Invite Discussion

The key factor distinguishing invitational speaking from other forms of public address is the speaker’s intentional effort to create space for audience perspectives. This can be achieved by embedding open-ended questions that encourage audience members to co-construct meaning and, potentially, offer alternative perspectives on the topic. Do not worry if audience members are hesitant to respond to your invitation immediately or if at first there are long pauses between contributions. It usually takes listeners a moment to collect their thoughts. The dialogue typically begins with the speaker asking open-ended question of the audience.  An open-ended question is simply a question that can’t be answered with a single word or short phrase. Closed-ended questions include questions that ask who, when, where or whether audience members have done something.  The responses associated with these questions are often short, single word or phrase responses.  Better to ask an open-ended question which solicits a greater depth of explanation.  Questions such as what, how or why are much more likely to elicit a longer response with the speakers reasoning for a perspective or position.

Call on respondents in the order they sought recognition and maintain eye contact while a person is responding. In order to ensure everyone in the audience has understood the point it might be necessary at times to restate or paraphrase the contribution of an audience member.  If you paraphrase something it is always beneficial to ask if you have understood accurately. This paraphrase skill demonstrates good listening.

Facilitate Discussion Equitably

The role of the facilitator is to make easy the path for creating mutual understanding of all involved.  It requires the speaker to develop a supportive climate, a place safe for participants to share their perspectives.  It is essential that the speaker limit revealing their position initially in the conversation so that audience members feel their perspectives are welcome.  Additionally, it isn’t necessary to defend or respond to an audience member’s contribution.  Rather, it might be more meaningful to invite additional discussion based on the observation shared.  Using responses such as “I see” or “Thank you for that observation” might demonstrate your appreciation and acceptance of the contribution without evaluating the right or wrongness of the response.  In addition, you might invite others to either support or offer an alternative perspective with follow-up or probing questions such as: “Have others had similar experiences?” “Has anyone had a different experience they would like to share?”  These invite further discussion and might help gain a measure of how common an experience or belief is among the audience.  When the goal is to gain a variety of perspectives it may be necessary to ask the audience to take on the perspective of those not present.  It is acceptable to invite your audience to imagine how an issue might impact those community members not present – for instance young people, seniors, caregivers, Veterans, chronically ill, neurodiverse people, blind or deaf or hard of hearing people, incarcerated or formerly incarcerated persons, etc.  This requires speaker and audience flex their empathy muscles and exercise emotional intelligence.