When you’re in the chair, you don’t have to be in the hot seat
Taking the stress out of chairing events
Ambassadors get to chair a lot of meetings. There are regular, perhaps daily, Embassy morning meetings at which you go through the local news, discuss the day’s priorities and agree what (if anything) you need to report back to your capital. There are informal diplomatic gatherings: I was part of an eclectic group of Ambassadors that met fortnightly in Athens during the debt crisis in the 2010s to exchange information and insights from Greece but also to hear from colleagues in the Eurozone about their countries’ positions. There are regular meetings in New York, Brussels and other international capitals. There are other diplomatic conferences: I had the privilege to chair the first meeting of over forty countries to discuss the drafting of an Arms Trade Treaty.
And there are plenty of events in Embassies around the world, often put on so that visiting experts or advocates on all sorts of issues can speak to a local audience and exchange ideas. Some people might find these intimidating to chair. But chairing a meeting like this is far less difficult than speaking at one. Why? Because if you’re the speaker you need to know a great deal about your subject and answer whatever questions might come up, but if you’re the chair you just need to know a few simple rules on how to chair meetings. That’s the subject of this post - and the rules are just as useful wherever you are called on to chair events, whether for work or for a club or other organisation you’re involved in.
Like all “how to guides”, we start with the first obvious rule: prepare. But preparation for chairing events need not be onerous. It certainly does not require you to be an expert on the subjects which are going to be covered. Which is just as well, because taking into account the various events I can remember chairing as an Ambassador (not to mention since), I’m not an expert on shipping, insurance technology, migration control, supply chain management and many others. No one expected me to be, which is just as well. Unless your speaker(s) have sent you their own background material, a Wikipedia article or another simple guide to the subject should normally be quite enough.
The really important question to ask when preparing to chair an event is not “what’s the event about” (I hope you know that already), but “what’s the purpose of the event”? Is it for a general audience to hear a well known personality? Is it for experts to learn something very specific and exchange ideas? Is it for your guest speaker to promote themselves and their ideas - like a visiting Minister who wants his or her country’s position on the record with their foreign audience? Is it so that a group of businesspeople in the audience can get the chance to ask questions and promote their companies? Or to demonstrate that your Embassy, company or club is up to speed with the most important debates? Or to give a sponsor the chance to show themselves off to people they want to impress?
It may be a combination of several of these, but it’s worth working out which are most important. Back to our usual “what does success look like” question, who do you most want to go away satisfied? Sometimes it will be most important that people (maybe specific people) in the audience get to ask a question, sometimes that the speaker(s) feel they have got their points across, sometimes something else. But working out in advance what the purpose is will help you decide how to chair the event on the day.
You may conclude that there will be some specific work required for those goals to be achieved, so more directional chairing is necessary, calling on certain people, keeping some interventions short etc. If you’ve prepared for that, it will be easier in the heat of the moment.
Having done your homework, on the day there are two basic principles:
KISS (“keep it simple stupid”): the best kind of chairmanship, when you can get away with it, is light chairmanship. There’s a paradox here: it’s when you’ve chaired an event and can hardly remember saying anything much at all that you’re most likely to be congratulated for your brilliant chairmanship. If you don’t let it be about you, you’ll do a better job for yourself.
Don’t worry about outrunning the bear. You’ve probably heard the story about the two men in the woods who suddenly hear a bear approaching. One man starts running and the other asks why he’s bothering to run, since he can’t outrun the bear. The first man replies: “I know, but I can outrun you”. You don’t need to be smarter than the speakers, just one small step ahead of the audience. And, because you’ve done your preparation, you will be.
Having prepared well and internalised the two basic principles, here are a few points to bear in mind as you go through the event:
Set the ground rules at the beginning. In some cases this may be mandatory, for example what to do in case of a fire alarm. Some may be important, like making clear that the event is being conducted under the Chatham House rule, ie you can report what’s said but not who’s said it. A third category of request might include only to ask questions not make statements, or to ask short questions so that you include as many different people as possible. These may not be quite as vital, but setting out the rules at the beginning is still important because it means it will be easier to enforce them with troublesome participants if you’ve already mentioned them at the outset.
When you have introductory remarks to give, including the ground rules, introducing the topic and speakers, it’s a good idea if you think you might be nervous to write down at least the first sentence or two so that you have a “prop” to read as you start. I prefer not to write everything down in detail, as the temptation to read becomes irresistible - then the audience will realise you’re reading and possibly switch off.
You will have speakers’ CVs, either because they’ve sent them to you or because you’ve done your own research. The more distinguished (or at least the older) the speaker, the longer the CV. It will probably be too long: don’t be afraid to edit it down to the speaker’s current role and a few interesting highlights. Unless they’ve studied something exotic and unrelated to their current role, there’s almost certainly no need to mention what degree they have. Or that they enjoy football or ballet, unless your guest of honour is David Beckham or Darcy Bussell (in which case, we’ve already guessed).
You don’t need to give a long introduction to the subject, because your speakers will do it better than you can. In your (short) introductory remarks, it’s good to relate the speakers or the panel topics to the audience and/or current issues. I found this particularly useful as an Ambassador relating my British speakers to the local audience’s interests. For example “It’s great to welcome our panel of leading political correspondents, whose anecdotes will I’m sure resonate with this audience of Parliamentarians” or “There’s no better time to welcome eminent climate scientist Ms B as national delegations, including from Ruritania, prepare to travel to COP”.
Read the room. Someone will always be looking at their phone, but if everyone seems to be, it’s probably either because the speaker is going on too long or something dramatic is being reported on the wires. You may need to encourage the speaker to wind up, ask a question to get them focused - or invite someone to spread the news, so that the audience can get back in the zone.
When it comes to Q&A, have something - however general - in mind to ask as an ice-breaker. You’ll likely have thought of a few questions as the talk or panel is going on, but if not there’s always something generic to kick off the discussion: “what’s your special message to this group?” “What do you think might have moved on if you were to come back in two years’ time?” Or some such. I don’t find I need to step in often and, when I do, it’s almost always only once, because it won’t take long for the audience to think of questions and pluck up the courage to ask them.
You may have to deal with some difficult questioners. If you have to intervene, do it with a smile. A questioner who won’t shut up may call for : “thank you, in the interests of time, can I sum up? I think you’re asking…. Mr D, can you comment on that?”
If a questioner asks something undiplomatic which you know the speaker can’t answer without exceeding their authority, you may have to intervene. Not always: I’ve seen good speakers elegantly dismiss the question (“I’m not going there”). But if you’re concerned the speaker may be embarrassed, you could step in: “I don’t think you’re going to want to take that one, Jane. Perhaps you might comment more generally about …?” Another tactic is to take a question from someone else, allowing the speaker to ignore the first question if they are uncomfortable.
Keep to time. For every one person who would love to go on for an extra half hour, there will be five who have had enough, have a train to catch or just want a drink. And if you lose those five, you’ve lost the room, so the extra time is wasted. After most events, there’s a chance to carrying on talking after the formal proceedings end, and you can make that clear.
At the end, the most important thing is to thank the speakers and anyone else who should be acknowledged - make sure you have a list to hand so you don’t forget anyone. You don’t in my view normally need to do a detailed summary of the discussion: unless you are an expert, you’re probably not going to add to the audience’s understanding. But you might want to pick up one or two points which are probably either forward-looking action points (“these are issues which we’re all going to be facing in the current months”, “we’ll be picking up these issues again in our next event”), or related to the audience (“we’ve heard some innovative approaches to community policing which I know will have aroused particular interest here at the Police Academy”) or unexpected or amusing (“I never expected to hear that Professor Brown came up with his theory while scuba-diving off the Greek coast”), or if you’re really clever, all three.
I’ve assumed throughout this post that events take place in grand rooms in Embassies, or perhaps more modest rooms in other buildings. But of course increasingly many meetings take place online. I’m not going to provide a tech guide to managing online events, but it is worth thinking how you’ll deal with a sea of miniature faces on the screen with chat popping up at the same time. Most of the rules I’ve set out also apply to virtual meetings, with a few more besides:
Not everyone may have a good connection and, sad to say, not everyone will be giving you or the speaker 100% of concentration. So, whatever you’re going to say, especially setting out the rules and asking for questions, S L O W. D O W N A N D. B E. C L E A R.
The ground rules may be slightly different and may involve raising virtual hands, putting questions in the text and when to unmute. Explain them clearly at the beginning and perhaps again before the Q&A: remember, you can’t tell who’s paying attention.
For the same reason and because it’s hard to read the room as you go, don’t let speakers ramble on too long.
I’ve done a lot of chairing in my career, and still do. But I can remember that early attempts were stressful. There’s no need to be stressed. The audience is focused on the speakers, so for the chair less is definitely more. You don’t need to be an expert. And you don’t need to run faster than the bear.