What Moderating World Leaders Taught Me About Great Communication with Xenia Wickett

What does it take to guide a conversation between people of power, influence, and sometimes completely opposing viewpoints? Well, my guest today knows all about that, and that's what we're going to be exploring right here. I'm Sarah Archer, and this is the Speaking Club Podcast, designed to help you become the highlight of any stage you speak on and to land more gigs and clients. So yeah, today I'm speaking to someone who has spent years sitting in one of the most interesting seats in the room. Not the keynote speaker, not the MC, not the expert, but as a moderator. My guest today is Zainia Wickett, and she has been the person responsible for navigating complex topics and wrangling competing perspectives to elicit brilliant conversations that deliver value for the audience. And over the years, get this, she has interviewed CEOs and senior policymakers and people like Elon Musk and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Wow. Which means she has been in some pretty interesting conversations. And Zainab has spent her career working at some of the highest levels of international affairs, advising governments and businesses, and as we've talked about, moderating these big conversations with CEOs, policymakers, and world leaders. So alongside that role, today she also helps execs find their way through some of the ever-increasing challenges of leadership today. So in this episode, what we're going to explore is all about moderation. What makes a great moderator? How to negotiate those difficult conversations? What happens when things don't go to plan? And how speakers can learn from someone whose job is to bring out the best in others. Let's get Right into the conversation.

Welcome to The Speaking Club, Zainia Wickett.

Hello, it's lovely to be here.

It's lovely to have you here. We were, we were just having a little chat before we started recording, and I said that I hadn't had anyone with your background on the show with your skill set, and I'm really looking forward to sharing all your wisdom and expertise with my audience. So let's start off with your career. So you've had a career that's like spanning intelligence, international affairs, government, business, now advisory work. And looking back, what were the key moments, do you think, that led you to become the person that people trust to moderate some of the world's most important conversations?

Wow, what a question. So I wouldn't say it's a moment, right? I mean, as you say, I've had an extraordinary career, very unintentional career, a career driven by curiosity, which is something that I will probably bring up over the course of this conversation, 'cause I think it's a very important characteristic of a good moderator. But it really is 25 years of having conversations with really interesting people and the need and those conversations to synthesize, to analyze, to distinguish signal from noise, key points, and to listen. So it's whether at the State Department, whether it's the National Security Council, Chatham House, Harvard University, NGOs, it's always been this idea of how do I take a conversation, analyze what matters, synthesize the information, draw in other information from other sources and move the conversation forward. So I've been doing that ever since I remember, and that is what makes a great moderator.

Brilliant. And what, so what was your like first job? Let's just out of curiosity. Oh God.

My first job, I worked as a strategy consultant. Well, no. Okay. If we're really gonna go back, probably my favorite job ever was 16 working in a bookstore. But putting that aside, my first job on graduation, like most people, didn't know what I was going to do with my life, and I became a strategy consultant. And again, phenomenal skill set in terms of you get given a huge problem. How do you break that problem into the subsets? And then how do you answer each of those subsets? And I was taught in each of those subsets to figure out the one thing that really mattered. and answer that per slide, right? Again, signal from noise. I worked for, for better or worse, I worked for the US Vice President Dick Cheney after 9/11. And one of the things he was phenomenally good at, you can critique his policy, I often do, but he was phenomenally good at making decisions. And what he would do is he would facilitate a discussion amongst his team, people who hold different views. And then he would figure out, what is the one question we need to answer to make a decision on this? He'd ask the question, he'd get an answer, he'd say, okay, decision made, let's move on. And that's what moderation is, in part, about, right?

Yeah.

It's about listening to all of these points of views, eliciting all of this information, and then figuring out what are the 1, 2, 3 questions that really matter, Getting answers to those, moving on.

Interesting. It feels like that is a completely opposite way to the way things are being done right now, just from observing. But, oh, that's really interesting. Okay, so how did you get into moderation as you do it today? Do you remember the first time that you had to moderate or chair a high-stakes discussion, or was that even before you thought to do that As a sort of side gig, if you like.

As an occupation, absolutely. Before I thought of it as a side gig, I was— I think the first time I did it in a really structured way was I had been working in the White House at the National Security Council. So notwithstanding the British accent, I'm half American. And I left and I went back to my graduate school to be executive director of an organization called the Belfer Center, which is Harvard's preeminent international affairs think tank of sorts. And I suddenly found myself having to moderate conversations because we would have presidents and prime ministers and foreign secretaries and business leaders and all of these people come through. And I found myself sitting across the table with them facilitating a conversation. And I think because I'd spent the last 4 years in Washington and the last 18 months in the White House. It didn't faze me to sit there and have conversations with people. It was just, well, that's what I did before. This is what I'm doing now. I just happen to do it with an audience now. And so again, I don't think of moderation as really, it's not a separate skillset. It's about your ability to prepare, absolutely key, and then to, be in the moment as the conversation goes on so that you can figure out, back to this idea of signal from noise. My business is all about helping my clients distinguish signal from noise. What really matters? That's how you move from an interesting to an impactful conversation. So moderation is no different from, from that. But it was, it was Harvard and I suddenly found myself moderating 4 meetings, you know, a week. And so I kind of distilled what you do, and that was now 20 years ago. So I've been doing this for 20 years.

Wow. And you, you use the phrase signal from noise. So how would you just sort of give a definition of signal and noise just so that we can sort of unpick that a little bit?

So, uh, let me give you a, a couple of examples, right, that come about in my life. So in addition to being a moderator, I'm an executive coach.

Mm-hmm.

And I will say the executive coach skill set is really, really useful for the moderation skill set. It's really interesting, the overlap between those things. But anyway, um, as an executive coach, I might be sitting with a client who is trying to figure out where they go next.

Mm-hmm.

In their life. And the conversation we will be having is, here are the 7 things that I need to think about, right? I, I, I need a title, and, and I need pay, and I need to be in this location, and I need, I need to be doing this kind of thing, and I need to be working with these kind of people. And actually, the reality is, is that when you distill it down, it's probably just 1 or 2 things that are going to move the needle for that individual.

Right.

And it's so, uh, in that context, it's about what, what can we let go of? What, what actually rises to the top? And I, I say I do that in an exec coaching context, but I also do that on stage. So, um, I've been doing, uh, moderating conversations for a big energy conference called ONS for many years, uh, based in Norway. And a few years ago, they asked me to moderate some of the leadership conversations. And then you're sitting on stage with a CEO And what you're trying to do is, what of all of the stuff that they're talking about, what's the 1 or 2 really key things that have factored into their decision-making? So whether it's John Browne from BP or it's Elon Musk, you know, it's not what are the 10 things, but what are the 2 things that really affected their decision-making, right?

Mm-hmm.

So that's what I mean from signal from noise in a leadership context. Signal from noise in a geopolitical context is for a business. And let's say they're in logistics, right?

Yeah.

And they're reading the newspaper every day, and there's an election in Colombia, and there's a British Prime Minister who's resigning, and there's the latest thing on AI, and Trump is doing something, and there's a bilateral between the Chinese and the Americans. And we haven't even gotten into what's going on in Gaza and what's going on in in Iran at the moment, right? And for that business, some of those are, they're just noise. They're not going to make massive changes. So, I'll give you an example. US midterms in November of this year.

Yes.

It would be very easy to get absolutely captivated by what's gonna happen in the midterms and are the Democrats or the Republicans gonna take the House and the Senate? And what does that mean for Trump? And what does that mean for policy for the next 2 years? For, I would say, most companies and most individuals, the midterms isn't gonna make any difference, right? Because Trump doesn't really feel constrained by Congress.

True.

So the midterms is noise for most people, not all people, but for most people. But something else, it might be something very small, some regulatory change might be signal for an individual or an organization. So the art of facilitating a conversation, and this is the pre-work right, is understanding who's gonna be in the room. At the beginning of this conversation, I said, who's your audience, right?

Yeah.

Who's gonna be in the room? What is it that matters most to them? What is it that's gonna change their decision-making? And then that gives you your prep work to know, okay, it's these 6 topics that my audience are most interested in. And let me understand how I need to prep for those 6 topics so I can go into the conversation and make sure we cover those issues because that's the signal for the audience. Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I like the way that you, you are as a moderator, as you are as a general speaker, there to serve the audience. As a podcast host, you're there trying to get the best answers from the, the, you know, the, the panelist or whatever guest so that, and you're always thinking, what does my audience want to know? That's what, that's what it sounds like. It's a very similar sort of situation for you.

100%. And the feedback I get from my clients, right? So in your case, right, you are both the client and you also really understand the audience. But what I hear often from my clients is they haven't really thought about what they want to get out of the event. So the feedback I get from my clients is the work I do with them to help them to really understand what they're trying to achieve. You know, are they trying to bring everybody in the room on board with a common understanding of what's going on? Are they trying to build a network or relationships? Are they trying to move the decision forward? Um, are they trying to make decisions in the room?

Right.

And it's the work you do Most of moderation, effective moderation, isn't what you do on stage. Most of effective moderation is what you do before you hit the stage, right? It's helping the client understand what they're trying to achieve, helping them understand how is the audience walking into the room, how do you want them to leave the room, and therefore what do you as a client need to do to get them from A to B in the most effective way possible? And bluntly, most people don't think about this when they're organizing an event. They just go, oh, It's time for our annual event, or it's time for whatever.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That's, that's really cool. That's, uh, and clear. And, and so let's go back to the first time that you moderated as a professional. Let's say, let's say that. Okay. Did you understand the intricacies of it at that point? Or when, at what point did it occur to you in, in that moderation That, you know, how things worked?

So I didn't, right? So, um, I'm, you know what, I'm trying to, probably 20 years ago and I can't remember far, that far back. But no, I don't think I had any idea. This is 20 years of doing this again and again and again. I think, I probably think when I started, not only did I not have a clue, but I, I said at the beginning of this conversation, I mentioned the word curiosity.

Yeah.

Right. And I think if there is one characteristic that serves a moderator well, it's curiosity. So when I get up on stage with, whether it's, you know, the Elon Musks and the Vladimir Zelenskys of the world, or it's a panel of young leaders who most people haven't heard of, probably the most valuable characteristic that I think you bring to the table is curiosity. In the end, I'm just interested, right? And so I think what got me through those early years was just, I'm an inherently curious person. So I wanna know about you, Sarah. I'm here talking about myself, but I'm far more interested in you.

Yeah.

And it's that curiosity. You just go into a conversation with curiosity, with interest, and chances are you won't do Too badly. Right now, if you add to that curiosity, preparation, understanding signal from noise, ability to listen, to analyze, then you'll, you'll go to new levels. But actually, I think at the beginning, I just took— I just brought curiosity into the room, and that, that counts for a fair amount.

Cool. And developed—

How did you start doing this? Yeah. So, I mean, you, you are moderating right now, right? So what was your first?

I mean, I would say I have a, a very, you know, I have an affinity with the word curiosity because I am very curious all the, all the time. I love to find things out. I love finding out about people. And so I think in a sense, that is one part of this. But yeah, I just, I had a passion for sharing information about speaking and, and I haven't got all the answers. So I need to bring in people who, who do have, but you're right. I think the thing is, I think, you know, when I speak to a guest, I have a set of questions that I want to make sure that I cover some ground for my audience. But as I always say in the emails to guests, I'm gonna potentially go deeper. or divert off. And that's where I let the curiosity lead me and also try and keep that voice of my audience in my head. You know, if I was them, what— and that came up, what would I want to know next?

Yeah.

And I also think there's a correlation with speakers. Just, I know we're talking about moderation here, but as a side note, when you're preparing your talk, anyone listening, you need to have that in the back of your mind when you're creating your content. If you say something, your audience will have a reaction and you need to be preempting that reaction so that you can deliver the answer to the question or the concern or the doubt or whatever it is in their mind. So as a side note, so I hope that answers your question.

It does. And if I may, let me riff off that a little bit. So, um, I'm a speaker as well, right? And 100%, the place to start is what is it that your audience wants?

Yeah.

Um, and what is it that your audience needs? So 100%, right? Um, and otherwise you're using the same speech for everybody and people are off checking their emails. Um, but let me pick up something else you said, which was around, you know, one of the pieces of pre-work I do is, so let me just take the, the Elon Musk ONS example, right? So I got about 6 weeks notice that I was gonna be interviewing him on stage in front of thousands of the top global energy experts, right? Little nervous. And the work I did for that was I actually, I used to work in the energy space. So I called up 10 of my energy friends, people who looked like the people who were gonna be in the audience and said, if you had the opportunity to sit down with Elon Musk for half an hour, What would you ask? What would you wanna know? And I went on LinkedIn and I crowdsourced it. I said, I get to sit down with Elon Musk. What would you ask? And so I collated all of this information that the people in the room wanted to know about. And it was extraordinary. It meant for a totally different conversation. My, I knew what the audience wanted.

Interesting. And how, I mean, I've got some questions around handling panelists, but going to that particular interview, since you've brought it up, how challenging was that conversation? How much did you have to lead that, you know, Elon, or did it head off in all sorts of different directions? I can't imagine he's a straightforward person to interview.

So He took me unawares. So I'm on stage, do a bit of an introduction. I ask him onto stage with me. So he comes on stage, we sit down, and anybody who's interviewed big names will know they kind of think that, you know, they're the main guy, right? And you, the moderator, kind of not terribly important.

Yeah.

And he completely took me unawares. So what he did was he sat down on stage and he looked at me and he picked up the jug of water between us and he said, would you like some water?

Interesting.

Little thing, right? But what it told me is that my preconceptions about this kind of arrogant, egotistical, self-centered, narcissistic, any of the words that is what you see in the media wasn't 100% true, right? Here was a man who, even though he knew he was the guy, he was asking me whether I wanted water. Small things. The reason that's important is it completely shook my, you know what, I don't know this man, right? I've done a whole load of prep, but I do not know this man. And a curiosity came back of like, okay, I need to learn something from him. So to your question, It was one of the hardest interviews in some respects that I've ever done because I'm a reasonably smart woman, right? He's got a brain that works in a fundamentally different way.

That's right.

And in order to moderate him effectively, I'd done all this prep, but you actually have to listen and be able to go with them on the journey in the conversation. And the speed of his brain meant that I felt like I was holding onto him with the tips of my fingertips. in order to keep up with where he was going in the conversation so that I could make sure that it was a conversation. It wasn't me just reading from cue cards, right?

Yeah.

And that is absolutely key, is listening and holding a conversation with your panelists, in this case with one individual. And that was what made it hard, was that his brain is just so extraordinary that I had to be sprinting in order to keep up. Um, there's only one other person who's ever made me feel that way, and that was Larry Summers. And again, his brain is just so extraordinary that in order to have a real meaningful conversation on economics, uh, I had to be sprinting. Yeah, but that's fun, right?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I mean, we've, we talked about— you talked about energy, you just mentioned economics there. You, in prepping for some of these panels, interviews with some of these big players, I'm assuming that ahead of time you're, you're not an expert in necessarily all of the topics that you're conversing on. And obviously you mentioned you phoned up your energy friends. How much, how deep do you have to go ahead of one of these conversations in the topic to be able to contribute meaningfully to that conversation and guide it in the direction that it needs to go?

It's a great question. So the answer is I'm never going to be the expert. I'm not supposed to be the expert, right? I've got the expert sitting on the panel next to me. I have to know enough that I have to know— the way I prep is I figure out what are the top 6 or 7 topics that we might cover, right? So in Elon Musk, it's now 6 years ago, I can't remember. But, you know, there was probably something about EVs and there was probably something about US-China. There might have been something about then Twitter, you know, X kind of. And then I figure out what are the key questions under that. So again, going back to my consulting days, what are the big questions? How do you break it down? What are the questions under that? And that I do by talking to people who are experts. So I'm fortunate enough to have worked in 5 or 6 different countries and worked in multiple sectors, government, nonprofit, NGOs. So I've got a pretty good network at this point. And I just reach out to people who might be experts. And most of them, the interesting little fact is that if you call up people and say, can I get half an hour of your time to talk about something that you are passionate about? Most people will say yes.

Yeah.

Right? And so anybody who's trying to be a moderator, you may not think that you've got a network. Trust me, you do. You know people, or you know people who know people. And don't be afraid to reach out because most people will appreciate the opportunity to spend half an hour talking about a topic that they're passionate about. And so that's the prep work you do so that you really, you know, I'm a meter deep Right? But I'm very broad. Yes. And then, and then it's about letting go in the moment. So, you know, all of that, letting go in the moment and listening to the conversation and bringing your listening skills, bringing your analytical skills, um, bringing your own experience to the table, you know, and being able to go, well, I don't know anything about these, but I do know something about something else, and I wonder whether it's the same. Right. And bringing that experience. And so making links between sectors and being able to do that in the moment. And all the best moderators, that's what they do. They don't stick to a script.

Yeah. Interesting. And, you know, the question that's come to my mind now is obviously, in a sense, your career was preparing you For this job, this role, how much of it in terms of being able to moderate effectively is innate natural ability or natural curiosity versus a skill that you can develop? Is it— can someone become a great moderator? And learn how to do it, or do they need to have some things that are just as part of their personality or experience?

So my belief is it's, it's almost all learned. Curiosity really helps, and the ability and willingness to listen is absolutely vital, but you can learn to do that, right? So I actually think you know, let's say 80% of it is maybe even 90% of it are skills that you can learn, but you really need to want to learn them.

Yeah.

Um, you know, the, the, the little secret is I'm an introvert. So, you know, give me a book and a room and I don't have to talk to anybody and I'm ecstatic. That's my happy place. So this is learned for me, right?

Yeah.

And it's, it, I, I didn't consciously decide to learn, but again, back to this idea of curiosity. One of the things that I will tell my speakers, so again, if you're gonna do one thing before you moderate a conversation is talk to your speakers in advance. Every so often you can't do it, but I will always try and do it because there's a whole load of things that come in the advanced work. But one of them is effectively letting them know who's boss, even if you're talking to Elon Musk or Zelensky or Schultz. Part of that pre-conversation with your panelists is about understanding what they wanna talk about, right? It's about framing the space, framing how you're gonna turn up, framing how they're going to turn up. So all of this is learned stuff, right?

Mm-hmm.

And the thing that I tell them is if we're successful, particularly when you've got a panel, if we're successful, success is gonna feel like you are 90 minutes into a really good dinner party.

Yeah.

Right? Where you've just gotten to know one another well enough that you're willing to push back on one another, but you're riffing off one another. Like, if you can get to the 90 minutes into a dinner party place, That to me is, for the most part, a successful conversation. And we've always, everybody has been 90 minutes into a dinner party, right? So we all know what that feels. So that's what you're trying to create is that sense. That's something everybody's done.

That's really cool. I like that. And it's a good segue into the next question, which is around discussions where, you know, like you said, you get to the point where you feel you can push back. I'm imagining that you've chaired discussions where people do disagree strongly. How do you keep a conversation productive without shutting people down?

It's a really good question. So I think first of all, I mean, you're gonna hear me say it and it's unsexy, but it's back to the prep, right? So one of the mistakes that lots of people do is They assume that all the work is done up on stage. And I would say 90% of the work to moderate a good conversation or even to chair a good meeting, right? Same, exactly the same skill, exactly the same skill set, exactly the same process is done before you get to the meeting, before you get on stage. And so the pre-work is, I mentioned earlier, You know, I don't care how senior your panel is. When you're on stage, you, the moderator, are boss and they need to know that, right? So one of the things I always tell my panelists is, here's the sign I will give when you're going on too long, because I want them to know, because as a speaker, sometimes you don't know how long you're going on for, right? I mean, it's actually very hard to tell time. You get passionate, you get excited, and then you go on too long. In fact, you're probably sitting there going, oh shit.

I know.

So the work that you do to manage disagreement is done in advance. Okay? The part of it is, can you set up a meeting where everybody is on the call at the same time so that people get a sense of what people's arguments are gonna be and they get to start to lay the groundwork about where the disagreements are gonna be and what people are gonna be saying. They then turn up to the conversation feeling a lot more secure, a lot safer. That changes the tenor of the conversation. The question I will always ask my panelists are, if there is one thing you want the audience to go away with, what is it? And that's where I try and start the conversation. And again, this is about helping my panelists feel safe, feel secure, helping their comms team know that they're gonna have an opportunity to send the message that they want. Once they've done that, everybody relaxes, right? It's making sure that the conversation on the panel isn't ad hominem. They're not attacking one another as individuals. They're attacking or they're disagreeing about ideas.

Yeah. Right?

And so it's placing the conversation in a different context. Disagreement is great.

Yeah.

But I will say I'm not one of those moderators that say, people have to disagree. Agreement is also great. If you're in the audience and everybody agrees on a point, that's a really important thing to know, right?

Mm-hmm.

So both of those things, as far as I'm concerned, are very valid, very useful. But the way to stop it being angry is the work you do in advance.

Interesting. Now, I, I would be remiss not to ask this because you've mentioned the name a few times. Um, how was the conversation with Vladimir Zelensky? Um, he seems to— I mean, I would imagine he's a little bit more cautious, uh, since he had that interview in the White House. Um, but how did— how was that conversation, um, in terms of you know, his approach, his style?

So let me say 2 or 3 very quick things. I mean, the first is I will never give my panelists my questions in advance. If you give them questions in advance, it means they or their comms team prepare answers, right, which are the most boring things to listen to as an audience, right? My one exception was Zelensky. Because when you're talking to a leader who's in the middle of a war, it's kind of not fair, right?

Yeah.

So, that was the only exception to the rule. At the time, this was shortly after the war started, maybe kind of first 8 months. Perhaps— so, pre the White House interview. Perhaps because he was nervous, uncertain, I don't know. It was a virtual interview. It wasn't in person.

Yeah.

Um, uh, he talked and gave very, very long answers, right? And again, it's normally I would call my speakers on that. If you're recently at war, I didn't think it was appropriate, so I let him, I let him go on. But that was the one, uh, the one thing that really I, I remember from that. You asked a question earlier about signal from noise. So you referenced the White House meeting where, uh, Trump really gave him a dressing down, um, and Vance gave him a dressing down for what he was wearing, right? Noise. That is noise. That is pure noise. So it's not a signal. It wasn't going to change— was never going to change America's attitude towards Ukraine. It was a media frenzy that we saw. Now, you can, you can have views. I certainly have views about whether that should have happened, how it was handled, etc., etc. But that's an example of pure noise. I'm not interested in having conversations about noise.

Yeah.

And neither are my audience, and neither are my clients.

No.

And I think that's a very— it's a very good tool and technique that is deployed often at the moment to distract in some ways, I think, from From some of the more important things that are happening.

And your panelists will use it, right? So that's why give them an opportunity at the beginning of the conversation to say what they wanna say, right? And then do your prep, put it aside in the moment and listen. 'Cause it's only the ability to pick up threads from what they're saying so you can drill deep that will allow you to get beyond the noise.

Yeah, that's brilliant. Really good tip. Now we've talked about the panelists and I'll, we'll come back to that, but there is the other part of the equation that you need to be mindful of, and that's the, the audience. How much does the audience register for you when you're moderating a panel? How do you, do you pay, how much attention do you pay to them? Do you understand when they're starting to disengage? Does that happen? Um, how does that figure for you, Xenia?

I would love to say an audience of mine never disengages, but of course that is not the case. Absolutely, it's key, right? So there are, there are 3 key stakeholders that you have to think about when you're moderating. You have to think about your clients, who's, who's putting on the event. You have to think about your— and by the way, your client may have different audiences, right?

Mm-hmm.

So, and again, moderation, very similar to chairing. So if you're chairing a meeting, exactly the same. If you're chairing a board meeting or board and executive. You may have multiple stakeholders within the client. So really important to know that your panelists or your speaker is a stakeholder. I would argue they're the least important stakeholder, but actually, if you want to have a good conversation, you kind of need them to stay on side in some form or another. You can be hard-hitting, but you still need them to be working with you rather than against you. I believe there are moderators out there who don't necessarily agree. And then the final is your audience.

Hmm.

Um, and so absolutely key to know what's going on with them. I will always say to clients, um, bring in the audience if you can, as soon as you possibly can. And I've got clients who are afraid of opening the audience to Q&A. And I, with very, very few exceptions, I think that is a bad idea because what audience, if you're organizing a day-long event and you've got no opportunity for the audience to talk to the speakers, they will disengage.

Yeah.

They will disengage, right? Humans aren't designed to sit and listen for 8 hours and not engage. So you have to give them a medium for engaging. Now, there's all sorts of ways of doing that if you're afraid of what they might engage on. You can, these days, you can do it through, you know, Mentimeter and all sorts of online tools where you can curate the questions, right? Doesn't necessarily, I will always, again, if I have an opportunity, you know, I will say, pick 3 questions because then if there's one question that isn't either isn't a valuable question or is focusing on noise or the panelists really don't wanna answer or is uncomfortable, they answer the other questions. So there's all sorts of ways to engage, but it's, you're 100% it might, you have to be in a conversation not just with the panelists, but with the audience, right?

Yeah.

And so even from where you sit matters. Do you sit facing your panelists? Do you sit facing your audience? Or do you skew the chair so that you can do both at the same time? The kind of physical surroundings really, really matters. I've moderated conversations where I'm walking around amongst the audience, Right, as a way to bring the audience in a kind of cabaret style, bring the audience into the conversation so that they feel like they're part of the whole experience. All of these things matter and affect the tone, the tenor, the feel of the conversation. And all of these things are things that your client needs to be thinking about in advance.

Yeah.

Actually having a stage up front Is sets a feeling amongst the audience that they are almost there as supplicants, as listeners only, as not engagers, right? You're essentially saying to your audience, the panelists are more important than you.

They're above you. Yeah.

Exactly. And actually, if what you want is you want a kind of productive, engaged conversation, have tall seats up front so people, people can be seen, but they're at the same level as the audience. Have— bring— find ways to don't have an audience, um, kind of concert rows of seats, have them on tables. Totally different vibe, right? And this matters when you're planning your event. So hence 90, 95% of the work is done beforehand.

That's really interesting. So I work in a theater as well. We have, uh, in the theater we have a thing called in the round. And I was just imagining having, having your, a different, real different setup for an event like this where you have your panelists in the center. And the audience all around.

Yes.

It would be a really interesting vibe.

I've done that. It's incredible, right? Where you're— I've both done it where, you know, one-on-one and you're sitting there with 2 seats and everybody is around you. And I've also done it where there were 3 speakers, there was a panel. And so we were kind of on each of the corners and then in the round. And then, you know, I as the moderator was able to jump into the audience and I knew a lot of the people in the audience. I knew the topic. I knew who was sitting in the room. So I was able to both ask my panelists questions, but, you know, reach out to the audience and say, Christian, I'm going to come to you in about 5 minutes because you really know this topic, and I want to bring the European perspective or the French perspective into the conversation. And suddenly I'm proactively reaching into the audience to bring their views. Totally different conversation.

And it's almost like you're co-creating that conversation rather than it being Yeah, the moderator, the panel, and you're kind of observers. It's a different, different feel. That's really cool.

And you're brainstorming ideas, right? You're bringing in, you know, most of the conversations that I moderate, the people sitting in the audience are experts too. They just hold a different perspective, right? So let's get that intellect, that brain, that perspective into the conversation. If you really want to shake things up, to move the agenda forward, to be impactful, Why would you leave those brains out? Crazy, right? But most people do.

Yeah, that's really cool. Thanks for, thanks for sharing. Yes, it is. Yeah, it is.

Um, you can see I'm passionate about it, right?

I can.

If done, if done right, it's extraordinary.

Yeah, I feel, I feel like you can completely level up the experience if you, if you take the sort of IKEA approach and bring and help, you know, they create, they're more bought into everything. They'll have a better experience. It's a win-win for all. all the players in the conversation.

So, but again, it starts from the point, what is the purpose of the conversation? What is your client trying to actually achieve? Because if they don't want to do that, if what it is is about informing, right? So I've moderated, facilitated, and spoken at, I'm thinking of a particular example, new CFO of a multinational was bringing their global leadership team kind of 2 or 3 layers down. So there's about 170 people in the room. And it was all about bringing them onto the same page.

Yeah.

Right. And so we split the event up into me talking about geopolitics, what I saw, right? Because they had people from Brazil and Uruguay and China and Europe and, you know, Africa, global. So me saying what I saw and then facilitating a conversation with people in the room so that actually I was The intent was bringing their voices out, their perspective out so that you could actually bring them together on a common, a common understanding. Other times, you know, if it's Elon Musk, this is about making a blast, getting people in the room, and actually people just wanna hear from him, right?

Yeah.

Then not appropriate to bring in the audience.

Yeah.

So again, really different. Yeah, you have to know what the purpose is.

Yeah, to be able to manage the dynamics in the right way for every, every segment.

And to plan for the dynamics, right? Do you have roving mics or not, depending on what you're trying to do? How do you time it? Who needs to be on stage, etc., etc.? It's all in the planning.

Lots of stuff there. And I think that's, I think people will underestimate this role and think it's like, well, I'll just prep some questions and answer those questions, but there's so much more to it, and I'm so pleased that you're bringing that out so people can really understand what goes into a successful moderation. Question I have next is, what's the one thing that speakers do that drives moderators quietly mad?

The most obvious answer to that is You've prepped them and you've said no introductory comments, right? I will ask you a question that will give you the opportunity to say what you wanna say. Um, and, you know, 90 seconds, 2 minutes, and then they go on for 4, right? And immediately the energy in the room has gone down. Even the big names, the energy in the room has gone down, right?

Mm-hmm.

And so the most, the most frustrating is when people just ignore the guidelines. And I'm not giving guidelines because I'm power hungry. I'm giving guidelines because I know what will make great engagement, right? And so the biggest thing is people go on. The other thing, and again, very, very common from speakers, is not listening to the question. Back to Elon. The second thing he did differently is he listened to my question. And if you go back and you watch the YouTube, still up there somewhere, you'll see a moment where I ask the question, he answers a different question, and I say— I laugh and I say, great, but I'd really like you to answer the question. And he laughs and he goes, okay, fair dues, and he answers the question, right? Many speakers don't want to answer the question you're asking. And again, The ability to get them to do that is the pre-work, is making sure that you've built a relationship in advance so that they know that they feel safe. You asked earlier about conflictual conversations, right? Argumentative conversations. I believe that you can have productive, constructive differences of opinion on stage. I don't believe attacking my panelists is going to lead to that right now.

Mm-hmm.

There are absolutely moderators who feel differently, and I'm sure they do it very, very well. But I would much prefer to have a productive relationship with somebody that I disagree with where they feel safe and able to express their opinion rather than having a very kind of volatile conversation. There's a great organization called Open to Debate, and I do— it's an American organization, NGO, and it facilitates conversations on very conflictual issues in such a way as to inform and have a debate. So there are ways of doing it. You know, I've done conversations on Israel and Gaza for them and all sorts of things that are very tense that you can actually, that you can actually debate. But the biggest thing that drives moderators crazy is Not listening to direction, not listening in the conversation.

Cool.

You, you made me think about something, and I wanted to get your opinion on it before we ask the sort of last question. I see with politicians, and it's, it, you can see it very, very clearly in the UK at the moment, and possibly in the US as well. There are politicians who will speak their mind. Yes, they've probably got an agenda, but their answer feels authentic, right or wrong, um, authentic, like they're not, you know, hiding anything or avoiding anything. And you'll get other politicians who will dance around and never answer the question. And as a, as an observer of that, I feel like it completely undermines their credibility and authority that they don't just answer the question. Do you find that happens as well? Because I think if avoid, you know, people can see straight away you're, you're hiding something, or they don't— it, it loses trust. That's what it feels like. And, and I just wish some more politicians would be just upfront and answer the question, even if they think it's not the answer people want to hear. Have you got a view on that in that, in your context, but generally as well?

I would frame it as there are good communicators and there are bad communicators.

Yeah.

The chances are that the politicians, the 2 groups of politicians you're talking about, are both revealing about the same amount of information. It's just that one is doing it in a very skilled way and sounds like they're revealing a lot, but really aren't. And the other is doing it in a very unskilled way. And it's obvious that they're not revealing a lot. So I know some communications experts who are phenomenally good at saying nothing, right? And we all kind of know them, right? You know, those communicators where you walk away going, that was brilliant. And then somebody says, well, what did you learn? And you kind of, you're scratching your head a little bit going, well, I'm not sure that I actually learned terribly much at all. So I would say if that's something you have to do, You asked earlier about whether is moderation a learned skill or an innate skill, and I said it's mostly learned. Communications, mostly learned, right? There are some phenomenal communications coaches out there that will teach you things like go in knowing your 3 messages and then learn bridges from whatever the question is into your 3 messages, right?

Yeah.

That, that is a skill. You do it enough and you learn how to do it. Yeah, I don't know whether that answers your question.

Yes, it does. Maybe it's just the feeling that the public have. But just on your point, there is a podcast episode where we have covered bridges, so I will put a link to that in the show notes.

You should.

And I'm also going to put a link to the— in the show notes to your interview with Elon Musk, if we can find it and put it, because I think it'd be interesting to see some of the things that you're sharing play out in that sort of event.

So can I toot my own horn and suggest you put 2 other links in there that people might find useful?

Oh, yes.

Yeah. One is my TEDx talk, which was all about asking good questions.

Cool.

And the other is over the last year or so, I've had a lot of people come to me, friends of mine who are moderating conversations, and they go, can I get Helpful hints. What do I do? Very nervous. And so eventually I wrote them a cheat sheet and I put that up on my blog. So if you want the kind of the cheat sheet of the things you need to think about in advance of becoming— of moderating a conversation, it's out there in black and white. So feel free to go on my blog.

Brilliant.

I will do that. That was actually my final question, which was, if someone wanted to be— to become a moderator, what Maybe the top 3 tips you would give them, and then we can put the link to the blog so that they can go and get more information. Now, I think we've covered quite a few of these already, but to bring those together in a summary would be really useful.

Sure. So, so 90% of it is in the prep work.

Yep.

Right. So do your prep and then let go of it. Right. The worst thing you can do as moderator is sit there with your questions And going, oh, here's the next question, right? Then let go. The second one is associated with that, which is listen.

Yeah.

Right? If you've done the prep right, then all you need to do is actually listen to the conversation and take it where you wanna take it. Um, because you know in the back of your head what are the things that you need to cover. Um, that's the second. And the third one is probably you're the boss.

Yeah.

Right. So again, you know, I mentioned earlier that my coaching has actually helped me in my moderation. There's a coaching technique around centering and embodiment, which is you need to walk on that stage. You do not need to compete with your panel. You aren't supposed to know their subject better than them, but you are the boss, right? You're the one who controls the conversation. So take ownership of it. You need to embody that and be centered around that idea.

That's brilliant. Thank you for sharing that and for all the things that you shared. Now I have some standard questions to ask before we direct people to where they can find out more about you. The first question is, what's the best thing that speaking has done for you?

I'm learning all the time.

Excellent.

You know, I would, so I do keynote speeches on leadership and on geopolitics. And every time I have to learn something new to understand my audience. And then I wanna open up as quickly as I can cuz I wanna hear from other people. Yeah. It gets me in rooms. It's extraordinary.

Yeah, it's brilliant. And I think also what you do on the moderation side as well is still speaking. It's a different mode, but it's also speaking.

Exactly. So in both cases, the reason that these 3 things, speaking, moderation, and coaching really work together is they're really overlapping and they're very, very supportive, synergistic. of one another. So you're 100% right. It's just, I'm always learning. I get paid to learn. How extraordinary is that?

The second question is, has there been a time when you've been speaking or moderating where things haven't gone to plan and you were like, oh, I want to forget that ever happened? Has something similar happened to you?

So I decided when I was 16 years old that, weird thing to think of when you're 16, I wanted the epitaph on my headstone to read, she never regretted the things she did, only the things she didn't do.

Nice.

And so the answer to the question is, have there been moderations that haven't gone the way I would've liked, or speaking engagements? Absolutely. But every time you can learn something.

Absolutely. And that's exactly why I asked that question, because we all fall down, but we never should stay down. We should get up and move forward and learn from that. So that great answer. What's the book that's had the most impact on your life and why?

Oh wow. I don't know the answer to that question because I'm an avid reader and so I could probably list 100, but my fallback book that I just love because there's so much wisdom in it is Winnie the Pooh.

Oh, that's really cool. I love that. Yes, I have a friend who's He loves the quotes in it and the wisdom. You're right, it's brilliant.

Do you want to be Eeyore or Tigger or Piglet or the owl or— yeah, I mean, there's just so much wisdom in that book, it's extraordinary.

We will put a link to that in the show notes as well. What's the best bit of business advice you've had and why?

When I started my own business unintentionally, I was speaking to a friend of mine who used to sit on a board with me, who's a was a partner at McKinsey's, professor at Yale, very, very smart guy. And I said, you know, I'm a little worried about both the potential for deluge of business, and I'm the sole practitioner, people come to me because they want me, or dearth of work.

Yes.

And he said, well, I can help you with the deluge. I've got 2 really good pieces of advice. And so I leaned forward in my seat and I was just Waiting for this brilliance. And he said, piece of advice number 1 is say no. And piece of advice number 2 is raise your prices.

Yes.

And it really was the best advice I got given. I, I use it all the time.

Excellent.

Excellent.

Love that. Uh, the final question. If you could have one mentor and they can be alive or dead, fictional, Or non-fictional, who would you choose and why?

I can't actually answer that question because I've had hundreds of mentors. I don't think I've ever had a formal mentor, but every comp— you know, before this conversation, I was talking with a— I think he's probably 19 years old now. He's an entrepreneur and He started up the co— co-founded the Young Entrepreneurs Society, right? He's 30-some years younger than me, maybe 40 years younger, 30-some years younger. And I learned from him, right?

Mm-hmm.

So I don't have one mentor. I've got hundreds of them. Every conversation I have, if I put myself in that space, which is being open and listening, I get something out of it.

I love that. So yeah, everyone, everyone and everything. Yeah.

I like if you choose, right? But it's a, it's a framing, right? It's, am I going to see this person as less educated or less smart or less experienced? Or am I going to see it as an opportunity to understand what a 19-year-old, a smart 19-year-old is doing? Phenomenal.

Yeah, absolutely. Cool. Thank you for sharing that again. We've not had that before, which is, which is good. Now, thank you so much for sharing everything that you have. There's so much in here for people to take away. The rich experiences, the things that you should do, sort of, I don't think, I think people think, you know, certainly you probably come across as a swan in terms of gliding, but they've missed that work that you've done. Uh, beforehand. So, um, thanks for sharing all that. If people want to find out more about what you do, maybe to get some executive coaching, to book you as a speaker or moderator, where's the best place for them to go?

www.wicketadvisory.com. So w-i-c-k-e-double-t-advisory.com.

Brilliant.

And you can sign up for my blog there, link to me on LinkedIn, or become a friend. You can get my postings there too.

Excellent. And I will put those in the show notes as well. Xenia, thanks so much again. Really appreciate it. It's been fascinating talking to you. I've loved finding out all about the stuff that you've been up to and the people that you've interacted with. And there's some brilliant life lessons as well as moderation lessons in this episode for people to take away. So thank you very much.

Sarah, thanks. Thanks so much for inviting me. As I say, You know, the opportunities to talk about something I'm passionate about, how could one turn that down, right?

Appreciate that. Take care. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Sarah.

I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. Um, Xenia had a fascinating background, and it was really interesting to get the sort of behind the scenes on some of those conversations, which, you know, completely unique and just hear about the characters as well. And for me, one of the biggest sort of takeaways is that it's not, you know, great communication is not just about saying the right thing, it's about creating the conditions for other people to say their best things too. And whether you're moderating a panel, interviewing a guest, or delivering a keynote, Those big sort of levers of curiosity, preparation, obviously, and listening, plus the confidence to adapt in the moment, are going to make all the difference. It's so important to be there, having done all that prep and, you know, got curious and all that stuff, be there in the moment with the panel and with your audience. To, to, you know, get the best out of it for everyone concerned. And if you enjoyed this episode, um, do connect with Xania, let her know, uh, that you got value and let us know in the comments what you took away from this. That would be amazing. And yeah, if there's anything you would've liked to know that I didn't ask, put that in the comments. We'll see if we can follow up and get you an answer. And if you did enjoy this episode, Be fantastic if you could leave a rating or review over at ratethispodcast.com/tsc. Subscribe to the channel and to the podcast. And yeah, until next time, you know what I'm going to say. Go out, grab your life by the nuts, and get cracking.

Bye-bye.

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