Broadly, your goals in managing conversations are to make sure people learn and to make sure people are enjoying themselves. It’s worth attending to these two goals, and to think about how they can (sometimes) work together and (sometimes) trade off against each other.
Good facilitators manage discussions to keep conversation friendly, inclusive and on-track, not too broad or narrow, and good facilitation can significantly affect how valuable discussions are for participants. Facilitation is skill, and you can likely learn it — it can take time and practice to facilitate effectively, but the resources below might help you learn the basics and be well-equipped to facilitate welcoming conversations.
Note that these are general good practices that can often work in particular situations; please don’t take these to be the only way to handle facilitation or group conversations. Use your own judgement!