Today is opening day of The Arc’s National Convention for 2018. Last November, I did a breakout session at the 2017 convention. I love The Arc and I love breakout sessions. In a breakout session I get to probe the audience and find out what makes them and their organizations tick. More importantly, it allows them to engage, reflect, and make changes based on the discussions.
I am not new to public speaking, but I am to the subject matter and audience. My topic was vague and could be interpreted different ways. I decided to take a rather bold approach to this breakout session that could be considered pretty stupid. Being a professional speaker you never want to get caught with nothing to say. It’s kind of one of those things, you get paid to speak, so you’d better have something.
I toured a couple Arc facilities and interviewed a half dozen people. I really enjoyed it. These are special people who work for the Arc. I wanted to give this convention the best possible breakout session I could. I did not want it to be about me and my expertise. I wanted it to be about them. I prepared a ten minute introduction to set the stage, and five minutes of questions. If no one in the room wanted to answer, my 90 minute breakout session would be over in 15 minutes. Stupid?
I have long been a fan of mastermind groups. You know, the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. Brainstorming and mind-mapping produces profound results if you have three things.
- An engaged audience. Ever heard the term, you get out of it what you put into it? Yea, that applies here.
- A facilitator who can probe and ask the right questions and steer the discussion in the direction it needs to go. Yikes! That’s me! No pressure.
- A cause. If you don’t care then…well…who cares! Everyone I had met at the ARC thus far had impressed me. As I stated earlier, these are special people so I was confident.
Following my ten minute introductory lesson, I attempted to create an environment that invited the spirit of discussion. I peppered the audience with questions. Some softball, cream puff questions which gave me lay-up answers. Those easy questions evolved into soul searching, gut churning questions which gave us penetrating tear-up answers.
We did not focus on the lesson. We focused on the people. It was their conference after all, and so we went where they wanted to go, taking advantage of spontaneous teaching moments. Only it was not I doing the teaching. It was the audience. Problems and issues arose only to be resolved on their own. And what is the more effective way to learn. Have someone lecture you, or figure things out on your own with a group of like-minded people?
And speaking of lectures. Some of the earlier sessions ended with unresolved thoughts and query. So we tossed that around as well.
I cannot tell you how much fun and rewarding it was to lead an inspired discussion. We hit every objective I had written down prior to the session and then some. I had only asked half of my prepared questions when the time lady at the back of the room gave me the throat slash motion for times up. That was my cue to invite everyone to act. It is one thing to resolve in a room, but committing to write it down and act on it, is where the rubber meets the road and real change occurs.
When we ended, the conversations increased as people could freely move about and approach others in the room to continue topics. Several people approached me with their contact information and expressed how rewarding our session was. As they did this, I asked myself, who learned the most during the last 90 minutes? I thought this a little unusual because the teacher should be the expert, but I absolutely felt that I had learned more than anyone else.
Since last year’s conference I have delivered keynotes and breakout sessions at a dozen conferences. All of them more regimented than the freedom I was allowed at the Arc. Meaning, I had better teach the subject matter and not stray off topic. I am fine with this and the sessions were fantastic and interactive.
However, after listening to Dr. Expert Speaker with all his accolades and knowledge he graciously bestows on the patrons, wouldn’t you want a little freedom? You have pages of notes from the lectures, but won’t those notes just suffocate in your notebook? I say let it breathe and exercise what you have written down. The breakout sessions do have questions, but there seems to always be more questions then time will allow. Also those questions are often times better answered by a peer in the group and not the presenter.
How about a session that tangents to your specific needs and concerns? I often look at the conference schedules hoping to find something like that towards the end of the conference. In the world of special needs, free-for-all subject gatherings are easy. They are special people who want to help. Also, it is common that many share the same concerns or issues. Contributing to the discussion is rewarding and that’s just who they are. I keep looking for these unique groups, but sessions that offer those kinds of supports won’t happen until the consumer asks. And the consumer won’t ask if they haven’t experienced it and know how good the product is.
