Powerful Facilitation, Gratitude, and Scrum Guide 2020

Powerful Facilitation, Gratitude, and Scrum Guide 2020

by | Dec 3, 2020 | Leadership Skills, Meeting Support, Scrum Events

While an attitude of gratitude promotes more powerful facilitation, you won’t hear the term ‘happy’ very often in one of our meetings, sessions, or workshops, as the word is both subjective and fuzzy.

Yet a positive attitude, such as an attitude of gratitude, is a leading indicator of powerful facilitation and the opportunity to galvanize consensus.  The bottom line is—groups with more gratitude are more likely to agree, and to agree quickly! So while an attitude of gratitude extends far beyond powerful facilitation, it seems appropriate, and useful, to provide a quick reflection during this holiday season in particular. 

Gratitude vs. Mandate

Of interest are the following trend lines extracted from Google’s Ngram. As the use of the term ‘mandate’ has increased in recent decades, the use of the term ‘gratitude’ has decreased. While the relationship is a correlation and not causal, it does indicate that people have less gratitude today than in the past, as frequency of the term “gratitude” (and reference to its positive meaning) has been on the decline.

An Attitude of Gratitude

An Attitude of Gratitude Has Been Declining

Gratitude vs. Facilitation

However, there has been a recent uptick in the use of the term ‘gratitude’ since 1990, correlating with an increase in use of the term ‘facilitation.’ Although the use of the term facilitation, in a business sense, is relatively new, since we started teaching facilitation there has been a noticeable and positive slope increase in the use of the term ‘gratitude.’ Not coincidentally, we would argue.

Gratitude - Facilitation

An Uptick of Gratitude Correlates with Facilitation

How Does Gratitude Promote Powerful Facilitation?

By encouraging your group to be thankful for what they have, rather than dwelling on what they do not have, you’re encouraging them to focus on what they have (eg, skills, strengths, etc.) and on what they can do. People respond to a meaningful challenge, and powerful facilitation will fortify their gratitude for what they have and what they have accomplished.

You will benefit personally as well. Harvard Medical School reports that…

“In positive psychology research, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.” (emphasis is ours)

People in the United States take so much for granted that our attitude can make outsiders incredulous. Less than one percent of the people on this planet have some money in the bank, a few coins in their purse, a stocked refrigerator at home, the skill to read, at least one parent who remains alive, AND the liberty to attend a place of worship of their choosing. Yet rather than gratitude, many Americans take these freedoms and benefits for granted.

If you exude a sense of gratitude, then your meeting participants will empathize. For powerful facilitation, begin your meeting or workshop by first stressing the gratitude for an opportunity to make things better for your business and its stakeholders.  Most people are not so fortunate. So be glad, not mad.

Let’s Be Thankful — Where We Are Winning

Using a Delphi panel and research method lasting over 15 years, the Millennium Project identified hundreds of indicators of humanity’s progress or regress. Since you are no doubt exposed to many of the negative factors by reading or listening to the “news”, consider these following vectors as positive, documented further by the World Future Society. Humanity is experiencing substantial increases with . . .

  • Access to clean water (percentage of people with)

    gratitude makes for power facilitation

    Powerful Facilitation Equals Servant Leadership

  • Adult literacy rate
  • Enrollment in secondary school (percentage of people)
  • GDP per capita
  • GDP per unit of energy consumption
  • HIV prevalence among all age groups (decreasing)
  • Infant mortality rates (reduction)
  • Internet access and use
  • Life expectancy
  • Physicians and health care workers per 1,000 people
  • Research and development expenditures (percentage of national budgets)
  • Total debt service in low- and mid-income countries
  • Undernourishment
  • Women in parliamentary governments (percentage of)

So be glad, not sad.

Scrum Guide 2020 and Considerations Providing and Participating in Training

For the first time in fifteen years Ken Schwaber & Jeff Sutherland have updated The Scrum Guide (The Definitive Guide to Scrum: The Rules of the Game), which you can now download HERE. The result is crisper and clearer than the original, and we are providing the link to you as a benefit of being in our community. Please remember as you seek additional training in 2021 and when budgets are tight, the following:

Seek knowledge, not degrees.

An MBA provides general management knowledge, but not the specific knowledge required for immediate implementation. Focused topical training such as HOW TO LEAD BETTER MEETINGS, provides a quicker return on investment and can be applied immediately after successfully completing the curriculum.

Value Outside Experts.

There is no substitute for quality interaction with expert instructors. If you hire from outside, you can call upon training as you need it, rather than require full-time staff for every business topic.

Seek Knowledge not Degrees

Seek Knowledge, Not Degrees

Provide feedback.

Mentoring has a tremendous impact within organizations, so ensure that your employees get the feedback they need to take the training they need most. Strive for impact — powerful and immediate. Every person has opportunities to leverage strengths and shore up weaknesses. They don’t always prioritize them correctly, however. Depend on a mentor or an outsider (eg, coach) who can provide honest, neutral feedback. Always default to leveraging strengths and improving core competencies over patching up weaknesses.

Make it easy.

If it is worth doing, it is worth doing right. Consider hosting private classes that pull together teams and help develop esprit de corps (ie, teamwork) that amplifies and compliments individual learning. Effective training provides physical, emotional, and intellectual relief. When budgets are tight and work demands per employee productivity increases, do not forget the importance of your people’s needs and the opportunity for win-win by providing them with effective training on immediately relevant topics.

10 Excellent Guidelines for Students and Teachers: Justice, Peace, and Delight

We had to share Sr Corita Kent’s ten rules below, especially Rule Eight. In 1968, she crafted the lovely, touching Ten Rules for Students and Teachers for a class project. Since most of us play many roles in life, all of us at one time or another are student, teacher, parent, child, etc, we thought you would appreciate them as well. Her ten superb guidelines include:

10 Excellent Guidelines for Students and Teachers: Justice, Peace, and Delight

Sr Corita Kent

  1. Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for a while.
  2. General duties of a student: Pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students.
  3. General duties of a teacher: Pull everything out of your students.
  4. Consider everything an experiment.
  5. Be self-disciplined: this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
  6. Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail, there’s only make.
  7. The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.
  8. Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They’re different processes.
  9. Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.
  10. We’re breaking all the rules. Even our own rules.

HINTS:

  • Always be around.
  • Come or go to everything.
  • Always go to classes.
  • Read anything you can get your hands on.
  • Look at movies carefully, often.
  • Save everything, it might come in handy later.

As an unlikely ‘regular’ in the Los Angeles art scene, Sister Corita Kent was an instructor at Immaculate Heart College and a celebrated artist who considered Saul Bass, Buckminster Fuller, and John Cage to be personal friends.

John Cage, was an avant-garde musical composer who inspired Sister Corita Kent. While quoted frequently for Rule #10, Cage did not develop the list, as some website sites claim. By all accounts, though, John Cage marveled at the list.

Be glad.

And finally, a large portion of the world celebrates holidays around December. Since one traditional greeting in the English language is “Merry Christmas”, it begs the question, HOW.

While the thought may be genuine, and the words rich with historical precedence, HOW DOES a facilitator go about making today (and tomorrow) merry? The solution begins with attitude, and letting go of our own egos will positively impact attitudes that shape our behavior. How do you do that?

We began this article stressing an attitude of gratitude. For ‘letting go’, follow the sage advice of Mother Teresa’s Holiday Message below and you will find it a lot easier. After all, she facilitated nourishment for tens of thousands of people by simply being of service.

Mother Teresa’s Holiday Message of Prescribed Actions and Behaviours - Gratitude helps

Removing the Weight of the World

Holiday Message – Letting Go

Treat today as if you won’t exist tomorrow. 
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;

Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;

Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;

Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;

Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;

Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, there may be jealousy;

Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;

Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;

Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;

It was never between you and them anyway.

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Don’t ruin your career or reputation with bad meetings. Register Now for a class or forward this to someone who should. Taught by world-class instructors, MG RUSH professional facilitation curriculum focuses on practice. Each student thoroughly practices and rehearses tools, methods, and approaches throughout the week. While some call this immersion, we call it the road to building impactful facilitation skills. #meetingresults

Our courses also provide an excellent 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 individual class descriptions for details.) #facilitationtraining

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Remember the WHY Before the WHAT – An Integrative Problem Solving Framework and Agenda

Remember the WHY Before the WHAT – An Integrative Problem Solving Framework and Agenda

by | Nov 9, 2020 | Analysis Methods, Decision Making, Meeting Structure, Meeting Tools, Problem Solving

Searching for a problem solving approach proven to work in a variety of situations?  

Whether you’re a group of highly paid nuclear physicists designing a new multimillion-dollar scanner or a group of unpaid volunteers supporting the growth of a children’s choir, you need to know how to move collaboratively from where you are to where you need to be.

Problem Solving ApproachSo How Do You Get There?

There’s more than one right method for effectively leading groups and teams down an optimal path. First, however, be extremely cautious and avoid beginning your meeting or workshop with analysis, unless you have already clearly agreed on a purpose (i.e. Why do we need a solution?)

Most approaches to problem-solving assume a common, pre-existing purpose—but an effective meeting facilitator presumes the opposite. They work with the assumption that most groups lack a clear, coherent, and consensual purpose, the WHY before the WHAT. Yet secondary research shows that most problem-solving approaches include only the following steps (parenthetical comments reference the paragraph below):

  1. Problem identification (frayed collar)
  2. Problem diagnosis (socially embarrassing)
  3. Solution generation (click or brick options)
  4. Solution evaluation (apply preferences)
  5. Choice (selection)

Using a simple example in our private lives, we may identify (1) a frayed collar on our favorite shirt or blouse. (2) The collar scratches and could potentially be socially embarrassing to wear. (3) One solution would be to go a click or brick store where we can find assorted options on the screens and shelves. (4) Applying our preferences for brand, color, price, size, etc., (5) we make our selection.

Yet even a Frayed Collar Requires Purpose When Problem-Solving!

It’s just a collar–right? True, and if you were purchasing the shirt for yourself you would already know the purpose. However, imagine you hear your dad complaining that he needs a new shirt because his collar is frayed and he’s embarrassed to wear it (steps 1 and 2). Wanting to please him, you ask him what his favorite clothing store is, what size he needs, short sleeve or long sleeve, and what color he prefers (steps 3,4, and 5). Then, armed with this knowledge, you purchase a new medium white shirt from his favorite store, but when you hand it to him he frowns and says, “Thanks, but I can’t wear this white golf shirt to my best friend’s formal wedding.” What did you forget to ask? The purpose!

Although our purpose strongly influences our selection, consensually articulated purposes are usually omitted from problem-solving methods. Why? Because most educators lack experience leading meetings. Bottom line: As the meeting leader, or facilitator, you must build consensus around WHY we are doing something before you analyze WHAT should be done (and eventually, HOW to do it).

Conflict in Problem Solving

We have seen meetings begin to unravel until we re-direct or help the group build common purpose. Without common purpose, there is no common ground managing arguments and, with limited resources, making the necessary trade-offs or exclusions.

Common Purpose Sets Up an Integral, Win-Win Result

Every problem-solving method yields different consequences when measured by team ownership (risk) and decision quality (reward). Risk-reward is optimized when you first establish common purpose. If you fail to facilitate agreement about purpose before you tackle the problem, you risk compromise, voting, or withdrawal. The different methods of solving problems include:

Problem Definition

Problem-Solving Starts with Problem Definition

  • Compromise (lose-lose),
  • Forcing (voting; i.e., win-lose),
  • Integrative (win-win), or
  • Withdrawal (quit)

Use the problem-solving framework below and you will discover that ownership and decision quality begin with a common purpose. Please keep in mind that leading a group from ‘here’ to ‘there’ posits more than one right answer. Therefore, facilitation strives to articulate the best answer for each group of participants, given their situation and constraints.

Integrative Problem Solving Framework — Many to Many Meeting Design

This Problem-Solving Approach facilitates groups by enhancing focus when there are many symptoms, causes, preventions, and cures that might be considered. This will also help you keep certain participants ‘on track,’ especially those who tend to jump around, or love to opine.

Many meetings waste time because they lack structure, not because they fail to generate some promising ideas. Meetings are challenged by the fact that teams never know when they are done, how they can measure progress, or how much work remains to be done. They don’t know what they’ve missed. And because they don’t know what they don’t know, it takes a disciplined approach to structure activities and ask precise questions that unveil hidden solutions.

Problem Definition

The first part of meetings should not actually try to solve the problem but find diverse ways of looking at and describing the problem situation. The more general the expression of a problem, the less likely it is to suggest answers. 

NOTE: The problem definition remains far more critical than most people understand. For example, an automobile traveling on a deserted road blows a tire. The occupants discover that there is no jack in the trunk. They define the problem as ‘finding a jack’ and decide to walk to a station for a jack. Another automobile down the same road also blows a tire. The occupants also discover that there is no jack. They define the problem as ‘raising the automobile.’ They see an old barn, push the auto there, raise it on a pulley, change the tire, and drive off while the occupants of the first car are still trudging towards the service station.

Although Getzels does not mention a third option, note how another group might push the vehicle to the side of the road and using their hands, rocks, sticks, or other implements, dig a hole around the bad tire. Their problem statement reflects the need for clear access to the axle and surrounding area, rather than lifting the vehicle. No doubt there is a fourth or more problem definitions as well.[1]

Two Highly Effective Problem Definition Methods

The surest way to create divergent solutions is to diverge descriptions of the problem. When focused on describing the problem, using mountaineering as an analogy, consider:

  1. Re-writing or versioning diverse ways of stating the problem.
    • Broaden focus, restate the problem with the larger context
      • Initial: Should I keep a diary?
      • Broadened: How do I create a permanent memory of our ascent?
    • Paraphrase, and restate the problem using different words without losing the original meaning
      • Initial: How can we limit congestion around the base camps?
      • Paraphrase: How can we keep the congestion from growing?
    • Redirect focus, consciously change the scope
      • Initial: How do we get all our supplies to 16,000 feet?
      • Redirected: How do we reduce our consumption and need for supplies?
    • Reversal, turn the problem around
      • Initial: How can we get people to go to a different mountain?
      • Reversal: How can we discourage people from climbing this mountain?
  1. Changing perspectives to stimulate worthwhile aspects that further help detail and describe problems. Examples of mountaineering perspectives might include the climber, sherpa, legal authority, other climbers, etc. Your own questions may be toggled among thirty or more established business perspectives found detailed HERE.

Structuring Your Problem-Solving Approach

You need to structure and focus discussions to get more done quickly, especially when there are many symptoms, causes, preventions, and cures that should be considered. Therefore, with a complex problem, I’ll use the following as an example.

Illustrative Example

Let’s use the example of an organization that has determined that a problem of ‘Burnout’ exists in their IT Service Department. We will use the Problem-Solving Approach to draft a solution.

Workshop Deliverable

A solution built around proposed actions that will prevent, mitigate, and cure the causes of ‘Burnout’ within the IT Service Department.

Fundamental Problem-Solving Agenda

  1. Introduction
  2. Purpose of the IT Service Department (Description of Ideal) — Confirm the purpose of the solution state or the ideal condition. Describe the way things ought to be when there is no problem, and everything is working properly according to design.
  3. ‘Burnout’ (Definition of Problem) — Fully define the problem state or condition, building consensus around the way things are at present.
  4. Symptoms (Externally Observable Factors) — Identify all the potential symptoms that make it easy to characterize the problem or issue. Consider symptoms to be factors that can be seen and observed objectively, such as “tardiness.”
  5. Causes (Conversion) — For each symptom identify one or many possible causes or consider Root Cause Analysis (aka Ishikawa Diagram).
  6. Actions — Populate a matrix with the agents against a timeline as shown in the Solution Stack below. The simplest way to approach the ‘x’ dimension is to separately cover actions before and after causes (such as what can be done to prevent each cause and what can be done to cure for each cause, by each agent). 
    • First note WHO participates in the solution — Identify persona: people, agents, or actors that will participate in the solution or plan (eg, participants, management, contractors, etc.).
      • IT Service Department Personnel (y-axis, Persona A)
      • Management (y-axis, Persona B)
    • Using a timeline, identify WHAT actions to take — With the group at large or assigning breakout teams, develop potential responses and actions with each persona across the timeline using each cause, one at a time.
      • Preventions [x-axis, Timeline 1]
      • Cures [x-axis, Timeline 2]
    • See below for questions to ask to generate actions.
  1. Change Management
  2. Review and Wrap

Questions to Ask to Generate Actions

If you embrace this structured tactic, you know exactly what to do and what four questions you must ask for EACH cause (e.g., fatigue):

      1. What can technicians do to prevent fatigue?
        • (e.g., Improve their diets, etc.)
      1. What can management do to prevent fatigue?
        • (e.g., Provide ergonomic furniture, etc.)
      1. What can technicians do to cure fatigue?
        • (e.g., Get to bed earlier, etc.)
      1. What can management do to cure fatigue?
        • (e.g., Hire more resources, etc.)

Which one of these four questions can you afford to skip? None of them of course because you don’t know which ones, if any, you can afford to skip.

Solution Stack

Problem Solving Solution Stack

Problem-Solving Solution Stack

I know this table gives a lot of people headaches. However, to be thorough, participants must answer all four questions about each cause. Sometimes the reaction is “Screw it. Let’s just have a meeting and discuss it.” But how are those unstructured discussions working out for you? Don’t forget that the terms discussion, percussion, and concussion are all related. If you have a headache when you depart a meeting, it’s because the meeting was not structured and you’re not sure what, if anything, was accomplished.

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[1]  Getzels, J.W., Problem Finding and the Inventiveness of Solutions, Journal of Creative Behavior, 1975, 9(1), pp 12-18.

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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.

Go to the Facilitation Training Store to access proven, in-house resources, including fully annotated agendas, break timers, and templates. Finally, take a few seconds to buy us a cup of coffee and please SHARE with others.

In conclusion, we dare you to embrace the will, wisdom, and activities that amplify a facilitative leader. #facilitationtraining #MEETING DESIGN

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Collaborate Or Die – How Failing To Collaborate Could Ruin More Than Just Your Next Meeting

Collaborate Or Die – How Failing To Collaborate Could Ruin More Than Just Your Next Meeting

by | Oct 8, 2020 | Communication Skills, Facilitation Skills, Leadership Skills, Managing Conflict, Meeting Support

In life, there is usually more than one right answer, but there is always a wrong attitude—the unwillingness or failure to collaborate.

As of this writing, the 2020 elections will be here in less than four weeks. While, like most Americans, you’re probably focused on November 3rd, you should be more concerned about November 4th —and beyond. If ‘the powers that be’ cannot collaborate in the coming weeks and months, expect some very rough times.

The ability to collaborate is critical to homo sapiens’ survival (see Harari). And, if we didn’t need to collaborate, we wouldn’t need facilitation. We could survive by obeying someone else’s commands. But that doesn’t work, not in the long run.

Rather than artificial intelligence (AI) or global warming, the stubbornness to appreciate and value our differences, the unwillingness to explore reasons behind our disagreements, and the obstinance to remain inflexible may be our ultimate undoing. Because if we lose our spirit to collaborate, we’ll be dead long before the oceans rise as high as predicted by scientists.

Collaborate Or Die - How A Failure To Collaborate Could Ruin Our CountryUnstructured discussions are not working[1]

The world needs structured facilitation more than ever to develop solutions that are owned and shared by ALL stakeholders. A friend of mine in the facilitation profession claims that one of the following three reasons describes all disagreements,[2] either:

  1. People are in violent agreement with each other. Unfortunately, they define key terms differently—or, they use different terms to define the same thing—and don’t know it, or
  2. People have different values and can’t agree. For example, an organization that stresses “safety and the principle of no harm” may take a slightly less profitable road in the short run in order to save lives and improve health in the long run. Another organization may not choose safety, preferring the quick win NOW, not later, or
  3. Some people refuse to collaborate because of age-long animosity that began before they were even born. Goofy. Who cares about the past when our present is being jeopardized and we are facing an impending future with unmanageable hazards, menaces, and risks?

Collaborate and Avoid DoA (Display of Attitude)

I heard recently from Dr. Alphonsus Obayuwana, an expert on ‘happiness’, that at the very least we all share one thing in common—we were all born ‘unhappy’. Thousands of babies were delivered, and this obstetrician never once saw a baby exit the womb smiling. We all begin with a frown, usually accentuated with a cry.

We continue to cry as adults when we don’t get our way. Each of us, at times, is guilty of our own DoA (Display of Attitude) characterized by one of the following characteristics:

  • adamant
  • bull-headed
  • difficult
  • headstrong
  • recalcitrant
  • uncompromising
  • uncooperative
  • unyielding

Collaborate = Stop Fighting, Start Arguing

People run their lives like they have the only right answer. They forget that words carry more than one definition, or that different words may be used to describe something similar. They lose sensitivity to anything beyond their immediate vision. While different procedures or remedies address each DoA, solutions begin with the attitude and willingness to collaborate.

People need to be challenged to supply evidence, facts, or feelings that justify their unwillingness to collaborate. The best challenges come from a neutral source, a referee of sorts. In meetings, that role belongs to the facilitator.

The facilitator’s first responsibility is to protect participants from harm, perhaps from each other, but not to protect them from their personal reasons for choosing DoA. After protecting participants, facilitators are responsible for challenging every point of view so we can build consensus, beginning with an attitude to collaborate.

blankWhen you collaborate you serve all stakeholders of your community, benefitting the interests of the whole.

Recently, I spent a few days with some amazing people and learned about four organizations that, regardless of your political affiliation, you should support or at least tell others about:

  1. In This Together
  2. Leadership Now Project
  3. Future 500
  4. Bridge Alliance

1. In This Together—PROBLEM-SOLVING, NOT POLARIZATION[3]

Although research indicates that “7 in 10 Americans are ready to solve problems together,” two-thirds of Harvard alumni believe that democracy is at risk. By identifying the biggest fears and deepest prejudices of specific voter segments, strategists can trigger such repulsion of one candidate that voters will readily support the lesser of two evils. This increases voter turnout among those with extreme and hardened ideologies, but divides and marginalizes the 70 percent broad middle — the seven in ten voters who are partisan but pragmatic.

On April 24, the day the US death toll from coronavirus topped 50,000, a dozen billionaire political donors gathered by video with business leaders, foundation chiefs, scientists, advocates, and political strategists, and laid out a bold plan called In This Together, to transform the business of politics. Convened by the Republican conservationist Trammel S. Crow, In This Together intends to reduce political polarization and work across partisan lines to solve problems like climate change.

Objective: To reduce the spend on political warfare and redirect billions toward solutions that unite a governing majority of Americans from the left to right.

“We can’t meet this crisis or any future one as a divided nation,” Crow reminded his guests. “We’re not enemies. We’re a family with differences to work through. Polarization is our real enemy.”

Polarization undermines those who would rather solve problems than sow discord. Additionally, polarization supports candidates beholden to vested interests for dollars and ‘blind-believers’ (extremists) for votes. Thus, constrained by these two forces, bipartisan agreements are mostly off the table.

DoA makes genuine problem-solving difficult and expensive. Consequently, evidence-based reform — protecting climate, improving schools, or preventing pandemics — requires massive investments by foundations and individuals willing to outbid interest groups and offset ideologues to get a fair hearing.

E Pluribus Unum — From Many We Are One.

With brilliant and renowned supporting partners such as Harvard’s Michael Porter, Berkeley’s Bill Shireman, General Colin Powell, and many others, In This Together released their Declaration of Interdependence:

Declaration of Interdependence

Declaration of Interdependence

Become part of the Solution by going HERE and Providing Your Assent

Be sure to sign the Declaration for Interdependence, as five million signatures are needed to influence holistic legislation. They currently have two million signees, so your signature is critical.

2. Bridge Alliance Members Need to Collaborate

The Bridge Alliance members have embraced research data, making it evident that 3.5 percent of the people in this country, when demanding or supporting social change, have ALWAYS succeeded (i.e., eleven million USA citizens). The Bridge Alliance represents over one hundred organizations who seek to collaborate and advance healthy self-governance as the United States transitions to a multicultural, pluralistic society over the next two decades, promoting . . .

“ . . . pilot projects will range from facilitator training to practice groups to participation in reviewing policy and engaging with elected officials.”

Aspiring to upgrade our current political system to a modern, democratic republic, The Bridge Alliance members agree to adhere to the Four Principles. Their broad coalition dedicates itself to engaging citizens in the political process, working with civic leaders, and promoting respectful, civil discourse.

Four Principles of The Bridge Alliance

  1. Collaboration: Our country is stronger when we work together constructively to meet the challenges we face.
  2. Citizen Voice: Our country is well represented when informed citizens are active in the political and social processes.
  3. Solutions-focused: Genuine, good-faith problem-solving will lead to the best solutions to address our great challenges.
  4. Open-minded: We explore and learn from each other, seeking aligned efforts to raise visibility and effectiveness.

The Bridge Alliance organizes planning and tactics around membership categories including:

3. The Leadership Now Project Encourages Us to Collaborate

The Leadership Now Project represents a membership organization of business and thought leaders taking action to remedy American Democracy. Backed by substantial data, analysis, and reports, its founding principles include:

  1. We must protect democracy while renewing it
  2. Facts and science matter
  3. Our economy should work for all today and for future generations
  4. Diversity is an asset

Leadership Now Project members invest in high-impact organizations and candidates to advance a modern, effective democracy for all Americans. Their priorities for 2019-2021 include:

  • Voter participation and protection
  • Competitive, fair, and secure elections, particularly through combating gerrymandering and promoting ranked-choice voting
  • Data and transparency in politics
  • Innovation and ideas for a modern democracy

Today, the Leadership Now Project recommends five concrete actions for businesses to support successful and democratic elections throughout the United States.

  1. Encourage employees, clients, and consumers to make a voting plan
  2. Give all employees paid time off to vote on or before Election Day
  3. Encourage employees to register as poll workers
  4. Contribute funds to support election operations
  5. Publicly support a safe and secure election

They also provide a Pledge for Business Leaders for Racial Equity that can be accessed HERE. MGRUSH Facilitation Training has signed the pledge.

4. Future 500

Focusing on sustainability trends, Future 500 is a non-profit consultancy whose core mission build trust between unusual allies––like business leaders, activists, and philanthropists––to advance business as a force for good. They offer companies concrete pointers on how they can minimize risk while finding opportunities to lead the most important social and environmental issues facing the world today.

“We envision a future in which business and civil society work as equal partners and responsible stewards of a clean, just, and prosperous world.”

Their Force for Good Forecast 2020 is available as a one-hour webcast. An organization launched by Bill Shireman, they have an articulate, powerful Theory of Change:

“We believe that forging better relationships is the first step toward solving our most pressing environmental and social challenges. By helping companies and their stakeholders step out of their respective echo chambers and seek common ground in uncommon places, we aim to catalyze innovative, systemic solutions that enable both our planet and society to thrive.”

Collaborate — “You Are Either Part of the Solution or You’re Part of the Problem.” (Eldridge Cleaver)

If we do not collaborate, thus jeopardizing the stability of the USA, we are putting the world at risk. YOU should actively contribute and promote these organizations and their causes while embracing the following sans DoA:[4]

  • Facilitate, facilitate, facilitate — volunteer pro bono effort, they need YOU because you can lead structured meetings that deliver clear and actionable results.
  • Never forget—“Leaders are motivated by improving the well-being of people, communities, AND the planet in ways that have real, lasting intrinsic value.”
  • Always seek to abolish class systems and subject everyone to the same rules of behavior and reward systems
  • Share information openly and transparently — no secrets
  • Never exclude stakeholders—ensure that ALL groups participate together in planning solutions for changes that affect them

———

If you agree, please like and forward this message to others.

For live and online world-class facilitation training, click HERE to register.

[1]  For substantive proof and additional evidence about the negative effects of “lobbying” click HERE

[2] See Michael Wilkinson’s “Secrets,” pg 211.

[3] In This Together: How Republicans, Democrats, Capitalists, and Activists are Uniting to Tackle Climate Change and More.

[4] Strongly influenced by “The New Leadership Paradigm” crafted by Steve Piersanti, President and Publisher of Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

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This May Not Be For You, But if You Want to Build Collaboration . . .

This May Not Be For You, But if You Want to Build Collaboration . . .

by | Sep 8, 2020 | Communication Skills, Facilitation Skills, Leadership Skills, Managing Conflict, Meeting Structure, Meeting Support

Is it easy for you to build collaboration, commitment, and participation in meetings? Then feel free to walk away from this article.

If, however, you’re like most people, leading groups and teams toward a common goal, either remotely or in person, is challenging. For many leaders, it is their biggest challenge. While we can’t solve all your leadership problems in one article, these next four topics are easily worth five minutes of your time.

  1. How to Build CollaborationBuild collaboration while satisfying individual needs
  2. How to create and sustain a participatory environment
  3. Securing collaboration among multi-discipline workgroups
  4. “The distribution of collaborative work is often extremely lopsided . . .” 

 

How to build collaboration while satisfying individual needs

In the song, Garden Party, Ricky Nelson wrote, “You see, ya can’t please everyone, so ya got to please yourself.” Yet in meetings, in order to build collaboration, you must also satisfy individual needs. So how do you accomplish this? Below are some tried and true suggestions/rules (Along with links to more in-depth articles on tools and techniques, when appropriate.) which, in our own leadership experience, we’ve found helpful. Feel free to compare these suggestions with your own experience. Let us know when you identify some things that work particularly well at building collaboration, or some things that fail. (Listed not in order of importance or chronology)

  • Avoid personal attacks or comments by keeping your critiques and challenges about the entire group.
  • Make the reasons behind differing views more evident. Conflict is healthy when you know how to manage it.
  • Encourage cohesiveness with more group activities permitting richer interaction among participants.
  • While lookbacks, after-action reviews, or other reviews of group performance generate healthy learnings that improve future performance – if you want to alienate an individual, be sure to mention him or her by name. (i.e. DO NOT mention individuals in look-backs or after-action reviews.)
  • Limit your meeting size to five to nine people, large enough to accomplish anything but not so large as to waste an individual’s time.
  • From the outset, ensure that everyone understands and values your meeting deliverables.
  • At the wrap, ensure that all roles, responsibilities, and next steps are clear and acceptable to all.
  • Maintain neutrality. As the leader or facilitator, maintain vigilant neutrality and avoid introducing personal thoughts or claims.

How to create and sustain a participatory environment

To build collaboration, the facilitator must first protect the participants. Secondarily, the facilitator must help drive the group toward its desired deliverable. Thus, both people and issues are managed by creating an environment that is participatory and conducive to productivity. Easier said, than done. It’s tough to build collaboration unless you:

  • Demonstrate effective communication skills
  • Develop rapport with participants
  • Practice active listening
  • Demonstrate ability to observe and provide feedback

Since there is no ‘silver bullet’ to be an effective facilitator, show up prepared. Apply a variety of preparatory devices including conversations with your participants before the session starts. How else will you understand them and the best method to serve them?

Once they are valued and understood, improve your selection of tools to use. Make it easier for them to reflect on what you have captured so that they can easily confirm the accuracy or make corrections and additions as appropriate.

When in-person and providing feedback and reflection, scan the room (or, if it’s a virtual meeting, the participants on your computer screen) and observe reactions, typically non-verbal. Determine if the group understands and agrees, or if there is resistance due to misinterpretation or misunderstanding that you can help clear up.

The “zen” of the experience advises us that participants respond to stimuli differently. Not everyone responds effectively to a strictly “verbal” (i.e., narrative) environment. Psychologist Howard Gardner identified multiple types of intelligence. He claims that all humans have the spark of genius buried within, but they manifest differently among us. The original types include:

  1. Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence (“Body Smart”)
  2. Interpersonal Intelligence (“People Smart”)
  3. Intra-personal Intelligence (“Self Smart”)
  4. Linguistic Intelligence (“Word Smart”)
  5. Logical-Mathematical Intelligence (“Number/ Reasoning Smart”)
  6. Musical Intelligence (“Musical Smart”)
  7. Naturalist Intelligence (“Nature Smart”)
  8. Spatial Intelligence (“Picture Smart”)

Securing collaboration among multi-discipline workgroups

Groups separated by geography are but one challenge. So, here are tips for how to build collaboration among multi-discipline work groups. Apply these tips when facilitating among work groups that are widely separated by geography.

Frequent Interaction Among Multi-Discipline Work Groups

Very often, a workgroup comprises several small teams, each in separate locations. Successful teams require cross-functional support, integrating their efforts frequently. Regular and frequent interaction across functions provides numerous benefits. Interaction establishes mutual commitment among multi-discipline work groups. Integration also creates a common repository of knowledge.

Exchange People Within Multi-Discipline Work Groups

Typically, a team in one country has all the necessary technical capabilities, but their “requirements” come in large batches of written documents developed many time zones away. Predictably, when an application is finished several weeks or months after the arrival of the requirements, it isn’t what the customers really want. Large separations between customers or analysts and the implementation team seldom work very well. Therefore, consider relocating a couple of people from one team to the other team for extended periods of time, preferably on a rotating basis. One or two team members who understand customer needs could be located with the development team, or alternatively, one or two people who are part of the development team could be located closer to customers. Rotating people through these positions proves to be highly effective.

Daily Proxy For Multi-Discipline Work Groups

Sometimes dispersed teams communicate through a single person. Someone from each site becomes a member of the core team and serves as a proxy for the remainder of their remote team members. The proxy assumes responsibility for a large amount of well-defined work and sends it to the remote team, calling them daily to describe what needs to be done, answer questions, and retrieve completed work. Thus, the remote team maintains rich communication with one person on the core team, and the core team considers the remote team an extension of this proxy, who can help manage work for several people.

Traveling Leader Supporting Multi-Discipline Work Groups

Consider an oobeya or “war room” with big visible charts showing project status and issues. Maintain identical status charts in each of multiple rooms around the world. The program leader should travel from one room to another, holding regular status meetings at each location. Other locations may call into where the leader is hosting the meeting. Leadership commitment reinforces the mutual commitment of all teams to their common objective.

Caution Among Multi-Discipline Work Groups

Participants may develop the perception that one group is better than the other. For example, when part of a team relies heavily on a different language, when one group represents subcontractors while another represents the contracting company, or when one group clearly has higher pay or status than the other. Such perceptions quickly destroy the respect, trust, and commitment that are essential for true teamwork. To avoid the perception, or fix the situation, enforce the suggestions above with more people on rotation, more rotations, daily updates, and a leader who facilitates frequently at all locations, not solely the home-based site.

  1. blank“The distribution of collaborative work is often extremely lopsided . . .”

Success in complex organizations depends increasingly on the leadership’s ability to build collaboration. No one person has all the answers. Yet according to Harvard Business Review, over the past two decades, the amount of time managers and employees spend on collaborative work has ballooned. At many companies, people now spend about 80 percent of their time in meetings or answering colleagues’ requests.

Imagine that we could improve the productivity of meetings by only five percent.

In other words, reduce meeting time by three minutes per hour, with comparable outputs. What would that be worth in your organization? What would that be worth to you personally over the future of your career? For the average individual, we are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Seven tips to build collaboration and collaborative work:

  1. Demand an articulate and written explanation of the meeting purpose, scope, deliverables (i.e., objectives), and simple agenda BEFORE the meeting begins. If someone needs you to attend, then you have every right to show up prepared.
  2. Encourage the use of ground rules. A group of people multitasking on laptops and cell phones will waste more of YOUR time, than anything else.
  3. Keep the leader on task. Don’t allow the leader or group to ramble on without focus. Once focus is established, do not permit scope creep. Remind everyone about the question or topic at hand. Most scope creep involves discussions outside the scope of the meeting, such as “Why are we doing this in the first place?”
  4. Capture solid notes, especially about decision points and outputs. Make the outputs clear, especially when the leader is doing a poor job of writing things down, and presumes to be relying on memory after the meeting to set up a record.
  5. Challenge other participants to make them defend themselves. Request examples, evidence, and proof of their claims. Discover under what conditions they may be right, and under what conditions they may be wrong.
  6. Seek out the objective measurement for modifiers (e.g., adjectives and adverbs). If someone wants “quality”, seek a better understanding of how to measure it. To one person, a bowl of curry may be spicy but to another person, it’s not. Seek out the unit of measurement (Scoville Units) to help them reach agreement.
  7. Ask people what they are going to tell their supervisors and peers when the meeting is over about what was accomplished during the meeting. Strive to ensure that it sounds like all the participants were in the same meeting.

Chief Collaboration Officers

Granted, much of the suggested material above is the responsibility of the session leader. But if they won’t do it, you better. Remember, it’s worth thousands and thousands of dollars to promote more collaborative work. Harvard Business Review states further that collaboration may answer many of your biggest business challenges. They encourage leaders to promote collaborative work and teamwork, and suggest . . .

“. . . we believe that the time may have come for organizations to hire chief collaboration officers.”

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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.

Go to the Facilitation Training Store to access proven, in-house resources, including fully annotated agendas, break timers, and templates. Finally, take a few seconds to buy us a cup of coffee and please SHARE with others.

In conclusion, we dare you to embrace the will, wisdom, and activities that amplify a facilitative leader. #facilitationtraining #MEETING DESIGN

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Online Meeting Problems (and Solutions!)

Online Meeting Problems (and Solutions!)

by | Aug 11, 2020 | Facilitation Skills, Leadership Skills, Managing Conflict, Meeting Tools

Most have you have seen the hilarious, but oh-so-real “A Conference Call (in Real Life)” by tRIPP and tYLER (22 million views) that mocks dozens of common online meeting problems. While most of us now use video conferencing platforms like Microsoft Teams and Zoom, the problems are remarkably similar.

Whether you have seen it or not, the humor wraps around online meeting problems we’ve all had, continue to have, and will have again . . . 

Online Meeting Problems -- and Solutions!

Online Meeting Problems — and Solutions!

THE PROBLEMS

Online Meeting Problems . . . the First Minute

  • Uncomfortable small talk responses and inability to “connect” over copper.
  • Being interrupted by participants arriving late.
  • Echo and shrieking feedback from the audio give participants headaches.
  • Discussion about the source of the echo.
  • Notification sounds and other audible alarm distractions should be silenced in advance.

Online Meeting Problems . . . the Second Minute

  • Interrupted again by more participants arriving late.
  • A file link that becomes inoperable for those who are “required to download a plugin.”
  • Uncomfortable and delayed pauses waiting for the other person to speak again.
  • Participants talk over one another in an attempt to help.
  • Inability to determine the Operating System version, required to match up with the correct plug-in version.
  • Everybody then jumped in at once—again.
  • Voice and video get jumbled and no one understands the content contribution. or admits it.
  • Participant gets bumped offline and keeps talking because they don’t know it.

Online Meeting Problems . . . the Third Minute

  • Screen sharing causes the presenter to lose non-verbal feedback from participants.
  • Participants cannot see the speaker well because they have not “pinned” the speaker.
  • Group discussion spent on whether the contributor has been “lost” or “frozen” (again).
  • Participants made a significant contribution, only to discover they were on mute.
  • Others going adrift because of checking email, playing solitaire, etc.
  • Participants shout one set of fix-it instructions for Windows when they participant is using Mac OS (or vice versa).
  • Loudly barking dog (really loud that is, not a whimper or quick bark).
  • Interruption while the dog owner shouts disciplinary instructions to the dog.
  • An espresso machine in the background drowns out important content.

Online Meeting Problems . . . the Fractional Final Minute

  • Participants depart before the meeting ends.
  • Unsuspecting participant speaks up, previously unacknowledged, but attending the entire session.
  • Eager to add content, they discover key personnel now gone or missing, and therefore unable to share valuable content.

THE SOLUTIONS

You and your organization will NOT be able to do everything required. Most cultures simply won’t allow disciplined behavior, such as preventing meetings from going overtime. However, if you don’t try, the problems above will repeat themselves, and slowly become seen as “normal”, thus expected and tolerated by most employees.

Incredibly, most of your solutions have little to do with specialized business expertise. Rather, the discipline required derives from basic communication skills and interpersonal respect. There is no federal law, or ethical standard for that matter, that demands employers treat employees with respect. For most “at-will” employees, they have the liberty or option to simply quit if they don’t like the way they are being treated.

In addition to some basic online etiquette such as silencing your Notifications and No Hiding (turning off the video), here are some other solutions.

Communication Basics

  • When listening, do not assume. Rather, confirm. All too often we proceed as if everybody else understands the same words and situations as we do. Prudently, assume the opposite. There is typically at least one person in any meeting who views the meaning of terms or interpretation of the situation differently. Probably caused by different backgrounds, upbringing, and other life experiences, we should embrace and leverage the alternative point of view. Breakthrough and creativity are with new thinking. Innovation results from plurality, incongruity, seemingly unrelated, and other patterns of perception that represent the opposite of cloning yourself.
  • Structured icebreakers and warm-up exercises have proven the value of discipline. Simple structure such as having everyone answer an icebreaker question can create value and strengthen connections among employees. Small talk will not increase productivity like structured introductions, such as some form of an icebreaker. Studies are showing that icebreakers are particularly valuable when meetings are consistently held online, such as mandated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
    • Active listening mitigates many of the problems mentioned. By providing consistent and reliable reflection, everyone gets heard, and everyone hears what the other person said. With luck, the facilitator has also reflected WHY they said it. Remember, people speak about symptoms, not causes. You build consensus at a causal level, not by focusing on symptoms. People think “stink”, not prevailing wind. Likewise, people think “spicy”, not Scoville Units. And people think the “cost of living”, is not disposable income after all the bills have been paid.

Leadership Requirements

  • Meetings require leaders and the very best embrace a servant-leadership mindset that reflects the skills necessary to be an effective facilitator. Facilitators above all protect the participants. Someone needs to interrupt the interrupter. While it remains both unavoidable and acceptable for some to speak briefly about items not within the meeting scope, when the talk becomes a distraction, nuisance, or puts the meeting objectives at risk, the side conversations need to be effectively reined in by the facilitator.
  • Proper documentation should precede meetings. While difficult to imagine, participants should never agree to attend a meeting without a deliverable and an agenda. How many completely unstructured discussions have been worth your time? If so, then your time might not be worth as much as it should. Meeting invitations should include the meeting purpose, scope, objectives, agenda, and other necessary information such as access numbers, passcodes, PINS, SharePoint, file attachments, etc.
  • Virtual seating arrangements can be leveraged to ensure more effective “Round-Robins” so that all participants are afforded an opportunity to speak. Always provide participants with permission to say “pass.” Facilitators also need to be more effective and frequent with their use of Breakouts to stimulate and keep people moving. A multitude of activities, auditory, and visual stimulation adds to the Zen of the online experience, providing valuable texture in an otherwise flat world of flat screens.

Cultural Factors

  • Punctuality, time management, and respecting others’ time should become commonplace within your culture, rather than the exception. In team sports, much like team businesses, if players arrive late or miss the spot they should occupy, the team scores less often or yields itself to its competitors. Is business that much different? Extensive studies have correlated innovation, eco-sensitivity, and other factors with increased growth and profitability. We’re willing to bet that timeliness also correlates highly with profitability.
  • Effective facilitators enforce ground rules. Whether policing electronic leashes or challenging participants to make their thinking visible, ground rules help teams get more done faster. Enforce standards that playing games and multi-tasking are unacceptable behavior—clear violations of fiduciary responsibility.
  • Perhaps alone on this, common and brief background noises such as doorbells or brief barking don’t bother us at all. They are natural and mostly unavoidable in both our remote and office environments. Common household noises are no different than hi-rise elevator noise, PA (public address) systems, or shouting across cubicles. If they are not a distraction, who cares? (flushing toilets is a different matter entirely). We waste time fumbling with mute buttons, in addition to repeating content previously muted. Standard background noise such as a child running down the hallway causes few delays or wasted moments.

Equipment Issues

  • Enterprises and organizations need to step up and provide employees with more robust online tools. Cheap cameras and microphones waste time and money. Online meetings are here to stay. Even in a post-Covid world, the benefits to individuals, organizations, communities, and the planet are clear—working remotely can add value. Not everyone and not every day perhaps but ZOOM and TEAMS are not going away—ever (Until replaced by holographic equipment or some other, improved technology that benefits remote workers and reduces carbon displacement). Is there anything more annoying than a reverberating echo or loud screech caused by inferior equipment?
  • With some luck, manufacturers will improve their acceptance and use of universal keyboard commands. How do I pin that? Where is the mute? How do I switch cameras? We could go on and on, but it will benefit everyone to use and embrace some common keyboard commands, icons, and shortcuts so that we can seamlessly go from MAC to PC to iPad to phone without needing to completely re-orient ourselves. Is it too much to ask for a common keyboard command that pins the speaker or another that provides a Gallery view?

Finally: Specialized Training Helps

First, don’t expect to facilitate successfully online if you don’t have the training and skills to facilitate a meeting in person. If you’re not a trained meeting facilitator, now is the time to step up your game. Check out our calendar of professional ONLINE and on-site classes HERE.

That said… There are tips specific to connecting with your participants online. We attended Daniel Mezick’s class, Connect and Communicate: How to Teach ONLINE which will help you better connect with all your virtual people, and yourself. Daniel is a special person and a superb teacher.

______

Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH focuses 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.

Go to the Facilitation Training Store to access proven, in-house resources, including fully annotated agendas, break timers, and templates. Finally, take a few seconds to buy us a cup of coffee and please SHARE with others.

In conclusion, we dare you to embrace the will, wisdom, and activities that amplify a facilitative leader. #facilitationtraining #MEETING DESIGN

______

With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference