TJ Walker explains how facilitators often talk too much instead of listening, which stops groups from contributing. Before your next meeting, decide who you want to hear from and when to stay silent. Use neutral phrases like "I'm hearing" to summarize and move the group forward.
Chapters
Today on Ultimize Discover, you're getting a short practical sample from the Ultimize universe. Use this on its own, take one idea and apply it today, or go deeper at ultimize.com. Ultimize is the world's largest personal development podcast, audiobook, and online learning network. Ultimize. Here's a simple shift you can apply immediately. Before your next session, instead of asking, What am I going to say? Ask, what do I want other people to say and how will I get them there? That one shift changes everything because most people approach facilitation like it's a presentation. They think, I need to speak clearly, I need to guide the discussion, I need to keep things moving. And those instincts are understandable, but they lead to a common problem. The facilitator does most of the thinking. I've seen this frequently. A facilitator asks a question, someone responds, and then the facilitator jumps in with their own perspective, or they summarize in a way that subtly adds their own opinion, or they explain what the group should be thinking. And gradually the group shifts from contributing to reacting. Now compare that to a different approach. The facilitator asks a question and waits. They let multiple people respond before reacting. They resist the urge to improve every idea. And instead of adding content, they guide the process. For example, instead of asking a question and then answering it, they say, let's hear a few different perspectives. Instead of reacting to each point, they say, I'm hearing a couple of different themes. Let's focus on those. Instead of jumping in quickly, they allow space for thinking. That's the difference. Facilitation is not about delivering content or delivering more content. It's about structuring how content emerges from the group. So here's your practical takeaway. Before your next session, define who do I want to hear from? How many perspectives do I want early? When will I step in and when will I stay silent? Because once you focus on those decisions, you stop performing, then you start facilitating. Do you have any questions about how to be a better facilitator and you're not quite sure what lecture to go to or where in the table of contents it is? Well, why don't you just ask me directly? Think about it. If you paid $90,000, $100,000 for tuition, room and board, to go to the Harvard Business School or Stanford Business School or Oxford or Cambridge, you would expect your professors to make themselves available to you for weekly office hours, as they typically do at those institutions. Well, we do the same thing right here, only I'm not charging you $100,000. In fact, I'm not charging you anything extra. If you're watching this video, it means you're already in the course. Or if you're listening to this, it means you're already a part of it. So all you have to do is go to ultimize.com. And I'm live every Thursday. It's Thursday, 10 AM to 11 AM Eastern Time. Eastern Time in the United States. We get together, all the students come together, and you don't even have to type a question. You push a button, you're right on screen. You can talk to me. You can tell me about your most recent facilitation, what went well, or if something went off the rails. So costs nothing extra. You can pick my brain directly. And we can be a part of a community. Other people can be there as well. You can exchange ideas and we can practice what we preach. I'll be facilitating the meeting because it is kind of a meeting with a goal of helping you become better at your skills. So hope you can join me this Thursday. Again, Thursday, 10 AM to 11 AM Eastern time, no charge whatsoever. Just go to ultimize Here's a move you can use immediately. After a few people speak, pause and say, here's what I'm hearing. Then summarize the key ideas. Not everything, not perfectly, just the main points. I've seen this repeatedly. People contribute ideas, but nothing gets captured. So what happens? Someone repeats a point. Someone rephrases it. Another person says, I agree, and adds nothing new. The session feels active, but it's actually stuck because people don't feel heard. These ideas just go up into the ether and disappear. Now contrast that with a facilitator who captures ideas clearly. After a few responses, they pause. I'm hearing 3 things. Then they list them. Now something shifts. People relax because they know, Okay, I was heard. My input landed. And once that happens, they stop repeating and they start building. Here's the key idea. Summarizing is not just about clarity. It's about closure. When people feel heard, they move forward. When they don't feel heard, they stay in place. Here's how to do this well. Keep it simple. Don't try to capture every detail, although certainly you can record it if you're using any kind of recording capture device, but focus on the main ideas. Use neutral language. Say, I'm hearing, or, it sounds like. Avoid inserting your own opinion. Then check lightly. Does that capture it? That's enough. Now the group can adjust if needed. So here's your takeaway: use summarizing to capture progress. Reduce repetition and move the session forward because when people feel heard, they are ready for the next step. By the way, quick question for you. Have you ever noticed how easy it is to consume content and how hard it is to actually do anything with it? I mean, you can listen to 100 episodes, read 10 books, and your habits are exactly the same. That is the gap most people never close. So, if you are listening to this and thinking, yeah, I want to actually improve Go to ultimize.com. We've got free courses there for you, either on communication skills or building better habits, and it's designed to get you to actually use what you're learning, not just hear it once. No cost, no catch. Just go to ultimize.com and start. Ultimize.
