If you lead trainings, facilitate groups, or speak on stages, there’s one mistake that might be quietly undermining everything you do. In this video, I share the realization that completely changed how I show up in front of a room.
You Don’t Matter and Nobody Cares
This video is going to be quick, but transformative.
The mistake that I see some of the smartest trainers, facilitators, educators on the planet make over and over again is forgetting that they don’t matter and nobody cares.
This is what a mentor of mine, Matt Church, reminded me of once. He said, “Chad, with all the love in the world, remember: you don’t matter and nobody cares.“
I realize this now when I walk into a room and a hundred other people are walking into a room, or 6,000 people are walking into an arena. The person they care about most is right behind their eyeballs. It’s not the person on stage. It’s not the person with the microphone.
The Conversation Starter That Changes Everything: Contribution Over Presentation
For me, the mistake can be remedied really quickly in this way: when you’re prepping for any session or gathering, focus all of your attention and energy on what you’re going to do and how you’re going to invite the group to contribute what they’ve got, as opposed to focusing on how you’re going to present what you’ve got.
Do you feel the difference there?
When you’re trying to be liked by a group, ironically, they probably won’t like you. Or at the very least, they’re actually forced into the role of critic. They have to either just say, “I like what he said there,” or, “I don’t like what he said there.”
Whereas, when I invite a group to contribute, they are not critiquing what I’m saying. They are focused on generating something useful to share with their small group or the large group, or whatever else.
How One Simple Gesture Sets the Tone for a Team Building Course
This is one philosophical ethos of what a mentor of mine, Rod Lee, used to do at the beginning of class while I was in grad school. We co-taught a team and leadership development course at Penn State. At the beginning of class, Rod would take a podium and rotate it around. He’d start the class by saying, “This is how this class goes,” metaphorically saying, “You are collectively smarter than I am.”
This class is really heavily designed to involve you and your contribution rather than impress you with all of my smarts and wisdom.
Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t be an expert in the front of the room and share and bestow knowledge. It just means that your expertise is butter that you get to add to the popcorn that you’re collecting from the group. It goes much better that way. It turns an education or a training context into a conversation, a back and forth where, when somebody shouts something out, I get to add to it.
How to Get a Standing Ovation
Earlier this year, I was invited to give the opening keynote for the National Speakers Association. It was 45-minutes. But I only spoke 40% of the time. The irony? I got a standing ovation with a bunch of professional speakers who are heavy critics.
I invited them to speak, and everybody loved it. When you invite people to participate meaningfully, they stop being critics. And they start being contributors.
Questions Are the Custodian’s Key
What method did I use to invite their contribution? Just questions. Powerful ones.
Questions are like keys that open doors. But one of my absolute favorite features of questions: unlike a key that unlocks the door to your car, it’s like the custodian’s key. A question unlocks many, many, many doors.
If you want to go deeper into how to ask the right questions at the right time, check out Ask Powerful Questions. But if want to try this with your team right away, try out our DIY team and leadership tools.
Master the “How” Behind This Approach
If you want to master the “how,” how do you actually make this come to life? How do you design sessions that everybody loves, where you do half the work? This is the entire ethos of the master class that I teach once a year to a small cohort of people, called The Contribution Method.
It is one of my favorite things to teach all year, and I hope to see you there. Have an awesome day.
Want to go deeper? Register your interest for The Contribution Method this spring, a live masterclass where you’ll learn to design sessions people actually want to be in.
