A good conversation is both memorable and leads to life-change. So as a group leader, it’s important to grow in your ability to lead great conversations. Your goal is not to complete the study or ask all the questions – it’s to have a life-changing conversation. (By the way, if you do most of the talking in group, you are doing most of the learning!).
So how do you lead a great conversation?
Here are five steps I’ve found useful in leading conversations in groups:
1. Know what you want the group to get:
As you’re preparing, think about the one thing you want the group to walk away with that night. This will enable you to craft your questions (and conversation) towards that take-away. As you’re doing your preparation, pray about, and then write down the one sentence that you want your group to walk away with. I don’t tell the group what I want them to take-away – I want them to discover it (at least the gist of it), because if they discover it themselves, it will be far more memorable.
It’s important not to leave this up to a published study. Some published studies craft their questions around a goal really well, but others do this poorly.
2. Treat Questions Like Your Tools For Crafting a Great Discussion:
In preparing your questions for discussion, think about having 6-10 of them. These questions should be open-ended (don’t have one-word answers), and should lead the group on the journey towards the take-away you have. Good questions don’t come easy. Test each question by thinking about how you would answer it – is your answer moving your toward the goal?
By the way, six good questions are about all a group will normally get through in a 40 minutes discussion. So having 6-10 ready means you have plenty, but make sure you know which ones you can drop in case you run short on time, and which questions you need to ask.
3. Remind the group of the group agreement:
You might remind everyone of the agreement at the beginning of the discussion so that the guidelines will be followed. For example, the importance of confidentiality, the importance of everyone participating well, limiting the length of sharing so that everyone can share (i.e. don’t dominate). These guidelines are really important for a great conversation to happen, and if you’re proactive in this reminder, it will save you from a reactive conversation later in the group.
4. Treat the Discussion Like a Ping-Pong Ball:
In other words, don’t hold on to it for too long, instead, keep it bouncing around the room. Acknowledge people when they’ve shared and get it back out there. For example, you might say, “Thank you, that’s interesting, has anyone else experienced something similar?” Or “So what you are saying is… that makes me wonder about… what do you guys think?”
5. Use Strategies To Get Everyone Involved:
A. Icebreakers: have an easy question at the beginning of each week that everyone answers. This helps everyone, especially quiet ones, to hear their voice in front of everyone and gives them confidence to speak up later.
B. Subgroups: have the group split into subgroups of two or three to discuss one or two questions, and then take feedback as a large group. This gets a lot more talking done and will give people confidence to share in the larger group when they’ve been affirmed about their thoughts in a subgroup.
As you lead your group this week, try some strategies, take some time to craft your questions, but most importantly, have in mind a specific take-away that you want the group to walk away with at the end of your time together.
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