“The average person speaks 125 words per minute…
the average person thinks 4 times faster.”
The communication of strategy and its execution comes in different shapes and forms: from individual conversations during objective setting over group interactions around the Balanced Scorecard, and from intranet postings to writing a memo regarding a strategy shift. But they all serve one purpose: to get the strategy into the heads, hearts and hands of the people.
How to communicate with a group?
If you know that the average person in your audience thinks 4 times faster than you speak, you might want to spend more time preparing the interaction approach with the group you will have in front of you. Having great content alone is not enough to reach the brain of the audience.
Remember the last time you were invited to a presentation that initially seemed quite interesting, but then turned out to be a real disappointment? Endless slides using a font too small to read from where you sat, graphics that you couldn’t quite grasp and a total absence of structure. And before you knew it, you were wondering what you wanted for dinner that evening.
The ability to deliver your content is crucial. Said differently: you need to go beyond great content. You need to think about the group interaction you want to create to reach your goal.
The Facilitation Rainbow
The facilitation Rainbow is a group facilitation model. I learnt it quite a while ago when working for Arthur D. Little. I liked it a lot then and still do. In fact, I like it so much I teach it in one of my master classes and always use it to prepare for a group interaction, whether it’s a keynote address, workshop or lecture.
The Facilitation Rainbow: in a nutshell
In a nutshell, the Rainbow model can help you pick the most suitable audience interaction for a specific situation. It’s a scale (hence the name), ranging from telling modus to complete audience empowerment. And each interaction type demands different skills from the facilitator.
- Fast information transfer – Telling
- Idea promotion & selling — Proposing
- Productive conversation — Moderating
- Promote creative environment — Stimulating
- Self management of the team — Empowerment
I will get into each of them over the next weeks.
