Sometimes it’s painful even to watch. The facilitator poses a question to the group.

Silence.

You wince in sympathy, possibly remembering a time when it was you speaking to an unresponsive audience. It can be the stuff of nightmares.

So what went wrong? Odds are the facilitator did one or more of the following:

Asked for participation before warming up the audience
Asked trite questions that didn’t add value or help people absorb the material
Asked people to answer out loud with no thinking or rehearsal time.

So what can you do to avoid the fate of the poor soul who just created that awkward moment?

Here are a few tactics that will help you get participants energized and talking:

30-second rehearsal: Next time you toss out a question that meets with dead air, say, “Take 30 seconds at your table and brainstorm some possible answers.”

Raise the volume with partners: Have participants share their answers with a partner, which maximizing the number people talking at the same time. This immediately raises the energy in the room. (Conversely, if you need to quiet a boisterous classroom, reduce the number of simultaneous voices by grouping them in larger numbers – like sets of four, six or eight.)

Cue the music: Having energetic music playing before a training session starts can make a surprising difference. And playing it in the background when you ask participants to do something in pairs or groups serves the double purpose of 1) raising the energy, and 2) acting as a signal for when to begin the discussion and when to end it.

Cut Discussions a Little Bit Short: Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik observed that people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed ones. She theorized that an incomplete task or unfinished business creates “psychic tension” within us and this tension acts as a motivator to drive us toward completing the task or finishing the business. It’s called the Zeigarnik Effect. For facilitators this means stopping small-group discussions when you notice the volume in the room is just starting to drop after reaching its loudest. Then “finish” the idea as a large group.

True for You: Have participants stand at their seats. As they hear each statement they should sit down and immediately stand back up again if the statement is true for them. (If it’s not true for them, they simply remain standing.) It’s important to start from and return to a standing position; that’s what makes it such a powerful energizer. Statements you use are limited only by your imagination. Here are some examples:

Just for fun: “You remember exactly where you were when you heard Elvis had died”
Learning about the group: “You have been in this industry for less than three years.”
Reinforcing content: “You will have a chance to apply the _____ technique within a week.”

So what are your favorite tactics for energizing a quiet group? Share them in the comments!