Generating Ideas Worth Celebrating!

In celebrating this winter holiday, especially the New Year, I realize (as I have for most years) it’s time to throw out the old and bring in the new. But I don’t really want to give up the ‘old’ but just spruce it up – like the Peanuts clan did with Charlie Brown’s withering Christmas tree.

So what needs to be changed, enhanced or just plain improved? From a facilitation perspective it has got to be around helping people to generate better ideas. Don’t get me wrong, classic brainstorming is valuable (the old), but so often the technique of ‘just say what’s on your mind’ results in ‘same old, same old’ ideas being generated.

In his book Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making Sam Kaner speaks of two types of ideation practices:

1. Familiar Ideation: this occurs when the group shares ‘in the box’ ideas, which are sanctioned by experience, culture, expertise and what is known. This is where people feel most comfortable with the process, but ideas tend to be similar to those heard before.



2. Creative Ideation: this occurs when the group is committed to going beyond the obvious or the easy, where new ideas are brought up and explored; one idea sparks new ideas. Unfamiliar ideas will have advantages and disadvantages. This requires creative methods that enable participants to go beyond the ordinary, the usual, or the ‘tried and true.’

So what I want to focus on is creating something new using some form of creative idea generation. Recently during an Advanced Facilitation Skills Workshop I discussed and presented some creative methods, including the one below using metaphors. When the group tried it out, they found that this method helped them go beyond the familiar. This is precisely what we help our groups do, especially if ‘innovation’ is desired.

The most simple way to use metaphor is to take any object and to ask the group “what are the characteristics of this object?” For example, showing an ‘apple’ might produced comments like “it’s red, it’s nutritious and good for the body, it tastes fresh, it’s easy to hold, it’s organic, it’s got a core, etc.” Once the characteristics have been defined go back to the your topic. For example, if the group needs to brainstorm ideas on how to improve the efficiency of our snow tires we then ask, looking at our defined characteristics, "how is improving efficiency like ‘something good for the body'?" Ideas that may come up include ‘they enable safer driving; they are easy to put on and take off the wheels; etc.” I find that the object you choose should be one that has some characteristics that are easy to relate to the topic being addressed.

Another method for using metaphors was created by a colleague of mine, Tom Heck, who runs the International Association of Teamwork Facilitators. He creates Metaphor Cards from pictures that he cuts out of a magazine. He creates about 30 cards, by pasting pictures on card stock. He then has the group engage in one or more of the following activities:

Frontloading - Before the start of the discussion (or the activity) ask everyone to pick a card (or two) that represents the theme they want to work on (invest in). A variation – ask the group to select the one card that represents what they believe best represents the topic they’re about to discuss.

Follow-up - After ‘familiar’ brainstorming, ask everyone to select a card (or two) and have them define one characteristic they see in the picture. Have them use that characteristic as a metaphor for defining a potential idea for the discussion topic.

Random Card - The facilitator holds the cards in their hands so that the participants cannot see the images. Participants are asked to choose one card randomly and then be prepared to share with the group WHAT new ideas this card evokes related to the discussion topic.

Note: if you don’t want to cut out pictures to make cards, just buy postcards with provocative images (how provocative will of course depend on your audience!)

The best thing I like about using metaphors to generate ideas is that it forces people to think out of the box, but most of all, it generates a lot of laughter and fun. The perfect holiday gift we facilitators can give to the groups we facilitate!

Happy holidays!

Dealing with Venting

Recently there was a post on 'how to deal with a moan fest' via my IAF discussion group. There were some interesting posts and after having read a few of them and adding my own experience I'd like to share with you some possible process suggestions:

1. Properly acknowledge the complaints right from the start.

2. Be aware thought that sometimes people don’t know when to stop venting. So after listening to someone for a few minutes, letting them know they have been heard by paraphrasing back what you heard, asking clarifying questions and/or scribing down their concerns, you may sense that the individual/ group may naturally shift to speaking about a solution. However, sometimes this doesn’t happen so it may be helpful to:

a. invite the person to shift to a "solution", by asking them what it is, that they DO want, or …

b. use Appreciative Inquiry to get to the solutions, for example:

i. Q: Imagine you fell asleep tonight and all of the challenges disappeared by magic, what would be the first tiny signs that that the miracle had happened?

ii. Q: If you had a magic wand, how would you want it to be. When/where does this happen already... or, even just a little bit?

iii. Q: On a scale of 1 - 10, where do you stand right now with 10 being the perfect situation. (And when the group responds 3 because they are feeling so low, follow up with). What gets you even that high? What's already working for you? What would get you one point higher?

iv. Q: Was there a time when you were able to bring about massive change despite the odds? What was going on? What did it take to get the change to happen?

3. If people need more safety in order to be candid, break them up in to pairs. Have the pairs then report out during a large group plenary.

Stuck in a Parking Lot

I just ran across a great article by Kevin Eikenberry that discusses the misuses of Issue Bins or Parking Lots by meeting facilitators. For anybody not familiar with the tool, I suggest Ingrid Bens's Facilitation at a Glance. Ingrid describes Parking Lots as a means of capturing ideas outside the scope of the current agenda, to return to later on or at the next meeting. Just because an idea is tangential doesn't necessarily mean it warrants no further discussion.

Kevin's article reminds us that even with the best intentions, meeting facilitators can run out of time to address these off-track ideas or, even worse, they may choose on some level to ignore those ideas that don't fit squarely in their agenda.

The Parking Lot becomes a place where ideas go to die.

This is just one example of a meeting facilitation tool that can negatively affect participation levels or bias outcomes. Some other types of tools and respective pitfalls include:

• Questioning: using close-ended questions (instead of open-ended) to manipulate a group down a designated path that they have no interest in following
  
• Surveys: using questions that are vague, or speak to only one aspect of the issue or opportunity, thereby avoiding the 'white elephants'
• Process designs: creating a meeting structure that purposefully takes people to a desired end (i.e. your client's) rather than to where they need to go
• Warm-ups: that don't take into consideration individual abilities and mindsets of the group attending

So, how do we take Kevin's point to heart and identify and use tools that make a difference? One easy reminder is that our tools are supposed to be content-neutral and straightforward for participants (and you the facilitator) to use. We have the ability to modify tools so they fit the needs of the group we're facilitating - rather than fitting the group to the needs of the tool! For example, the Parking Lot should be considered a temporary place to put ideas/issues or opportunities on hold, with the understanding that they will be addressed at the appropriate time during the session. If time runs out, then a plan for dealing with the items in the next session should occur.

Finally, think of tools like cutlery. There are times when a fork and knife just don't cut it (excuse the pun) when eating a drumstick. Likewise, don't haphazardly use a tool because you like it or it's what the client suggested. Rather, use a tool only if makes sense for the process you're leading and helps advance the group in achieving its outcomes.

Thinking critically about tools will save you and the group you're facilitating a lot of wasted effort!

The Magic of Facilitation - Just When …

I thought that the group I first trained had left feeling that this 'facilitation thing is for the birds'. I once again have experienced the magic of fate showing me otherwise.

The Feedback from the initial session was okay. But okay for me rarely cuts it. And by the way, I had the chance to see the participants put the learning in to practice and my lord you would have thought they had never attended the class! The next facilitators were sitting down, they were constantly giving their opinions and showing their bias. And, most of the ideas getting of the flipchart were theirs! I left feeling like I created a monster rather than helping this group move foward. So, asta la vista, let's move on to a new client.

Two years later … what's this? The client's calling me back now asking me to design and coordinate a whole bunch of meetings using the people I had trained 2 years previously. Needless to say I was somewhat resistant to help, but part of me was hopeful based on them having come back to seek support. With only a little initial coaching, the folks who facilitated did a pretty darn good job considering how much time had gone by since the last training. They were standing this time, asking probing questions, merging and linking ideas together and intervening with 1 or 2 difficult personalities. What a turn of events!

So what did I learn?

Never assume that because people don't 'immediately' demo a skill that it's not going to happen at a later date. Also, continue to believe that what we have to offer as facilitators is a good thing and that when people truly see the need, they have all the potential to stand up and take charge of the skill.

Applying Negotiation Tips to Win:Lose Facilitations

Just recently read a short article written by Kim Shiffman and posted in the Canadian Business Magazine entitled 6 Steps to Creating a Win-Win.

There were some words of wisdom captured in this article that we as meeting leaders need to apply even though the article was geared to being in the position of negotiator.

All too often we are faced with decison-making where the group has split in to cliques or sub-groups locked in to position and an 'us' versus 'them' mentality. Shiffman reminds us that there are some clear guidelines for helping people move out of "substance-relationship tension." His suggestions focus on tips from Patrick McWhinney (Insight Partners, Boston) who offers six top guidelines to help navigate this tension without sacrificing either substance or relationships.

I've taken the guidelines and added some of my own 'process' suggestions that are relevant when a third party person (i.e. facilitator) is used to intervene:

1. First and foremost is thinking about the process or meeting structure that we want to facilitate a group through in helping them negotiate their issues. Having structured conversations enable clarity and build of dialogue in a way that makes sense to all parties.
2. Helping folks speak to interests rather than positions - what it is that they 'need' versus 'want'. The key to uncovering underlying interests and what might meet them is ensuring both parties are actively listening to one another and seeking alternative solutions (sometimes out of the box) that might meet the other party's interests. To ensure active listening it's important that the group defines concrete behaviors before the dialogue commences (i.e. one person speaks at a time, we occasionally paraphrase back what the other party states, etc.). These behaviours then become the 'norms' that the facilitator can referee.
3. Helping the parties search for unexploited opportunities - thinking out of the box. Asking questions like "what ideas or actions could be taken that might help the other party, but not tax your resources?"
4. That when solutions or offers are put forward that parties provide 'proof of fair treatment' so that offers are seen to be justifiable in light of what others have been offered.
5. It's important that upfront both parties agree that the relationship between them is critical and that the facilitation is geared to deriving a win:win. Without this commitment both parties may fall back in to seeking what they want versus need.
6. Finally we want to caution both parties to avoid threats that could stalemate discussion.

What other ideas do you have for building win:win discussions in light of polarized dialogue?

Facilitator Beware!

Recently did a facilitation for a client whom I've worked with for years and once again I fell in to the pitfall of facilitator hell not trusting my gut instinct! The client who connected with me was not the 'primary' client or decision-maker but rather the go-between for me and her boss. I was very clear from the outstart that I needed to connect with the primary client and was assured that this would happen. Having to deal with the go-between also increased from one to two people. In the end the primary declined from meeting with me and I therefore ended up going through 5 iterations of the meeting design which was approved by the primary. How it was explained by the go-betweens is not clear.

Besides the meeting design, the facilitation was critical yet only designated for 2 hours with incredible outcomes to fulfill. I knew to some extent I was setting myself up for failure, but I trusted in the integrity of the client to support me fully. On the day of the facilitation the primary client ends up walking in late to the meeting and we are immediately forced to begin. At one point during the facilitation I do a process check to see how the client is doing (who by the way is on his Blackberry looking at messages) and he turns to me stating 'he's lost'. When asked 'what is making you lost?" he provided little input leaving he rest of the participants and myself included guessing. Though the objectives for the meeting were actually achieved, the primary decided not to hire me again.

So what did I learn???
Trust my gut - when the primary refused or delayed meeting me I should have told the go-between that I can't do the facilitation unless I meet with him - AND stick to my guns!
During this meeting I would ensure that what the client wants is what he's getting so as to avoid 5 iterations of a meeting process design! Also, I would have negotiated with the primary, roles and responsibilities (i.e. no use of tech during the meeting and if she breaks a rule is it okay for me to intervene? I felt reluctant to intervene with her during the meeting as it would have put her on the spot and I hadn't built any rapport with her yet)?!
Finally, not take on a job where the objectives are outlandish and possibility for failure is so close you can almost taste it!

Facilitating Virtual Teams

More and more I'm hearing from folks about the inherent difficulties in facilitating virtual teams. When I start to question what they're doing I'm amazed at how everything they know as facilitators gets thrown out the window when it comes to speaking to someone via phone instead of face-to-face! I'm wondering why? I think that because the person isn't in front of us and we're missing out on all of those visual cues that we get sort of freaked out - forgetting how important the 'auditory' cues are in helping us make distinctions in degree of buy-in. PLUS facilitators forget the importance of structuring the meeting like using simple rules like:

1. starting your name before contributing
2. recording on a sheet using a '√' every time a person speaks so we know who's participating and how often
3. directly calling on people to comment rather than waiting for them to respond
4. having members paraphrase and/or embellish on other member's statements as to avoid people NOT listening or validating other's comments

Taking Responsibility and the Importance of Purpose for Making Meetings Work!

Welcome to Making Meetings Work!

This blog will be dedicated (at least at this point) to sharing best (and worst) techniques for facilitating ALL kinds of meetings. This is your chance to share with others, best practices for running effective meetings, or nightmare stories that will help us avoid sins of the past. With 17 years of facilitating under my belt my hope is to provide my very own best practices and ideas for running wildly successful meetings. What I'm hoping from my fellow bloggers is to be critiqued and/or validated. To share stories, tools, techniques and processes that help all of us be better meeting leaders.

To start off this blog I'd like to recognize a few things about meetings – most organizational meetings suck big time yet few meeting participants or leaders are willing to do anything about it!? Yeah, yeah I know some of us exist in a resistant top-down structure, or we have idiotic management who know nothing about empowerment and building collaborative culture, but where does the essence of change begin in creating successful meetings? Well to be frank, it's got to be grassroots and it begins of course with us – each one of us taking accountability for running good meetings.

Why you, why me?

Well once we notice or become aware of something in a meeting that isn't working ("how come we keep on going off-topic?" "Why is Joe always folding in to what other members say?") we're therefore at a choice point to, at minimum, bring it to everyone's consciousness, or continue to say nothing. I know that just being conscious does not necessarily mean we can do anything about it, but it does mean that we have a choice to find out:
a. is this also bothering other people?
b. so what can we do about it?

Awareness enables choice. I know this is soooo obvious, however time and time again I keep on seeing the same mistakes being made at different meetings with people consciously doing little to make any changes. The question is why aren't we choosing to do something about changing our meeting when we know something is not working?

I believe that answer somewhat lies in the observation that many of us would rather stay in our fur lined ruts doing nothing different for fear of change, repercussions or having to put in some rigor (or time or energy) to change our meeting behaviors and lord knows I got enough on my plate right to now that could easily qualify as a two person job!!!

Yet, what's the outcome of doing nothing? Wasted time, lost $$$'s, frustration, and declining job satisfaction. Count the number of people around your table at the next meeting multiplied by the per hour salary they make times the number of hours for the meeting. Then multiply that figure by the percentage of time wasted and you'll get the dollars being lost to ineffective meetings that could have otherwise been attributed to value added, bottom-line generating activities.

Yeah we can blame it on management, culture, crappy teams but seriously the only change that we can control is the changes that we bring forth to a meeting. So let's talk about what can be changed to create more successful meetings. I believe the best ideas are those that are simple and practical but isn't going to demand and arm and leg of our time!

(Note: My experiences really only speak to Western culture, however I really want to investigate meeting practices in other cultures. What's different or the same? How can we manage virtual cross-cultural meetings when expectations for leading the meeting and interpersonal norms may be so different?)

In defining best practices in meeting management I want to refer to the more 'stable' elements of meetings that if we were to embrace would actually help to create more successful, collaborative discussions. For me the first and foremost is that ALL meetings require 'structure'. Creating structure is the primary role of a meeting leader, meeting facilitator or Chair. Its purpose is enable meeting participants to engage in brainstorming, decision-making, strategizing, problem-solving, etc. without them having to worry about ‘are we discussing this logically? Are we on topic? Are we achieving our intended outcomes? Are we talking respectfully to one another?’

However it is virtually impossible to structure a discussion until we understand 'why' we're having the discussion in the first place. The 'why' refers to understanding the purpose or goal of the meeting. We can't fully understand or articulate the purpose until we get clarity as to the tangible, concrete outcomes that the meeting needs to achieve.

The purpose is our ultimate destination, the outcomes are the 'what' we want to achieve in getting to our destination. Once we understand purpose and outcomes we can then define the structure or steps required to achieve the purpose and process. Without clearly defining the meeting's purpose we may run the risk of creating an agenda that totally misses out on why people think they're attending the meeting. This could result in meeting attendees not participating, tuning out, or coming across as wanting to push their own agendas. So to avoid this potential meeting pitfall get clarity as to the overall purpose of a meeting and, the purpose of each agenda topic that will ultimately help the group achieve its purpose and outcomes.

What are your thoughts on defining purpose? Is it possible to enter a meeting without clearly defining purpose and outcomes? What are success or failure stories you can share? What about meetings keeps you up at night or allows you to sleep contently?

Michael