71. Bring Your Panel Discussion to Life
How to Herd Cats
The bestselling book Death by Meeting could readily have a sequel called Death by Panel Discussion. If you’ve attended just one conference in your life, whether it was business, professional, academic, or even social, you must be painfully aware of the soporific effect of panel discussions. The fault, however, lies not with the panelists, but most often with the moderator, who inevitably allows the panelists to pontificate, dawdle, or wander off into black holes, causing the audience to nod off.
At some point in your life, you may be asked to chair a panel. To bring your discussion to life, incorporate these ten best practices.
1. Invite conflict. Conflict is drama, Aristotle 101. In your preparation for the panel discussion, find the hot buttons in the major subject, as well as in the position of each panelist. Select panelists with wide diversity and/or differences of opinion. As moderator, throw the conflict into the mix.
2. Make a wave. Pose one question and go down the line, asking each panelist to respond.
3. Counter-punch. Listen for differing positions in the panelists’ responses and confront one panelist to defend or rebut the other.
4. Gather questions from the audience in advance. The operative word is “advance,” which enables you to filter only the relevant questions. The usual opening of the floor to questions from the audience gives the impression of being warm and fuzzy but, more often than not, deteriorates into digressions that spiral off into still deeper black holes. Prescreening the questions keeps your panel on track.
5. Manage the time. And do it with strict observance of the Less Is More principle. Keep every statement or exchange by every panelist to a maximum of 2 to 3 minutes. Limit opening and closing statements to 90 seconds. Ask the conference manager to provide a large countdown clock or two, visible to both the panelists and the audience. This gives the panel the look and feel of a well-produced television debate. More important, it moves the discussion along at a brisk pace, a rare phenomenon in most panels.
6. Suit up and show up. A panel discussion is a form of presentation, so it is important for the panelists to present at their best. The same is true for you as the moderator. Establish a dress code with coats and ties for the men and smart clothing for the women. Forget the current custom of open collar shirts for men; even if the conference takes place at a casual resort. Open collar shirts inevitably scrunch up beneath the jacket collars, making the wearers look like mutant turtles. Ask your panelists to stand out. Forget about “When in Rome...”
7. Seat the panelists on stools. The usual panel living room set, imitative of late night television talk shows, is often furnished with comfortable sofas and armchairs. This looks cozy, but causes the panelists to slump deep into the upholstery, scrunching their chests, constricting their lungs, thus producing inaudible mumbles, indecipherable even by clip-on microphones. The slumping also occasionally produces loud, disembodied thumping, whooshing, or scraping noises on those same microphones. To make matters still worse, cushy furniture takes the panelists’ arms out of service, making them appear inanimate.
Stools force the panelists to sit up straight, which, in turn, frees their arms to gesture. Sitting up also opens panelists’ chests to give full range to their voices—just like Frank Sinatra and all the other professional singers who give full range to their voices by standing up straight when they sing.
8. Be the apex of a triangle. Most moderators sit in profile at either end of the panel, while the panelists sit full front facing the audience. This arrangement diminishes the role of the moderator and allows the panelists to grandstand. Forming a triangle, with the moderator at the apex and the panelists along the legs, gives greater prominence and control to the moderator.
9. Plan a surprise. Introduce an unexpected element during the discussion: an unannounced guest, a video clip, a photograph, a quote, or a news story. Then ask the panelists to respond.
10. Keep it moving and mix it up. The moderator can provide CPR to the panel by maintaining a brisk pace and by bouncing the focus from one panelist to another often.
Variety is the spice of life—and panels. Bring life to your panel discussions.