Great moderators ask probing questions, foster an atmosphere of psychological safety, and enforce the principles of intellectual integrity.Ĥ. Tough interviewers get the best interviews.” - Brooke Southall “High-powered participants call for a high-powered moderator: You need someone who will challenge the panelists with uncomfortable questions. They don’t have to be an expert, but they should have domain expertise.” - George Moriarty, executive editor and vice president of content, Seeking Alpha. They have to know how to manage a conversation, keep it flowing, and prevent grandstanding. For example: What is the most effective way to diversify equity risk for investors who are at retirement age today? This is specific enough to be actionable, but open-ended enough to be interesting. Something memorable. If I don’t have it, I don’t do the panel.” - Nicholas Colasįor an investment audience, a provocative topic must be actionable and predictive, and specific enough that it has a falsifiable hypothesis - an idea that can be proven wrong. Don’t go in front of a group unless you have great ideas. “Think about the one or two things that will change their world. ” - Tadas Viskanta, founder and editor, Abnormal Returns They are often speaking past you to some perceived audience. “Disagreement is constructive when you’re on the same topic and you’re working toward the same goal. You cannot assume that everyone is on the same page. But regardless of the forum, you need to define goals clearly. A panel can be in person, via webinar, or over the phone. The focus here is on panel discussions that inform, enlighten, and entertain. There are different types of investment discussions for different purposes. The discussion needs clear structure, purpose, and definitions.” - Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist, Convergex The worst thing is to be boring. There has to be a stated process and goal for a discussion, whether internal to a firm or on a moderated panel. “The goal of a panel is to inform and entertain. To help avoid boring panel discussions, below are nine guidelines: four steps of preparation followed by five principles for execution. Conference organizers and webinar hosts usually realize that disagreement makes discussions more interesting, but panelists may not, or they may not have been properly prepped. My interviews confirmed that constructive disagreement is a missing element on many investment panels. “When you have highly intelligent, highly motivated people, how do you handle conflict? It is not enough to have analytical rigor - do you have integrity and a process for handling disagreement?” - Brian Gilmartin, CFA, founder, Trinity Asset Management Psychological Safety: “Teams succeed when everyone feels they can speak up and when members show they are sensitive to how one another feels.”Įffective teams are not built on brains alone:.An Interesting Task: The group feels that the work is meaningful.It turns out my peers are quite happy to point out my mistakes for free.Ĭharles Duhigg studied the dynamics of successful teams in Smarter Faster Better. I host a private panel of advisers who stress test my ideas. Presenting ideas to a group provides a sanity check that reduces these biases. Representativeness: We rely on stereotypes and fail to ask, “What am I missing?”.Availability: We remember things that are vivid, like plane crashes.Anchoring: We estimate an initial value and are slow to adjust.We are all subject to cognitive biases as described by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. Why Do Investors Need Constructive Disagreement? Is there a way to make panel discussions more interesting and insightful? I interviewed 10 of my peers to find out. Occasionally a vain and bombastic panelist offers zeal without knowledge, bringing heat without light. Other times timid speakers rehash consensus thinking and struggle through dull, meandering chitchat. Sometimes pomp and pretense lead to vacuous puffery that goes unchallenged. Good things don’t happen naturally when you throw investors together on a panel. There is not enough disagreement.” - Brooke Southall, principal, RIABiz You go to a conference hoping to learn something new and you get polite babble and marketing nonsense. “Boring panel discussions are one of my pet peeves. Posted In: Drivers of Value, Economics, Leadership, Management & Communication Skills, Philosophy
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