Useful Phrases for Leading a Strategic Discussion

• When facilitating a high-level executive offsite in Seattle or Austin, leaders need specific discourse markers to control the flow of conversation. These phrases help in framing the agenda, steering discussions back on track, parking side issues, and converging on actionable consensus.
• Function
• Phrase
• Usage Example
• Framing
• Let me frame the question…
• Let me frame the question around our Q4 infrastructure budget in Chicago.
• Steering
• Can we bring it back to…
• Can we bring it back to the core API migration metrics?
• Parking
• Can we park that?
• That sounds critical, but can we park that until our next Boston sync?
• Converging
• Where are we converging?
• Looking at these hybrid cloud options, where are we converging?
• Remember
• Use framing phrases at the start of a session to establish boundaries.
• Use steering phrases gently when participants deviate into technical tangents.
• Use parking phrases to defer secondary issues without dismissing contributors.
• Use converging phrases to check for emerging consensus before closing a debate.
• Examples
• Let me frame the question regarding our Seattle data center migration.
• Can we park that discussion about the New York office printer setup?
• Where are we converging on the microservices architecture timeline?
• Common mistakes
• Let me frame question about the budget.
• Let me frame the question about the budget.
• Where are we converge on this feature?
• Where are we converging on this feature?

Complete the sentences

• Before we debate the cloud costs, let me (frame) ____ the question about our quarterly AWS spend in Denver.
• That legacy database issue is important, but can we (park) ____ that until the afternoon session in Portland?
• As we review these conflicting metrics, where are we (converge) ____ ?
• While the UI is relevant, let's (steer) ____ the conversation back to backend security in Dallas.
• To start this summit in Miami, let me (frame) ____ the problem clearly.
• Since time is short in Philadelphia, can we (park) ____ that minor refactoring point?

Sources: photo by Anna Tarazevich on Pexels