The Great Communication Leveller

When you ask a question in a training program, you are bound to get a variety of answers that vary in quality.  They can range from being incredibly vague and diffuse to the lengthy and very specific response.  All of which can make it incredibly challenging to facilitate.

What if you could ensure that every response you got was at the same level, focussed and valuable?

In an interview with Dr Stephanie Burns for the CCS Expert Advice Series, Stephanie articulated how using the CCS in facilitation was a vehicle for ensuring the logic level of the responses from participants was consistent.  She goes on to say,

The CCS causes the communication to be much more direct, much more focused … The CCS gives the communication context and so the logic level is highly useful.

Stephanie shares with us a challenge that every facilitator is aware of – asking a question and getting a variety of responses – some that are long winded and others that are so brief it is difficult to glean their meaning.

Using the CCS with a room full of people is a communication leveller. Imagine — a room full of 50 people, they all have a pack of CCS cards.  They are asked to select 5 cards in response to a question.  They then share their choices with a partner.  Here are some benefits Stephanie share with us that happen:

• everyone has an answer that is good value for them and for others to hear
• it’s faster to elicit answers from the stage
• you can ask the group to share something that was ‘really out there and something you didn’t expect’ and get something that is very precise, and hear the most interesting things in the room
• the CCS acts like a funnel where you throw an idea in and out the bottom comes something very pure and fine and something to work with directly.

Stephanie goes on to say,

I’ve gone on to use that to great effect – in lots of teaching and leadership situations – self, one on one, and in classroom environment …

Hear more of Dr Burns’ insights and uses of the CCS, as well her as work on goal achievement, on our website.