POSTS

Indirect Meeting Costs and Other Challenges You Can Overcome

by Facilitation Expert | Nov 15, 2012 | Meeting Support

Meetings are frequently a fix for poor leadership. Most would rather go to a movie than sit in a two-hour meeting. Almost all poor movies at least contain a beginning, middle, and end. Indirect meeting costs represent a huge area for cost control and improved return on investment.

Meetings are very expensive. Today’s business world is asymmetric, and holding meetings to share information may be a poor use of precious resources. Dashboard devices provide a better means for information updates than staff meetings. The Scrum approach addresses three questions during daily Scrums, but participants frequently remain standing so that meetings adjourn quickly:

What has been accomplished since we last met?
What accomplishments are targeted next?
Which challenges require additional support?

Indirect Meeting Costs and Challenges

The best reason to pull people together is to build something that we cannot do apart, to arrive at consensus, to decide on something. Consider replacing weekly meetings with periodic workshops, knowing that the use of facilitators greatly improves productivity.

Role of Meetings

We live in a meeting society. Along with billions of people, our world also contains more than 200 nation-states, 4 million local communities, 20 million economic organizations, 200 million extended families, and hundreds of millions of other formal and informal groups. In order for groups to exist, individuals that make up these groups must meet and interact.

Current Trends

The increased growth in the number and length of meetings is due to the accelerated rate of change that now rules today’s business environment. The rapid and constant change in technology, particularly information technology and business process management, has dramatically increased the volatility of the global marketplace. As technology takes over more routine functions and allows faster access to data, managerial skills shift, calling for increased communication clarity and small group skills.

Flatter Structures

Another trend emerging as a result of an accelerated environment is the growth of more efficient and flatter organizational structures. These organizations have fewer management layers and, therefore fewer levels of decision-making. Flatter structures result in more group decision-making by specialists from disparate areas within the organization. Consequently, the ability to effectively communicate cross-functional support in meetings has taken on increased importance.

Participative  Management

A by-product of replacing hierarchy with holarchy is an increasing emphasis on participative employee ownership. Participative management bases itself on the following premises:

The quality of decisions is improved if all employee expertise is considered, and
The act of employee participation leads to better acceptance of the decisions.

50 Percent Productive

Studies have estimated that meetings are at most 50 percent productive. Thus the typical manager wastes approximately 240 hours per year (about 30 days) at a cost to the average Fortune 500 Company of greater than one hundred billion USD per year. By using proper meeting management, a single company could recover 25 to 35 percent of these costs or hundreds of millions per year.

Intangible Costs

The intangible costs associated with poor meeting management are overlooked at all levels of management. Meetings serve as opportunities for senior management to appraise and search out potential leaders within an organization. As lower-level managers take on more responsibilities, they spend more of their time in meetings with executives at higher levels. Consequently, their success as executives is tied to their ability to make the most out of their meeting time.

Psychological Costs

Participating in a poorly run meeting is frustrating, resulting in apathy, resentment, and a lack of commitment toward the meeting’s outcome. This attitude carries over to the workplace. Therefore, in many cases, subverting good ideas that come from the meetings.

Meeting Dementia

People and organizations have developed “meeting dementia because poorly run meetings have been around for so long and remain prevalent. Some view poorly run and unproductive meetings as the norm, and that’s just the way it is. This viewpoint seems to have been inherited by observing others who have led poorly run meetings, who in turn learned from others making the same mistakes, and so on.

Indirect Meeting Costs and Challenges

The major problems with meetings, surprisingly, don’t have to do with personalities or the inability of group members to get along with one another. Almost all problems are typically task-related—i.e., people do not know the mechanics of HOW TO lead effective meetings. The following list highlights 14 of the most frequently mentioned problems by over 1,000 managers:

Getting off subject
No goals or agenda
Too long
Poor preparation
Inconclusive
Disorganized
Ineffective leader/ lack of control
Irrelevant information discussed
Time wasted
Started late
Ineffective for making decisions
Interruptions (inside and out)
Dominators
Rambling discussion

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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 every day during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.

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Use Writing Easels or Whiteboards When Facilitating Meetings and Workshops

by Facilitation Expert | Nov 8, 2012 | Meeting Support

The National Speakers’ Association stated that the most important change speakers could make to be more effective would be to be more facilitative.

By that, they meant the use of interaction, solicitation, and capture of participants’ ideas. Whether you are a speaker, teacher, coach, or traditional facilitator, it is good to develop competence around how to use easels, large Post-It® paper, and broad chiseled markers. Here are some tips for you or your documentor. The paper continues to offer superior benefits to digital capture because most complex issues cannot be fully rendered or understood with one screen of bulleted items. Additionally, if it is not documented, it did not happen.

Begin with good materials and supplies. Few things will frustrate an expert facilitator more than cheap paper and poor-quality easels. Most will carry their own, preferred markers. Large, Post-It style presentation sheets provide immediate and visual feedback to participants. Working with paper makes it faster to edit and refer to work that was drafted or completed earlier.

When you use easels and large-format paper, consider the following tips:

Anticipate where you will mount your sheets. Be sensitive about everyone’s sight lines. Save your prime, center real estate for scrubbing and scoring ideas during each agenda step.
Banners or headlines provide an excellent opportunity for iconic support and color splash. Create them in advance. Then unveiled, they connote a strong sense of preparation and importance.
Easel Sample
Experts suggest using a minimum of three colors per sheet. Only use black or dark blue for primary content. Use red for edits and scoring, and use green for linking, or edits (shows chronological shift). Use lighter colors for grid lines, table lines, or illustrations.
Pre-drawn illustrations (in pencil or light marker) enable you to draw over thin lines with broad markers in the session as needed.
Rip, do not flip, completed pages. Participants need to see their prior work and a bunch of flipped sticky pages get caught up in a clump that is difficult to disentangle.

Additionally when you use easels . . .

Save valuable real estate along the left-hand column, defaulting to hyphens of indented items that may be further defined or scored during the analysis step with a prioritization tool.
Use flip chart graph paper with blueline squares to keep the size of your writing consistent. Try out the size of the letters before the session to see if the person farthest away can read them. Capital letters should be two to three inches tall and lowercase letters should be one to two inches in height.
Visual displays whether illustrative, iconic, or colorful prove to stimulate participants and increase the quality of contributions and feedback.
Wedge tip markers work best for writing and pointed tip markers provide good highlights. Use the broad side or flat edge of the wedge tip so that your writing is visible from six to eight meters.
You may speed up the capture process during the ideation step of Brainstorming by using two scribes (i.e., documentors). Work this out in advance, and if relying on a participant for help, give him or her some time at the end to add his or her own ideas.

Other Support

For additional and specific product recommendations, see your FAST Session Leader reference manual or refer to the Alumni Only resource section of our website. Specifically, the document entitled Facilitator’s Tool Kit lists many of the items that can be used to support more effective facilitation through the use of easels.

“The problem with digitizing brainstorming is that we don’t need to save what we brainstorm . . . The critical thing is the conclusion . . . The slick brainstorming capture tools . . . Will probably not be as successful as hoped. There are significant differences among collecting and processing and organizing and different tools are usually required for them.” [pg 271] — David Allen, Getting Things Done

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Empower Your Meeting Participants to Become Better Listeners

by Facilitation Expert | Oct 25, 2012 | Communication Skills

The effective facilitator helps meeting participants become better listeners. Dr. Ralph Nichols, “Father of the Field of Listening”, notes three behaviors that perfectly align with the roles of facilitator, and your hope to be more effective, that create better listeners during meetings.

First of all, anticipate the speaker’s next point .

As a facilitator, your anticipation helps shape your direction. For example, should you walk closer to the speaker or to the easel to capture their comments? Therefore, if you anticipate correctly, learning has been reinforced. If you anticipate incorrectly, participants wonder why, causing unnecessary noise.

Another is to identify the supporting elements a speaker uses in building points.

The primary role of the facilitator is to make it easy to extract the participants’ points of view. Then, ensure that the supporting reasons are captured and recorded, preferably on an easel, screen, or whiteboard so that all the meeting participants can view the same information.

Build understanding among your participants by seeking the reasons and evidence supporting their thoughts. Or, as we say in the MGRUSH curriculum, “Make Your Thinking Visible.” Typically speakers rely on three methods to convince others:

Better Listening

They explain the point,
Speakers get emotional and harangue the point, or
They illustrate the point with a factual illustration.

A sophisticated listener knows this.

He or she spends a little time identifying the difference between thought speed and speaking speed to identify the evidence being used to support any claims. Consequently, listening behavior becomes highly profitable if measured by communication efficiency.

A third way that improves the listening skills of your participants make summaries of the main evidence and examples. Good listeners take advantage of short pauses to summarize and absorb support for participants’ claims. Periodic summaries reinforce learning tremendously.

Most of us listen poorly for a variety of reasons. First, we have not been trained and few training opportunities exist (although the MGRUSH Professional Facilitative Leadership workshop offers a significant exception). We think faster than others speak. Plus, listening represents hard work and requires complete concentration. While it remains a challenge to be a good listener, good listeners get big rewards.

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Three Questions You Need to Answer Before Your Meeting Begins

by Facilitation Expert | Oct 18, 2012 | Meeting Support

You must consider these three questions before you take on the role of session leader for any meeting or workshop.

Prompted by “Three (Incredibly Simple) Questions The Most Successful People Use To Change The World,” Forbes contributor Mike Maddock published an article that could have been cut and pasted (figuratively) from the MG RUSH Facilitation Reference manual. Indeed, to lead a successful meeting, these three questions (slightly modified) should be considered for every meeting or workshop before the meeting begins, especially when you are the session leader.

Before the Meeting You Must Know — What is the deliverable?

Three Questions Before Meetings

Start with the end in mind. What does DONE look like? Where are you going? How do you know when you get there? For meetings, our focus is clearly on output (i.e., a thing) rather than outcome (ie, a new condition) since we are typically unable to generate new outcomes before the meeting ends. We can however create the input required to catalyze new outcomes, and that is the purpose of the meeting.

#2 You Should Know — What are the problems and challenges I foresee?

Emphasizing the importance of thorough preparation and interviewing your participants in advance, your preparatory time should be stressed when collaboration is required or consensus is absolutely necessary. What people, issues, or components of the culture are going to get in the way of collaboration and consensus? Your answers will yield the insight necessary to build optimal agendas and activities for each specific meeting situation.

You Could Know #3 — Who has already created this type of deliverable?

Chances are, you are not the first session leader in the history of mankind to confront your type of deliverable and situational challenges. Find others who have already done it. The manager of one MGRUSH FAST alumnus calls it, “Once stolen, half done.” Focus on others within your own organization through formal networks like a Community of Practice (CoP) or Community of Excellence (CoE) and informal relationships and friendships. Learning from the experience of others will jumpstart your chances of success, so please do not be shy about asking for help.

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Meeting Pathway and Canvas

Facilitators vs. Dictators: Facilitators are More Popular

by Facilitation Expert | Sep 26, 2012 | Leadership Skills

Comparing facilitators vs dictators we surprisingly discover that the term ‘facilitator’ becomes more popular. As measured by frequency of use, the trend for facilitator rises since 1995. The message is clear. If you want to be more popular, be a facilitator and not a dictator!

For example, in the chart and results below, we compared the occurrences of the terms ‘war’ and ‘peace.’ As you can tell, the use of both terms are declining. The term ‘war’ remains largely prevalent and the term ’peace’ experienced a slight rise during the Viet-Nam conflict era, the 70’s.

“Brain Breaks” and other mental stimulation are valuable for increasing group performance as measured by the velocity and innovativeness of ideas. Therefore, use Google’s Ngram Viewer as a way to stimulate group energy, team building, and topic-related discussion—all at the same time. Consequently, have some fun on your own, and help get participants back from breaks and lunch in a timely fashion with this tool. For other “Brain Breaks” do not forget to access your MG RUSH alumni resources.

: War or Peace

Simply turn your browser to http://books.google.com/ngrams and insert commas to separate phrases or terms and compare their occurrence in published English language books over the past 200 years.

Facilitators vs. Dictators

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Related articles

Fun with Google Books Ngram Viewer (householdopera.typepad.com)
ngram.sh: a script for extracting Google Ngram data (opendna.com)
Live post: In search of the first use of ‘Data/Information Visualization’ (visualisingdata.com)
How not to do things with words. (tedunderwood.wordpress.com)

Facilitating Crucial Conversations and the Dialogue Model

by Facilitation Expert | Sep 20, 2012 | Communication Skills

Numerous alumni have asked if we have read Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, and so we did.

Most of us do not take the time to read everything on our “Book List”. Therefore, please find our takeaways from Crucial Conversations as they apply to being a more effective facilitator. For your benefit, they are listed sequentially according to the page numbers in the first edition (2002).

First Part

Crucial Conversations and the Dialogue Model

Glossary – Crucial conversations provide a discussion between two or more people where the stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong.
Page xii – Crucial conversations do not simply transact and inform, rather they transform. They create a middle way, not a compromise, between two opposites on a straight-line continuum, like a higher middle ground. Think of the apex of a triangle.
Page xiii – Most breakthroughs in life are truly “break-withs” meaning that we must let go of old habits, patterns, and beliefs to allow room for new ideas to rise.
Page 20 – Skilled facilitators find a way to get all the relevant information considered in the discussion, providing an integrative path whereby the question is not “Who gets the biggest piece?” but rather “How can we make the pie bigger?”
Page 24 – Decision-making quality is improved with increased shared meaning and crucial conversations. For additional discussion on this critical topic, see our posting on the importance of rhetorical precision and how participants can be in violent agreement with each other, and need someone to listen.
Page 29 – Ironically, the most talented people continuously try to improve their dialogue skills. Hopefully, that means you and I as well.
Page 43 – Focus on AND, not BUT. Stifle comments that begin with “X, Y, and Z may be true BUT . . .” and force your participants to use the word AND as in “X, Y, and Z may be true AND . . .”
Page 49 – When it’s safe, people can say anything. When it’s unsafe, participants start to go blind. Remember the first responsibility of the facilitator is to protect the people in the room. The deliverable is sought only to serve the people and not the other way around. Make them safe, first and foremost.

Second Part

Page 126 – Begin with facts because facts are the least controversial, the most persuasive, and the least insulting. By MG Rush standards, facts are objective components to which we can all agree. Remember to convert the subjective (as in subject matter expert) to the objective by asking about the unit of measurements (resulting in objective Scoville units rather than subjective comments about the chili being hot).
Page 141 – One of the best ways to persuade others is with your ears—by listening to them. Frequently participants simply need to know that someone else understands their point of view. Do not forget that active listening implies providing reflection about what they said and confirming whether or not you were correct, an essential component of crucial conversations.
Page 164 – Four methods of decision-making: command, consult, vote, and consensus. While the FAST technique discourages voting, even these world-class authors (e.g., Steven Covey) suggest using consensus building for complex issues with high stakes, where everyone must support the final choice.
Page 182 – Dialogue Model (slightly modified)

See www.crucialconversations.com for further insight: Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High by Kerry Patterson (Author), Joseph Grenny (Author), Ron McMillan (Author), Al Switzler (Author), Stephen R. Covey (Author), Publisher: McGraw-Hill; first edition (June 18, 2002), ISBN-10: 0071401946, ISBN-13: 978-0071401944

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A3 Project Questions and A3 Project Guide for Facilitation Activities

by Facilitation Expert | Aug 23, 2012 | Analysis Methods

Here are some sequentially listed A3 project questions, modified from an A3 project approach.

These questions serve as a litmus test for determining the overall health of a project. After the questions, you will find an A3 Project Facilitation Reference Guide.

A3 Project Questions

Borrow or modify the A3 project questions to develop richer insight into the health of your project.

A3 Project Questions

“To what extent” should precede the following questions:

Can you clearly and succinctly define the “presenting problem”—the actual business issue that is being felt?
Have you engaged other people?
Might you show the gap between the target and the current condition?
Did you clarify the optimal business objectives?
Could you isolate the root cause(s) of the main components of the gap?
Have you engaged other people?
Will you uncover the substantive (i.e., most meaningful) information to support the analysis?
Have you identified the real problem?
Have you gathered and verified facts-not just data and anecdotes-to clearly understand the current state?

“HOW will you” should precede the following questions:

Decide to tackle this problem.
Capture and share the learning?
Decide which countermeasures to propose.
Get agreement from everyone concerned?
Know if your countermeasures work?

The “WHAT” should precede the following questions:

Are some possible countermeasures?
Are the root causes of the problem?
Do you actually know and how do you know it?
Follow-up issues can you anticipate?
Is the business context?
Is the problem or issue?
Might be the problem?
Is your implementation plan—who, what, when, where, and how?
Problems may occur during implementation.

The “WHO” should precede the following questions:

Is responsible for this issue?
Owns the problem?
Owns the process for addressing the problem (or realizing the opportunity or managing the project)?

This Facilitation Reference Guide supports an A3 project workshop. It begins with management perspective and clarity around what needs to be delivered to be called a success. Some call this, “knowing what DONE looks like.”

Facilitation Reference Guide for an A3 Project Workshop

Facilitation Reference Guide — Preparation Phase

First and foremost, articulate and codify the deliverables.
Next, understand the organizational holarchy and the impact of failure. Hence, the value of the initiative, project, or meeting should be stipulated by the amount of money and wasted FTE at risk if the project fails.
Listen and then listen more. Therefore, speak with the project team, the business community, the sponsors, and the customers to ensure clarity and alignment. Come to understand the political risks and potential personality issues associated with an IT project workshop.
Conduct a quantitative, MGRUSH risk assessment. Remember, if you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it.
When considering multiple IT project workshops or multiple days, build an IT project workshop plan for the series of meetings required.
Emphasize roles and the equality of all meeting participants. Have them leave their titles in the hallway before entering the meeting room. Assign the role of observer to people you cannot keep out.
Build your approach (i.e., agenda) for each session based on discrete deliverables.

Facilitation Reference Guide — Workshop Phase

Hence, as you prepare for your meetings and workshops:

Take the basic approach for each session identified above and expand into the detailed questions you need answers to and the activities you will lead to getting results.
- Create an annotated agenda including review material, ground rules, and appropriate audio-visual support.
- Default to the two primary activities when necessary:
  - Brainstorming:
    - List (ideate, diverge, create undiscussed input)
    - Analyze (e.g., if prioritizing, what tool, what questions, etc.)
    - Document (converge, decide, agree on final output)
  - Process Sequence
    - Build consensus around the purpose of the process.
    - Clarify each supporting activity (preferably in verb-noun format).
    - Clarify information (input) needed to support each activity.
    - Detail the transaction including supporting calculations or algorithms.
    - Describe the environmental conditions and policy impact.
    - Confirm what changes and fully define the new outputs.

Facilitation Reference Guide — Review and Resolution Phase

Finally, provide a smooth segue from the meeting deliverable to use by the project team:

Distribute clear and valid documentation from the meeting.
Follow up personally with the project team to de-brief the findings.
Obtain any calibration of meeting notes from meeting participants.
Submit an evaluation report of the meeting or workshop effort, including benefits and concerns from your own performance as the session leader.

Follow this structured reference guide and you are ensured a higher likelihood of preventing any significant omissions. Additionally, prepare thoroughly and allow twice as much time as possible. As a meeting leader, you need to keep all your participants fully engaged. Thorough preparation requires planning your activities, scripting your questions, and creating backup plans. You will be responsible for keeping participants clear about what you need from each of them; therefore, do the following:

Hereafter, always provide participants with a written meeting purpose, scope, objectives, and Basic Agenda.
Stipulate broad expectations and detailed questions that your subject matter experts need to properly prepare for the session.

Which Path? The Art of Questioning

For longer than the recorded history of humans, hikers and mountaineers have turned around, faced their group or partner, and asked, “Which way?” and as soon as someone says, “To the left,” someone else asks, “Why?”

As a mountain climber, your decision or choice is a function of countless variables, including duration, distance, and elevation. Later in the journey, you will discover the best path is also influenced by sun orientation and wind direction. Because the decision about which path to take becomes a function of those primary variables, you will also realize that those variables are not equally valued.

As an example, for one person or group, ambient comfort (with their purpose being “experience”) represents the highest importance, so sun exposure and wind chill are critical. Another group stresses elevation and distance (their purpose is “conditioning”). Both rationales are optimal for their respective groups. A neutral facilitator, armed with the appropriate tools, could help them both decide and agree on a path. However, business decisions are usually far more complex than that.

A Guide on the Side, Not a Sage on the Stage
Once you have confirmed that you accurately heard and understood what participants believe, use questions rather than edicts to advance the conversation. Use either prepared or impromptu questions that will:
• Build group cohesion
• Create receptiveness to change and development
• Direct teams to look for similarities—for example, apples and oranges are both fruit and similar in shape, size, and weight; they both bruise easily and rot as well
• Help maintain focus within the scope
• Increase learning and innovative thinking

Questions are most effective when presented with an inquiring, probing, and neutral perspective. Finally, effective questions are open-ended discoveries and not opinions disguised as questions.

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Information is Physical — a brief review of James Gleick’s “The Information”

by Facilitation Expert | Aug 16, 2012 | Communication Skills

Information is physical. “To do anything requires energy. To specify what is done requires information.” –Seth Lloyd (2006) c/o James Gleick

“The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood” released by First Vintage Books in March 2012, and written by James Gleick © 2011, will leave you exhilarated with the implications of information as a thing, and exhausted at understanding the implications of information as another dimension, much like length, width, and height. his highly acclaimed and best-selling author has probably forgotten more about this topic than this author is capable of restating, but his work is definitely worth a read.

For me, I was quite awakened to the understanding that the term itself is dynamic—notice “in – formation.” For us, the difference between ‘information’ and ‘data’ becomes apparent when you hyphenate the former. Then you see that the intent of the word is to capture the dynamic, the stuff that is in formation. The latter then represents the static, stuff that doesn’t necessarily change.

No wonder that the requirements and technology to support information, are never static and constantly changing. His discussion about the history and evolution towards the current state of quantum computing is remarkably clear yet simply challenging. Who can honestly explain teleportation cleanly and clearly to someone else? Yet most of us know and would agree with the Einsteinian equation “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

The Information (a book by James Gleick)

Wikipedia

For me, particularly enjoyable was the chapter on Wikipedia, since it represents the true sense of digital collaboration. It also represents consensus, except for the disambiguations, or areas void of clear consensus.

From early Charles Babbage and “No Thought Can Perish” to the edit wars of Wikipedia if you are regularly engaged in the sphere of information technology, you will find Glieck’s book worthwhile at least, and at most, highly illuminating. After all, which is more accurate—is a human with a cat its “owner,” its “caregiver,” its “human companion,” or other? Or, to borrow liberally from Glieck’s painstaking research “factions fission into . . . the Association of Wikipedians Who Dislike Making Broad Judgments About the Worthiness of a General Category of Article, and Who are in Favor of the Deletion of Some Particularly Bad Articles, but That Doesn’t Mean They Are Deletionists.” (for real).

His Prologue of references and Bibliography alone are worthy of any library, including yours, if part of your life’s passion deals with information technology.

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Alan Turing name-checks his predecessor Charles Babbage (wired.com)
James Gleick: The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood (ritholtz.com)

What is the Difference Between Mission and Vision?

by Facilitation Expert | Aug 9, 2012 | Planning Approach

Most people are confused about the difference between a mission and a vision. An MBA grad from a prestigious east-coast USA school told us that he “learned more about strategic planning in the past two hours than during my entire MBA curriculum.”

While humbled, we are not surprised. Since most people are confused about the difference between the terms ‘mission’ and ‘vision’. Their confusion is made greater by some of the famous minds of our ‘liberal’ academic world. Sometimes it’s their opponent, the ‘conservative’ military-industrial complex. The confusion became stronger by some of the world’s largest and most influential consulting firms. The same ones that have brought us over 20 types of roles and responsibilities tools. Those include RACI, RASI, RASCI, ARCI, etc. (see Transform Your Responsibilities Matrix into a GANTT Chart).

In fact, the argument may be ended quickly by not using the terms mission and vision. If you seek to end the confusion, substitute the questions they attempt to answer. One term represents sentiment that answers the question “Why do we show up (or, Why are we here?)?” The other term represents sentiment that answers the question “Where are we going?” With this logic, the natural order is to know where we are before we discuss where we are going.

Academic vs. Military-industrial

Mission or Vision?

In many textbooks, strategic planning begins with the mission (i.e., Why are we here?). It then yields to vision (i.e., Where are we going?). The military-industrial complex answers the same questions, in the same order, but defines the terms differently. Note that NATO armed forces have a vision. “Liberty and independence for all” explains their existence. When threatened, however, they go forth on a “mission to (insert location; e.g., Iraq).”

A versatile facilitator remains agnostic. They are biased toward one definition over the other. They are biased however to maintain consistency within the organization and culture they are serving. Since confusion exists in most organizations, an important part of the preparation activity involves building the glossary for your meetings and workshops that homogenizes operational definitions and ensures that they are applied consistently, within and between your meetings and workshops.

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Remaining Neutral — Take Only Photographs, Leave Only Bubbles

by Facilitation Expert | Aug 2, 2012 | Facilitation Skills

Remaining neutral describes the single most important trait of an effective facilitator.

As a YMCA-certified SCUBA diver, we heard “take only photographs and leave only bubbles.” Likewise, an effective facilitator should take only participant input and leave only a thorough trail of documentation and rationale. You will find this premise emphasized in the 27th verse of the Wisdom of the Tao written 2,500 years ago. While varying translations and transliterations exist, we’ve borrowed one version of the 27th verse below:

A knower of the truth

travels without leaving a trace,

speaks without causing harm,

gives without keeping an account.

The door that shuts, though having no lock,

will not open.

The knot he ties, though using no cord,

cannot be undone.

“Leave Only Bubbles”

Be wise and help all being impartially,

abandoning none.

Waste no opportunities.

This is called following the light.

What is a good man but a bad man’s teacher?

What is a bad man but a good man’s job?

If the teacher is not respected

and the student is not cared for,

confusion will arise, however clever one is.

This is the great secret.

The Role of Remaining a Neutral and Contextual Master

The role of facilitator is captured by both the knower and the teacher, of context. The shut door represents preventing scope creep. The tied knot represents connection and consensus. Meaning, not one’s “favorite” necessarily, but at a high enough standard that participants will support it professionally and not lose any sleep over it personally. Helping all suggests the innovative potential that exists by embracing heterogeneity. Wasting no opportunities implies thorough listening and documentation.

Above all, to be wise is to be impartial—this is the great secret.

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Crashing Through Toward Improved Facilitation

by Facilitation Expert | Jul 19, 2012 | Leadership Skills

The book “Crashing Through” by New York Times bestselling author Robert Kurson includes innumerable reflections about struggle, collaboration, and victory that also apply to the sphere of facilitation.

Most importantly, the book emphasizes the scientific understanding that pre-existing knowledge affects perception. In other words, what you know changes what you see. The challenges around consensual decision-making are thus amplified by the plurality of the group.

Sight recovery after a lifetime of being visually impaired is extraordinarily rare. Only around 20 people in known history have had their vision restored in adulthood after being visually blind since early youth. As explained by Kurson, he captures Mike May’s “true story of risk, adventure, and the man who dared to see.” Suffice it to say that vision and the brain’s role supporting it is massively complex.

Visually impaired, but not without vision

Keep in mind that Mike May, while blind, established world records in downhill skiing. He also became a co-inventor of the world’s first laser turntable and was the first blind person hired by the CIA (Central Intelligence Unit). In Mike May’s words, “Life with vision is great. But life without vision is great too.”

The optic nerve is technically part of the brain. It can also transmit perfect signals from the cornea region of the eye that can be rendered uniquely in each person’s mind based on what they know when they receive the signal. In other words, two people can look at the same scene and see different things. That’s probably not a surprise if you are a trained facilitator, but it becomes increasingly important that you emphasize the diversity of perception and the simple fact that there is more than one right answer.

Details of perception

The story explores the details and science to support its conclusion that perception relies largely on prior life experiences and the judgments those experiences have brought to each of us. For example, some of May’s problems are related to depth perception. While he saw horizontal lines, most of us would have instantly recognized a stairway, and would not have crashed down or up the stairs, unlike May.

He was largely unable to determine sexual gender by looking only at the face of someone. It’s not important that facilitators discriminate, but it is rather curious and significant that our preconceptions about small details such as eyebrow width or color nuances lead us to conclusions, that may be wrong.

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Rhetorical Precision and Clear Communications — Stress Substance Over Style

by Facilitation Expert | May 3, 2012 | Communication Skills

Rhetorical precision suggests that words reflect meaning, much like illustrations, symbols, and numbers. Challenging the fixed meaning of words, our languages reflect dynamic qualities and change constantly. For example, today there are more than one million words in the English language. Additionally, each word represents multiple meanings. Therefore, clear communications can be seen as an oxymoron.

Rhetorical Precision — What is an Occurrence?

Was the situation on 9/11 involving New York’s World Trade Center destruction one “occurrence” or two “occurrences”? Reportedly, the World Trade Center was insured $3.5 billion per “occurrence”. A solid example of rhetorical precision, what is an “occurrence”? Be reminded that $3.5 billion was at risk since the property was insured per occurrence.

By 2005, insurance settlements totaled $4.6 billion, a far cry from what the owners originally wanted ($7 billion). However, clearly much more than what many pundits thought they would recover ($3.55 billion).

Rhetorical Precision and Clear Communications — What is an “occurrence”?

Many of use would argue that for most people insurance policies do not represent clear communications. Another compelling discussion on this topic and rhetorical precision may be found in “The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature” by Steven Pinker.

Clear Communications Rely on Language Both as an Instrument and an Environment:

Therefore, do not forget in your project, meetings, and workshops to provide a cultural glossary. Similarly, enforce rhetorical precision and ensure consensual definitions and clear communication among your meeting participants. Yet always keep in mind the dynamic nature of language:

Some words do not survive
Others mutate into existence (e.g., Google, when used as a verb)

Unlike French or Italian, English is not a fixed or static language. The meanings of English words “are not established, approved, and firmly set by some official committee charged with preserving its dignity and integrity.” The “capacity for foxy and relentlessly slippery flexibility” best characterizes the English language.

Clear communications ???

Hence, the English language in particular represents a mashing of words from most major languages, for example:

National Origin	*Term*	Original Meaning
Greek	Criterion	Means of judgment
Latin	Fact	An act or feat
Italian	Ditto	Already said
Malaysian	Amok	Rushing in a frenzy
Persian	Caravan	Traveling company
Turkish	Kiosk	Pavilion
Dutch	Cruise	To cross
Hindi	Guru	Weighty grave
Cantonese	Ketchup	Tomato juice
Arabic	Sofa	Seat
Japanese	Shogun	General
Gaelic	Trousers	Pattern of drawers
North America	Herstory	Female perspective
Mayan	Hurricane	Mayan god, Huracan

A Rich Heritage Challenges Clear Communications

The English language is particularly rich because it has been provided with a heritage of diversity—a basis in many languages. Most noteworthy, three languages in particular contribute numerous synonyms, or words that mean something similar. Unfortunately, a synonym does not imply pure equivocation. Hence, group consensus may be challenged by the similar, yet different meanings of terms borrowed from Anglo-Saxon, French, and Latin/ Greek origins as shown in the following chart.

Anglo-Saxon	*French*	Latin/ Greek
Ask	Question	Interrogate
Dead	Deceased	Defunct
End	Finish	Conclude
Fair	Beautiful	Attractive
Fast	Firm	Secure
Fear	Terror	Trepidation
Help	Aid	Assist
Time	Age	Epoch

Dictionaries Alone Do Not Ensure Clear Communications

Dictionaries alone are insufficient because they provide a description of what something has meant and not a prescription of what it should mean. There are eight parts of speech in the English language (not true for all languages). The parts of speech explain the position of a word, but not how it is being used. Consequently, the only way to distinguish among the various meanings of words is by looking at the usage, or context. In language, the context is provided by grammar.

Single terms, without comprehensive context, challenge people. Since the buildings were insured per “occurrence”, the word “occurrence” added nearly $5.0 billion of risk for the insurance companies of the World Trade Center Towers. Similarly, even the term “country” is a surprisingly difficult term to get everyone’s agreement.

US Homeland Security offers 251 choices for the “country where you live”, a number not agreed to by other countries. The Sovereign Military Order of Malta, for example, has only two buildings in Rome but has diplomatic relations with over 100 countries. The Vatican is only four hectares in the middle of Italy’s capital and is but is only an observer at the United Nations. Israel joined the world body in 1949, but 19 of the 192 United Nations members did not accept the Jewish state’s existence. In like manner, your organization may have similar cultural differences when defining common terms like “customer.”

Grammar Does Not Ensure Clear Communications

Oddly enough, context alone does not ensure consensual meaning. Because, the English language includes contronyms, or words that mean the opposite of themselves, in context. For example, “to bolt” can mean to fix securely or to run away; or, “to clip” can mean to fasten or to detach, etc.

Context and standards help dictate common usage and enable us to arrive at a framework where all the participants share a common meaning. Therefore, a prepared facilitator will determine many of the common usage definitions, before the meeting begins.

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Limitations and Dangers of the use of the English Language in Aviation Communications (emspilot.wordpress.com)
Rhetorical Devices: Anadiplosis (mannerofspeaking.org)
The Importance of Communication Skills (https://inlpcenter.org/)

How to Facilitate Requirements Gathering and Prevent Omissions

by Facilitation Expert | Apr 19, 2012 | Analysis Methods, Decision Making

When products or projects are accused of poor requirements gathering, the accusation is normally false. The requirements gathered are usually solid, but risk increases with additional costs because some of the requirements are missing.

To facilitate any type of descriptive or prescriptive build-out of a process or series of activities, and to prevent omissions, use a structured approach to understanding the complete Use Story. Groups have a tendency to forget activities or events that occur less frequently, particularly activities that support planning and control. Therefore, this approach to requirements gathering provides structured support that squeezes out potential omissions. Structure solidifies requirements gathering when relying on a proven method—life-cycle analysis.

Method

Structured Requirements Gathering

Therefore, the developmental support steps for requirements gathering include:

Determine the business purpose of the process or functional area. Strongly suggest using the “Purpose is to . . . “ tool.
Next is the first activity of the brainstorming method—List. Label the top of the flip chart with “VERB NOUN” and ask the group to identify all the activities that do or would support the business purpose created in the prior step. Enforce the listing and capture them only as Verb-Noun pairings.

Plan➠Acquire➠Operate➠Control

Use the Plan➠Acquire➠Operate➠Control life-cycle to help stimulate thinking about what activities may be missing.
You should find one to two planning, one to two acquiring, bunches of operating, and at least one to two controlling activities for each business process or scope of work.
After identifying the various activities (sometimes called “sub-processes” by others), convert the verb-noun pairings into “use cases” or some form of input-process-output. Build one use case for each pairing.
Consider assigning the SIPOC tables (a form of use case) to sub-teams. Demonstrate one in its entirety with the whole group and then break them out into two or three groups.
For each activity, build a narrative statement that captures the purpose of the activity, why it is being performed, then:

Continue to identify the specific outputs or what changes as a result of having completed the activity.
Link the outputs with the customer or client of each; i.e., who is using each output.
Next, identify the inputs required to perform the activity.
Finally, identify the sources of the inputs.

An illustrative SIPOC chart is shown below. SIPOC stands for the Source of the input, Input(s) required to complete the activity, Process (i.e., our activity), Output resulting from the activity, and Customer or client of the output.

Mountain Climbing Illustration of a SIPOC Chart

Summary of steps to be included in this sequence

Identify the activity (i.e., process). Agree on its purpose and how the activity performed supports the purpose.
Detail HOW it is or should be performed.
List the outputs from the completed activity.
Link the outputs to the respective clients or customers.
List the inputs needed to complete the activity.
Identify the source(s) for each of the inputs.

Success Keys

Consequently, use a visual illustration or template to build clear definitions of “requirements”. Additionally,

Have the group pre-build all the potential sources and customers of the process and code them so that when you build the SIPOC tables; the group can refer to the code letter/ number instead of the full name (thus substantially speeding up the method). As you discover new sources or customers, simply add them.
Then, keep quiet (i.e., ‘shut up’) after asking questions (seek to understand rather than be understood).
Write down participant responses immediately and fully.
Provide visual feedback, preferably through modeling.
Advance from activity identification to the inputs and outputs required to support the activity; then associate each with its sources and clients (SIPOC).
Separate the WHAT from the HOW.

Simple Agenda

You may consider using the method described above with a simple agenda that could look like:

Introduction
Purpose of __________
Activities (NOTE: Take each “Thing” and ask—“What do you do with this thing ?”—forcing “Verb-Noun” pairings. Test for omissions using the Plan ➺ Acquire ➺ Operate ➺ Control prompting)
Value-Add (i.e., SIPOC)
Walkthrough
Wrap

**Activity Flows (aka Functional Decomposition)**

This approach supports building an Activity Flow diagram also known as a process flow diagram. This workshop delivers up the “verbs” or activities that should be adding value (if not, consider eliminating them).

Activity Flows can benchmark or help optimize during business process improvement efforts. Use this approach whenever you need a detailed understanding of WHAT is required to support a process. Leverage the deliverable from this workshop to build “Use Cases” or SIPOCs or process-flow diagrams (swim lanes), helping to ensure that nothing substantial or critical gets missed.

This approach applies structures around complex situations that may look overwhelming. As background material, it can help a team keep focus on the life-cycle of a product or project.

Deliverable

An Activity Flow diagram (traditionally known as Functional Decomposition) with detailed charts of the activities being performed. Consider using ProChart, Visio, or some graphical tool to help build your process flow diagram.

Participants

People performing the work. Should include management and supervisory people within a business area. Use breakout teams to expedite the SIPOC charts when finalizing the detailed requirements.

Visual Aids Used

Definitions for terms
Work life cycle prompt (Plan, Acquire, Operate, Control)
Illustration of your analogy down to the SIPOC (or use case)
If using an easel or whiteboard also consider:

Large Post-it notes (for the gerunds or groups [aka processes])
Smaller Post-it notes (verb/ noun pairings or activities)
For online sessions, consider getting some documentation help. While we know you are stellar, it can get really tough plotting and listening at the same time.

The figure below illustrates part of the deliverable and documentation. Comprehensive process identification may take a few days unless you are beginning with a narrow scope and small group of activities.

Activity Flows for the Navigating Process Required in Mountaineering

When possible, work with a meeting designer or methodologist ahead of time to understand the questions and grammatical constructs of the model that match well with the tool being used to record the model.

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Quick Tip # 84: Using a SIPOC to Support Stakeholder Analysis (IIBA Quick Tips)

Mastering Active Listening: 4 Essential Steps and 10 Tips for Interactive Communication

by Facilitation Expert | Apr 12, 2012 | Communication Skills, Managing Conflict

Active listening is a crucial skill for effective facilitation, coaching, and servant leadership. Highly skilled active listeners not only reflect and restate what the participant has shared, but more importantly, they also highlight why the participant said it. By addressing both the content and the underlying motivation, active listeners foster deeper understanding and create a stronger foundation for meaningful engagement.

Be sure to reflect not only the speaker’s main point but also the underlying rationale—the ‘because’ behind their message. When done naturally and effectively, active listening serves multiple purposes:

Often, the participant is formulating thoughts on the spot and your playback helps them to further develop the thought process. The act of communication affects the content being communicated and shared.
Participants experience being heard by others—listened to, since they will listen to you, the leader.
Separates the arguments and opinions from the people or contributing participants so that everyone joins in.
To reflect effectively, everyone needs to understand the underlying reason(s) supporting each participant’s contribution.
You express an attitude of servant leadership—openness and listening.

Four Steps Comprise Active Listening

People don’t care what you know until they know that you care. By definition, active listening requires four discrete activities.

CONTACT—Connect with the participant who is contributing. You frequently establish contact with eye contact, open posture, and nonverbal responses that signify acceptance (not necessarily agreement).
ABSORB—strive to take in all aspects behind the spoken message, implicit and explicit and nonverbal “intonations”. Do not judge or evaluate, the positive or the negative.
REFLECT & FEED BACK—mirror, reflect, or give feedback on what has been heard and WHY the contributor claims to be pertinent and valid.
CONFIRM—Obtain confirmation from the speaker that you represent the participant’s message accurately. If not, have the contributor repeat their message from the beginning by restating their viewpoint and the evidence to support it (facts, examples, observations, experience, statistics, etc.).

Feed Back

Without Reflection, there is no Active Listening

Providing feedback and reflection is a critical element that sets active listening apart from passive listening. Reflection, which can be both verbal and non-verbal, ensures that listeners not only hear but also understand the speaker’s message as intended. In contrast, passive listening often involves moving from one statement to the next without offering any confirmation or clarification.

To practice active listening effectively, aim to capture participants’ input verbatim and provide feedback using one of these three techniques to confirm understanding.

Three Reflection Techniques

Synthesize—shape the numerous fragments of multiple participants into a whole, working through their stream of consciousness, many times with participants speaking over one another.
Summarize—communication frequently occurs without foresight. Often more words are used than necessary. When you summarize, boil it down to its essence, core message, or causal link. Optimally isolate the key verb and noun components first. Participants rarely argue about verbs and nouns. They frequently argue about adjectives and adverbs (ie., modifiers).
Paraphrase—stating, repeating what the participant(s) said in fewer words. Do not substitute your own words without carefully securing confirmation from the participant. Always preserve the original meaning and intent.

When providing reflective feedback, depersonalize the content with your choice of words or rhetoric. Do NOT say ‘You said . . . ‘ Rather, feedback on their statements with integrative rhetoric such as, “We heard . . .”

Strive for completeness when providing reflection. Next, avoid the general ‘Does everyone agree with THAT?’ by replacing content for the impersonal pronoun “that”. For example, ‘Will you support the claim that torture can be consciously objectionable?’ works better because participants are clearer about the precise content being reflected.

Why Active Listening Works

Active listening is powerful because it fosters relationships and builds stronger connections between participants. By modeling active listening, you set an example for everyone in the room. It forms the foundation for clarity and significantly increases the likelihood of mutual understanding.

When we confirm our understanding of participants’ input, we gain a clearer and often deeper appreciation of the assumptions that shape their perspectives and decision-making. In other words, active listening allows participants to better see the world through each other’s eyes.

Most people understand that listening is a critical skill, but few recognize the subtle difference between standard active listening and truly superb active listening. The key to mastering it lies in focusing not just on what is being said, but on why it is being said.

Active Listening Tip: Challenge the Why

Most listeners focus on what the speaker says. However, our most important active listening tip is to go deeper: listen and reflect on why the speaker is saying what they are saying. Often, participants talk about symptoms (e.g., ‘This hurts’) instead of addressing underlying causes (e.g., ‘I’ve been working 70 hours a week’). To foster deeper discussions, challenge them to uncover the root causes behind their statements.

Active Listening Tip – Challenge for WHY

WHY is the Cause (or, the “Because”) of the WHAT

The WHY becomes apparent during personal conversations. You might ask yourself (while someone is speaking to you) why they are telling you about a particular fact or story. Determining the motivation for the speaking is as important, if not more so, than what is said.

Many of us already know this about our children. Consequently, when a teenager says “I hate you,” they don’t really hate you.

Rather they say it because . . .

“*&# frustrated”
I didn’t get my way
I don’t have the power to influence you or change your opinion
“*&# embarrassed”
I’m going to hurt you because your words hurt me
I feel hurt, don’t you understand?
You never let me get my way

The Active Listening Difference

Without trying to become a psychologist, keenly listen for the why, especially when:

A workshop participant is angry and/or confrontational
A participant waxes on about something seeming irrelevant or just waxes on, and on
A participant becomes abnormally active or withdrawn

Our curriculum advises you to confirm what the speaker says, but as the facilitator, it’s equally important to uncover why the speaker made their contribution. Understanding both the what and the why ensures deeper insight into their perspective.

The why holds the key to the most critical message, as consensus and actionable next steps are built around addressing the root cause, not just the symptom.

1. Hence, with interactive listening, ask open questions to start the information flow:

Interactive Listening

- “And then what?”
- “Tell us more about . . .”

2. Body language interactive listening remains sensitive to:

- Direct eye contact
- Involved posture: Lean forward and don’t fold your arms
- Use pleasant, encouraging facial expressions.
- Smile

3. Instead use neutral encouragement:

- “Hmm”
- “Interesting”
- “No kidding?”
- “Really?”
- “Wow”

4. Interactive listening permits challenges with add-on comments, comparisons, and analogies:

- “What makes that different than the (XYZ deal)?”
- “Sounds like trying to hold off the flood by putting your finger in the dike . . .”

5. Stress clarification questions:

- “Because?”
- “How will that impact . . . ?”
- “Huh?”

6. Conclude comments and conversation with a summary:

- At the end of the conversation, summarize the important points and ask for confirmation that you understood the other party, not that you necessarily agreed with everything said.
- “Your position on the matter . . .”

7. Therefore, don’t debate the issue:

- Focus on understanding the other person’s point of view so that you can provide thorough reflection.
- Listen intently while the other person talks.

8. Rather, restate and ask for confirmation:

- “Let’s see if we understand that correctly. We heard that…”

9. Hence, silence or minimal speaking during interactive listening:

- Silence lasting three to five seconds will encourage the participant to say more.

10. Most importantly, take notes:

- Note-taking usually honors the speaker and encourages information flow.
- Take notes, not dictation; stay in the conversation; maintain eye contact.
- Use their words (verbatim) not yours
- Remember, if it’s not written down, it didn’t happen.

How Well Are You Listening? The Best Listeners Make the Best Managers

Listening Skills (Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash)

Digital technology is great for giving people a voice, through social media, cloud-based communication systems, blogs, and numerous other tools. Yet what value is a voice unless there is an ear that is really willing to hear it? Let’s take a look at how we can all become better listeners and in the process, better managers.

Improving your listening skills

The first step to becoming a better listener is to stop multitasking. We all lead busy lives, but no conversation is truly effective if you’re distracted by your laptop or phone. Close the computer, silence your phone, and offer the speaker your full, undivided attention. This simple act of respect sets the foundation for meaningful communication.

The second step is to practice active listening. Remember that most communication is non-verbal—how something is said often carries more weight than the words themselves. This is why humor or tone can be easily misinterpreted over email or text. Whenever possible, opt for face-to-face conversations, where body language can be observed and understood. Even a basic awareness of non-verbal cues can significantly improve the quality of your interactions.

Lastly, be patient. Some people take time to articulate their thoughts, and it can be tempting to rush them, interrupt, or finish their sentences. Resist this urge. Allowing others to express themselves fully not only builds trust but also deepens the conversation, leading to better outcomes.

Adding value to your business

Employees who feel genuinely heard by their managers tend to be happier and more motivated, resulting in higher performance and engagement. They are also far more likely to share valuable ideas, innovations, and concerns, fostering a culture of openness and continuous improvement.

In today’s increasingly competitive business environment, a happy and motivated workforce provides a significant competitive advantage. When your organization invests in its most valuable asset—its people—it can unlock untapped potential and drive success.

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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 and methods daily during the week. While some call this immersion, we call it the road that yields high-value facilitation skills.

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To Help You Unlock Your Facilitation Potential: Experience Results-Driven Training for Maximum Impact
#facilitationtraining #meeting design

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

20 Prioritization Techniques = https://foldingburritos.com/product-prioritization-techniques/
Creativity Techniques = https://www.mycoted.com/Category:Creativity_Techniques
Facilitation Training Calendar = https://mgrush.com/public-facilitation-training-calendar/
Liberating Structures = http://www.liberatingstructures.com/ls-menu
Management Methods = https://www.valuebasedmanagement.net
Newseum = https://www.freedomforum.org/todaysfrontpages/
People Search = https://pudding.cool/2019/05/people-map/
Project Gutenberg = http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
Scrum Events Agendas = https://mgrush.com/blog/scrum-facilitation/
Speed test = https://www.speedtest.net/result/8715401342
Teleconference call = https://youtu.be/DYu_bGbZiiQ
The Size of Space = https://neal.fun/size-of-space/
Thiagi/ 400 ready-to-use training games = http://thiagi.net/archive/www/games.html
Visualization methods = http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html#

Both Facilitator and Meeting Designer: Role of Session Leader

by Facilitation Expert | Apr 5, 2012 | Facilitation Skills

The Role of Session Leader

You have a multitude of tasks to perform during the workshop. The success of the facilitator’s effort is dependent upon your skill, knowledge, and abilities as a session leader. The role of session leader includes both the traditional role of “Facilitator” discussed below and the role of “Meeting Designer” discussed below.

Responsibilities in the Role of Session Leader

Role of Session Leader

Context represents the primary responsibility of the session leader, frequently called a facilitator—Responsibilities include:

Actively listening to the discussion and challenging assumptions.
Creating synergy by focusing on the group and using your facilitation skills to enhance communications.
Ensuring that all participants have an opportunity to participate.
Explaining and enforcing the roles.
Keeping the group on track.
Managing the documenters and the documentation process.
Observing the group interactions and adjusting when necessary.
Questioning to achieve clarity—aiding communication between participants and yourself.
Recognizing disruptive behavior and creating positive corrections.
Working to resolve conflicts that arise.

Key Success Element in the Role of Session Leader

Your role creates an environment where every participant has the opportunity to collaborate, innovate, and excel. Observing the team’s progress helps you understand the dynamics of the group and how your approach enhances or detracts from the final output.

The Group Dynamics

Ask yourself the following questions while observing the group:
- How do they communicate? Eye-to-eye contact? Soft-spoken? Yelling? Gestures? etc.
- In what order do they speak? Primary, secondary, who backs who up? Who always gets interrupted?
- Which participant(s) appears to influence group direction the most?
- Who are these people talking to? Are they looking for supporters? Do they attack certain people or groups?

Meeting Designer in the Role of Session Leader

The meeting designer details the approach used by the meeting or workshop. Consequently, the meeting designer’s role typically changes throughout the project or product development. For example, in the planning phase, the meeting designer may be a strategic planner—someone who understands how to develop a consensual plan. In the analysis phase, the meeting designer may be a process expert, a business architect, or both. In the design phase, the meeting designer may be a workflow or design specialist.

Meeting or workshop responsibilities include:

Helping the facilitator, business partner, and technical partner codify the deliverable and define the appropriate agenda steps to follow. Provides succinct questions to ask and the optimal order or sequence for the questions to be answered.
Perhaps participating in workshops to ensure that the products produced satisfy the expected standards of quality and consistency—namely that others can act upon the deliverable effectively, such as the project team.

The meeting designer’s role is functional and not necessarily the role of an individual. The executive sponsor is sometimes the meeting designer with strategic planning. The session leader is frequently the meeting designer because they have MG RUSH structured facilitation training or experience. The facilitator can also fulfill this role because methods and approaches are generally neutral. Business or technical partners (i.e., project management) are sometimes methodologists. Therefore, look for the person or persons who is expert with the deliverable—who clearly understands the product to build and the approach to follow in building that product.

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Facilitate Meaning, Not Words (mgrush.com/blog)
How to Facilitate Brainstorming (mgrush.com/blog)
Five Ways to Facilitate Quiet People and Get Them to Participate More Fully (mgrush.com/blog)
How to (Not) Gesture while Facilitating (mgrush.com/blog)
Considerations on How to Facilitate between Europeans and Asians (mgrush.com/blog)
15 Fun and Quick Tips to Help You Become a More Successful Facilitative Leader (mgrush.com/blog)

Promising Meetings Will Fail: Four Causes of Meeting Failures

by Facilitation Expert | Mar 29, 2012 | Leadership Skills, Meeting Support

Sometimes meetings that look promising before they begin, fail unexpectedly. Four primary causes of meeting failures deserve your attention. They sneak up on groups, ill-prepared to anticipate or mitigate them. Participants need your awareness about these meeting failures as their meeting leader and facilitator.

First Cause of Meeting Failures: The Problem with Solving

First, what is a “promising meeting”? When the session leader has confirmed a solid and necessary deliverable from the meeting participants but fails to develop an appropriate method or agenda, most meetings will flounder or fail. North Americans, in particular, are subject to an “over-confidence” bias. They show up expecting to develop the right method, ask the right questions, or conduct the appropriate analysis “on the fly”. Some have called this meeting syndrome, “solving”. “Solving” dominates the causes of meeting failures.

Second Cause of Meeting Failures: Over-confidence bias

Meeting Failure Causes

The same over-confidence bias causes many to skip the analysis and jump immediately from the problem to the solution. As a result, they frequently ask pertinent but impossible questions akin to “How do you solve global hunger?” or “How do you boil the ocean?”. While the participants may have a vested interest in solving the hunger issue or resolving a technical issue, the session leader has not made it easy for them to arrive at a consensual solution because the method has failed to break it down into manageable pieces.

Third Cause of Meeting Failures: Question Precision

One of the surest ways to get a group of vested participants to go silent is to ask a meaningful question that is so broad as to be unanswerable.

Participants become numb about how to respond. Note the “hunger” problem as an example. Hunger remains a function of food development, food distribution, food storage, nutrition absorption, etc. By narrowing the scope a bit and providing a focused question, a facilitator can make it a lot easier for a group to respond, such as “How could we improve food storage capacity in Somalia?” With a precise question, and narrower scope (i.e., Somalia versus the entire world), it becomes much easier to provide answers such as “converts those old rail cars” or “use the abandoned mine shafts”.

Fourth Cause of Meeting Failures: Question Sequencing

Not only should the overriding question be broken into discrete questions, but the questions need to be sequenced as well. For example, the big question “So, what is the marketing plan for 20xx?” is better served with discrete discussions around segmentation, targeting, positioning, messaging, media, etc. Most marketing experts suggest identifying the target audience before going further into the analysis or plan development.

Likewise, when building a home, a residential architect needs to know “What color do you want the grout to be in the secondary bathroom?” That type of question, however, while demanding an answer, is probably best saved for the end of development, after agreeing on the purpose of the home, location, size, traffic flow, etc. These additional topical areas become natural agenda steps that increase the robustness of the method behind the meeting, also known as an agenda.

No one wants another meeting, especially a non-productive session.

To ensure that your meetings are anticipated, respected, and more productive than the meeting your participants came from or the meeting they are headed to next, embrace the following suggestions to correct why meetings fail.

Meetings Fail — Here’s How to Stop It

Start on Time

Do not penalize people who are on time by waiting for people who are late. Few irritants get a meeting started poorly than a wavering start time. Ask participants to notify you in advance if they might be late. If they arrive late, do NOT consume others’ time by reviewing what has transpired. Instead, pair them off with someone else and ask them to go in the hallway to provide an update.

Document

If it was not documented then it did not happen. Meetings without documentation suggest that nothing worthwhile happened. Optimally, add context and rationale for all topics and decisions made. Take any decision to a steering team or decision review board and their first challenge will be “Why?” Carefully leave a paper trail for the reasons.

Time Sensitivity

While participants should typically share a few laughs, real meeting success is judged by finishing on time, or better yet, ahead of schedule. Be careful about taking on strategic issues during a brief meeting, they should be logged and set aside for a longer forum. Do not allow participants to go into too much detail, that others find irrelevant. They can build and provide concrete details on their own. Remember too, that ‘standing’ meetings (i.e., meetings held regularly at the same time every week) were originally intended for participants to stand and not sit. By the way, ‘standing’ meetings are completed much faster than ‘sitting’ meetings.

Agenda Control

Stay vigilant about following the agenda. In other words, stay in scope. Sometimes arguments about the project, the organization, or other issues beyond control dominate a meeting. Participants talk about what they want to give rise to the concept of people “who have their own agenda.” Stick to your agenda and monitor progress carefully.

Visual Support

Stimulate participants and discussion with the proper use of easels and supplementary visuals. Do not however rely on a deck of slides. People can read and challenge slide decks on their own, they do not need a meeting for that. Build slides that share causal links and supplement them with visuals that stimulate. A visually dynamic meeting offers ‘sex appeal’ compared to others.

Secure Feedback

Get an audible agreement, beginning with ground rules. Document decision points, preferably on large-scale poster-size paper or whiteboards. As you build consensus, emphasize that consensus implies a quality decision that ALL participants can support, but NOT one that necessarily makes everyone happy. Consensus is something they can live with, and not disrupt in the hallways after the meeting.

Careful Review

Upon conclusion, carefully review and confirm that everyone understands the next steps. If the meeting changes nothing, why meet? Make the change or assignments visible and consider using a RASI chart for support. For any and all follow-up meeting(s), confirm future dates, times, and locations. Most importantly, conclude on time, or preferably, early. Before they depart, secure additional feedback on what you could have done to make the meeting even more successful. For solid and anonymous feedback, use our Post-it© note approach combined with the T-chart called Plus-Delta. They provide more meaningful input than offered openly in public. Participants do not want to “embarrass” you with their criticism.

Why do meetings fail? By following the suggestions above you can circumvent the three most common complaints about meetings, namely:

Disorganized (i.e., uncertain output or outcome)
Length (ie, wasted time)
Predetermined decisions (meetings are a poor form of persuasion)

Convert Why Meetings Fail Into Meeting Success

The lesson to be learned? Break it down. Speak with experts and study additional reference material. Take any significant reason or question behind a meeting and determine the various questions that could be answered in support. Find the natural groupings and create a topical flow. Now you have at least a basic agenda that will help prevent you from asking such a broad question that it could lead to meeting silence or even failure.

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Quiet People: 5 Ways to Increase Meeting Participation

by Facilitation Expert | Mar 22, 2012 | Leadership Skills, Managing Conflict

A leopard cannot change their spots. In the same vein, you are never going to convert quiet people into extroverts who continuously contribute and dominate your meeting. There are, however, a few simple steps for you to increase the velocity and depth of contributions from quiet people, both in person and online.

Quiet people, when they are paid professional adults, still have a duty (fiduciary responsibility). That means, if they have pertinent content that should be considered, meetings are NOT an opportunity for them to speak up. Rather, meetings are an obligation for them to earn their pay, to contribute. Well-paid professional adults must add value when possible. Meeting participation is part of the job, their duty.

Interview Your Participants, Especially Quiet People

It is so important, especially with quiet people, to establish a connection before the meeting. When you speak with participants in advance, transfer ownership of the meeting deliverable by establishing or re-confirming the importance of their contribution. Emphasize the various roles in a workshop, especially the protection provided to participants by the facilitator. Establishing one-on-one connections has become increasingly critical with online sessions. People who have been isolated seek connections, even quiet people.

No Secret, Yet Underused: Break-out Sessions

Using break-out sessions gives everyone permission to speak freely. As they assemble in smaller teams, participants are more comfortable having a conversation with fewer people. They are uncomfortable when they need to speak up in front of a larger group. Quiet people discover that they are not a “lone” voice, thus giving them increased confidence to speak on behalf of “our team,” when otherwise they might remain quiet. Of the numerous virtual tools, Zoom makes it easy to assign, creatively rename, and then manage Breakouts.

Non-verbal Solicitation Helps Quiet People Contribute

Increasing Meeting Input from Quiet People

Actively seek and beseech the input of quiet people with open hands and eye contact. With virtual meetings gently use their name only if you have previously agreed that they can say ‘pass’ when they feel ‘put on the spot.’ Let quiet people know in advance that you understand their meek nature. In-person, use your eyes and hands to solicit input, especially at critical and appropriate moments when you expect their contribution, as a subject matter expert.

Approach all participants when appropriate with non-verbal signals to encourage their participation. Ensure them in advance, with absolute confidence, that you will protect them by separating their message from the source. We care about WHAT and not WHO. Emphasize that the facilitator protects the people first and then secures participants’ input because the content gathered serves the people, not the other way around.

Reinforce During Breaks

Constantly remind quiet people (in private) that their input is important and valued. Reinforce your role as protector and remind them if they have avoided making a contribution when, perhaps, they should have spoken. Ask all of your participants if there is anything else that you can do, as the facilitator, to make it easier for them to provide input. In virtual sessions, you may send a private chat to quiet people reminding or prompting them to provide their input.

Other Procedures for Soliciting Quiet People

Consider other procedures when all else fails. Instead of a spoken round-robin, ask everyone to write down their ideas through an anonymous poll. If live and in person, use Post-It notes or other paper they can write on without disclosing the source. Therefore, they can contribute their ideas anonymously.

Finally, consider asking a confederate (i.e., another participant) to incite participation by specifically referring to the quiet person, stating that they “would like to hear ‘Meek’s opinion’.” Please add your discoveries and comments below for the benefit of others.

An elevated level of meeting participation in meetings indicates the likelihood of a great meeting. What else encourages participation? Here are some additional meeting participation tips worth reviewing.

Nobody wants more meetings. They want results. Presumably, the results they seek will have an impact on the quality of their lives. If the session leader can quantify the impact of the meeting on the personal wallets in the room, participation is guaranteed to increase. We find the following to rank among the most elevated items for inciting high levels of meeting participation and collaboration.

Knowing One Another

Biographic sketches of other meeting members can inspire empathy and understanding. With online meetings, include photographs that show the face behind the voice. If you provide supplemental reading material, customize a cover letter for each participant highlighting the pages or sections upon which they should focus. Thus suggesting they do not give equal attention to everything in the handout. Prompt each subject matter expert in advance with the questions that will be raised during the meeting most pertinent to them or their role. Ask them to focus on those questions since you will turn to them for the first response when the question is raised.

If the session leader and the participants show up prepared, the chances of meeting participation are highly amplified.

Beginning (aka Preparation) Phase

Learn to transfer meeting results and ownership to participants before the meeting starts. Optimally, participants should review the purpose, scope, and objectives (i.e., deliverables) before the meeting begins. Participants ought to confirm that they understand and find them acceptable. Or provide their input to change something before the meeting begins. Review the agenda and tools with participants to ensure that they find the approach sound. Always hold participants responsible for meeting output.

Meeting Participation

Include a glossary or lexicon in the pre-read or handout so that individuals can refer back to the operational definitions of terms as challenges arise. People frequently find themselves in violent agreement with each other. Ensure that all the participants agree on the terms used in the purpose, scope, and objectives statements. Typically, the glossary should be maintained by the project team, project management office, program office, or strategic center of excellence. Teams normally don’t argue about the difference between a vendor and a contractor or a bill and an invoice. Unless the definitions are part of the deliverable, they should be determined in advance.

When meetings or workshops support projects, the participants need to know and understand the purpose and objectives of the project, the reason for the project (i.e., program goals), and the goals and objectives of the mandating organization (i.e., the strategic plan of the business unit and/ or enterprise). Optimally, the meeting room should have large, visible copies of the enterprise’s mission, values, and vision. Handout material should include more detailed objectives and key results.

The Middle (aka During the Meeting) Phase

As with quiet people discussed above, everybody responds well to the following:

Breakout Sessions
Non-verbal Solicitation
Reinforcement

Ending (aka Review and Wrap) Agenda Step

While meeting participation concludes with the wrap-up or close of each meeting, ownership needs to extend to the reasons for holding the meeting in the first place.

Review Results

Encouraging Participation — The Wrap

As session leader (i.e., frequently referred to as facilitator), conduct a thorough review of the agreed upon outputs. Simply focus on the final items of agreement, and not necessarily the rationale behind them. Ensure that everyone supports the outputs since this is their last chance to speak up. They need to now agree to support the outputs, even if not their favorite, in the hallways and meeting rooms after they leave. As professionals, you have every reason to expect them to either walk the talk or speak up. It’s not your responsibility to reach down their throat and pull it out of them. Ensure that they will both support the output, and not lose any sleep over it.

Refrigerator

Assign relevant items captured, beyond the scope of the meeting. North Americans frequently refer to this category as the ‘Parking Lot.’ We do NOT ask, “Who will be responsible for this (i.e., open item)?” Rather, ask “Who will take the point of communication and report back to this group on the status of this (i.e., open item)?” Again, if no one steps up, assign it as an ‘open issue’ and escalate it back to the executive sponsor or their equivalent.

Communications Plan

Ensure that your participants now sensibly and similarly communicate with others the results of the meeting. Make sure it sounds like they were in the same meeting together. Build consensus around “If you encounter your superior at lunch, and they ask you for an update, what will you tell them we accomplished in this meeting?” Secondarily, consider other stakeholders that may be affected by the meeting outputs. If you encounter a stakeholder in the hallway, and they ask you for an update, what will you tell them was accomplished in this meeting? Do not underestimate the value of this activity. Groups that claim to have consensus may discover based on their interpretation that significant differences remain. The best time to resolve these differences is right now before the meeting adjourns.

Self-Assessment

Ask them how you did and obtain their ownership over the fact that their input can help make you a better session leader. To allow for anonymity, ask them to jot down in separate Post-it Notes, at least one aspect they liked and one aspect they would have changed for the meeting. Have them mount their notes using Plus/ Delta as they exit the meeting, either using easel(s) or whiteboard to label your titles.

The term ‘facilitate’ means to ‘make easy’ and if you embrace the suggestions above, you will see meeting participation increase substantially. More importantly, you will have properly begun the transfer of ownership and responsibility from the solo session leader to the group or team, as it should be.

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Facilitate Innovation By Using the Brainstorming Tool as Intended

by Facilitation Expert | Feb 23, 2012 | Meeting Tools

To facilitate innovation for products or processes provides a significant life force and has become a strategic priority for most companies and organizations.

An IBM poll of fifteen hundred CEOs identified creativity as the number one “leadership competency” of the future. A new and remarkable discovery is that the ability to facilitate innovation and innovative ideas is not merely a function of the mind, but it is also a function of behaviors.

Product Innovation, a Mindset that Generates Profit

The Harvard Business Press book “The Innovator’s DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators” provides compelling ways to stir product innovation. The work of authors Jeffrey Dyer, Hal Gregersen, and Clayton Christensen emerged from an eight-year collaborative study to uncover the origins of innovation. They were less concerned with the companies’ strategies and focused on understanding the people responsible for turning creativity into value propositions.

Five skills surfaced from their investigation including one cognitive (i.e., genetic) talent and four acquired behaviors. The cognitive skill is called “associational thinking” or the ability to make connections across seemingly unrelated fields, problems, or ideas. The other four skills are learned (i.e., behavioral) and include:

Experimenting
Networking
Observing
Questioning

Facilitate Innovation for Products or Processes

To our regular readers, perhaps not surprisingly, the required behaviors are virtually identical to the core skills of our professionally trained MGRUSH facilitators. The researchers discovered that innovators are much more likely to question, observe, network, and experiment than typical executives. They also discovered that innovative companies are always (ALWAYS) led by innovative leaders.

How to Facilitate Innovation

In their discussion of innovative failures, the authors discovered that people did not ask all the right questions . . . thus they emphasize the value of the discovery skill. In other words, we must be willing to challenge our people to think clearly. According to the authors, the behavioral focus found in our facilitative leadership training could pay for the training in a matter of weeks.

Their book also provides details on how to calculate an innovation premium for companies; i.e., the proportion of a company’s market value that cannot be accounted for from cash flows of current products or markets. Investors take note. This factor alone could pay for the time you took to read this blog, many times over. The innovation advantage found in our curriculum can be converted into a premium for your organizational value by building the code (i.e., DNA) for innovation directly into your people, methods, and guiding philosophies—beginning with a facilitative and collaborative culture.

Encouraging and developing ideas is the easiest of the three activities required to operate the tool called “Brainstorming.” The other two activities include analysis and convergence (or, decision). Whether you use an easel or a spreadsheet, Post-it® notes, or illustrated drawings, the first principle of brainstorming, as intended by Alex Osborne, is to encourage capturing lots of ideas without constraint or judgment. Most novice facilitators become the first person in the meeting to violate this principle by asking for a definition or further explanation, such as “Tell us more about _____.” Facilitate innovation by . . .

Regardless of HOW you gather ideas, embrace the first principle we call “Ideation.” First, to facilitate innovation, begin by embracing a discrete set of ground rules during the ideation activity.

Ideation Ground Rules

No discussion
Facilitate Innovation: Get Out of the Box
Fast pacing, high-energy
All ideas allowed
Be creative—experiment
Build on the ideas of others
Suspend judgment, evaluation, and criticism
Passion is good
Accept the views of others
Stay focused on the topic
Everyone participates
No word-smithing
When in doubt, leave it in
The ideation step is informal
5-Minute Limit Rule (i.e., ELMO doll — Enough, Let’s Move On)

What to Expect When You Facilitate Innovation

In our experience, having used all of these rules at one time or another, the first four (shown in bold font) consistently add value. For example, a few of the ideation rules suggest that someone has made a remark (e.g., No word-smithing). If the facilitator carefully polices the very first ground-rule (i.e., No discussion), then it obviates the need for some of the other ground rules. When you facilitate ideation, always stress the first two especially.

The ELMO rule is also not necessary if the activity is closely policed. How long can a group maintain “high energy”? If the group is working with high energy at the five-minute mark, do you really want to shut them down? It is likely that energy will begin to die down in the next few minutes anyway, so if closely monitored, the formal rule is not necessary. Typically the facilitator should expect to wind down the ideation activity within six to eight minutes anyway. Larger groups may keep up high energy for ten to twelve minutes, but it is most unlikely that any group will maintain true “high energy” for fifteen to twenty minutes when you facilitate ideation. Of course, you can always change their perspectives.

Once the ideation activity is complete, the real work begins. What are you going to do with the list? The first challenge is normally about definition and what something specifically means. Then comes the hard part, analysis. What are you going to do with that list?

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Yes, You Can Brainstorm Without Groupthink (blogs.hbr.org)
5 Idea Generators (& Idea Killers) (inc.com)
Can Innovation Be a Structured Repeatable Process? (customerthink.com)

How to Facilitate Brainstorming: Ideation and Analysis

by Facilitation Expert | Feb 16, 2012 | Problem Solving

The term “brainstorming” is technically a gerund, a verb that wants to be a noun. A gerund implies more than one step or activity. Osborne’s original Applied Imagination, also known as Brainstorming, relies on separate Ideation and Analysis activities. Here’s how to facilitate brainstorming effectively.

To facilitate brainstorming properly use ideation rules and analysis tools. When done poorly, brainstorming leaves a bad taste in peoples’ mouths. Optimally, brainstorming includes three discrete activities:

List (also known as diverge or ideate)
Analyze (the hardest of the three activities and frequently omitted)
Decide (also known as converge or document)

A facilitator or session leader must be conscious of where the group is and upon which activity the group should focus. Many people are confident in their facilitation skills because they can stand at an easel and capture ideas (or provide instructions and gather Post-it Notes®). Those same leaders then turn to their participants. They ask them to create categories, or worse, ask what they would like to do with the list. This type of leadership is NOT facilitation and does NOT make it easier for the group to make an informed decision.

Besides non-narrative methods of capturing participant input, consider the following ideation options when gathering narrative input from your participants.

With narrative brainstorming, first, remember to enforce the rules of ideation when diverging. Prevent discussion while you are capturing their ideas. At the end of ideation, consider one last round robin for final contributions, allowing participants to say “pass” if they have nothing to add.

Ideation Ground Rules for Narrative Brainstorming

Keep in mind that the term “listing” may be more appropriate if you are collecting a known set of information. True ideation derives all future possibilities—anything goes. Beginning with the traditional, facilitator-led question-and-answer approach; consider the following to improve ideation:

Ideation Options to Consider for Narrative Brainstorming

Facilitator-led questions—Keep in mind that you can use a support scribe(s) but if so, remind them of the importance of neutrality and capturing complete verbatim inputs.
Pass the pen or marker—again having prepared the easel title/ banner, have participants walk up to the easel in the order of an assigned round-robin sequence to document their contribution(s). This approach is wise after lunch or when participants’ energy is low because it gets participants up and moving around. Help them with their penmanship or clarity if necessary.
Pass the sheet or card—particularly appropriate if time is short, the group is large, or you have any questions requiring input (distribute a writing pad or index card for each question). Write the question or title on individual large cards or sturdy-stock pieces of paper and either sitting or standing have the participants pass them around until each person has had the opportunity to make a contribution to each question. This approach helps reduce redundant answers since participants see what prior people have written.
Post-it Notes—Continue to use easels with sheet titles for posting the notes. Have individuals mount one idea per note. Allow as many notes as they want. Post them on the appropriate easel whose title/ question matches their answer. If there is more than one question, you can color coordinate the easel title/ banner with the Post-it note colors.
Round-robin—again having prepared the easel title/ banner, and perhaps in consort with a scribe(s), create an assigned order by which the participants one at a time offer content, permitting any of them to say “pass” at any time.

Possible Time-boxing

Consider time boxing the ideation step if necessary, typically in the five to ten-minute range. Remember, the hard part is the analysis that occurs next. However, when you enforce High Energy and No Discussion, you will rarely extend beyond six to eight minutes on one question.

Analysis Drives Convergence

Brainstorming Requires Ideation AND Analysis

The difficult part of brainstorming, and frequently facilitating, is knowing what to do with the list—how to lead the group through analysis that is insightful. There is no “silver bullet” for the ill-prepared. Determine appropriate analysis methods before the meeting, with an alternative method in mind as a contingency or backup plan. Many of our other articles on Best Practices are about HOW TO analyze input.

For example, there are numerous ways to help groups prioritize, from the simple through the complicated to the complex. Purchasing stationery may be simple. Yet designing machinery (e.g., jet airplanes) is complicated. Creating artificial intelligence (think IBM’s Watson playing Jeopardy) and machine learning are truly complex. Each has a different and appropriate method for analysis and prioritization.

For example, one might use PowerBalls for a simple decision. To drive consensus around a complicated decision, something more robust is required such as a quantitative Scorecard approach that separates criteria into different types such as binary (i.e., Yes/ No), scalable (more is better), and fuzzy (subjective). Alternatively, qualitative Perceptual Maps may suit some groups better. MG RUSH’s proprietary quantitative SWOT analysis provides a hardy and robust tool.

We post responses based on our body of knowledge (BoK) supported by decades of experience leading groups to make higher-quality decisions. Therefore, Osborne’s Brainstorming tool comprises three discrete activities; diverge, analyze, and converge.

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Facilitate Meaning and Intent, Not Words

by Facilitation Expert | Feb 2, 2012 | Communication Skills

One of the toughest tasks of a facilitator is to relinquish judgment and fully seek the intent behind the terms used in meetings. Therefore, facilitate meaning, not words. Structured workshops support the information revolution (as opposed to the 20th-century industrial revolution). Therefore, remind participants that their words provide instruments supporting the meaning being conveyed.

Facilitate Meaning, Not Words

The term ‘in-formation’ implies a sense of journey, rather than destination. Participants supporting in-formation technology discover that deliverables are transitory. The question is not whether a guiding principle or assumption will change, only when it changes—or perhaps more accurately, how quickly the change will occur since change is continuous. Therefore it behooves us to fully understand and facilitate the meaning behind the words being used.

FACILITATE MEANING AND INTENT, NOT WORDS

Meeting participants most frequently express and extract meaning from the world of words, which I refer to as “narrative.” Five common techniques, including narrative, express intent and meaning:

Narrative
Nonverbal
Illustrative
Iconic (symbols)
Numeric

1. NARRATIVE

Oral and written (narrative) rhetoric relies on words, the primary means of communicating in meetings. However, non-narrative methods may be equally effective and sometimes preferred, especially when explaining complex topics and issues.

2. NONVERBAL

Substantial information during meetings transfers through body signals, openness (or closeness), shifting eyebrows, frowns of disapproval grins of approval, and the like. Hand gestures help explain the passion and intensity behind some meeting participants’ claims, along with cadence, tone, and other para-verbal traits.

3. ILLUSTRATIVE

Drawings, illustrations, and pictures reflect intent and meaning and are particularly effective in explaining complex relationships. Pictures of birds provide a much clearer understanding of birds than using words alone. Likewise, process flow and value stream diagrams may provide quick overviews more effectively and efficiently than verbal explanations.

4. ICONIC (OR SYMBOLIC)

Icons and symbols extend intent and meaning. Many icons are now universally acceptable and leapfrog the challenges associated with language challenges. Street signs, restroom symbols, and public transportation indicators do not leave much room for confusion or misunderstanding (take the stop sign, for example).

5. NUMERIC

Scorecards, spreadsheets, and other weighted ranking systems should be familiar. Additionally, I built my Quantitative TO-WS Analysis to describe the Current Situation numerically, thus avoiding some of the emotion and passion that can bog people down in searching for the right words. By using numbers instead of words, participants strive to understand in addition to trying to be understood.

OTHER TECHNIQUES

Dance, movies, music, storytelling, and other formats also communicate intent and meaning. Most of us, however, rarely employ other formats for expressing our intent when we are working with business groups.

Therefore, always be willing to challenge participants to make their thinking visible.

Strive to help your speaker or participants to more fully explain the meaning behind the terms they use. Words rarely capture all of the intended meaning. However, additional challenge and facilitation improves robust understanding, making it easier to build valid and sustaining consensus.

Whether you are most familiar with the “Five Whys” or the inquisitive five-year-old, ask for proof, evidence, examples, and options to fortify participants’ thinking and their supporting arguments. Challenge adjectives and adverbs, such as ‘quick’ or ‘quality’. Ask about their meaning and intent. An excellent follow-up question is “What is the unit of measurement for insert adjective or adverb______?”

Many languages serve to build consensus, not simply English. True and valid consensus is not only an English term(s), rather it is also the meaning the participants intend to convey. The elusive nature of meaning was captured by Hafez (aka Hafiz) when he penned centuries ago:

If you think that the Truth can be known

From words,

If you think that the Sun and the Ocean

Can pass through that tiny opening called the mouth.

O someone should start laughing!

Someone should start wildly laughing—

Now!

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Change or Die: The Business Process Improvement Manual

Meetings are frequently a fix for poor leadership. Most would rather go to a movie than sit in a two-hour meeting. Almost all poor movies at least contain a beginning, middle, and end. Indirect meeting costs represent a huge area for cost control and improved return on investment.

Role of Meetings

Current Trends

Flatter Structures

Participative Management

50 Percent Productive

Intangible Costs

Psychological Costs

Meeting Dementia

Indirect Meeting Costs and Challenges

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The National Speakers’ Association stated that the most important change speakers could make to be more effective would be to be more facilitative.

When you use easels and large-format paper, consider the following tips:

Additionally when you use easels . . .

Other Support

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The effective facilitator helps meeting participants become better listeners. Dr. Ralph Nichols, “Father of the Field of Listening”, notes three behaviors that perfectly align with the roles of facilitator, and your hope to be more effective, that create better listeners during meetings.

First of all, anticipate the speaker’s next point .

Another is to identify the supporting elements a speaker uses in building points.

A sophisticated listener knows this.

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You must consider these three questions before you take on the role of session leader for any meeting or workshop.

Before the Meeting You Must Know — What is the deliverable?

#2 You Should Know — What are the problems and challenges I foresee?

You Could Know #3 — Who has already created this type of deliverable?

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Comparing facilitators vs dictators we surprisingly discover that the term ‘facilitator’ becomes more popular. As measured by frequency of use, the trend for facilitator rises since 1995. The message is clear. If you want to be more popular, be a facilitator and not a dictator!

______

Numerous alumni have asked if we have read Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, and so we did.

First Part

Second Part

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Here are some sequentially listed A3 project questions, modified from an A3 project approach.

A3 Project Questions

“To what extent” should precede the following questions:

“HOW will you” should precede the following questions:

The “WHAT” should precede the following questions:

This Facilitation Reference Guide supports an A3 project workshop. It begins with management perspective and clarity around what needs to be delivered to be called a success. Some call this, “knowing what DONE looks like.”

Facilitation Reference Guide — Preparation Phase

Facilitation Reference Guide — Workshop Phase

Facilitation Reference Guide — Review and Resolution Phase

Which Path? The Art of Questioning

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Information is physical. “To do anything requires energy. To specify what is done requires information.” –Seth Lloyd (2006) c/o James Gleick

Wikipedia

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Related articles

Most people are confused about the difference between a mission and a vision. An MBA grad from a prestigious east-coast USA school told us that he “learned more about strategic planning in the past two hours than during my entire MBA curriculum.”

Academic vs. Military-industrial

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Remaining neutral describes the single most important trait of an effective facilitator.

The Role of Remaining a Neutral and Contextual Master

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The book “Crashing Through” by New York Times bestselling author Robert Kurson includes innumerable reflections about struggle, collaboration, and victory that also apply to the sphere of facilitation.

Visually impaired, but not without vision

Details of perception

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Rhetorical Precision — What is an Occurrence?

Clear Communications Rely on Language Both as an Instrument and an Environment:

Clear communications ???

A Rich Heritage Challenges Clear Communications

Dictionaries Alone Do Not Ensure Clear Communications

Grammar Does Not Ensure Clear Communications

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Related articles

When products or projects are accused of poor requirements gathering, the accusation is normally false. The requirements gathered are usually solid, but risk increases with additional costs because some of the requirements are missing.

Method

Plan➠Acquire➠Operate➠Control

Summary of steps to be included in this sequence

Success Keys

Simple Agenda

Activity Flows (aka Functional Decomposition)

Deliverable

Participants

Visual Aids Used

______

Four Steps Comprise Active Listening

Feed Back

Three Reflection Techniques

Why Active Listening Works

Participative  Management

First of all, anticipate the speaker’s next point .

**Activity Flows (aka Functional Decomposition)**

You can complete a project without facilitation, but you could also cut your own hair.
—Various