I have been thinking about the responsibilities of a panel chair as I prepare to moderate a panel on damage control later this month. Colleen and I have been doing a significant amount of speaking as we promote our book, “Strategic Public Relations.” In addition, many of our clients are asked to chair panels as they achieve thought-leadership positions within their industries. Given this, I thought I would take a minute to share my thoughts on the attributes of a good facilitator or panel chair.
- Be Prepared. Think deeply about how the panelists can add value to the audience. What are the questions attendees want answered? Once you have identified the key questions to be addressed be sure to share them with the panelists in advance. Part of your role as a moderator is to make sure the members of the panel are well prepared. To do this, I recommend sending the panelists written materials and holding a brief call with them prior to the panel.
- Make Introductions. Another key role as the facilitator of a panel is to introduce each of the panelists as well as the topic. You want to keep the introductions brief, but it is important the audience understands who is presenting and why they were selected to participate in the discussion.
- Establish the Ground Rules. Consider taking a few minutes before you delve into your discussion to review ground rules for the discussion. You can do this by simply stating, I know each of you have a lot of information to share today, but in the essences of making sure we cover XYZ, Id like you to limit your response to a couple of minutes.
- Frame the Discussion. Make sure you tell your audience what is in it for them. I like to grab the audience’s attention by helping them understand the three things they’re going to get from us as a group. For instance, for my damage control panel at Enterprise Social 2.0 the audience can expect to learn the following three things: 1) what they can do to prepare for a crisis; 2) best practices for leveraging social media during a crisis; 3) how to turn a negative into a positive.
- Keep Things Moving. It’s important to maintain the pace of the discussion. If the conversation is moving into a rat hole, you need to re-direct it. This can be done simply by stating, “I want to remain true to our goal of covering X and we have limited time today, so Joe, I’d like to have you share your perspective on XYZ.”
- Engage the Audience. Consider ways to involve the audience in the discussion. It might be helpful to ask for a show of hands around a subject before inviting the panelists to delve deeper with their comments and feedback. In Amsterdam, I may ask the audience for a show of hands on how many of them feel as if their company is prepared to respond to a crisis using social media.
- Conclude the Discussion. Finally, as the moderator you will be responsible for wrapping up the discussion. I like to summarize some of the key points, thank the panelists and call for questions from the audience.
If you have been a panel moderator and have other thoughts or best practices, please share them with us.