A leopard cannot change their spots. In the same vein, you are never going to convert quiet people into extroverts who continuously contribute and dominate your meeting. There are, however, a few simple steps for you to increase the velocity and depth of contributions from quiet people, both in person and online.

Quiet people, when they are paid professional adults, still have a duty (fiduciary responsibility). That means, if they have pertinent content that should be considered, meetings are NOT an opportunity for them to speak up. Rather, meetings are an obligation for them to earn their pay, to contribute. Well-paid professional adults must add value when possible. Meeting participation is part of the job, their duty.

Interview Your Participants, Especially Quiet People

It is so important, especially with quiet people, to establish a connection before the meeting. When you speak with participants in advance, transfer ownership of the meeting deliverable by establishing or re-confirming the importance of their contribution. Emphasize the various roles in a workshop, especially the protection provided to participants by the facilitator. Establishing one-on-one connections has become increasingly critical with online sessions. People who have been isolated seek connections, even quiet people.

No Secret, Yet Underused: Break-out Sessions

Using break-out sessions gives everyone permission to speak freely. As they assemble in smaller teams, participants are more comfortable having a conversation with fewer people. They are uncomfortable when they need to speak up in front of a larger group. Quiet people discover that they are not a “lone” voice, thus giving them increased confidence to speak on behalf of “our team,” when otherwise they might remain quiet. Of the numerous virtual tools, Zoom makes it easy to assign, creatively rename, and then manage Breakouts.

Non-verbal Solicitation Helps Quiet People Contribute

Actively seek and beseech the input of quiet people with open hands and eye contact. With virtual meetings gently use their name only if you have previously agreed that they can say ‘pass’ when they feel ‘put on the spot.’ Let quiet people know in advance that you understand their meek nature. In-person, use your eyes and hands to solicit input, especially at critical and appropriate moments when you expect their contribution, as a subject matter expert.

Approach all participants when appropriate with non-verbal signals to encourage their participation. Ensure them in advance, with absolute confidence, that you will protect them by separating their message from the source. We care about WHAT and not WHO. Emphasize that the facilitator protects the people first and then secures participants’ input because the content gathered serves the people, not the other way around.

Reinforce During Breaks

Constantly remind quiet people (in private) that their input is important and valued. Reinforce your role as protector and remind them if they have avoided making a contribution when, perhaps, they should have spoken. Ask all of your participants if there is anything else that you can do, as the facilitator, to make it easier for them to provide input. In virtual sessions, you may send a private chat to quiet people reminding or prompting them to provide their input.

Other Procedures for Soliciting Quiet People

Consider other procedures when all else fails. Instead of a spoken round-robin, ask everyone to write down their ideas through an anonymous poll. If live and in person, use Post-It notes or other paper they can write on without disclosing the source. Therefore, they can contribute their ideas anonymously.

Finally, consider asking a confederate (i.e., another participant) to incite participation by specifically referring to the quiet person, stating that they “would like to hear ‘Meek’s opinion’.” Please add your discoveries and comments below for the benefit of others.

An elevated level of meeting participation in meetings indicates the likelihood of a great meeting. What else encourages participation? Here are some additional meeting participation tips worth reviewing.

Nobody wants more meetings. They want results. Presumably, the results they seek will have an impact on the quality of their lives. If the session leader can quantify the impact of the meeting on the personal wallets in the room, participation is guaranteed to increase. We find the following to rank among the most elevated items for inciting high levels of meeting participation and collaboration.

Knowing One Another

Biographic sketches of other meeting members can inspire empathy and understanding. With online meetings, include photographs that show the face behind the voice. If you provide supplemental reading material, customize a cover letter for each participant highlighting the pages or sections upon which they should focus. Thus suggesting they do not give equal attention to everything in the handout. Prompt each subject matter expert in advance with the questions that will be raised during the meeting most pertinent to them or their role. Ask them to focus on those questions since you will turn to them for the first response when the question is raised.

If the session leader and the participants show up prepared, the chances of meeting participation are highly amplified.

Beginning (aka Preparation) Phase

Learn to transfer meeting results and ownership to participants before the meeting starts. Optimally, participants should review the purpose, scope, and objectives (i.e., deliverables) before the meeting begins. Participants ought to confirm that they understand and find them acceptable. Or provide their input to change something before the meeting begins. Review the agenda and tools with participants to ensure that they find the approach sound. Always hold participants responsible for meeting output.

Include a glossary or lexicon in the pre-read or handout so that individuals can refer back to the operational definitions of terms as challenges arise. People frequently find themselves in violent agreement with each other. Ensure that all the participants agree on the terms used in the purpose, scope, and objectives statements. Typically, the glossary should be maintained by the project team, project management office, program office, or strategic center of excellence. Teams normally don’t argue about the difference between a vendor and a contractor or a bill and an invoice. Unless the definitions are part of the deliverable, they should be determined in advance.

When meetings or workshops support projects, the participants need to know and understand the purpose and objectives of the project, the reason for the project (i.e., program goals), and the goals and objectives of the mandating organization (i.e., the strategic plan of the business unit and/ or enterprise). Optimally, the meeting room should have large, visible copies of the enterprise’s mission, values, and vision. Handout material should include more detailed objectives and key results.

The Middle (aka During the Meeting) Phase

As with quiet people discussed above, everybody responds well to the following:

• Breakout Sessions
• Non-verbal Solicitation
• Reinforcement

Ending (aka Review and Wrap) Agenda Step

While meeting participation concludes with the wrap-up or close of each meeting, ownership needs to extend to the reasons for holding the meeting in the first place.

Review Results

As session leader (i.e., frequently referred to as facilitator), conduct a thorough review of the agreed upon outputs. Simply focus on the final items of agreement, and not necessarily the rationale behind them.  Ensure that everyone supports the outputs since this is their last chance to speak up. They need to now agree to support the outputs, even if not their favorite, in the hallways and meeting rooms after they leave.  As professionals, you have every reason to expect them to either walk the talk or speak up. It’s not your responsibility to reach down their throat and pull it out of them. Ensure that they will both support the output, and not lose any sleep over it.

Refrigerator

Assign relevant items captured, beyond the scope of the meeting.  North Americans frequently refer to this category as the ‘Parking Lot.’  We do NOT ask, “Who will be responsible for this (i.e., open item)?”  Rather, ask “Who will take the point of communication and report back to this group on the status of this (i.e., open item)?” Again, if no one steps up, assign it as an ‘open issue’ and escalate it back to the executive sponsor or their equivalent.

Communications Plan

Ensure that your participants now sensibly and similarly communicate with others the results of the meeting. Make sure it sounds like they were in the same meeting together. Build consensus around “If you encounter your superior at lunch, and they ask you for an update, what will you tell them we accomplished in this meeting?”  Secondarily, consider other stakeholders that may be affected by the meeting outputs. If you encounter a stakeholder in the hallway, and they ask you for an update, what will you tell them was accomplished in this meeting?  Do not underestimate the value of this activity. Groups that claim to have consensus may discover based on their interpretation that significant differences remain. The best time to resolve these differences is right now before the meeting adjourns.

Self-Assessment

Ask them how you did and obtain their ownership over the fact that their input can help make you a better session leader. To allow for anonymity, ask them to jot down in separate Post-it Notes, at least one aspect they liked and one aspect they would have changed for the meeting. Have them mount their notes using Plus/ Delta as they exit the meeting, either using easel(s) or whiteboard to label your titles.

The term ‘facilitate’ means to ‘make easy’ and if you embrace the suggestions above, you will see meeting participation increase substantially. More importantly, you will have properly begun the transfer of ownership and responsibility from the solo session leader to the group or team, as it should be.

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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities every day during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.

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