Ground Rules and Ideation Rules for Optimal Group Behavior in Meetings
Use ground rules to help manage individual and group behavior during meetings and workshops. You can lead meetings and discussions without ground rules, but did you ever leave an unstructured meeting with a headache? The term "discussion" is rooted...
Designing Strategy Execution, by William Malek
A.T. Kearney published the results of a 2014 Strategy Study with over 2,000 global executives on strategy trends, challenges, and opportunities. Here are some key findings worth highlighting that relate to the design of strategy execution. 1. 46%...
Addicted to Being Right: 4 Participant Responses to Avoid Being Wrong
Most people associate shame or loss of power with being wrong. Ever felt yourself getting defensive? When your meeting participants turn defensive, especially when they feel they are losing ground, neurochemistry hijacks the brain. Because they are...
Facilitating an Effective After-Action Review (AAR / Hot Wash): Agenda and Best Practices
An After-Action Review (AAR) is an effective tool for debriefing projects, programs, or other initiatives. It may also be considered similar to a Hot Wash, After-Action Debriefing, Look Back, Postmortem, or, in the Agile community, a Retrospective....
Becoming an Unconsciously Competent Facilitator
To become an unconsciously competent facilitator, you first become conscious and then competent. As you progress and increase your abilities, you will note an evolution of competency, illustrated in the chart below. First, note that consciousness...
Meeting Documenter Accountability – If it isn’t documented, it didn’t happen.
Don't overlook the importance of your meeting documenter or documentation support. The document produced from an MGRUSH workshop provides the raw data for project deliverables. The meeting becomes a waste of time if meeting notes are not clear and...
Twelve Behaviors that Define Great Facilitators
Today we bring you twelve significant behaviors that define successful, professional facilitators. (i.e., GREAT Facilitators) Our scope focuses on structured facilitation (NOT Kum-Bah-Yah). Structured facilitation requires a balanced blend...
Remember the Abilene Paradox and Avoid Absurdity While Facilitating
Group decision-making, when not transparent or properly facilitated, can lead to awful decisions. The Abilene Paradox captures why four intelligent adults would agree and decide to do something that none of them wanted to do in the first place. It...
Transform Your RACI Chart or RACI Matrix (Roles and Responsibilities Chart) into a Project Plan
Here's how to create a project plan or RACI chart (or RACI matrix) when your discussion or meeting deliverable includes assignments for actions that have been built or identified. As a result of capturing the additional inputs below, you develop a...
Four Reasons You Will Dial Up Decision Quality with More Team Diversity
Decision quality increases with the number of available options. The MGRUSH technique has long promoted the concept of team diversity to improve decision quality. Most understand that properly facilitated teams are smarter than the smartest person...
Avoid Asking “How Do We Solve Global Hunger?” with the Single Question Approach
Not all situations are covered by cookbook agendas or avail a methodologist to help. The facilitator must develop their approach another way. Therefore, use the Single Question Approach to develop new questions that lead to a meeting method...
How to Facilitate Force Field Analysis Leading to Actions
Force Field analysis modifies and improves upon a similar approach called “pros & cons.” Force Field analysis helps groups identify and prioritize actions and opportunities for improvement, especially among product and project teams. This...
Quantitative SWOT Analysis (TO-WS) Makes it Easier & Faster to Build Consensus
Quantitative SWOT analysis contrasts the internal, controllable aspects of the organization (i.e., Strengths and Weaknesses) with external, uncontrollable situational factors (i.e., Opportunities and Threats) to create consensus around potential...
Questions to Ask If Using a Decision Quality Spider Chart (DQ Spider)
When making decisions, consider testing for decision quality (DQ)[1] so that you can avoid having another meeting. A quick method involves testing your options against your purpose to gauge alignment and support. However, this DQ Spider offers a...
Estimating Workshop and Meeting Duration — Tips and Guidelines
Accurate estimating for meeting duration helps optimize the schedules and expectations of your participants. Therefore, stay vigilant. When estimated incorrectly, your sessions risk the worst deliverable from any meeting --- another meeting. Poor...
Stop wasting time and money!
With Meetings That Get Results, you’ll learn how to lead meetings that produce clear and actionable results every time. More important, how to avoid the worst possible outcome from any meeting—another meeting!
Developed from over 17+ years of research, delivery, and practice, including 15,000+ hours providing live instruction using Certified curriculum, Meetings That Get Results provides you with the tools and methods necessary to lead meetings that generate clear and actionable results, with deliverables that participants both understand and own.
“An essential handbook for any leader or facilitator of meetings. Especially as we have transitioned to more remote-based collaboration, I value all the tips to lead global team meetings.”
— Sana A. Manjeshwar, Global Principal Ombuds Manager, Chevron