Learnings and Lovings

Last year I went with my brother to Q&A – a panel show on the ABC. It was held at the Opera House and they had an outstanding panel from the Festival of Dangerous Ideas (a brilliant event in itself!).

The format of the show involves a panel of speakers, usually spruiking a new book or particular political agenda who form the panel. Audience members send in questions before which are screened as conversation starters. Audience members may also ask spontaneous questions throughout the show, or those at home can play by using the twitter hashtag #qanda.*

I think there are a couple of reasons why this format is successful.

It gives people the opportunity to think

I read up on each of the panellists before the show. I read a little of the pre-prepared material that the ABC sent me and did some of my own research. I came in with a much better understanding of the topics than I would have otherwise. I also thought of questions that I could ask during the show (although I never would have – I’d much rather have kittens!). It made me feel engaged with the topic, and with the show. And it made me question what I thought of the topic – not just what the panellists thought.

I’ve been inspired for a similar reason by “The Update, The Vent and The Noisy” from Rands in Repose (Johanna Rothman makes a similar point here). In essence:

“Business is noisy. Business is full of people worrying loudly about projects, process, and other people. These people have opinions and they share them all over the place — all the time. This collective chatter is part of the daily regimen of a healthy business, but this chatter will bury the individual voice unless someone pays attention.”

If you don’t give people the opportunity to have their say and think about what is going on around them, often they won’t feel that they can.

Audience participation is fun.

The twitter feed has a lot to answer for. The ABC post a running feed of all sorts of tweets at the bottom of the screen – from serious all the way to downright stupid. It always makes me (and often the panel!) laugh about the topic.

When something goes wrong at work, or when someone is not pleased about something that we have done, sometimes I try and introduce audience participation by making a stupid joke of it. This might sound ridiculous, but I’ve noticed two things about this method.

Firstly, I work with overachievers who are pretty hard on themselves anyway. I do not have to tell them to pick up their game. They do not often make mistakes. Helping them laugh at their mistakes makes them realise that it can be good to make mistakes – it helps them learn and get better at their job. More than that, it proves that their job could not be done by a team of highly skilled robots. (Besides, it is often not the mistake that is the issue, everyone makes mistakes. More it is the way that it is handled).

The second thing is that the joke turns the mistake into a story, which gets told. The audience participation stops other people from making the same mistake. And people want to add to the story, because it usually is pretty funny, which makes them think about it differently.

The point being, of course, that everyone loves a good story!

*(I'd link to it, but twitter is down. Just type #qanda into the search bar)

Tags: better-working, stories