00:00 Michael Port: Welcome to Steal The Show with Michael Port. This is Michael. Todayâs guest is Kristin Arnold. She has an MBA. She is a CPF and CSP. And sheâs a high-stakes meeting facilitator, conference designer and professional panel moderator. Sheâs been facilitating conversations between executives and managers to make better decisions and achieve substantive results for over 20 years. Sheâs the author of the award-winning book âBoring To Bravo: Proven Presentation Techniques to Engage, Involve and Inspire Audiences to Action.â Sheâs also the past president of the US National Speakers Association and on the executive development faculty in the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto. Hi, Kristin.
00:49 Kristin Arnold: Hi, Michael.
00:50 Michael Port: How are you?
00:51 Kristin Arnold: Iâm fabulous. How are you?
00:53 Michael Port: Okay, listen. I donât wanna be like a little fan boy, like sycophant, but I have to be, because youâre in the Coast Guard.
01:00 Kristin Arnold: Oh?
01:01 Michael Port: And I love the Coast Guard. I have a thing for the Coast Guard. Iâm a boater. I have my captainâs license. I spend as many minutes of my life on the water as I possibly can. And I just think that the work the Coast Guard does in invaluable. I have so much respect for it, appreciation for it. And just wanted to thank you for your service in the Coast Guard.
01:26 Kristin Arnold: Aw shucks. Well, thank you. Itâs always lovely to hear that the boating community loves us.
01:32 Michael Port: We sure do. I was boarded couple of months ago. Itâs the first time I was boarded, which was surprising. Iâd never been boarded before. The guys were fantastic. I was geeking out trying to show them how, I wanted to get an A++. I was like, âLook. Look my EPIRB in this.â Heâs like, âNo. You donât have to have it.â Like, âI know, but I just want you to see it. I want⊠Is there an extra form for bonus points?â And they were like, âNo.â But when theyâre getting off the boat, they said, âGreat boat. Great people.â And we said, âThank you.â And I said, âBy the way, why did you choose us to board?â He goes, âOh, well. You just have a gorgeous boat. I hadnât been on one of yours before, so we thought weâd choose yours.â I was like, âAll right. That was great.â
02:08 Kristin Arnold: Alrighty.
02:09 Michael Port: And then it burned down last week.
02:11 Kristin Arnold: Your boat burned down?
02:13 Michael Port: It burned down. See, it was a new boat, year 2015, Prestige Power Vessel, 60 feet. And we donât know why. The investigation is just starting, but burnedâŠ
02:23 Kristin Arnold: Oh, my gosh
02:23 Michael Port: Oh, yeah. It burned down to the hull, and then of course, it sunk once theâŠ
02:27 Kristin Arnold: Oh, yeah.
02:28 Michael Port: And they raised it and theyâve got it out. But of course, I spent the day with the Coast Guard, the Environmental Protection Agency and all sorts of other organizations, because there was a lot of diesel fuel and oil in the water. So I just, the Coast Guard⊠This is not about the show necessarily, but I wanna recognize you for the work you did there. And in fact, I understand you were one of the first women at the Coast Guard Academy in graduating 1982. Is that correct?
02:55 Kristin Arnold: Correct.
02:56 Michael Port: Wow. That seems⊠I mean, 1982 is not that long ago.
03:02 Kristin Arnold: Oh, come on. Thatâs over 30 years ago.
03:07 Michael Port: Yeah. Thatâs amazing. And you were also the only woman onboard an ocean going buoy tender.
03:15 Kristin Arnold: Yeah. I was the first woman assigned to the Coast Guard Cutter âButtonwood,â 52 men and me, baby.
03:20 Michael Port: Wow. And you had them all in line doing what they were supposed to do?
03:26 Kristin Arnold: No. It doesnât quite work that way, but you can have your dreams and Iâll keep reality.
03:32 Michael Port: Excellent. Excellent. Was that the springboard for you that got you really interested in how groups work together?
03:41 Kristin Arnold: Yeah, actually. Back in the early 90s, the Coast Guard started doing something called âTQM,â Total Quality Management. And they took a look at one of the job descriptions and they called it âfacilitator.â And back then, people did not use that term. I mean, it wasnât a common term like it is today. And they said, âWell, Kristin, this sounds like you. This is your management style. Youâre very collaborative. You try to get people onboard and working together as a team.â And so thatâs how I got started being a professional facilitator is, they put me in training that was how to teach TQM principles, but not how to facilitate a team. So the first team that I was actually âfacilitatingâ turned out to be an absolute cluster. And I realized I needed to read all three books that were available on the subject at that time.
[chuckle]
04:38 Kristin Arnold: And then I put together a little training program for my fellow coasties, so that they wouldnât have the same problems that I did. And then somebody on the outside said, âOh. Thatâs pretty cool. Would you do it for us?â And I went, âOh, sure.â And then they said, âAnd weâll pay you.â And I went, âWhoo! Now you got my attention.â
04:57 Michael Port: There you go.
04:58 Kristin Arnold: So that was the start of my consulting practice.
05:01 Michael Port: And then that moved into meeting facilitation, conference designing and panel moderation. What percentage of your time is spent in each one of those categories?
05:14 Kristin Arnold: Itâs really around⊠The bulk of my business is meeting facilitation, and I call it âhigh stakes meeting facilitation,â because people hire me when thereâs a lot at stake. Either itâs a really big topical discussion, or youâve got people who are flying in from all over the world kind of thing, and time is precious. So you donât wanna really waste a whole lot of time spinning your wheels. Thatâs the bulk of my business. I also do some speaking, and my speaking style is kind of a cross-hatch between presentations and facilitations. So Iâm very collaborative in that sense. And then because Iâm doing keynotes and breakouts, it got me into conference design in that I would ask, âSo what are you doing before me and after me?â And starting to look at the arc of a meeting and making sure that thereâs a meeting flow and takeaways and substantive results.
06:11 Kristin Arnold: And then I just started getting into panel moderation because panels just suck so bad, Michael. And I did a research report back in 2014; 95% of all conferences have panels but only 63% of the people like them at all. So thereâs a lot of room for improvement. And thereâs really nothing out there to help people really be great panel moderators. So I just decided that I was gonna help the world. Iâm on a crusade to make all panels better.
06:44 Michael Port: Thatâs great. Well then, Iâve got a lot questions for you in all of these areas because well we havenât⊠Gosh, I think Iâm on upper 80s or maybe 90s episode numbers, I canât remember right off the bat, top of my head; but weâve done a lot of episodes, but we have not done one specifically on meeting facilitation, conference design, or panel moderation.
07:11 Kristin Arnold: Well, woo-hoo! Iâm hitting the trifecta.
07:14 Michael Port: I gotta tell you, youâre a hat trick, youâre a hat trick. Letâs start with meeting facilitation, since itâs where you spend the bulk of your time. Whatâs your process like for facilitating a meeting in a high-stakes situation?
07:36 Kristin Arnold: So itâs all about the planning. The bulk of the work that I do is in the planning and the preparation so that when you actually get on-site and youâre working with a client, there arenât any surprises and it flows easy. So the downside of that, Michael, is that when you walk away, the participants should be congratulating themselves about how wonderful they are, and that, âYou were a little helpful, but we couldâve done it fine without you.â
[chuckle]
08:06 Kristin Arnold: The good news is that the economic buyer, the person whoâs writing the check, the person who actually saw that there was a need to have a facilitator, they realized just what you bring to the table. So I always meet with the stakeholder group, the people who have the most at stake in that meeting, and ask them what are the objectives. Not only the results that theyâre looking for, but what are some of the relationship, the relational objectives, as well as from a process point of view, what processes work for them, what have they done, what have they liked, what have they not liked. And ultimately, at the end of the day, whatâs the deliverable? What do they wanna see? What do they not wanna see? And then I like to interview a couple of people, not everybody, unless itâs a very small group, but a sample of the people who are actually going to be in that meeting. Not necessarily the stakeholder group, but the people who are being done unto, so I can get a sense for what their perspective is, what their hot buttons are, what are they hoping thatâs gonna be valuable, so that I can then take all of that and put together an agenda that I think will get them from point A to point B the most smoothly and effectively and in the least amount of time. Because the shortest distance between two points isâŠ
09:28 Michael Port: Well, they say A to B.
09:31 Kristin Arnold: They say itâs a straight line, and teams donât work in straight lines.
09:35 Michael Port: Right.
09:35 Kristin Arnold: So how do we provide something thatâs gonna be appropriate for the topic and the people in the room? And thatâs how my brain thinks. Iâm a very process-oriented person. Iâm very practical. I donât need to do a whole lot of hold hands, sing Kumbaya. If you want a team builder, I am not your gal. There are plenty of people who do that. I just wanna get stuff done. I wanna make solid agreements. I want people to have an action plan when they walk away. So my style only resonates with some people. So when people are talking about hiring me, I make sure that Iâm the right facilitator to meet their expectations and their objectives and deliverables. And if Iâm not, I have no problem at saying, âIt sounds like you wanna do something more outward bound, some trust walks, some really experiential activities, let me refer you to another facilitator.â
10:40 Michael Port: Once theyâve hired you, what are some of the questions that you ask the various stakeholders in order to prepare for the first facilitation meeting?
10:53 Kristin Arnold: So obviously, âWhatâs the objective?â At the end of the day, when you walk out, what is it that you want people to do, think, say, feel? Whatâs the endgame? Whoâs gonna be in the room? Anything I need to be aware of? What doesnât work well with this group? Youâve had other speakers, other facilitators, what happened that worked well? What would you do differently? Iâll ask them, is there⊠Usually, most leaders have some kind of random agenda in their own head. They havenât really given it a whole lot of thought. So theyâll go, âOh, we need to do this; we need to do that.â So you kinda get the laundry list of what they have in mind, and then you dig a little bit deeper, and go, âWhy is this important? Why now? Who needs to be involved? Is there some material that needs to be presented? How can we do some of that offline as pre-works so that we can hit the ground running?â
12:00 Kristin Arnold: Thereâs a lot of questions that I ask in order to make sure that Iâm creating the best agenda for them. And so Iâll put together a draft agenda based on what theyâre saying and I actually write out, âHere are the objectives, hereâs the deliverables, hereâs the pre-work, hereâs the agenda.â Iâll send it to them to say, âBleed all over it, comment it.â Usually they donât because I have really captured the essence of our initial conversation. But there might be a couple of things that they change a little different and then I do the planning and the preparation for it.
12:38 Michael Port: If you get different objectives from different stakeholders, and if itâs high stakes, often one of the reasons itâs high stakes is because people will have different visions for what theyâre trying to accomplish or different ways that they wanna get there. So if youâre hearing different agendas, different objectives from different people, do you handle those before you go into the facilitation or are those the issues youâre usually dealing with during the facilitation?
13:15 Kristin Arnold: Usually that comes out in the pre-work. And it depends on how much time I have and what kind of relationship I have with the key sponsors. Let me give you a real-life situation. There is CEO who was having a very important board meeting and asked me to facilitate it, actually he didnât ask me to facilitate it, somebody else asked me to facilitate it, but we wonât go there. And so I met with him and his staff, got a very clear idea about what his expectations were and then I called each board member. It was a very small board, so it was like five or six people and the board wanted something completely different. Now, that would be a complete utter disaster if I tried to facilitate the CEOâs objective for their board meeting.
14:13 Kristin Arnold: So I went back to the CEO and I said, âThis is what heard that they wanted to accomplish. Now, you can get what you want accomplished but your idea is, it fits as a subset of this and we may or may not get to it the way that you are intending.â And when I gave him the feedback, he was like, âOh. Well man, I thought they wanted this.â And I said, âWell, you can check it out, we can send the agenda out and make sure that weâve got agreement on it, but thatâs what I heard.â âCause the reality is if we had done what the CEO wanted to do, it wouldâve been a complete disaster, we would have had a revolution in the board room.
15:02 Michael Port: When youâre doing this facilitation, youâre there really moving them forward toward their goal. I mean that seems like part of your job, youâre there to direct the action towards the outcome that is consensus-driven, that theyâll all be happy with by the end. Do you also in the process teach them how to do this for themselves? Because you donât work with them full time, they have to meet often. And they call you in for this high-stakes situation, but wouldnât it be great if they actually knew how to do this on a regular basis so that things didnât turn into high-stakes situations when they need not be high-stakes situations?
15:44 Kristin Arnold: Right. So that would be maybe a secondary objective. But the reality is, is that when people hire me, Michael, they want more active facilitation versus developmental facilitation. So if I was an internal facilitator that was called in, you would see me more often, so I would be adding as an objective to do a little bit more of a training versus just doing. Now the reality is, is that the techniques that I use, anybody can replicate without really being âtaught.â They can go, âOh, wow, that was a really cool technique that Kristen used.â But I donât stop the process and usually Iâm working at a pretty executive level and they donât like being told in a training kind of format. But internal facilitators, that is really part of their charge versus an external facilitator. Where really theyâre bringing me in for this specific meeting or maybe once a quarter to do a check-in or something. Itâs not quite the charter that I usually get hired under.
17:01 Michael Port: Sure. So if for example, one company is buying another company and they are trying to come to terms, will they bring you in to help facilitate a meeting like that?
17:11 Kristin Arnold: I donât get a whole lot of M&A work. Sometimes thereâs partnering work like maybe thereâs two companies that are coming together for a joint venture and they want to make sure that the expectations are clear. Or thereâs a building project where youâve got the building architect, the designer, the contractor, the subs, the owners, they all come together and put together a partnering agreement so that there arenât any surprises and that the work gets done actually on time.
17:43 Michael Port: Sure. If someone wants to get into meeting facilitation, do you have recommendations on how they can do that?
17:50 Kristin Arnold: Well, thatâs a really interesting question, Michael, because Iâm kind an oddball in that I chose 23 years ago to specialize in facilitation. And the challenge is, is that Iâm not a consultant. A topical consultant, letâs just say an architect who specializes in construction partnering, they offer facilitation services in line with what their content is. And I call that consulting, because obviously theyâve got ideas and perceptions about what that company should do. And so if you really want somebody whoâs objective, and doesnât have an axe to grind, and honestly doesnât have expertise in your area, then you want a facilitator. Many of us are not just facilitators. Most facilitators are connected to some kind of topical area. Iâve chosen over the years not to. I keep wondering if thatâs the right idea or not, but Iâm still in business 23 years later, so I mustâve done something right.
19:12 Michael Port: Yeah, something is working out for you. Often, is it the HR, say the head of HR, thatâs hiring you to come in? Does that happen often? Do you work with HR departments?
19:23 Kristin Arnold: So generally speaking, no. Because the HR department thinks that they can do it.
19:30 Michael Port: Ah, I see.
19:31 Kristin Arnold: And sometimes they can be a little bit threatened, like, âWhy are they hiring Kristen when they could be using one of our internal facilitators?â And the reality is, is sometimes the meeting just has enough stuff that you want somebody with fresh eyes. You donât want the bias. You want somebody whoâs at a level high enough to talk at the executive level versus an HR person. And itâs nothing against HR, but sometimes they just take it a little bit personally.
20:03 Michael Port: Well sometimes, itâs also hard, letâs say the HR⊠The HR director may be the most senior person in HR, but they are still not at the C level, and they may worry about creating any conflict. Or they may worry about their job security, if they say something that someone on the board doesnât like. Whereas, you can come in and you donât have to worry about your job security. I mean obviously, you donât wanna get fired from doing the job that youâre hired to do, but your role is very different and the expectations they have of you are different. And you wouldnât necessarily be intimidated by anybody there because theyâre in a higher position than you are inside the company.
20:55 Kristin Arnold: Right. So thereâs actually two pieces of that one. One is, I donât have an axe to grind, I donât have to worry about the politics. If the CEO is babbling, I can shut him or her down, in a graceful, loving way. But I donât have to worry about my job security. And generally, they appreciate it that I am able to make sure that everybody participates. The other thing is that, for example, if you have the HR director or the VP of HR, they should be actually participating in the meeting. And so by giving that responsibility to the HR person, that means you have one complete function that is not being 100% mentally represented in the room. Itâs very hard to facilitate something that you have content expertise over as well as you have to facilitate the process. Itâs not that you canât do it, itâs just harder. And so why should a CEO have to run the meeting, and facilitate it, when they need to be 100% present. And so thatâs another reason why sometimes itâs just helpful to have a facilitator. Because some of these really important meetings, itâs like the CEO could dominate and everybody just does the dashboard dog and says, âOh, okay. Well, weâll do what the CEO wants.â And the next thing you know, youâre on the road to Abilene.
22:20 Michael Port: As a conference designer, or someone who helps other design conferences, and you were at one time the president for the NSA, is that correct?
22:31 Kristin Arnold: Uh-huh.
22:32 Michael Port: So obviously, you wereâŠ
22:35 Kristin Arnold: That would be the National Speakers Association, not the National Security Agency.
22:38 Michael Port: I guess, right, for most people I would assume theyâd get it, but then if they connect you to the Coast Guard, they may actually jump over there and think about NSA. You were obviously very involved in the events that NSA held. Iâm sure that the big annual event, you were very involved in. What do you think are some of the mistakes that people make when they design conferences?
23:03 Kristin Arnold: I think part of it is they look at slots. The traditional thinking is, weâre gonna have a keynote speaker kick it off, and then weâre gonna have a main stage, and then weâre gonna break in to breakouts, and theyâre thinking slots versus story. I think every conference is a story, where you have a beginning, you have a middle, you have a high, a low. People laugh, people cry. And you need to wrap it up in a little bow and send people on their way so that they go, âOh my God, I need to come back to this meeting next year,â or whatever. And I think sometimes, meeting organizers get more stuck in the details and the logistics, rather than really thinking through the attendee experience.
23:58 Michael Port: Does it start with a theme? Is that where you start?
24:01 Kristin Arnold: It can.
24:02 Michael Port: Yeah, like hereâs the theme for this yearâs event, and now letâs create⊠Letâs write a story that illustrates that theme so people can experience that theme while theyâre here, and then take that home into their lives.
24:17 Kristin Arnold: Yeah, I mean I think themes make it a lot easier. For example, Iâm working with a company that is talking about innovation, collaboration and partnership as their theme, and they put out their request for proposals and theyâre doing it the same old way, and youâre like, âExcuse me, your theme is on innovation. Why donât we try doing something different?â
24:44 Michael Port: Yeah, sure.
24:45 Kristin Arnold: Itâs like, âSo letâs step back.â Even the meeting, the main stage setup, we could do a theatre-in-the-round kind of thing, which would be completely different, completely innovative. When you look at the main stage speaker, does it have to be a one-way conversation, or can it be more collaborative? Can it be more of a conversation? Can you crowd-source the information ahead of time, or can you do some co-creation during the actual speech? Thereâs a lot of things that I try to push boundaries.
25:18 Michael Port: But if you doâŠ
25:19 Kristin Arnold: Itâs kinda like the Pillsbury Doughboy, you just kinda like stick your finger in and see if it punches back or not.
25:24 Michael Port: If you do theatre-in-the-around, which is a fantastic idea, call me to work with the speakers, make sure that they know what to do.
25:33 Kristin Arnold: I know.
25:33 Michael Port: BecauseâŠ
25:33 Kristin Arnold: I just read an article from Meetingsnet.com and Speaker Magazine just picked it up, thatâs the National Speakers Association magazine, and because a lot of people donât know. And in fact, the rumor is at the World Education Congress, which did a theatre-in-the-round, that one of the speakers who was invited to speak cancelled once he heard that it was a theatre-in-the-round âcause he just said, âI donât wanna speak in that format.â
25:57 Michael Port: Yeah, he probably just was scaredâŠ
26:00 Kristin Arnold: Pretty ballsy.
26:00 Michael Port: âCause heâd never done it before, I guess.
26:03 Kristin Arnold: Yeah.
26:03 Michael Port: Itâs interesting because youâre right, there is a very⊠Thereâs almost a strict adherence to the idea of what speaking is, professionally. And thereâs a strict adherence to the idea of what a conference is supposed to be like. And in large part, itâs because when weâre going into a profession, we look at what other people do and we say, âOh, thatâs how youâre supposed to do it, so Iâll do it like that.â Or if weâre creating a conference, we look at other conferences and say, âOh, that conference has a lot of people at it. Seems like it is successful, so thatâs the way weâre supposed to do it.â When in fact, the artistâs job in large part is to break the rules. Not just to break the rules to be rebellious or to be different, but to create something that may not have existed before. And of course, itâs risky, and itâs natural to be afraid of rejection. And when you take risks, the potential for rejection is increased. So a higher probability of getting rejected when you do something that is unknown.
27:18 Michael Port: And thatâs one of the reasons that folks get scared. One of the things that Iâm trying to bring from the world of theatre into the world of speaking, is more comfort with the messiness of the creative process. So that weâre making bigger, bolder, stronger choices that increase the level of risk in service of the audience. And thatâs always the key of course, as you know better than anyone, itâs always in service of the audience. But something like theatre-in-the-round, if youâve never done it and you donât want to branch out and you donât think, âWell, Iâll have to do this again,â you might say, âWell, Iâm not doing it because I donât wanna have to learn how to do that. Itâs not worth my time to learn. Iâm just gonna stick with the format that exists because thatâs how it always is.â But when youâre a true performer, youâre always looking for opportunities to experience things, to try things that you maybe have not tried before, that are new to you in service of the audience, to keep pushing the envelope to create more and more compelling experiences for the audience.
28:32 Michael Port: When you were the President of the NSA, did you see a lot of⊠The only term thatâs coming to my mind right now is âcopycat behavior,â and I donât mean it in a negative way. Iâm not being critical in any way, shape, or form, but things being done the same way over and over and over again because thatâs just how they were done?
28:57 Kristin Arnold: I was President in 2010 to â11, and I gave complete⊠Empowered Randy GageâŠ
29:06 Michael Port: Oh, sure, yeah. I know RandyâŠ
29:08 Kristin Arnold: To do that convention. And that really was the beginning of, I think, NSA starting to try things a little differently. And Randy, well, you know Randy?
29:24 Michael Port: Sure.
29:24 Kristin Arnold: Many of the people probably on this podcast know Randy Gage. I mean, Randy Gage is a little bit controversial and he likes to instigate change, and he really pushed hard for some new kind of innovative formats, and thereâs only so much that an organization can do. Itâs one step at a timeâŠ
29:48 Michael Port: Thatâs right.
29:48 Kristin Arnold: And itâs really funny because a lot of the things that Randy and I had suggested or proposed were shot down because, âYou would never get the CPAs to move their banquet night. Never, never, never.â Well, guess what? It happened this past year. So I always equate NSA to be like a big, giant battleship that takes about five or six years to really swing into a new direction. And I think when Iâm working with clients, and Iâm sure you see this happen too, Michael, you have to pick what you think the best thing is gonna be for them to try out. I always suggest to people, âDare to be different. There are gonna be some people who absolutely love what youâre doing and there will be the stalwarts who would like you to go back to doing what you did do. So you are not gonna get a 100% smiley faces. I can guarantee you right now that it will be controversial, and thatâs okay because thatâs how we learn.â Because my keynote speeches are crowd-sourced. I do really strange things that are not typical keynote main stage type of stuff. And Iâm like, âI just need to tell you, some people are gonna love it and some people are gonna go âCouldnât you just hire Michael PortââŠ
[laughter]
31:09 Kristin Arnold: Couldnât you just hire⊠â
31:10 Michael Port: Wait! Thatâs assuming that Iâm not scarier to them. I might be even scarier like, âWait! No, heâs gonna do that thing where he jumped off that roof again.â
31:19 Kristin Arnold: Couldnât you just hire somebody. And you have to be looking for those few meeting planners. Iâm not right for everybody and I am very clear about who Iâm right for. And youâre looking for those people who go, âI know I need to do something different, I just donât know what it is.â âI know I need to engage my audience more. I just donât know how to.â âI know I need to take some of the brilliance that we have of our main stage and bring it into application.â Those are some of the things that I think people are looking for, because if itâs just data, I can look at you on your YouTube video.
32:01 Michael Port: Thatâs right. When you moderate panels, are you usually involved in curating them also? Or do you often come in and have to moderate a panel that has previously been curated?
32:15 Kristin Arnold: When youâre talking about curated, youâre talking about the panelists already being confirmed?
32:20 Michael Port: Correct.
32:21 Kristin Arnold: Okay. So usually Iâm brought in after theyâve already been kind of selected. Iâll try to push them to make sure that theyâve thought about a couple of criteria, but I donât actually get involved in the actual selecting and inviting; thatâs for the organization to do. But I wanna make sure that thereâs a couple of things about the panelists. First is that they are experienced, theyâre either an expert, theyâre a practitioner, or they have that expertise that would be of value for the members to learn. I wanna make sure that thereâs some diverse view points in the room, so not everybody is shaking their head and saying, âUh-huh. Oh, I agree with Michael.â Okay, thatâs kind of boring. Not that I agree with you, but you need to have some controversy, that creates more interest. But you also need to have visual diversity, so that itâs not just a panel of white guys, which is officially called a âmanel.â
[laughter]
33:24 Michael Port: Iâve never heard that. Thatâs fantastic.
33:26 Kristin Arnold: Yeah. And thereâs really been a lot of push back because you need to have that visual ethnic diversity, gender diversity, background, cultures, those kinds of things. Isnât it funny that weâre maybe talking about women in the workforce and thereâs not one woman on the panel?
33:43 Michael Port: Iâve seen it.
33:44 Kristin Arnold: Like duh, this is just stupid. So Iâll push back on that kinda thing. I also like to make sure that these people are eloquent. Iâll actually go look at videos online to make sure that they can string two words together. If they are not able to do that, Iâll point that out and say, âMaybe you might wanna consider somebody whoâs a little bit more eloquent.â And then the last piece, Michael, is that I wanna make sure theyâll be willing to do the work. That you donât just show up and throw up. A lot of people just say, âOh, how hard could a panel be? Iâll just show up and Iâll go wherever I wanna go.â No, they need to think through what are their key points that they wanna share with the audience? Whatâs the story thatâs gonna illuminate that? A quick, concise story that would be meaningful for the audience. Those kinds of things I like to work with the panelists ahead of time.
34:34 Michael Port: Just for the record, that our big live event at the end of August and beginning of November⊠Last day of August, first two days of November, we have âpanelâ and we are very imbalanced gender-wise. We have two men and four women. So our scales are tipped the other way, which is I think something that weâre very proud of. What weâre doing is different. Weâve done regular panels in the past. This year weâre doing a game show, which we are writing from scratch. And we hope thatâll be really fun for the audience. And it may not work, but weâre gonna try it and see what happens.
35:16 Kristin Arnold: Give it a roll.
35:17 Michael Port: Yeah. And weâre gonna see what happens. So letâs talk about⊠You mentioned controversy. How conflict⊠This idea that sometimes, you really want diverse opinions on the panel because itâs exciting for the audience and they get different perspectives. What about the panelists who get into it and get a little bit hot-headed because thatâs their personality? And they wanna be right or they donât like that the other person had a different opinion because it makes them look like theyâre not on the money. How do you manage that? Because different opinions is very different than people on the panel just getting into it with each other.
36:08 Kristin Arnold: Right. So thereâs two things that come to mind when youâre giving me this scenario. Again, in the planning, you would know whether youâve got that hot-head there, and you would know what the controversy is. And you can do some preventive strategies to make sure that people know that this is supposed to be a conversation, itâs supposed to be interesting. You know where the hot points are if you know that somebody⊠And you can tell as youâre talking to them on the phone in preparation. You might reinforce some ideas about making sure that youâre sharing airtime. And this is about generating light and not heat on the issue. So there are some things that you can do. And then of course, a good panel moderator knows how to gracefully intervene and step in and stuff. But the other thing is that Iâm kind of an [37:04] ____ panel moderator. If I know that thereâs a juicy hot topic that the panelists are just really passionate about, I might set the format up like a crossfire debate. You know the show Crossfire?
37:16 Michael Port: Sure, yeah. I remember.
37:17 Kristin Arnold: Or the McLaughlin Report? The late, great McLaughlin?
37:21 Michael Port: Sure.
37:22 Kristin Arnold: In that you set up that it is to be confrontational. Audiences are so used to seeing talk show formats on TV ever since Michael Douglas days; Phil Donahue, Oprah Winfrey. Weâve got so many different kinds of TV formats that we can pull. Nowadays, people talk about The View or The Chew, or all kinds. You could do the David Letterman⊠David Letterman is not around⊠Jimmy Fallon, John Corden. You could do Ellen DeGeneres. You could do any kind of format that would support kinda the personality of the speaker, maybe the topic, maybe the theme of the convention. That would really make it interesting and fun. You were talking about gamification. You could do a gamification of a panel as well. You just have to think it through and plan it out so that itâs youâre maximizing the fun factor.
38:22 Michael Port: And of course, like most great things, it takes more time and more effort to produce something thatâs different or new. Because just sitting people down and asking questions is quite easy.
38:32 Kristin Arnold: Right. I call it the lazy format. And meeting organizers treat it like, âOh, okay. I got the moderator in. I got the panelists. My job here is done.â As a panel moderator, my job is just starting.
38:45 Michael Port: Yeah. One of the things that I, anytime I have been on a panel, really try to avoid doing, and I found it helpful, but I donât think itâs something everybody does, I stay away from the word âbut.â Anytime Iâm asked a question after somebody else has shared their particular feeling on it, itâs something that I find is small but I find it creates tension between the panelists. For example, if somebody gives their opinion on, âHereâs the best way to slice bread,â and they go through their answer and I say, âBut blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.â Well, thatâs suggesting that they missed something or it was wrong. Which is different than, âAnd I also think about this.â Itâs a very different way of interacting. I think itâs a different way of interacting one-on-one or one-to-many and when youâre on a panel. Do you see certain types of people more aware of that particular⊠How the language influences the way they interact with each other and the way the audience sees them?
40:07 Kristin Arnold: Yeah, I havenât really thought of it that way, Michael. I always like saying to the panelists, âBe additive and not repetitive.â And the way that you do that is to say, âYes, and.â Unless you donât agree at all. And maybe that might be the case where âbutâ would be appropriate. I donât tee it up like the, âYes, andâ or, âNo, but,â but I do tee it up like, âLetâs have a great conversation. You guys are such experts.â I was talking to Kate Delaney about the panel that she did at Influence 16 and she said in preparation, she just blew smoke in their direction, just fluffed their ego like, âYou guys are so great. Youâre gonna have a great conversation. Just be yourselves, be natural. Bring out the best information that you can for the audience.â She just really reinforced conversation, conversation, no presentation kind of thing. And I think that thatâs kinda whatâs your mantra, whatâs your drumbeat that you want your panelists to really take into the panel is really important.
41:25 Michael Port: Yeah. One of our tenants in all of the work that we do is the principle of âYes, and.â It is the oldest improv principle in the world, and we believe that it forwards action. It moves the action forward. And for those who arenât familiar with it, the idea is that if I say, âNoâ when Iâm in any kind of improvisation with somebody, it just stops the action, but if I say, âYes, and,â it moves the action forward even if I take it somewhere else. And when weâre in conversation with other people, if we build on what they say, then we tend to build together. But if we say, âNo,â then we tend to build alone. And we might not build something as great as we can if we build it together.
42:18 Michael Port: If we disagree with somebody on a panel, if we⊠And we wanna be clear that we do, and it is not always necessary. One of the things that I try to do is not always⊠I donât always have to share my opinion on something. Itâs not some obligation that I have and not everybody wants to hear it at all times. If someone has a different opinion, they can share it and I donât always feel the need to rebut. I think thatâs something to consider too. And if I do disagree and I wanna say so, I will say⊠If I understand where theyâre coming from, Iâll say, âI really understand that perspective. Hereâs how I approach that.â And then if it sounds like itâs different, then itâs different. This is one of those things that I think⊠Iâve watched panels a lot and itâs so interesting to me how effective they are when you have really strong communicators. Not just people who have expertise, but really strong communicators because they know how to interact with the other panelists in a way that brings out the best in each other, rather than potentially creating conflict amongst each other. I wasâŠ
43:31 Kristin Arnold: Absolutely.
43:31 Michael Port: I was on a panel once where someone quoted me but not actually quoted me. Meaning, they used a quote that I wrote in one of my books in 2006 and just passed it off as their own. They didnât realize that it was my quote. And I was on the panel with them. Just sitting there.
43:51 Kristin Arnold: Oh, God.
43:52 Michael Port: It was one of those where I went⊠[chuckle] But I didnât say anything on the panel. I wasnât going to embarrass them. I didnât have this need to, âWell, that was my quote, where did you get that?â But afterwards I asked them. I said, âHey, where did you get that quote from, is that yours? Or did you hear it from somewhere?â He said, âWell, I think itâs⊠No, I donât know, maybe I heard it from somewhere.â And it was one of those. And I said, âOh, really? Itâs actually on page nine in âBook Yourself Solid.'â That put an end to that. But those kinda things will happen on panels and itâs not always necessary to address every single thing that we disagree with in that particular situation. When somebody is looking for a panel host, what do you think they should be looking for? Because Iâm gonna guess that you donât think everybody is necessarily ready or skilled to lead a panel. It does take some skill.
44:49 Kristin Arnold: Absolutely.
[chuckle]
44:51 Kristin Arnold: Thank you.
44:52 Michael Port: Youâre welcome.
44:52 Kristin Arnold: You would never put a speaker on your main stage without doing your due diligence. And I find it appalling that people will ask somebody to moderate a panel without doing their due diligence.
45:09 Michael Port: It is interesting because sometimes we think, âWell, theyâre just gonna ask some questions,â and weâll give them the list of questions. I see this a lot in⊠I donât know why, but I see it often in non-profit organizations for some reason. When I watch Vanguard videos, theyâll often do video panels with different people from Vanguard discussing various investing-related issues. And often the panelist is somebody, it seems like, from the HR department, or from the education department, as opposed to somebody who is a trained panelist or facilitator. And I feel that they could really get some value by bringing in somebody who has these particular kinds of skills. So how do we convince them to do it?
46:00 Kristin Arnold: Well, Iâm kinda on this crusade to make everybody smarter about this kind of stuff. I mean again, itâs a lazy format. I know that Iâm working with a couple of associations that have actually mandated that their panelists and their panel moderator go through some kind of training. I usually work with the panelists to get a sense for what are their key points that they want to get. Do they have a key story that illuminates that point? Or how are they gonna demonstrate it visually? Do they have a prop? Do they have some kind of thing that they wanna do with the audience? But also my formats, I use different formats than what is the traditional format. And if I can get rid of the white draped table and burn it, Iâm all for that. I think people are a little bit more receptive when they know itâs not gonna be the sameâŠ
46:53 Michael Port: Sure. Can youâŠ
46:55 Kristin Arnold: But if itâs the same kind of feel in the format, then they just tune out and say, âOh. Well, Iâll prepare when I get to the venue, or Iâll prepare on the way, on the plane.â
47:07 Michael Port: Yeah, sure.
47:08 Kristin Arnold: I mean, I just think that it deserves a little bit more.
47:11 Michael Port: For our last question, would you be able to give us an example of a different format for a panel?
47:22 Kristin Arnold: Yeah. So again, live TV shows are great, doing something that mimics one of those live TV shows. You could even do kind of a âFriendsâ cafe type of thing, a political format, or a talk show format. Thereâs other kinds of formats that you can do. One of my favorite is the empty chair format. It works with audiences up to about 300, after about 300 it doesnât work very well. But you put the panelists up there, and youâve got one empty chair and an audience member can fill it. And so the audience member can be part of the panel and then another person can come up and put their hand behind the panelist. And they would have to leave and youâve got a new panelist in. And if you really wanna be dicey, you can do that to all the chairs. You start off with a panel, but then if any of the members can take the seat. Thatâs kind of a fish bowl-ish type format.
48:33 Michael Port: Yeah. Sure.
48:34 Kristin Arnold: There is the seating. The seating actually contributes to a lot. Hugh Lee, with a production company⊠Iâm sorry, I canât remember the production company name. He actually had the panelists in the four corners of the room. So the keynote speaker came down after he spoke and he took a key seat. And then the moderator moderated the panel discussion with the people at the four corners of the room. Again, there was maybe 500 people in the room, which I thought was kinda ballsy. Itâs like, âWow, thatâs⊠â but heâs trying to make that conversation more intimate. I just thought it was kind of interesting. I was not there to see it, but he said it worked out really well because the panelists were well-briefed on how it was gonna go.
49:25 Michael Port: Was it a hotel type where it was actually flat? So it wasnât a stage with a raked house?
49:33 Kristin Arnold: Yeah. It was in a ballroom.
49:34 Michael Port: Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So thatâs cool stuff. JustâŠ
49:36 Kristin Arnold: And I canât remember if we had a theatre-in-the-round so that the main stage speaker was in the round and then just came down and was a panelist.
49:47 Michael Port: Itâs very interesting. Itâs just a great example of thinking about different ways to connect with your audience. Again, itâs not about being cool. Itâs not about like, âWell, Iâm gonna be different to be different so everybody talks about how different I am.â Itâs about, âWell, whatâs another way to get them engaged so that we deliver on our promise?â âCause thatâs our job. We are there in service of that audience, not in service of our own needs, but in service of them. So what can we do better to make more connection with them, so that we can get them to think what is important to think in that moment. Now thatâs, of course, what weâre trying to get them to think, but itâs in service of them, what we want them to feel, and what, of course, we want them to do. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here today. Where can people find you if they need some high-stakes facilitation or just wanna get in touch with you?
50:41 Kristin Arnold: Facilitation, Iâm at www.extraordinaryteam.com, and if you want anything on panels, I have a free video course for moderators at www.powerfulpanels.com.
50:55 Michael Port: Thatâs great. Weâll put those in the show notes. Thatâs really cool, powerfulpanels.com. Thatâs great. Thatâs really nice. Hey, listen. Again, thank you so much. Thank you again for your services I mentioned at the beginning, and thank you for all that youâve done in our industry for so many years. Youâve made such a contribution to so many speakers through your work at NSA and beyond. I appreciate that. Thank you.
51:18 Kristin Arnold: Well, thank you, Michael. And thank you for creating this incredible knowledge base of how people can steal the show and how they can present themselves in a much better light and actually deliver on the promise to the audience. So thank you for all that you do, Michael.
51:36 Michael Port: Oh, youâre welcome. Itâs my pleasure. And all you guys who are listening, thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to be in service of you. Keep thinking big about who you are and about what you offer the world. If you have a moment and you want to go hop on over to heroicpublicspeaking.com, weâve got some free videos over there. Weâve got some events coming up. And if you ever have a question, just shoot me an email at questions@heroicpublicspeaking.com. In the meantime, keep thinking big about who you are and what you offer the world. Bye for now.
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