Openers - setting the stage for your conversation
What does good and clear conversation take? There is no “one single most” important thing but one aspect we are often unaware of is the setting in which we communicate or the stage for our communication if you use the analogy of conversation as a performance. I personally never really thought about this stage of my communication. But after joining a course on clarity in communication this topic became really present to me and I want to share my insights with you. In this blog post I will focus on openers, a tool that can help you to set you stage for a clear communication.
Process
An opener is how you design and prepare the space or the stage where your communication will take place. A good opener makes your audience feel addressed and attentive. And a good opener addresses what is present in a given moment. Be present with your audience and the situation you are in.
A good opener describes what is currently going on, it explains a given situation and involves everyone that is targeted by your communication.
What makes a good opener? In their course “Klarheit in der Kommunikation” by e7° | Beratung | Bildung | Reisen GmbH shared the following tool that helps you to create an effective opener:
A good opener targets an audience on three levels (I’ve added examples further down):
Head (comprehension): Preparation, share what is going to happen, share concepts and knowledge.
Heart (emotions): How are you going to do it, become personal, name emotions that could get triggered or name emotions that might be already present in the room.
Hands/Feet (action): Application, things you will need, your practise, what you will learn, expansion of your options.
Examples (greatly simplified and without a lot of context):
Head: Welcome to this course on Sociocracy 3.0. Over the course of the next three days you will learn x, y, z concept.
Heart: I know at times your head will be close to explode with all this new information. But trust me it becomes more natural and fluent towards the end of this training
Hands/Feet: After this three day training you will have acquired a new tool set to take better decisions.
Extra tip: Moments of honesty!
Address obvious or possible resistances in the room because if there is a chance that they will be brought up later on it is easier to address them right now in a still neutral moment. If there is an obvious resistance and you don’t address it in the beginning you risk that it gets suppressed and then it can cause big problems later on in your conversation or your workshop. Addressing what is there creates a climate of possibilities.
How can you practise openers?
The best way to practise openers resp. to set your stage is to use them straight away in your own context - be it a meeting, a workshop or a group conversation that you open. If you feel insecure, you can also practise in an artificial setting. Gather a group of 4-5 friends and create a few situations where someone would use an opener. This could for example be:
Your company has financial issues and half of your project’s budget gets cut. You are the project lead and need to inform your team about this. You gather them in a meeting.
You are facilitating a public debate in a municipality about a planned wind farm. There are representatives of the pro and contra side present.
Your are leading a research expedition to the wilderness. You welcome the team on board of the expedition ship.
You are welcoming a group of participants in a communication workshop.
Each person chooses one of these situations and takes 5 to 10 minutes to prepare an opener. Afterwards each one of you presents your opener and the others listen and observe attentively and give feedback afterwards on:
How were you present? What was the overall impression?
How were you and your opener perceived?
Did your body language match your words?
How well did you address the three levels Head-Heart-Hands/Feet?
Etc.
Needed time & tools
If you want to become good in setting your stage you need to practice. You can for example ask for feedback in a debriefing if you held a meeting or a workshop. Ask your audience or your team how they have perceived you and the way you have communicated.
For the artificial opener training you need:
A group of people
A set of artificial situations
For five people about 1 to 1.5h of time
Personal experience
As shared in the intro already, I personally never really thought about the stage of my communication. Of course, when I for example was opening a circle, a meeting or a workshop I would naturally try to get the attention of my audience. But the value and importance of being aware and having prepared the stage of my performance only became clear to me after I took a training on clarity in communication (See link further down).
The experiences shared in this training by the very diverse group of participants (public administration representatives, self-employed, teachers, outdoor guides, office employees etc.) helped to realise how different a stage might has to look like. Also, how helpful openers can be to create a feeling of belonging within a group of people or how it can help you to create a good climate for the initial situation of a meeting or another group setting.
We have practised to set our own conversation stage through openers with the help of artificial situations as described above. It was a fun exercise and to get feedback from “strangers” was very valuable as it was very honest. Of course, if you work with artificial situations you easily get lost in the details of the story you have to make up for it. But it is a great start to train what you just have learnt.
As with everything new you have learned, practising it might seem quite staged in the beginning. It takes some time until it falls naturally. But once you have reached this point, you will effortlessly communicate much clearer.
Sources:
https://www.esieben.ch/klarheit-in-der-kommunikation-basistraining/
Written by Isa Ruckli