Caterina Rodriguez’s Session at the 2025 Facilitation Lab Summit
At the 2025 Facilitation Lab Summit, Caterina Rodriguez led an insightful workshop exploring the powerful role of non-verbal communication in facilitation. In a room filled with facilitators, leaders, and team builders, Caterina took participants on a deep dive into how our bodies, gestures, eye contact, and even silence contribute to the effectiveness of facilitated sessions. Her session emphasized that facilitation is not just about words; it’s about how we use our physical presence to guide and influence group dynamics.
The Power of Non-Verbal Cues
Non-verbal communication, while often underestimated, plays a crucial role in holding space and fostering connection. Caterina kicked off her session with a fun, energetic exercise to shake off the “lunch slump” and get the room moving. As she led the group through a few lines of the Cha-Cha Slide, it became clear that how we move in a space—whether it’s dancing, standing tall, or leaning in to listen—has a powerful effect on the people around us.
Caterina’s focus on non-verbal cues was not just about body language; it was about the whole spectrum of communication that goes beyond words. She walked participants through three key forms of non-verbal communication:
Vocal Cues and Silence: The tone, pitch, and pace of our voice influence how participants interpret our words. Silence, often overlooked, is also a powerful tool in guiding reflection and allowing participants time to process.
Facial Expressions and Eye Contact: These are the most obvious forms of non-verbal communication. Facial expressions communicate emotions, and eye contact signals engagement and attentiveness.
Body Language: Posture, gestures, and proximity all shape the physical space of facilitation. How we stand, where we position ourselves, and how we physically interact with the room can significantly impact how comfortable and engaged participants feel.
Understanding Your Non-Verbal Style
Before diving into strategies to refine our non-verbal communication, Caterina emphasized the importance of self-awareness. Participants were guided through a self-assessment to identify their unique non-verbal style and how it translates into their facilitation work. She encouraged facilitators to recognize that there is no single “right” way to use non-verbal communication—it’s a matter of authenticity and adaptation.
Practical Strategies for Facilitators
The bulk of Caterina’s session was dedicated to hands-on strategies to improve non-verbal communication in facilitation. Here are some of the key techniques she highlighted:
- Own Your Physical Presence: Your posture and body language immediately set the tone of the room. Facilitators who stand tall, make eye contact, and use open body language invite participation and set a welcoming tone.
- Leverage Eye Contact: Use eye contact to engage participants and guide the flow of the session. By intentionally making eye contact with someone, you encourage their participation and create a sense of connection.
- Experiment with Vocal Variety: Varying your tone, pace, and volume helps shape the energy in the room. For example, slowing down your speech or lowering your voice can signal a shift to a more reflective or serious moment.
- Play with Proximity and Space: How you move through the room or position yourself relative to participants can impact engagement. Caterina encouraged facilitators to experiment with proximity, moving closer to build connection or stepping back to give space for others to contribute.
- Embrace Silence: Silence can be uncomfortable but is an essential tool for reflection. As a facilitator, allowing moments of quiet after a prompt can encourage deeper thinking and invite more thoughtful responses from participants.
The Role of Non-Verbal Trust
One of the most powerful insights Caterina shared was the impact of non-verbal communication on group trust. Research has shown that facilitators who use positive non-verbal cues—such as open body language, making eye contact, and aligning their energy with the group—help build stronger trust within the group. When people feel seen and heard on a deeper, non-verbal level, they are more likely to engage and share openly.
Whole Body Listening: An Essential Skill for Facilitators
As the session drew to a close, Caterina introduced the concept of “whole body listening.” This technique encourages facilitators to listen not just with their ears but with their whole body—paying attention to verbal cues as well as non-verbal cues such as body language, facial expressions, and even silence.
Caterina provided exercises to practice whole body listening, encouraging participants to be present in the moment and to respond to not only the words but also the underlying emotions and energy that participants are conveying. This method helps build stronger, more meaningful connections and fosters an environment where participants feel truly heard and understood.
Key Takeaways
Caterina’s session reminded us that as facilitators, we are more than just speakers or presenters—we are the ones who set the tone and create the environment for connection, collaboration, and transformation. By refining our non-verbal communication, we can hold space more effectively and create deeper connections with participants.
- Non-verbal cues (body language, eye contact, vocal tone) are just as important as verbal communication in facilitating meaningful conversations.
- Being self-aware of your non-verbal style can help you adapt and engage more effectively with diverse groups.
- Silence and body language can guide the flow of a session, build trust, and help you connect with participants on a deeper level.
- Whole body listening is a powerful tool for facilitators to enhance their presence and ensure that everyone feels seen and heard.
Caterina’s session was a vibrant and enlightening exploration of the often-overlooked aspects of facilitation. It reminded us that facilitation is about the whole experience—the spoken, the unspoken, and everything in between.
Watch the full video below:
Transcript of Cat’s Session:
Speaker 1:
Thank you. So Eric did give you a teaser, and I’m going to ask you all to get on your feet because it is lunch. It’s that lunch slump of the day. It’s day two. People are a little tired. So we’re going to do little exercise. You might recognize this as it starts to fade in, and I expect all of you to follow. Yep. Ready? We’re going to… And I want you to get funky.
MUSIC:
To the left.
Take it back now, y’all.
One hop this time
One hop this time.
Right foot, two stomps.
Left foot, two stomps.
Slide to the left.
Slide to the right.
Crisscross.
Speaker 1:
All right. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. I let DJ Casper do a little bit of our warming up for us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So I am Cat from Orlando. It’s lovely to be here with you all. I wear actually dual hats in my work. So I actually have a full-time job where I do a lot of program design, learning and development, and internal org development facilitation for my full-time employer, which is ADL. Never a dull time to be in a civil rights organization right now. And then my other hat is as a consultant. That’s actually how I got plugged into this community. And I’m so, so excited to be here with you all to really dive into what we all love and eat and breathe, which is gathering people.
When I thought about what I wanted to bring to the space, I really wanted to think about the bodily experience of both facilitating and being a participant in a facilitated space. So a little fun fact about me is that I’ve always been in the social justice space in some way, shape, or form, but I actually got started in the theological space. I was training to be a hospital chaplain, quickly realized that I do not compartmentalize well enough to last in that profession. So God bless to those who do it. But what I realized as a chaplain in training was the importance of my physical and non-verbal presence in that space, because it’s often in situations where words just fail. And I got to really reflect on what was the transformative power of hearing and seeing someone without using my words.
And so ever since then, I’ve always really wanted to explore ways to bring that to the forefront of my practice. And so that’s what we’re going to be doing today. But first, why is this important at all for you all as facilitators? We don’t just create containers, we hold them, and how we hold them matters. And so as facilitators, the ways in which we hold that container are going to determine the outcomes, not just of what you’re trying to do, but also the connections that you’re making. So, we’re going to be doing a couple of things over the next hour and 25 minutes that we have left. We’re going to start at just understanding why non-verbal communication is important. We’re going to take a look at what does that even mean. It means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Sometimes we have ideas of the most obvious forms of non-verbals, and sometimes there’s some more unspoken ones that we’re going to also dig into.
We’re also going to be reflecting on and doing a little bit of a self-assessment. Because before we can even talk about how am I going to go into space and use this to both hold a space and engage my participants, I need to figure out, well, what is my non-verbal style? And I’m going to give you a spoiler, there’s no one right way to do that. It’s going to be heavily relying on a lot of personal factors that we’ll explore. We’re going to learn some practical strategies about how do we start to fine-tune our non-verbal styles in facilitation spaces to create those deeper connections and deeper more meaning-making conversations. And then we’re going to practice, right? That’s the theme of this summit, right, practice makes practice. We’re going to practice quite a bit towards the end in using non-verbal cues to both listen and respond.
So with that, I want you to ground yourselves in a time. Ground yourselves in a time, the very first time you realized the impact of non-verbal communication. This can be in a personal setting or it can be in a professional setting, either way, but one of the earliest memories you became keenly aware of non-verbal communication. What I want you to do is hone in on the impact that realization had on you.
So I’ll give you an example. My earliest one is personal. I immigrated to the United States with my family when I was 13, I’m originally from Dominican Republic. I come from a family that has a huge Latin American and Mediterranean background. Hint, hint, I may or may not be the facilitator that has three citizenships. So bingo for you. And so I grew up being very physical touch and proximity, not an issue. In fact, every space that I entered growing up, it was expected that you would, I mean literally find every person in that space and go [foreign language 00:06:15]. It was just you went around and you found every person in that space or else you were kind of seen as a little bit rude.
And then when it was time to say goodbye, we’d reverse it, ” [foreign language 00:06:31]. Yeah. Not a fun time during COVID. Not at all. So when we moved to the United States, when I was 13 years old we moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Yeah, lovely place. I’m just saying yeah because of the shock, right? Imagine that drastic change in culture. I will never forget the first time that we met our neighbors and we went to go in and say hi. I was like, “Hey, nice to… ” and I literally leaned in and they went, “Nice to meet you.” I was like, “Oh, right, that’s not a thing that I guess people do here.”
In that moment I realized two things. One is I wasn’t even reading the situation. Non-verbals were not a thing to me up until that point in my life. And what the impact that stuck with me was I’m different from these people and there are big adjustments I’m about to have to make. And what that would mean later on in life and all the other thing,. But that’s where I think that realization of really big difference started for me because DR is a tiny country, it’s very homogenous. The US is not that. And so that for me was the first realization of difference.
So that’s what I want you to do is take the next two minutes and I want you to hone in. You don’t have to write it, you can if that helps you record it, but I want you to think about that first moment you became keenly aware of non-verbal communication and the impact it had on you.
All right, we’re going to keep that music going, but what I want you to do now, stay at your tables. So I just had you up and moving a lot. We’re going to move again a little bit later, but I’ll let you chill for now. Turn to your neighbor and if you have an odd number, it’s okay if there’s a triad at your table, and take the next five minutes to talk about that moment and that impact and what it meant for you.
So would love to hear from a couple of folks. Tell us a little bit about what surfaced in your conversations, whether you drew up an insight or something came up for you unexpectedly. Please share your name when you speak.
Speaker 3:
I have to share my name? Sarah. It’s Sarah. It’s Brian Terello, the one that won the gravy packet yesterday. So Granny and I are here talking about our experiences. They were both young, traumatizing experiences with a mother. Her mother gave her a look, and then I got a look in junior high school. I moved to a new school in a new part of the country where I didn’t know anybody and didn’t know the culture and wasn’t part of a group or anything. And I said something, I don’t even know what it was, but the girls gave me the look and I was like, “What is that?” I felt terrible and they just all dispersed, and I was like, “I don’t know what I said.” It was terrible and it was an icky experience. And they were wondering if anybody actually had a positive experience with this.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I mean, y’all are in conversation with each other. Anyone have positive experiences? So many. Anyone want to share? Oh gosh, there’s so many hands.
Speaker 4:
I’d love to share. Oops. Can I share here in the middle since I have the mic? I’m Jackie. Thank you.
Speaker 1:
I was like, “Wait, wait, wait, wait.”
Speaker 4:
Not that I want to be authoritative in that way, but I’ll take advantage. It took us a moment to think about it, first of all, it’s not an easy prompt. And then when we talked about really that I shared that feels so powerful to me, I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily early, but it’s powerful and it has to do with certain morning rituals. I’m Jewish, and so when you make a condolence call, you do something you call you sit shiva. You sit down with a person, you might not even say a word to them. You sit with them and you let them lead if they want to speak. And just your physical presence of being there with them brings comfort to them and to you and you’re so attuned in that moment. It’s incredibly powerful.
I’ve also had the experience with people who have sadly been ill or had a loss in their family and just as a close friend sitting with them looking deeply into their eyes and feeling what’s in their heart. There’s something so incredibly powerful about it. And yeah, thank you for asking the question because that’s a positive non-verbal. I mean, it might’ve been in a sad occasion, but it’s positive in terms of the power of being present with someone.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, thanks for sharing that, Jackie. Really appreciate that. Maybe a couple other folks. Yeah, Catherine.
Speaker 5:
Okay, so my first memory, it came to me really fast unlike some of you, I don’t know why. But my mom was driving with me in a car. I was probably maybe two or three, I’m not really even sure. I was sitting in the front seat, so you know how long ago that was. I remember her at a stoplight, we stopped the car for some reason, and I remember her leaning down and giving me an Eskimo kiss. And it makes me a little bit clumped here because physical touch matters and that the small moments count.
Speaker 1:
Thanks, Karen. All right, maybe one more over on… Yep, right here, perfect timing.
Speaker 6:
Hi, I’m Lily, and I wanted to share mine because mine felt like a little bit of a cop-out because I’m actually deaf. I have bilateral cochlear implants, and so my parents really tried to do over-exaggerated facial expressions, like mouth movement, like ways to help me realize that when you speak you have to speak it, you can’t just move your mouth and make words. So especially before I had these cochlear implants, I couldn’t hear, and so they had to use those gestures, those facial expressions, the eye contact, the exaggerated looks of surprise or happiness or whatever to get me to make that connection to whatever the thing went on at the time.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, thanks, Lily, for introducing also that level of accessibility when we lean into not just our verbal, but also our non-verbal communication.
All right, so I want us to stay anchored in that. I think the big theme that’s coming up for us is the power and the lasting impact that non-verbal communication can have on us, whether it’s for the better or the worse. And so let’s talk a little bit about what we mean when we say non-verbal communication before we dig into exploring our own styles. I am a very systematic thinker. I love buckets of categories. You can tell I might be a little bit of a Virgo. Aye, my Virgos. Don’t worry for my Leos in the room, I’m actually a Virgo Leo cusp, so I got you too. Yeah, I see you.
Actually, what we’re looking at here is by column. Our first column is what most people immediately think of when we say non-verbal communication, it’s what’s happening on our face. So our facial expressions, how we’re using our mouth, our eyebrows to express different kinds of reactions and emotions. And then, of course, there’s our eye contact, so how we’re using our gaze. Where is it going to? Is that where I’m focusing? Have you ever been in a conversation with someone and you’re talking to them and then all of a sudden they’re like, “Uh-huh. Yeah,” and they’re over here and I’m like, “Yeah, yeah, I got you.” And so how we use our gaze. That first column we’re talking about face. That’s the most common recall of non-verbal communication.
Our middle column here is our whole body, our whole body and movement. So we’re talking about our gestures and our postures. This is much more upper body, so our gestures, how we’re gesticulating with our arms, with our hands. I actually tend to gesture a whole lot more, but I have a handheld mic because these curls will not be tamed and the mic would land right where it hits. So I would typically be gesturing a whole lot more with both of my hands, just because that’s how I grew up. And then our posture, how are we standing. We’ll talk a little bit about what those different kinds of body cues might mean in a bit. And then proximity and movement. So this is how we are inhabiting the space in terms of the actual spatial awareness, as well as in relation to people. So I’m here right now delivering some kind of information, but as you all were talking, I was moving around the room trying to glean some of your incredible nuggets of wisdom that you were talking about.And also, if I’m having a direct conversation with someone, if I move in a little bit closer to listen as I make that eye contact versus maybe move back as I’m trying to address a larger group of people. So all about the movement of our whole body.
And then that last column, that’s the one that actually most people don’t think of, which is sound. We think non-verbal means that it’s all about non-sound things of our body, but actually, vocal cues are a huge part of our non-verbal communication. So it’s not what we’re saying but how we’re saying it. So the tone, the pitch, the pace. You could probably tell right after we did the Cha-Cha Slide and I started, I was talking up here and a little bit quickly. Part of that was absolutely you should probably not dance that hard right before you’re about to be the one speaking, because I was definitely a little bit winded.The other part is just like those jitters that come in the first two to three minutes. I’ll be super vulnerable with you, it was absolutely the Cha-Cha Slide and nerves at the same time that had me up here, where I almost couldn’t catch my breath.
So that is what we mean when we say vocal cues, like how are we holding that voice, how fast are we talking, how high or low are we talking? And then my favorite one is silence. So how and when do you choose to lean into the absence of sound? We’ll talk a bit about what that looks like. I just want to leave you with just three really interesting key insights to drill down on this idea of why non-verbal communication is so important, especially for facilitators who are people-gatherers.
So there’s this thing called the 7-38-55 rule, which is often misunderstood and people actually think that the research says that 93% of all communication is non-verbal. That’s actually not what that means at all. What this actually means is it’s taking a look at when verbals and non-verbals don’t match, what happens, which happens a lot. I’m sure that for all of you in this room that are facilitating groups of people, often you realize that what’s surfacing verbally is only 30 to 50% of the story, right? Yeah, I’m starting to see some nodding heads in there.
What actually happens when those two are not aligned is that people actually pay way more attention to the non-verbal cues in the space than they do verbally. So when those aren’t in alignment, people are only making meaning at 7% from what’s being said. The other 93% is from vocal cues, so how it’s being said, and from all of the silent body language, facial expressions, all those other things that we just talked about. So this is point one as to why it’s really, really important for us to refine this and become really aware of what our style is and where we can lean in to engage our groups.
Next we have emotional synchrony. So this is that as facilitators who hold these containers, we have the power to shape the energy in that room without saying a single word with how we show up. I mean, granted, DJ Casper was saying all the words, but I didn’t say anything. I was just moving with y’all, right? There’s also something that happens where people start to unconsciously mirror the energy and the non-verbal language that we’re giving off. It’s not that it’s going to magically happen all at once, but because of the role that we inhabit as facilitators, they do look to us at a certain point, especially at the very beginning. Once we start to dig in, because our goal as facilitators is to create that incredible conversation between each other, not just with me, so they’ll start to take those cues from each other as well. But at the beginning, in that foundational first five minutes, they’re taking their cues from you for the most part.
And then our last little piece of research before we start digging into our own styles is around non-verbal trust. Research has actually shown that facilitators who use non-verbal cues and communication build stronger group trust. And so what that might look like, it can really differ. In this study, they looked at these three categories, but we’ll talk a little bit about a variety of different ways we might be able to use non-verbal communication. So here they were talking about open body language and expansive posture… I almost held it over here… eye contact and facial responsiveness, so being engaged with you, very actually visibly engaged and reacting to what you’re sharing. And then lastly, marrying an attunement to group energy. So a little earlier, Karen was talking a little bit about that mirroring piece and language. We’re going to talk actually about that mirroring piece as well in terms of body.
All right. So this is a lot of really nice information, but it means nothing if you don’t end up applying it to yourself. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do next. So there should be a three-page worksheet that is only two pages because we print double-sided to save the environment. No, it’s not double-sided, never mind. The printer made a choice. They did not get the two ply to one ply memo, and here we are. So I’ll briefly explain how this worksheet works and then I’ll give you a little bit of time. So the first part, part one, as you can see is called scales. And there’s different kinds of non-verbal communication methods in here. I want you to think about it in regards to two categories, your personal context and your facilitation or professional context.For some of you, those might be very aligned. For others of you, they may not be. And for some, you might be in the middle about some being aligned and some not.
And then the second part is rankings. And again, this is very personal to you, which is understanding your facilitation purpose, your facilitation style, and your non-verbal style. Which of those are most impactful in your facilitation practice for achieving your purpose in that space? So I’ll give you about five minutes. And as you’re filling that out, it won’t take you long, but the reason I’m giving you five minutes is because I want you to be thinking through these questions that we’re going to discuss afterwards. So for those of you that are like, “Boom, boom, boom, boom, I’m done in 10 seconds,” here are the questions I want you to start percolating on and maybe taking some notes. How has your culture, social upbringing, or conditioning shaped your non-verbal communication?How do your non-verbal behaviors shift in different settings? So start to dig in a little deeper and analyze that. Why might I change my proximity in a professional setting than I do in a personal setting? Or why might my eye contact shift? And then what surprised you most? What surfaced for you, whether it was a delight or whether it was, “Oh, that’s a challenge. That’s something that I need to think about.” We’ll do some focus music. I’ll give you all about five minutes to fill out that worksheet, think through these questions, and then we’ll move on to discussion.
We are now going to talk as a table. We’re going to do intensive pair work in a bit, so I want you to have a little bit more of a larger group discussion at your tables. If there’s a lot of people at your tables, feel free to split up into two groups of three or four, because I want to make sure you all get to dig into these questions really well. But if you’re at smaller tables, talk as a whole group. And we’ll give you about 10 minutes in those to explore, see what comes up for you and the insights you gain from those conversations.
So those were some pretty meaty conversations y’all were having. I mean, I walked around and the stuff that y’all were sharing and starting to dig into, incredible. So I know that there’s lots of interesting insights and connections that were made, and I’m curious to hear from you all what surfaced in those conversations.
Speaker 7:
Hi, everyone. I’m Pooja. One thing that I’ve always struggled with is projecting my voice. I am really great in a small circle of people or on one-on-ones, but when talking to one-to-many like this, unless… I mean, I have a mic right now, but I do ordinarily struggle with that. But I’ve also been told that I’m very facially expressive, that I use a lot of gestures, my body language is more open. And so in filling this out, it just occurred to me that maybe I’ve been overcompensating for my lack of projection with all of these other ways of communicating with folks. So I thought that was really interesting as I was filling this out.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, thanks for sharing that with us, Pooja, and having a very holistic view of, okay, not just what my one skill says about this, but as a whole, what does this mean and how am I balancing those things. Absolutely.
Speaker 8:
We had a really interesting conversation about the impact of COVID on our non-verbal cues, all the way from, first of all, proximity was a no-go. Even though we’re past that, I still almost pause for a second, I’m like, “Are you okay with me being near you? Are you okay with me touching your hand?” And then when everybody was wearing masks, I was saying I really struggled to read people without being able to see their mouths. And you had to learn how to smile with your eyes. And then just everything moving to virtual, your body language is just here up. And so then you have to readjust and be like, “How do I convey what I’m trying to say without the ability to move the majority of my body?”
Speaker 1:
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for bringing in the virtual element as well. A lot of times you think, “Well, it’s online, so there’s not much I can do.” But how do we inhabit that square of ours and how do we lean in and lean back and how do we use that space? Absolutely. I guess, sorry, your hand up first, and then we’ll go to you.
Speaker 9:
Oh, thanks. Two things. One is that I’m definitely better at facilitating than I’m in my interpersonal relationships, so I was like, “Wow, I’m much more comfortable with silence in a room of 300 people than I am at silence one-on-one. I’m much more comfortable with eye contact when I’m in a room with a bunch of folks than I am in… ” That was just an interesting personal reflection.
Our conversation veered towards the gender nature of things. I was thinking a lot about how I taught Designing Your Life at Stanford for a number of years, and the founders who taught it, one is a six-foot-five pastor of a male who has just this commanding presence of a room. And I’m like a short little Italian lady with boopy energy. Just like I could practice and I could say everything the same and I could make the most resonant points and people are just never going to look at me the same as they looked at him. So we had a really just cool conversation around different things that women have tried or not tried and projecting voice and not projecting, all the things. No real huge insights, just generative dialogue in that camp.
Speaker 1:
That is huge. Absolutely. Right? Yes.
Speaker 9:
Thank you.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely. And actually, I’m really glad that that’s what came up for y’all because that is what that question is asking, right? Because realistically, non-verbal cues are read differently depending on the identities we hold. And it’s not because of the identities themselves, but because of the conditioning and the systems we live in that teach us how to react to certain identities in certain ways. So that’s a huge insight. Thank you. Thank you for bringing that to the group.
Speaker 10:
Hi, everybody, my name is Adam. I grew up in California. My parents are from Wyoming, and they’re big personalities. So in this context, my house was never silent. There was always a TV on, always a fan on. There’s never silence. I associate silence with sadness, funerals, really dark moments. And so in my personal life, I’m a big personality, I’m very expressive as my coworkers totally know. But silence is very scary to me personally, but also in facilitation. And that’s a big weakness of mine that I recognize totally. But then I in this ranking, I put it at my bottom because I’m afraid of it. It’s scary. I don’t want to touch it. Get away from me. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. But I think it comes from, the first question, it comes from my home life for sure. I want to address that and maybe learn some more from today and in the future.
Speaker 1:
Thanks for sharing. So I think that was about six nos, so I take it you don’t like silence. Okay, just noted. Noted, noted. All right, Peter.
Speaker 11:
I have a quote for you from Edwin, my neighbor, when we did a one-on-one, “Let the silence do the heavy lifting.” It was so cool because we were talking about the earlier case of all the non-verbal cues and how silence… Like my example was a virtual meeting and how put the question out there and just let it sit for 10 seconds and 15 seconds and 25 seconds. Pretty soon someone starts to talk and it really unlocked a whole thing, which is really cool. So just want to add that.
One other thing, we talked a lot about virtual here. Often if I have a high-stakes conversation, I’ll switch my mic and I’ll have one really close to my mouth and I’ll have headphones on so I can really hear and I can talk very low. Seems to really make a difference, versus if I’m speakerphone and all that. And for a facilitator for me, it really puts me in a different space.
Speaker 1:
Thanks for sharing that.
Speaker 12:
So this is a trick that NPR uses, just to build off of the idea that we heard a second ago. So if you’ve ever been interviewed on NPR, especially in the studio, one of the things that they’ll do is they will turn up your own voice in your own ears. And so when they do that, there’s a tendency to bring it a little bit lower and say, “This is [inaudible 00:30:37]. Welcome to NPR.” And so you can do the same thing depending on the tone that you’re trying to go for. So thank you for adding that.
Speaker 1:
And thank you for your NPR tone. I love it. I love a good NPR tone. All right, maybe… Yep, we’re here.
Speaker 13:
I didn’t even bring this up to my friends here, but something Adam said made me think of something really funny. So I’m from Texas, and when I used to travel around consulting in the Northeast, they would always be like, “You don’t sound like you’re from Texas.” And I was like, “Well, there’s like 30 million people down there.” All the accents are homogenous now basically. But almost to a point, every single client would say that. At one point there was even a dialogue with my team about if I should start hamming up the accent to play on that idea, but it never happened. But just going through the notes, my tone and inflection and volume is something that I really deem myself on, and I just now recalled that story.
Speaker 1:
Thank you. It’s such a crystallized example of how our non-verbals completely get impacted by experience, whether we’re conscious of those experiences or not. Absolutely. All right, we’ll go to these… Oh my gosh. Okay, final three, final three. No one else raise your hands. We’ll go 1, 2, 3.
Speaker 14:
I actually have a question. I was wondering, so much of what I do is and what we all do. How would you augment some of that information to make it more accessible for neurodivergent folks or more? If you’re working with a group that’s really autistic, a lot of people on the spectrum, do you have any advice for that? Do you just make it really explicit? Is there something else you would do?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, well, so it’s tough because being on the spectrum means so many different things. And so it really depends on the group you’re going to work with. So there are some groups where you are going to want to lean more into your non-verbals because they don’t do subtlety. And that is super important.
Then there are some groups where your words become hyper important because it is just that the social reading is really, really tough. But I would say that’s a little bit tough to answer generally, just because it truly depends. Being on the spectrum, I mean, these days words are changing so fast, it used to be that we had autism, Asperger’s spectrum, now it’s all in the spectrum. And then there’s other things being lumped into the spectrum, so it really depends literally group to group. So what I would say is discovery is always critically important, including understanding how you’re going to be facilitating non-verbally and understanding those group dynamics and group needs before you even get to that space with them. And that will help lead you to some more insights and answers to that. Yeah. All right, my other two hands. Go here and here. Where’s my back mic? Where’s the mic in the back?
Speaker 15:
Sorry, mic’s getting…
Speaker 1:
Okay, no worries.
Speaker 15:
Real quick. One of the things when I saw proximity that I think about a lot as a facilitator, and I learned this from another co-facilitator, was even the design of how you do work in groups. Obviously because we’re constrained in space here, we have tables, but my co-facilitator, Taylor, would tell me, “Hey, oftentimes it’s not really democratized when it’s in front of somebody.” Even how we were doing some of our exercises today to have it on a wall versus on a table. And so even that kind of spatial awareness for me is a non-verbal exercise, not just my non-verbal, but when I put a thing on the wall and start posting and we’re all looking at it together, we’re all equal now versus it being the paper in front of myself or another colleague. Anyways, when I think about proximity, I’d love to expand that to this idea of how do we create spaces by which we all feel like we’re contributing equally.
Speaker 1:
I love that, designing for non-verbal inclusion. Absolutely. Thanks, Danny. All right.
Speaker 16:
I wanted to say something about tone and vocal cues. I also do what Sarah does up there in the graphic recording and people often ask, “How do you know what to capture?” And whenever anybody goes… what they’re going to say is going to be capture-worthy. And when they go through a slide like da, da da da da, da, I’m not capturing any of that because that’s not what it’s about. But I can tell before they’re going to say something that matters, so that’s how you know. And you all know that too. I mean, we all know that intuitively.
Speaker 1:
I love that. And that brings us back to sound. That’s the sound of breath. So relying on that non-verbal cue to be like, “That’s an important point to them.” Absolutely.
So before we move into our final practice, let’s talk a little bit about what are some of those non-verbal strategies that we can try to leverage, especially as we look at our scales. What I mean is you do not need to be at a level five across all your scales. It needs to be authentic to you, and it also needs to meet the needs of your group. So also how you show up non-verbally might have to be adaptive to your group’s needs and to what emerges in that space in a way that still feels like you’re showing up authentically.
But so own your physical presence to set the tone. Your posture and your body language are going to immediately kick off the tone of that session. So if I’m talking to y’all and I’m a little bit slouched and I’m just really closed off, that’s not quite as inviting you into a conversation with me as if I’m here and I’m facing you and I’m standing up tall, leaning into that generous authority. Thank you, Priya Parker. And owning that space as your own. You’re holding that container for those people on purpose.
Leveraging eye contact to guide participation, so that’s super important, whether it’s that I’m specifically focusing in on someone’s [inaudible 00:36:42] to let them know I’m paying attention and I value what you’re sharing. And just that gaze, that focus as a facilitator will make others start to mirror that behavior and focus in. Or whether I’m scanning the room and making sure that people know, “Oh, she’s not just here to listen to some of us. She’s paying attention to all of us.” Super important.
Experiment with vocal variety to shape energy. So who just talked a little bit about how she leans a bit more into these other strategies and interesting things with voice, because volume is not the only thing. And so understanding, if we want to really emphasize a point, does our pitch go up a little bit? Are we excited about that? If there’s something difficult in the space right now, I’m not going to be like, “Guys, this feels like there’s a really big tension here.” That seems like really… Right? “You know what? I’m sensing that there’s a sticking point here. Let’s explore that.” So tones go down. So managing the energy in that way.
Play with space and proximity to influence engagement. So Danny kicked us off a little bit in how do we start to think about playing with that proximity piece in our design and in the choices we’re making about how we structure our activities, but playing around and seeing how to inhabit the space and what’s working for your group and adapting to what they respond to.
So also a big piece is you should not be keeping the same exact levels of non-verbal communications throughout the whole time. You should be paying attention to what’s emerging and how they’re responding to you and leaning in when you start to notice, oh, okay, this brought them in more, that kind of not so much. So maybe I do a little less of that.
I don’t know if you all have ever worked with law enforcement, but I’ve done sessions for law enforcement before, and those look really different than when I work with educators, with students, in mission-driven orgs where I really lean into bringing that emotion full forward and using all different kinds of non-verbals. Whereas law enforcement, it is very much like you stand up straight and you connect with them. They’re much more around, “Give me the information. Tell me how it applies to me. I don’t want any of that woo-woo stuff.” And understanding what the needs are. If you have time to work with them over long term, you can start to crack that shell a little bit. But so understanding what your different group’s needs are is really important.
Mirror and match to build trust and connection. This goes back a little bit to what Karen talked about in mirroring language. Same thing with non-verbal language. Starting to mirror a little bit of the language that your participants are giving off with their bodies helps for them to start to create this really subtle form of connection with you, and they start to see themselves a little bit.
And then lastly, I’m sorry Adam, I’m going to tell you to embrace silence just a little bit. My rule is if I ever prompt the group, I do not talk for at least 10 to 15 seconds. At least. Sometimes I let it go for 20 to 30, watch people squirm a little bit until someone talks. But honestly, oftentimes we mistake that silence for people are not engaged when in reality what it means is just they’re thinking, they’re taking it seriously. And it’s going to help you do two things. It’s going to help get you to deeper meaningful dialogue with your groups. And it’s also going to help create a space where those that might hesitate to speak up don’t feel pressure that they need to do it now. Have you ever been prompted and then all of a sudden, two to three seconds later, it’s like, “Anyone? So any thoughts?”
And if I’m the person that has a hard time speaking up, I’m going, “No thoughts. No, just anxiety.” So playing around with those different kinds of non-verbal communication methods. I use the phrase playing around on purpose. Like I said, there’s no one right way to do it. Every group is going to have different needs, so play with it. See how your groups react, engage or don’t engage and make adjustments.
Our last exercise for the day, I said we were going to deepen our listening skills. We are going to do whole body listening. What does that mean? That is the wrong arrow. Yes. So what does that mean? So three levels of listening, we have focused listening… oh, sorry, we have internal listening, focused listening, and whole body listening. What internal listening is level one, is that we are listening to respond. This is where a lot of folks, especially in the spaces that we work with, are typically at, where I am listening and trying to figure out what I’m going to say to you next to the point that I miss all non-verbal cues and half of the verbal ones too. I’m just like listening to formulate my own response.
Then we have focused listening. This is where a lot of facilitators are at, where we are paying attention, we’re doing active listening, we’re paraphrasing to make sure we got it right. We’re asking those curious questions to probe a little bit deeper, right? We’re listening to understand. And then there’s whole body listening, which is when we listen to connect. What whole body listening looks like is that I am responding to what you are saying with your mouth and with your body. And so, all of a sudden my curious questions aren’t necessarily just based on what you’re saying to me, but how you’re saying it. “Hey, I’m curious, you hesitated in that moment before you shared that. I just want to know why. What about that made you hesitate?” or “Your face lit up when you were talking about this? What about that excites you?” So all of a sudden, your curiosity, your questions become about what their needs and values are, what’s important to them, not what I’m trying to understand for myself alone. So that’s whole body listening. S.
O what’s going on underneath the surface? Level one, when we’re listening to respond, it’s very ego-driven. It’s just about me and what I’m bringing to it. So we’re easily activated, we have very low regulation because it’s all about me, and anything that even slightly challenges my perspective I feel very defensive about. The outcome of this is that people do not feel heard. They feel shut down.
And then when we think about focused listening, what’s going on here? We’re better emotionally regulated because it’s not all about me. I really want to understand you, so there’s a little bit more cognitive engagement. I’m really trying to pay attention and respond to what you are saying, not what I’m thinking. And we’re starting to practice not just active listening, but that active curiosity.
And then when we go into whole body listening, our level three listening, that’s where we get into a space of deep empathy, because our responses are to try to meet the needs of that other person and drill deeper into what’s important to them. That’s where we get into that heightened sense of awareness where I end up paying attention and listening to everything about you. That’s where we get to that relational [inaudible 00:44:19] where all of a sudden I am feeling this connection because I have been listened to in a way that took me to places that I never knew I needed to go, and that’s where we ended up.
So with that, that’s exactly what we’re going to do. But we’re not going to do two rounds. The conversation was so rich that as a facilitator I adapted to what emerged and I made some quick changes. So here’s what we’re going to do. We are going to do one full round. We’re not going to do the last step, which is repeat. Your prompt is, what is a moment in your facilitation practice that changed the way you lead? I know I didn’t bring any easy questions today, I am sorry. It doesn’t have to be the first moment, not the earliest moment, but what is a moment in your facilitation practice that changed the way you lead? It could be something you did and the way the group responded. It could be something a co-facilitator did. Anything, right? And it doesn’t have to be negative, it can be positive, but something that changes the way you lead.
I’m going to give you a minute or two to think about it, but the way it’s going to work is like this. I’m going to give you all 10 minutes. You’re going to find a partner. Now we are going to stand up. I’m going to challenge you to find someone you still have not partnered up with throughout this summit. What’s going to happen is one of you is going to share and respond for five minutes. So partner A is going to be answering this prompt. Partner B, I want you to do whole body listening as they’re answering this question to you. Don’t just hear what they’re saying, but see them. See them in their wholeness and start to ask questions based not just on their verbal, but their non-verbal language. So start to pick up on things and drill down on things that are exciting them, making them fearful or hesitant or anxious or question things.
You’re going to do that for five minutes. Then we’re going to switch. Partner B is going to share their prompt and partner A is going to do whole body listening and respond accordingly with curious questions based on what the other partner is not just saying with their mouth, but with their body. Anything I can clarify before I start giving you that thinking time? All right. So I’ll just give you a brief two minutes to think about this existential question. Seems enough. And then I’ll cue you to stand up and we’ll go ahead and chat on those pairs for 10 minutes. All right, so if you could, as you’re ready, stand up and find a partner you haven’t spoken to yet at the summit. And I’ll give you the five-minute cue when it’s time to switch.
All right. If you have not switched yet, please go ahead and switch.
Please thank your partner for listening and getting curious. So let’s spend just a few minutes or last few minutes together unpacking. I’m curious to hear from you all not necessarily what it was that you were talking about, but what the experience was like and you can choose to respond in either way. What did it feel like to be listened to in that way? How was that a different experience than your regular conversations? Or on the other hand, what did it feel like to listen and get curious in that way? What about it was maybe easy or challenging for you? And how did you find the conversation went for you as a listener?
Speaker 17:
Hi, I am Marsha. I was just having a conversation with Pooja here. Since the exercise was all about whole body listening, she spoke to me about three situations. The first two situations I’m like, “Oh, am I supposed to respond to this? Am I listening the right way?” So I got a little conscious there, but in the third situation, I was being a little more present in terms of what is she exactly trying to convey. And then I put myself in that situation and I was like, “Yeah, that is what I get.” And I think there was a little learning that I did through that exercise, so thank you so much.
Speaker 1:
Thanks, Marsha. Absolutely. Anyone else had that same moment of like, “Oh crap, am I doing this right?” Yeah, yeah, so you were not alone.
Speaker 18:
Yes, and I was super conscious when I was talking with Dan, which thank you, Dan, great job. I will say one thing that going to him I knew that I could already trust him because I knew that he was going to show up in that space for me. So that was something that was different in terms of how my expectations changed because I understood that. I noticed when I was talking, I was shouting at him. And I noticed that when I was listening that I was very conscientious about my body at that point and what I could give and how I could show that to him. So just giving and receiving in that conversation is very different for me in terms of how I’m going to try to show up is what I noticed.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. Thanks. Thank you, Monica. Yeah, it takes a whole different level of intention. Others?
Speaker 19:
I was going to say the exercise worked so well that we… or Brian was such a great listener that I spoke the entire time, so we didn’t even get to hear what Brian had to say. But he was so engaging as a listener that it just kept inviting more out of me that I wasn’t even thinking about to begin with. So fantastic facilitator in Brian.
Speaker 1:
Kudos to you both. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that experience. I think I saw… Yeah, and we’ll go here.
Speaker 6:
Hi, it’s Lily again. So at first I was like, “Oh my God, am I doing this?” And then it got really hard because I mentioned I’m deaf, and so the way I look at people is I read their lips, and that’s my connection of what they’re saying to what I’m hearing. And so I’m like, “I can’t look at their face and look at their body and then look at their face and use my ears and try and all of that.” It was a hard connection for me to make. I think I did okay. So it was just like, “Oh yeah, it’s kind of looking at all places at once and then taking it in and trying to respond in a way that’s like I’m not trying to respond just to respond, I’m trying to actually unpack it and get after what you’re saying.” So it was an interesting experience.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, definitely. Someone mentioned I got that practice, and this is also a muscle we don’t flex often, so it’s going to feel awkward at first where we’re like, “I need to pay attention to everything about you as you’re talking.” Where eventually it’ll get to a place where you’re just focused on their face and you just also soften your gaze to make yourself aware of the rest of them. But it’s not that you necessarily have to draw your attention to their whole and it’s like, “Oh, they bent the knee a little bit. What does that mean?” I’m exaggerating on purpose, but it is something that needs to be practiced and refined. And so I’m not at all surprised for folks not feeling quite there. Absolutely. All right. I think I’d seen… Oh my gosh, so many. It’s amazing.
Speaker 14:
I was really conscious of my height. I had this desire to get myself at eye level or below, like lower myself to them height wise. But I didn’t do it because it would’ve been super distracting because we were standing up. But yeah, sure.
Speaker 1:
That’s really interesting that that’s what became really hyper aware for you.
Speaker 20:
Hi, I am Jane. We didn’t talk about this, but as you were speaking I thought about animals and how in-tune you have to be with them, especially if you’re around horses, because they’re prey animals and they’re fearful and you’re always watching to see if they’re going to blow up over something that wouldn’t scare you. So I was just thinking about that, that if you pay attention to your animals to understand them, that could translate to people.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, because our bodies are the only way we can communicate with animals.
Speaker 21:
I would just like to say kudos to the Facilitation Lab and Voltage Control. In two days, I’ve already seen things a different way. So that’s pretty amazing that in two days that you can change the way somebody thinks. I’ll get my wife to come next week and y’all can help her understand me better.
But when I was talking to Lindsey, in our business, in the utility business, a lot of the things we facilitate just so fast-paced, aggressive. It’s all about this event could have killed someone or this event could have cost us $10 million. But when I was listening to Lindsey, I really caught myself wondering how she felt because she was put in a difficult situation instead of just nodding your head okay. But I was really sensing and I was even asking her, “How’d that make you feel?” I really got into the listening part. And then when she listened to my story, it really felt really good to be listened to, just the simple things in life that things get complicated and you tend to not appreciate.
Speaker 1:
Thanks for sharing that, Galen. Thank you. All right, I think I had a couple hands here, so I’m going to go one, two.
Speaker 22:
So I come from the K-12 education space, so I definitely noticed this, and I do something similar to this in my facilitation with teachers in having the ability to assess students without having grades on paper. What it felt like with the scanning was we were assessing the conversation and then we were able to dig either deeper into the conversation or to find another avenue to where the conversation was going. Through my conversation with Edwin, I noticed that he was able to tell me about a moment that helped him grow, and then I was able to assess to say, “Tell me a little bit about that moment of growth and then what can you do in the future to make this a better situation for you.” So that’s something I think that could be lovely in the K-12 education space.
Speaker 1:
Yeah,, starting to connect that forward-thinking as well based on the insights you get. All right. Going to be our last comment because there’s my walk-off music right there.
Speaker 23:
No pressure or anything. Hi, I am Susanna. I’ve been for the past few years thinking about eye contact because I’ve noticed myself, when I listen to people, I will look away. I was like, “What is that telling them?” And I’ve been thinking a lot about why is that. I find it’s like a sensory overload when I have to do all of the non-verbal thinking about it, but then also hearing and processing. And so it’s almost like I’m choosing to listen or I’m choosing to pay attention, but doing both at the same time is extremely… My ram is not catching up with this.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for sharing that, Susanna. Absolutely, this is something that is not intuitive. It’s not the ways in which we have been taught and conditioned to interact with each other and listen to each other. So it is going to take that practice. Like I said, I encourage you to lead into the word play when you think about practicing whole body listening, when you think about how to use different non-verbal communication styles and tactics. Use Facilitation Lab community as a place to be like, “Hey, you want to get on Zoom for 15 minutes and do some whole body listening practice, right?” That’s totally valid. That’s what this community is for. What I’ll leave you with is I know that it is a challenging practice, and I’m using the word practice on purpose, that’s our theme, but practice makes practice. Because being heard, powerful. Being seen is powerful. But being heard and seen that’s magical. And so as facilitators, as people-gatherers, I challenge you to hear them, to see them, and to go out there and make that magic happen. So thank you.
