How Facilitating a Customer Advisory Board Taught Me More About Human Connection Than Any Meeting Ever Could

When you’ve spent as many years as I have leading product teams and customer conversations, you start to realize that the best insights don’t come from the slides, they come from the silence.

This week I facilitated a two-day Customer Advisory Board (CAB) with some of our most engaged clients. Like most CABs, we had a structured agenda: product vision, roadmap discussions, and breakout sessions. But the true value of the session didn’t come from what we presented, it came from what we heard.

It reminded me that the most powerful thing you can bring into a room, whether with customers or coaching clients, isn’t expertise. It’s presence.

The Power of Presence

During the CAB, I was reminded that some of the most meaningful moments don’t come from perfectly planned discussions or polished presentations, they happen in the quiet in-between.

It’s in those pauses, the ones that feel slightly uncomfortable, where people often find the words for what really matters. When we resist the urge to fill every silence or redirect every tangent, something shifts. The room softens, people lean in, and conversations become real.

Presence, I’ve learned, isn’t about controlling the flow of dialogue; it’s about creating the conditions for honesty to surface. It’s what allows participants, and ourselves, to slow down enough to connect not just with what’s being said, but with what’s meant.

That’s true in coaching as well. When we stop trying to manage the conversation and instead hold space for it, we make room for deeper awareness, the kind that leads to genuine growth and shared understanding.

Stepping Out of the Way

One of the most rewarding parts of the CAB was watching what happened when I stepped out of the way.

As facilitators and leaders, it’s tempting to guide every moment, to ensure everything stays on track. But when I created space for customers to interact directly with one another, something remarkable happened.

They began challenging each other’s assumptions, sharing best practices, and uncovering new ways of thinking that no single presentation could have achieved. The conversation evolved beyond “what we can build next” to “how we can grow together.”

In that environment, the role of facilitator became less about directing and more about curating, protecting the space so that authentic dialogue could unfold. It’s the same in coaching: true progress happens not when the coach holds the spotlight, but when the client, or in this case, the group, discovers its own light.

The Art of Asking Questions That Open Doors

We often think leadership means having answers. But facilitation, like coaching, is about asking the questions that invite discovery.

In that CAB, I noticed how a single thoughtful question could shift the entire energy in the room, from passive listening to active exploration. When questions are framed with curiosity instead of agenda, they unlock insight rather than compliance.

These questions don’t just draw out information; they draw out connection. They encourage reflection, vulnerability, and ownership, qualities that drive both organizational growth and personal transformation.

Coaching works the same way. The right question doesn’t provide direction; it provides awareness.

Listening as Strategy

In most organizations, listening is framed as politeness. In reality, it’s a strategy.

When customers feel heard, genuinely heard, they stop defending positions and start sharing insights. When team members feel heard, they stop reacting and start creating.

That shift from reaction to reflection is what coaching is built on. It’s what turns a meeting into a movement.

I often tell the product leaders I mentor: If you want to understand your customer, stop trying to impress them. Start trying to know them.

Creating a Space for Growth

The best part of that CAB wasn’t the roadmap alignment or the feature prioritization, it was the shared sense of growth. Customers walked away with more clarity about their own needs, not just ours. And my team left more connected to the human side of what we build.

In coaching, that’s the goal too, not to fix, but to illuminate. Not to dictate the path, but to walk beside someone as they discover it for themselves.

The Common Thread

Whether you’re leading a CAB, mentoring a product manager, or coaching someone through a life transition, the principles are the same:

• Be present.

• Ask questions that matter.

• Listen to understand, not to respond.

• Create space for reflection.

Because in the end, growth, for customers, for teams, for individuals, always begins in conversation.

Final Reflection

Facilitating that CAB reminded me of why I became a coach in the first place. Behind every roadmap, every KPI, every quarterly goal, there’s a human being trying to make sense of change.

And when you create a space where people feel safe enough to share, challenge, and learn from one another, that’s when transformation begins.