by Facilitation Expert | Aug 12, 2019 | Communication Skills, Facilitation Skills, Leadership Skills, Meeting Structure, Meeting Support, Meeting Tools
How often have you found yourself in the hallway after a meeting wondering what happened?
Daniel Pink’s newest research proves that the end of a meeting is more important than the beginning. Endings leave lasting impressions. Recency triumphs over primacy. And yet, how often have you found yourself in the hallway after a meeting wondering what happened? What did we agree to? Or worse, you disagree with someone who thinks the results are different if not diametrically opposed, to what you think. Enter, the Guardian of Change.
Nobody wants more meetings but we still meet a lot. We meet for a purpose. Successful meetings have an end in mind. Some call it “DONE”. Others call it a deliverable. Either way, the meeting purpose is satisfied once the objective is reached, once we have the object of the meeting. Notice that the deliverable of meetings is a noun, never a verb. You cannot hand off a ‘verb’ to someone else, but you may hand them a ‘noun’ or an object.
Even if the deliverable is a plan of actions (verbs) to take when the meeting is over, those actions need to be documented, and that document is called a plan. Any plan details WHO does WHAT. The plan is the object or deliverable, not the action itself. Meeting objectives sets plans in motion so that the real work begins after most meetings end.
If you ask a group of ten people, “What is a process?” or “What does a single requirement look like?”, you will assuredly get ten different responses. All of them are correct for their respective contributor. Indeed, there is more than one correct answer.
Frequently, however, it’s a good idea for participants to echo the same message so it sounds like they were in the same meeting together. The importance is critical when you have a multi-national organization where translation issues cause misunderstanding and turbulence.
For major initiatives such as strategic planning or project launches, it is wise to invest a few hours to build a robust communications plan, but most meetings do not afford that much time. Rather than skip the activity entirely, Use the MGRUSH Guardian of Change tool to consensually build quick and simple messages.
Guardian of Change
When your meeting or workshop is complete, take a moment to get participants to agree on what they will tell others they got DONE in the meeting. We call that activity the “Guardian of Change” and it should be included in the Review or Wrap agenda step of nearly every meeting you attend.
Here’s how it works for most meetings, and it only takes five minutes. For critical and public workshops such as strategic planning, this activity may be pulled out of the Review step and made an entirely discrete agenda step. Most would call that step a “Communications Plan.” More about that, later.
Before participants depart from a standard or even a standing meeting, facilitate their “water-cooler” “coffee pot” or elevator speech” with a simple T-Chart. Allowing for two stakeholder groups, usually, one that looks upward (eg., superiors) and another that looks across or downward such as “Employees”. Your appropriate group titles are placed at the top of each column in your T-Chart.
Two-column (T-chart) Guardian of Change Next, working one at a time, simply ask:
“When you walk into a Superior in the hallway and they ask you what was accomplished in this meeting, what are you going to tell them?”
Apply the Brainstorming principles of Ideation, and write down their input verbatim and without any discussion. When someone objects, politely shut them down and remind them that for the moment, there is no discussion. Analysis and agreement will follow once initial ideas have been written down.
Move to the second column and ask . . .
“When you walk into another employee in the hallway and they ask you what was accomplished in your meeting, what are you going to tell them?”
Common sense dictates that frequently the messages are different in each column. And you will discover that people will argue over the messages and even single terms suggested such as “complete” versus “substantial progress.” In fact, what your participants need now is a facilitator.
Through active listening, clear definitions, and an appeal to the organizational objectives, you will get the group to agree on what they are going to tell others. You will have them sounding like they were in the same meeting together.
True to Life Example
Guardian of Change Note in the following example from our pro bono effort with a 501(c)(3) organization, some initially wanted to tell parents that the organization was . . .
- “beefing up”
- “More support”
- “Expansion”
- “Enhancing”
After extensive, if not heated, discussion, the group agreed to downplay ‘promises’ to better manage expectations. Level-setting. Can you imagine the different messages going around the parental community if we had not facilitated the Guardian of Change?
Some parents would have heard they are “expanding, enhancing, etc…” and others would NOT have heard “about that.” As if the participants were coming from different meetings.
Rather, the participants agreed that . . .
“It was discussed that items in GREY (for parents) ought to be substituted with lighter rhetoric and general aspirations rather than concrete claims.”
The message that went out to parents was simple and unified . . .
“The P.A.P. program is our top priority and we’ve got good people working on it.”
Don’t let unmanaged messages circle around, get to “management”, and let you get bitten in the butt. Prevent disturbing turmoil with just a few minutes of structured activity. You’ll be all so glad you did, you’ll want to thank us later.
Comprehensive Communication Plans
Communications plans are complicated by the number of stakeholder groups that need to be messaged, the potential variety of the messages themselves, the manner of delivery (ranging from face-to-face to press release), and the frequency or timing of delivery as parts of the message may be offered up over a period of time.
Communications Planning Many cultures and methods today use the term “Champion” to signify someone who is leading or promoting. Be careful. Our experience with a Fortune 100 manufacturer discovered that their best new product ideas were not being commercialized. Rather, new product ideas that were receiving approvals and funding were highly correlated with the charisma, charm, and personality of the Champion, rather than the value of the idea itself.
Substitute the term “Guardian” for the term “Champion”.
As a stakeholder, you probably don’t want to hear that more attractive commercial opportunities are being passed up because of the persuasiveness of competing Champions. Therefore, we encourage organizations to substitute the term Guardian for the term Champion. Typically, you really want someone to guard and protect their concepts. You want assurance that they will adequately represent and accurately speak to the value of the concepts.
You don’t want your Guardians to let others eat away at the value, detract something from the value, or characterize the value as being worth less than it is. Nor do you want them to inflate the value to be worth more than it actually is. You would prefer they guard it, for what it’s worth, nothing less and nothing more. Therefore, we encourage the use of the term “Guardian” rather than a “Champion” who spearheads their idea at all costs.
Ever see an idea get approved because of the promoter, rather than the intrinsic value of the idea? We all have. Even worse, have you ever seen a valid idea lose out because the promoter was fearful, shy, or timid?
There’s a story about the relatively shy inventor of the Selectric® typewriter who first took their invention to the Underwood typewriter company, a “Company of the Year” award winner. Underwood executives said “no”, so the inventor went to another company known for its scientists and evidence-based thinking and they said “yes.” That company was the International Business Machine Company, more commonly known as IBM. The rest, of course, is history. Underwood Typewriter went out of business ten years later.
______
Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
Terrence Metz, MBA, CSM, CSPF, PSP01, HTTO1, is the Managing Director of MG RUSH Facilitation Leadership, Training, and Meeting Design, an acknowledged leader in structured facilitation training, and author of “Meetings That Get Results – A Facilitator’s Guide to Building Better Meetings.” His FAST Facilitation Best Practices blog features nearly 300 articles on facilitation skills and tools aimed at helping others lead meetings that produce clear and actionable results. His clients include Agilists, Scrum teams, program and project managers, senior officers, and the business analyst community among numerous private and public companies and global corporations. As an undergraduate of Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and an MBA graduate from NWU’s Kellogg School of Management, his professional experience has focused on process improvement and product development. He continually aspires to make it easier for others to succeed.
by Facilitation Expert | Jul 25, 2019 | Facilitation Skills, Leadership Skills, Meeting Support, Scrum Events
The Global SCRUM GATHERING® Austin was kicked off on a warm Monday morning in May by Daniel Pink. Because his research focused on time and timing, Daniel compiled and published his results and findings in his newest book When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing. Additionally, his presentation averaged a five-star rating from the 224 of us who checked in live.
During the Global SCRUM GATHERING kickoff, Daniel stressed the importance of two findings, highly relevant to facilitators:
- Regardless of how much time is allotted, real work does not begin until the meeting or project reaches its midpoint. Consequently, in a four-hour meeting, at the two-hour mark, someone will remark that “half our time has expired” and suddenly participants get serious. Similarly, at the project level, once the project reaches its midway point, contributors develop a sense of urgency and step up their contributions. Half-way warnings. Additionally, it doesn’t matter if you allow one hour, one week, or one month—be on the lookout for the halfway point.
(Keeping this in mind, with a powerful Introduction, using our 6-Step Method, you will NEVER wait half-way to help a team become productive.)
- “Endings” are more important than beginnings when it comes to memory and recall. While smooth starts remain critical, participants will evaluate you and the value of the meeting by the last five minutes.
(ie. What did we accomplish? (Review) What has changed in my world? (Next Steps) Who is going to manage xxxxxx? (Assignments) Our professional Review and Wrap recommends a fourth step for a solid close, get some feedback on how you did. Click the links for a good refresher on solid Introduction and Review and Wrap activities that no meeting, even 50 minutes in duration, should be without.)
The Global SCRUM GATHERING conference progressed during the week with topics covered by this author including . . .
“Any foreign innovation in a corporation will stimulate the corporate immune system to create antibodies that destroy it.”
Global SCRUM GATHERING
The Global SCRUM GATHERING may be summarized by Peter Drucker’s quotations above and below referenced during the session:
“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s knowledge.”
- How to be Agile enough to reinvent yourself (Stacey Ackerman was wonderful).
- Roger Brown provided compelling evidence and financials to hire an Agile coach (or, we would argue, a meeting and facilitation coach).
- Using Customer Journeys to help prioritize Product Backlogs.
- Shu-Ha-Ri or mastering Scrum—“first learn, then detach, and finally transcend.”
- The difference between Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. (All M.L. is A.I. but not all A.I. is M.L.) Be sure to use a data scientist or A.I. engineer to help build a methodology for your A.I. or M.L. workshops.
- Chris Messina, creator of using hashtags (initially on Twitter and now everywhere) closed with refreshing material and the importance of wealth—defined as the quantity and quality of connections with others.
Control the Room
Control the Room
Terrence concluded a week in Austin TX as a speaker at Douglas Ferguson’s Voltage Control-sponsored “Control the Room 2019”—Austin’s 1st Annual Facilitator Summit. Douglas, an alumnus and a very smart and compassionate guy (and professional Design Sprint facilitator), used the conference to break down the silos of facilitation. Succinctly summarized, In his words:
“to move past the guilds and methodology-centric gatherings and convene facilitators of all kinds to build rapport, learn, and grow together.”
Priya Parker (“The Art of Gathering”) opened the day with remarkable personality and humaneness. As reported in the following article:
“Her 90-minute talk was a pure delight and received a standing ovation. She is a stratospherically talented facilitator.”
You may access summaries of all “Control the Room” presentations HERE. The “Control the Room 2019” artwork captures our presentation segment. It has been borrowed from Douglas’ report, so additional kudos to Patricia Selmo for the graphic recording. “Control the Room” generated high energy, and warm camaraderie, and will return to Austin on a regular basis. Therefore, anybody who facilitates meetings would benefit from attending.
After recently working with Julia Reich, the graphic recorder of Stone Soup Creative, we have developed a strong affinity for graphic recording. Julia should be applauded (and hired) because her Meeting Pathway to Success provides a simple-to-follow guide for complex events called meetings (or workshops). You can download your copy HERE, or visit our Facilitation Store to order a poster-size copy. Meanwhile, below is her delightful infographic based on the MGRUSH Professional Curriculum when she attended in Columbus OH.
MGRUSH‘s Professional Facilitation Meeting Pathway
______
Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
Terrence Metz, MBA, CSM, CSPF, PSP01, HTTO1, is the Managing Director of MG RUSH Facilitation Leadership, Training, and Meeting Design, an acknowledged leader in structured facilitation training, and author of “Meetings That Get Results – A Facilitator’s Guide to Building Better Meetings.” His FAST Facilitation Best Practices blog features nearly 300 articles on facilitation skills and tools aimed at helping others lead meetings that produce clear and actionable results. His clients include Agilists, Scrum teams, program and project managers, senior officers, and the business analyst community among numerous private and public companies and global corporations. As an undergraduate of Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and an MBA graduate from NWU’s Kellogg School of Management, his professional experience has focused on process improvement and product development. He continually aspires to make it easier for others to succeed.
by Facilitation Expert | Jul 5, 2019 | Analysis Methods, Decision Making, Meeting Agendas, Meeting Structure, Meeting Tools, Planning Approach, Problem Solving
Over the years, students and alumni have clamored for a simple reference sheet of our curriculum and how to prepare for a meeting. Consequently, we think we have it now and hope you agree.
Meetings can be expensive and wasteful, especially when poorly prepared. Therefore, download a PDF of the Meeting Pathway guide and Workshop Canvas on our Facilitator Resources page. Alternatively, go to the Alumni section of our website. Additionally, posters are available for purchase in assorted sizes and formats at our Facilitation Store.
- Graphic Meeting Pathway to thoroughly prepare and ensure meeting success.
- The Workshop Canvas aligns expectations for meeting and workshop charters.
Meeting Pathway to Success
Meeting Pathway to Success
Julia Reich, graphic recorder of Stone Soup Creative, should be applauded (and hired) because her Meeting Pathway to Success provides a simple-to-follow guide for complex events called meetings (or workshops). Primarily intended for individuals working on their own, Meeting Pathway begins with the end in mind (DONE). Oddly, however, it concludes with your final preparatory activities. Therefore, follow the six steps in the Meeting Pathway to remember everything critical to the success of your meetings (or workshops).
The Meeting Pathway provides a color-coded, single-page reference sheet that stresses the significant components of an important meeting, and includes:
Workshop Canvas
We are also introducing the first and only structured Workshop Canvas. Primarily intended for teams coordinating critical workshops, it similarly includes:
Use the Workshop Canvas to supplement the Meeting Pathway to reinforce clarity and help build consensus around the components of a successful meeting from your group’s perspective. The Workshop Canvas establishes a consensual tone based on transparency and evidence-based decision-making. Consider ordering a large poster version for use with Post-It® Notes, then photograph your ongoing development, and share it with other stakeholders as appropriate.
The Workshop Canvas includes 37 preparatory considerations.
Review and adapt the 37 questions for each meeting or workshop. Note that the three vectors of leadership [WHY}, facilitation [WHAT], and methodology [HOW] are sequenced. Additionally, they cut across four primary dimensions including Deliverable, Culture, Commitment, and Logistics.
MGRUSH alumni have immediate access to a brochure that includes both the Meeting Pathway (11 x 17) and the Workshop Canvas.
Poster versions of both are also available in the Facilitation Store in paper quality from a simple matte finish to photographic glossy on foam mount. For more information and prices go to Meeting Pathway or Workshop Canvas.
______
Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
Terrence Metz, MBA, CSM, CSPF, PSP01, HTTO1, is the Managing Director of MG RUSH Facilitation Leadership, Training, and Meeting Design, an acknowledged leader in structured facilitation training, and author of “Meetings That Get Results – A Facilitator’s Guide to Building Better Meetings.” His FAST Facilitation Best Practices blog features nearly 300 articles on facilitation skills and tools aimed at helping others lead meetings that produce clear and actionable results. His clients include Agilists, Scrum teams, program and project managers, senior officers, and the business analyst community among numerous private and public companies and global corporations. As an undergraduate of Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and an MBA graduate from NWU’s Kellogg School of Management, his professional experience has focused on process improvement and product development. He continually aspires to make it easier for others to succeed.
by Facilitation Expert | Jun 11, 2019 | Analysis Methods, Decision Making, Meeting Agendas, Meeting Structure, Meeting Tools, Planning Approach, Problem Solving
During a four-day conference, we facilitated more than 20 speakers and varying presentations, each citing distinctive topics ranging from embracing social responsibility to utilizing Google® Hangouts for small groups. Participants applauded our approach, and we decided to share it here to help you become a more effective facilitator.
Challenges Associated with Facilitating Speakers and Conference Presentations
As observed recently at a PMI (i.e., Project Management Institute) event, speakers are typically preachy and not facilitative. This means more moving of lips and less active listening, resulting in less audience response and interaction. Session challenges include:
- Lack of any conflict to resolve, which makes for a boring session
- Unclear deliverable (i.e. “increased understanding” doesn’t have enough urgency for most participants)
- Uncertain purpose (preach, Q&A, applause—nothing is compelling or consensual about this approach)
- Lack of a glossary and unclear use of terms
Begin with the End in Mind When You Facilitate Speakers and Conference Presentations
Begin with the conference purpose, scope, and objectives (i.e., deliverables) clearly stated and mounted on large format posters throughout the week for immediate reference. Two other preparatory sheets that should be mounted and visible to all are the Simple Agenda and appropriate Ground Rules (e.g., silence the electronic leashes).
Throughout multiple presentations, some speakers will encourage questions during their presentations and others will ask participants to defer questions until their presentations have been completed. In either case, insist that questions be directed through the facilitator with clear reflection back to both the audience and the speaker. This enables you to repeat the question to ensure that all participants have heard it. Also, verify with confirmation that you “got it right” as you distill questions into fewer words using less commentary. After each speaker’s response, reflect as required in Active Listening, and distill their response into the fewest words, using their terms, that directly address the question.
Focused Q & A for Speaker Presentations
During conference presentations, most Q&A (i.e., questions and answers) revolve around clarity, and, as facilitators, you must strive to ensure clear understanding. But don’t stop there. Further challenge the topic, as appropriate, with questions about “anything substantive” that may have been missing. If you ask a smart group of people “Is anything missing?”, the answer is invariably “yes” because there is ALWAYS something else. Therefore, stress the concept of “substantive” “critical” or “important” to prevent the discussion from drifting. Next, seek for general agreement to ensure the participants can support the primary takeaways from each of the conference presentations, and that no one insists that something is highly erroneous or blatantly wrong.
During Q&A, carefully document the Key Findings, as emphasized by participants. After each Q&A, transfer the focus back to the conference purpose and deliverables.
In one of the conferences we facilitated, the deliverables were to provide answers to three discrete questions. We asked participants to link their new knowledge and understanding from presentations back to the three questions and, one at a time, asked them what it meant by re-phrasing their input as a direct response to one of the originally posted questions. Two of the three primary questions demanded future recommendations or actions. Which brings us to…
For each session, capture actions that need to take place after the conference has ended in support of the conference’s purpose. Another way to phrase this question that works very effectively is . . .
“Now that we have heard or learned (summary of participants’ Key Findings), what will you do different tomorrow?” — Facilitator
Bad Habits Die Hard
Nearly everyone conducts a question-and-answer session when new evidence or information has been unveiled. Typically, we then give the speaker a round of applause and take a break or dismiss. The assumption is that we all heard the same thing or that our interpretation will automatically lead to consensual changes and coherent behavior. Such is not always the case. Sometimes meeting participants take off in opposite directions based on their interpretation of new content.
Structure of the Trivium (or, Taleb’s Triad)
The Trivium Helps Facilitate Speakers and Conference Presentations
Some will note the basic structure below follows a strong sense of will, wisdom, and activity. Ranging from Plato’s Trivium (i.e., logic, rhetoric, and grammar) to a Use Case (i.e., input, process, output)—simple structure follows the basic flow of WHY before WHAT before HOW. To develop consensual understanding, deploy the following structure. Especially compel audience participation in steps 2 and 3 below; that is . . .
- FACT (or, evidence or example or something significant the speaker has contributed—the WHAT part)
- IMPLICATION (ask SO WHAT? from the audience separately for each FACT captured above)
- RECOMMENDATION (ask NOW WHAT? (we should do about it) from the audience separately for each IMPLICATION captured above.
The method begins optimally before the speaker’s presentation has begun. Namely, ask the listeners to be on the lookout for (takeaways), why we should care (implications), and what we may want to do differently that will make us more efficient or effective (recommendations). Speaker presentations should stimulate participants about what they can do differently. Therefore, conduct a review session with the same logic, breaking down the “many-to-many” into a clear path of manageable takeaways:
- Solicit the takeaways such as facts, evidence, or examples newly learned by the meeting participants. This list provides the WHAT factors.
- For each WHAT factor from above (i.e., one at a time), develop a consensual understanding of the implications and why we care. Strive to obtain objective measurements that properly scale the gravity of each implication. This list provides the SO WHAT factors.
- For each factor (i.e., one at a time), facilitate consensual understanding about what changes in our lives, and what we should do differently—develop recommendations based on the implications rather than the facts. This list of new behaviors is why we took the time and money to listen to the speaker—it comprises a list of NOW WHATs.
Wrap-up and Close Your Conference Presentations Effectively
Be disciplined about documenting their comments. Finish with MGRUSH‘s four steps of an effective close:
-
- Review and confirm documented findings and actions
- Manage the Parking Lot for any open issues
- Conduct FAST’s Guardian of Change to agree on what participants will tell others they accomplished during the conference
- At a minimum, lead a Plus/ Delta to find out what worked and what could be improved.
Additional Resources
https://presentationgeeks.com/blog/presentation-aids-enhance-presentation/
______
Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
Terrence Metz, MBA, CSM, CSPF, PSP01, HTTO1, is the Managing Director of MG RUSH Facilitation Leadership, Training, and Meeting Design, an acknowledged leader in structured facilitation training, and author of “Meetings That Get Results – A Facilitator’s Guide to Building Better Meetings.” His FAST Facilitation Best Practices blog features nearly 300 articles on facilitation skills and tools aimed at helping others lead meetings that produce clear and actionable results. His clients include Agilists, Scrum teams, program and project managers, senior officers, and the business analyst community among numerous private and public companies and global corporations. As an undergraduate of Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and an MBA graduate from NWU’s Kellogg School of Management, his professional experience has focused on process improvement and product development. He continually aspires to make it easier for others to succeed.
by Facilitation Expert | Apr 4, 2019 | Communication Skills, Facilitation Skills, Leadership Skills, Managing Conflict, Meeting Support, Meeting Tools
A meeting without conflict is a boring meeting, and we’ve seen very little value derived from predictable and unexciting meetings and workshops. However, internal and external conflict reflect emotions that, when harnessed, enable creative change and improvement.
So rather than run, learn how to understand and manage group conflict. Additionally, the *International Association of Facilitators aspires for you to:
- “Help individuals identify and review underlying assumptions
- Recognize conflict and its role within group learning / maturity
- Provide a safe environment for conflict to surface
- Manage disruptive group behavior
- Support the group through resolution of conflict”
To Manage Meeting Conflict Consider the Synergy of the Tuckman Model and Integral Theory
Facilitators manage groups. Therefore, first understand how groups function and appropriate ways to support them to manage group conflict.
Stages to Manage Meeting Conflict
To Manage Meeting Conflicts, Understand a Group Life Cycle
Groups, like people, develop and evolve. Similarly, they can also regress. Therefore, as a session leader, you strive to move your group through a developmental sequence. Most groups evolve through four stages as they change. Hence, for any given group, you may see only the first two or three stages. Do not forget—in a room of ten people, there are at least eleven personalities!
To manage group conflict, understand the stages and characteristics of groups, including:
- Forming — Orientation, hesitant participation, search for meaning, dependency
- Storming — Conflict, dominance, rebelliousness, power
- Norming — Expression of opinions, development of group cohesion
- Performing — Emergence of solutions, formation of a “team”
Note: The four stages are adapted from Tuckman, B.W., “Development sequence in small groups,” Psychological Bulletin, 1965, 63, 384-399.
Forming— Keyword: Confusion. Groups at this early stage are working on two primary areas, the reason they are there (purpose) and social relationships. In addition, the Integral theory states that at the beginning of any meeting, people are thinking of themselves, as “I”. Consequently, you will see some landmarks such as:
- “I wonder WHY I’m here?”
- “I wish I had a cup of coffee.”
- Concern over purpose, relevance of meeting, “How this helps?”
- Looking to the leader for structure, answers, approval, acceptance
- “Why are we here?”
- Quiet groups
- Looking to the leader to prove that the meeting will work
Cultures that find themselves locked into this stage are frequently described as “Command Control” where much decision-making is completed by management. Participants stay focused on “I” such as, “I wish I had eaten something before this meeting.”
Storming—Keywords: Conflict (differences) and creativity. Here groups begin to acknowledge differences in perspectives; conflict is characteristic between members or between members and leader. The Integral theory states that the impact of the meeting deliverable can get people to stop thinking selfishly. Consequently, some landmarks include:
- Struggle for control
- Some members with strong needs to dominate
- Hostility towards the leader
- Looking to, expecting the leader to be magical
- Open expression of differences
- Accepting conflicts as sources of creativity
Cultures in this phase focus on cultivating and changing through personal and professional improvement. Participants get nudged to begin thinking about what “It” is that justifies their time together.
Norming—Keywords: communication and commitment. The participants are more comfortable expressing their opinions. The Integral theory states that once participants understand “it” (deliverable), they can contribute effectively. Hence, some landmarks:
- More open communication
- Unwillingness to be fully responsible for the outcome
- Inter-member support
Cultures here display and value competence, especially on the expert capabilities of a few members of the group or team. Most importantly, individuals can start thinking about the deliverables and how it impacts others (“Thou”) throughout the organization
Meeting Conflict — Stage 4
Performing—Keywords: Community, consensus, and collaboration. Rather than focusing on differences, members begin to recognize the commonality and shared interests. The Integral theory states that once participants collaborate, the “I” dissolves into the pluralistic “We”. Therefore, the participants form a cohesive team—they unite, with landmarks including:
- Open communication
- Pride in the group
- Focus on getting the shared goals and tasks of the group accomplished
- Inter-member support
Here we have a collaborative culture where decisions are consensus-driven and the team works in complete partnership toward success. Hence, the individuals view themselves as an integral unit, known as “We”.
To Manage Meeting Conflict, Understand Boundaries
Boundaries between stages are not always clear. Nor do groups permanently move from one stage to another. Therefore, as the facilitator, you guide the group through the earlier stages of performing. In working with the group during a meeting, you need to gauge how the group, as a whole, is able to perform the task at hand. Depending on the readiness of the group, you as process leader will lead in diverse ways. Meanwhile, readiness consists of two qualities, job or task readiness and psychological readiness (motivation, confidence).
To assess the group’s readiness, ask yourself these two questions:
- “Do they have the necessary skills or information?” (task readiness). Groups in Stages 1 and 2 lack task readiness.
- “Do they have the appropriate emotional qualities or resources (relationship readiness)?” Groups in Stages 2 and 3 lack relationship readiness.
Most importantly, groups in Stage 4 are ready to complete the task and build relationships.
As a leader, you monitor these two dimensions (task and relationship) constantly on both group and individual levels. As you monitor, you express your assessment of the situation with two types of leadership behavior. Consequently, these include:
- Task/ directive behavior (i.e., process policeman)
- Relationship behavior (i.e., empathetic listening)
Understanding Task Behavior
Task behaviors are characterized by the degree to which a leader engages in directing or controlling group activities (tasks). Direct or control meetings when you assess that the participants have exhibited a comparatively low level of readiness to do a specific task, with examples of task behaviors including :
- Controlling (intervening to change the method or situation)
- Defining roles
- Directing (supervising and tracking accomplishments against the plan, recommending or insisting upon certain methods or procedures)
- Explaining the agenda and ground rules
- Organizing (providing access to resources, establishing procedures, etc.)
- Setting goals, deadlines, planning
Therefore, use task leadership behavior to move a group from Stage 1 (by telling) to Stage 2 (for selling).
Understanding Relationship Behavior
Relationship behaviors are characterized by the degree to which a leader engages in developing a relationship amongst participants knowing that the relationship is a key factor in completing. Therefore, such behaviors are appropriate when the leader’s assessment is that the participants have exhibited a level of readiness to do a specific task. Some examples of relationship behaviors are:
Therefore, use relationship leadership behavior to move the group from Stage 2 (where you are selling) through Stage 3 (with a participating style) and into Stage 4 (where you delegate).
Differences Between Task and Relationship Behaviors
Another way to think about the difference between task-leader behaviors and relationship-leader behaviors is to remember that task behaviors focus on how the job is done while relationship behaviors focus on how people work together. Task behavior enables the group to do the job. Relationship behavior empowers the group. Therefore, remember that you are a temporary task manager. Hence, determine where the group is with readiness and use the appropriate type of behavior to move them toward successful and efficient completion of the task and deliverable.
To Manage Group Conflict . . .
When you hear communication problems consider the following:
- Capture what each person is saying—write it on the flip charts without putting their names by the ideas.
- Draw pictures using visual aids, flip charts, and models. By using visual support or other exercises, participants learn about their business.
- Get the group to see both similarities and differences.
- Move the focus of the group away from people and onto the issue(s) at hand.
- Summarize both similarities and differences and get the group to decide what to do with them or move along to the next step.
By augmenting discussions with visual support or other exercises, participants create shared learnings about their organization.
Paradigms Put You on Alert to Manage Meeting Conflict
Paradigms are established accepted norms, patterns of behavior, or shared sets of assumptions. Hence, they are models that establish boundaries or rules for success. Therefore, paradigms may present structural barriers to creativity based on psychological, cultural, and environmental factors, with examples including:
- Flow charts, diagrams, and other conventions for presenting information (e.g., swim lane diagrams)
- Stereotypes about men and women and their roles in business, family, and society
- Where people sit in meetings—once they find a seat it becomes their seat for the rest of the meeting
Groupthink Demands You to Manage Group Conflict
As creatures of habit, we blindly subscribe to our cultural paradigms, unknowingly allow our biases and prejudices to affect our decision-making, and readily fall prey to groupthink. Because, there is power in large numbers, but not necessarily quality. Voting, for example, reflects a method of groupthink decision-making. As you know, the winner is not necessarily a better decision, it only reflects a bigger number.
Challenge Both Paradigms and Groupthink
To cause groups to challenge their paradigms or groupthink:
- Ask the “Paradigm Shift” question—“What is impossible today, but if made possible . . . What would you do differently?”
- Force the group to look at a familiar idea or scenario in a new way by changing their perspective. Shifting perspectives frequently helps “shake” paradigms. Consider using Edward de Bono’s Thinking Hats or imposing some other perspective or comparison such as:
-
- Ant colony compared to a penal colony
- A weather system compared to a gambling system
- Monastery compared to the mafia
- Have a few tools in your hip pocket that can be readily found with Scannel and Newstrom’s series or many other sources.
- Use the “Five-year Old” routine—ask—“But why?” frequently, or until the group thoroughly discusses an issue, its assumptions, and implications. Also consider the simple challenge, “Because?”
Don’t Forget, People DO Change
People Do Change
Dr. Wayne Dyer proved that people do change. Because there is a quantum shift of values after living twenty to thirty years with both men and women. Hence, the shifts shown occur after a notable change in maturity, such as we find today with “empty nesters” or people who find themselves no longer hosting others, in particular, their own children.
For some clear and specific suggestions, here are four straightforward activities you can perform to resolve conflict. Additionally, see the article for detailed support on the four activities below:
- Appeal to the common purpose
- Active listening (for reasons and rationale)
- Appeal to objectives
- Document and escalate
*IAF Core Facilitator Competencies C3
______
Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
Terrence Metz, MBA, CSM, CSPF, PSP01, HTTO1, is the Managing Director of MG RUSH Facilitation Leadership, Training, and Meeting Design, an acknowledged leader in structured facilitation training, and author of “Meetings That Get Results – A Facilitator’s Guide to Building Better Meetings.” His FAST Facilitation Best Practices blog features nearly 300 articles on facilitation skills and tools aimed at helping others lead meetings that produce clear and actionable results. His clients include Agilists, Scrum teams, program and project managers, senior officers, and the business analyst community among numerous private and public companies and global corporations. As an undergraduate of Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and an MBA graduate from NWU’s Kellogg School of Management, his professional experience has focused on process improvement and product development. He continually aspires to make it easier for others to succeed.
