Finding your star players
Star players don’t always naturally arise during a facilitated session. Occasionally, you have to draw them out, or help draw them out of their shells. Finding a star player is easy once you understand where participants’ passions are. This can be discovered prior to the session or during it. If you don’t know the participants, project sponsors, or hosts, your host should be able to provide you with a general understanding of which participants care about what topics prior to a session. During a session, pay attention to how participants react to certain topics and areas of conversation to see how you can capitalize on their personal areas of interest.
Knowing where the pressure points are allows you to quickly find these star players by lobbing questions or directing responses to a participant who is showing passion about the current topic. This takes a lot of the pressure off you and allows the participants to generate and maintain their own flow and energy.