to be at.
They do not want to be there.
You have to teach or share something that you are mandated to teach or share.
You do not even really want to be doing that thing.
This is the extreme unpleasant gathering scenario.
Here is how I would use a Context Hook. Let’s say it is a ServSafe training. I would say something like this:
“Hey everyone, as you know, we have a ServSafe training today, and I am going to guess that most of you would rather not be here. Same. I also wish food poisoning didn’t exist. I have got 80 slides that I need to go through. So I am going to suggest we change the purpose of this gathering. Instead of just doing the ServSafe training, I have planned some things that I think will make the time go quicker because they are engaging. It will create a little bit of fun, but it is only fun if you choose to buy in. My intent is to make it feel like this mandatory thing goes twice as fast so that we are done twice as quickly. Are you in?”
Do you see how this one context framing acknowledges what somebody else might care about and shapes a new purpose that frames what they do care about? In this case, that is getting out of here, because they did not want to be there to begin with.
How the Context Hook Works for Meeting Engagement
The idea is this: when a meeting or gathering starts, or people click a Zoom link to all be in the same place, the only thing that is actually shared context is the link they clicked or the room they are in. Everything else is different. They have had a different morning. They got different texts on their phone, different stresses, different kids complaining about different things. Everything is different except for the link they clicked or the room that they are in.
So you, as the leader, have to either invite the group to do something or say something that is so compelling that it invites everybody into a shared context. If you can come up with a single sentence that encompasses what everyone else in the room cares about and brings people together, that is your way of sharing an intent as a way of seeking their consent to engage in the rest of the meeting.
And if you spend a minute prepping that, you will not have to pull teeth later for engagement.
Another Practical Example: Using Silence as a Conversation Starter
Let me give you one other example. If you are in a training and you are actually teaching someone something, a Context Hook might be a quote that encapsulates a good context. I would use this quote: “Silence is the lost art of conversation.”
So I might say: “In this session, instead of me just talking at you the whole time, I want to deliberately give time for pause and reflection so you can connect with how does this matter to me at all? And so let’s practice. I actually just want to begin with 60 seconds of silence. Here is the topic for the day. I want you to just think about, in what way might this session actually impact your life? And at the end of that, I am going to popcorn out a handful of answers. Ready?”
Silence is the great lost art of conversation. 60 seconds to ponder that, and then immediately, right in the first three minutes of the session, you are having people popcorn out: “How might this topic impact your life?” You are having the group make the argument for you of why it might be relevant to be in that session.
Now, if somebody in the session says, “There is nothing relevant about this at all for me,” that is gold. The group has trusted you enough to be totally honest. And so I would fire back with them and say: “Totally get that. So let me ask you this: What is important to you? If this is not relevant or important to you, what really matters to you right now? Because I would love for this session to actually help you in some way, and I cannot make that happen unless I know what is really important for you.”
Want to try techniques like this with your team? Download our free printable cards, book excerpts, and more here.
How This Fits Into the Bigger Framework
This idea of a Context Hook is one part of a method I use to design sessions to make sure everyone is super engaged. It doubles the impact but is also designed to cut your prep time in half. You lower your effort quite a lot if you master context hooks.
But this is just one out of five ingredients.
Want to go deeper? Register your interest for The Contribution Method this spring, a live masterclass where you will learn to design sessions people actually want to be in.
I am Chad Littlefield. Have an awesome day.
