Team Catapult

Cultivating Great Leaders and Effective Teams

  • Homepage
  • Workshops
    • Leading in High Stakes
    • Masterclass Series
    • Team Facilitation
    • Agile Team Coaching
  • About us
    • About TeamCatapult
    • Meet the Team
  • Podcast
    • Season 1
    • Season 2
  • Coaching
    • Leadership Coaching
    • Leadership Team Development
  • Resources
    • Blog
    • Articles
    • The Art and Science of Facilitation authored by Marsha Acker
    • Build Your Model for Leading Change by Marsha Acker
    • Podcast
    • Resources for your Journey
    • The Facilitation Planning Toolkit
  • Products
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Sign up for our newsletter

Marsha Acker

How Do Conversations Work? The First Steps to Effective Dialogue (Part 3)

In the first article of this three-part series, we identified five types of conversations, while in the second article, we looked at examples of these five types of conversations, and what could be accomplished.

In this third and final article in this series of “Daring to Dialogue”, we continue by looking at dialogue more in-depth, trying to gain an understanding of how this conversation works. 

Structure of Conversation Determines Performances or Outcome

The first step when we’re aiming for dialogue is to understand how conversations work. 

Conversations have a structure, and it’s the structure that actually determines performance or outcome of a conversation, and whether we are more in monologue or dialogue. 

Every sentence that we say can be coded into one of four actions, and that’s what makes conversations effective is when we’re able to voice all four of these actions fluently in a conversation. When we’re able to do that, the nature of the conversation changes, and we move from monologue to more skillful conversation and dialogue. 

Next, we’re going to walk through these four actions and notice, as I tell you about them, where you might start to place some judgment on one or more of them.

The First Conversation Action Step is ‘Move’

The first action step is ‘move’. 

Move initiates. It suggests a new direction or introduces a new idea or concept in the conversation. 

For an example, “Let’s go to lunch.” This is a move. 

After a move, there are different responses.

Next comes ‘follow’. 

For example, “Sounds good,” this is a follow. 

Oppose challenges, oppose pushes back on ideas, providing alternatives or corrective action. For example, “No, I can’t today.” This is an oppose. 

Bystand bridges. It provides a neutral perspective or inquiry. 

For example, “I notice we have two different points of view here,” this is a bystand.

Move and Oppose. Follow and Bystand

Move and oppose are the vocal actions of advocacy or similar to defending, like we have in debate, and follow and bystand are the vocal actions of inquiry. 

Here’s the thing, we need both advocacy and inquiry in order to have a skillful conversation. 

Skillful Conversation With All Four Actions

My husband and I had a trip planned to Bora Bora, which was a consequence of the pandemic. The other day he said, “Let’s go to Bora Bora.” That was his move. And I followed and I said, “I would love to.” And then I said, “I wonder what the current travel requirements are.” That was my bystand. And then I opposed, and I said, “But even if we could get there, I don’t really want to wear a mask on a plane for 15 hours right now.” It’s just not what I had envisioned. Next, I made a new move and said, “Let’s come back to this in six months and look at it.” 

This is an example of a conversation where you can see all four actions happening and we need all four to be voiced and active in the conversation in order for it to be a skillful conversation. 

Dialogic Approach vs Monologic Approach

What can a dialogic approach versus a monologic approach get you? 

Engaging in dialogue comes from a belief that human beings create, refine, and share knowledge through conversation. And to illustrate the need for dialogue, I want to tell you a quick story. 

It’s a tale of two companies. The first one I’ll call “Blue Ocean Tech” and the second I’ll call “First Stack”, both are in the tech sector. These two companies had several similarities, both are about the same age. They were founded about 11 years ago. International organizations with offices worldwide, and Blue Ocean was a bit larger with about a billion in annual revenue and First Stack was about 200 million in revenue.

Both companies were also experiencing what I call a front page crisis. This is where the executive team gets feedback from their organization via the media, on the front page of paper. And as you might imagine, this induces high stakes and it causes a great deal of disruption. So, executives in both of these companies were feeling called out, very blindsided. And as is often the case, one side of the story played out in great drama over the media and the other sides of the story remain untold. Just imagine; for the story to have made its way to the press, there is a great deal of frustration, a lack of feeling heard, and not valued by the employees. And in both cases, a belief that a moral crime had been committed by the executive team.

Here’s where the similarities of those stories end because each company had a choice to either suspend or defend. 

First Stack chose to defend. They publicly defended their position and explained why the issue had happened. First Stack hired a consultant, a mediator, and the legal team to draft new policies and processes to fix the problem that they believed had created the mess in the first place. This might sound great, but it has kept the organization stuck in the same dysfunctional patterns that created their crisis in the first place. That was top down, in other words, the chances of them having another Groundhog Day moment are high. First Stack has returned to their old behaviors of monologue and protection. However, they’re filling in their mind, the roles expected of leaders, and yet both sides, employees and executives feel greatly misunderstood and deflated.

Blue Ocean Tech made the choice to suspend. And they publicly took responsibility for what was happening, declined any further comment, noting that they were turning internally to listen. The executives of Blue Ocean Tech began to hold listening sessions in small groups across the company. Executives cleared their calendars and wanted to hear firsthand from employees what was happening. Blue Ocean Tech took action from their first round of dialogue, and then actually continued using that dialogic approach, engaging the whole company from the get go. The conversations have actually shifted the culture in the organization and changed the leadership team for better. They are still working on the outcomes of the story, but the end is pretty promising and the change feels sticky and real, because they are too changing mindset and thinking, not processes and rules. And they are moving forward, but with a very different energy and outcomes than First Stack.

Defend vs Suspend. Different Action, Different Outcome

Let’s get into what happened here. The executives in Blue Ocean Tech are no different from me or First Stack or you, but they had something in place that was different. They had a few key people around them that they trusted, who pushed back and opposed. Their very first instincts encouraged them to start listening without answers or solutions, just listening. 

This was daring and brave, and it was completely outside their comfort zone, but they did do it, and the executives in Blue Ocean Tech listened. It seems like the simplest thing in the world to do, and yet it was the hardest for them. They struggled with all the assumptions and the stories that we talked about earlier. But the impact was immediate and people really appreciated being respected and heard.

Listening and asking questions are undervalued and underused because somewhere along the way, we have this story that heroic leadership looks like leading from the front, large, visible, making moves, setting direction, having all the answers. 

We also have a story about what unhelpful leadership looks like. It’s passive, it’s not leaderful, it’s not knowing, it’s listening, and that’s the story that First Stack bought into. In First Stack the executives didn’t see at all how prioritizing voices of those lower on the totem pole would align with the internal vision that they held about what leadership should look like and do in this kind of situation. And they were incredibly afraid of opening Pandora’s box if they involve staff. Instead of listening or asking questions, they just moved forward with what they thought should happen.

Leaders Bring The Weather!

The moral of this story is that leaders bring the weather. 

Early in my career, I worked at a small startup and we had a private chat channel. When the CEO arrived each morning, someone would give a weather report in the chat. It’s cloudy, it’s sunny, it’s stormy, literally what the mood of the CEO was. This weather report informed my plan and others for the day. On sunny days, I knew I could have important conversations that mattered. If the weather was stormy or cloudy, those were the days that I wanted to lay low and go home early if possible. As leaders, you don’t have to have a title to be a leader, but you bring the weather. So, your words, your energy, your tone, all matter. When you are frantically running down the road, too busy to pause and ask questions, you send the message that there’s no space for conversation here.

But when you show up willing to suspend your viewpoint, ask questions and listen to those around you, you are signaling to others that their point of view is important and that they are valued, and you are actively creating the space for dialogue to happen. 

The weather you bring is not about what happens to you, it is how you choose to respond. 

What if instead of focusing on the solution in monologue, we focused on creating the space for dialogue, with the belief that on the other end of the dialogue would be a more sustainable solution that no one person could have thought of on their own?

Your Leadership Challenge Moving Forward!

I have a challenge for you as you move forward. 

Be intentional about choosing monologue or dialogue. Remember, there is a use for monologue, like when you want to get a bunch of information out, but where monologue does not serve us is in the complex, repetitive, no easy answer conversations. 

When a conversation matters, remember these key takeaways, suspend rather than defend. Suspend your viewpoint rather than defending it, this way you can hear others. Stay in the conversation. Remember Blue Ocean Tech and their commitment to staying in the conversation, even when they were hearing things that were hard to hear. Voice all four actions, move, follow, oppose, and bystand. All four actions are needed to be voiced in a skillful conversation. Listen, rather than having an answer.

It Takes Courage to Lead!

Again, Blue Ocean Tech courageously took a seat and listened to the voices and experiences of employees. This is where real potential for change comes in. Create a space for dialogue, and you have to go first! 

Think about Katherine, who made the choice to create space for dialogue, even though it had not been part of her previous leadership style. She recognized that big, bold vision she had for the company, depended on engaging all voices. And she had to make space for that to happen. Here’s the deal, we will not consciously choose to be a victim, and yet when we defend, this is the role we are taking unconsciously in lots of ways. For far too long, we have and continue to talk about agile as frameworks, practices, and tools. And then we wonder why changing culture and leadership style are still cited as the top challenges to achieving business agility.

Conversations Are Our Interactions

In order to courageously lead transformational change, the kind that supports organizations seeking agility in our fast paced world, we really need to take seriously from the agile manifesto that it’s about individuals and interactions. Conversations are our interactions and they require bravery. 

They are the core practice of how we learn, how we solve complex challenges, how we make meaning of our current environment, and how we innovate moving forward. 

I ask you: How can you be more intentional about choosing dialogue?

If you missed the previous articles in this series, you can find them here. 

Part 1: How Daring to Dialogue Improves Performance and Creates a Culture of Agility

Part 2: The Most Effective Approach of Continued Dialogue: It’s Where Change Happens!

If you’d like to watch Marsha present this, click here for a video!

The Most Effective Approach of Continued Dialogue: It’s Where Change Happens! (Part 2)

In part one of this three part series on ‘Daring to Dialogue’ we looked at five types of conversations.

They include:

  • Monologue
  • Debate
  • Discussion
  • Skillful Conversation
  • Dialogue

In the second part of this series, I will be going through examples of each of these types of conversations with you, and what these types of conversations accomplish.

Are you ready for change to happen? Dare to dialogue!

The Monologue Conversation: an Example

When we sail with my daughter, we are very clear about communication expectations.Once we leave the dock and we’re under sail, we expect all instructions that we give to be followed. We do not expect a conversation, no pushback, just compliance with instructions. It’s not a space for discussion or dialogue, it is a monologue.

Now, my daughter is 12 years old and she is a master at debate. When we established this agreement with her, she had some questions and pushback. What we did is we slowed down enough to have that conversation with her and to create space for her to push back and also for us to offer our perspective about why. 

The outcome of this conversation was that we all arrived at a deeper understanding of what was needed from each of us once we were underway, but once we were underway, it’s monologue.

The Dialogue Conversation: an Example

Now, let’s look next at an example where dialogue is the most effective approach. 

Katherine is an executive I work with. She has been actively working to bring more dialogue into how she leads. And before we met, she operated in a very closed system. She told people what she wanted them to do and sent them on their way. 

She has a really big and bold vision for the future of her company and she has learned the value and impact of asking people to participate in co-creating that with her. Recently she said to me, “We are really grappling with what our culture will look like post-pandemic.” Two months ago, she held a very definitive view of what she thought culture would and should look like, but now, after holding a number of dialogues on the topic, her thinking is really different and it’s changed.

This is what was so striking to me, because I truly believe that dialogue is where change happens, and what matters is that she’s wrestling with this question that has no easy answer. There is no one solution. It’s not a question like what color should we paint the walls or should we have offices or open spaces, this is a complex dynamic question that encompasses many moving parts with lots of uncertainty and things like, how do we want to interact? How will agility support us? What’s the best way to collaborate moving forward? She’s now leading her team through a co-created process to imagine what their culture, what they want their culture to look like in a post-pandemic world. And this includes carving out time and space to have continued dialogue and their culture will be so much more effective and innovative because of it.

Dialogue is Where We Gain Greater Insight and Agility

I don’t want you to get rid of all those conversational skills you have, but my goal is to stretch your thinking about the kinds of conversations you have and how you might expand your skillset to bring more dialogue when it matters. 

While there’s a use for monologue and maybe even debate and discussion, what I’m proposing here is that dialogue is where we really move toward greater insight and agility, but it does require being intentional. 

During every conversation we make a choice, it can be conscious or unconscious, but it is a choice about what kind of conversation we want to engage in. And when we choose to become curious, listening and asking questions, we are actively suspending our point of view in favor of hearing other points of view.

Groundhog Day Conversations

When we decide not to suspend, we are choosing to defend our position or point of view instead, and this leads to Groundhog Day conversations. Those are those conversations that you have over and over again. 

  • What conversations are you facing right now that might need more dialogue? 
  • Do you wonder what our work will look like after the pandemic? 
  • How will we be navigating change and transition moving forward? 
  • What does agile transformation look like for us? 
  • How can I engage and energize my team in this dispersed world? 
  • How will we bring more innovation into our organization? 

If one of these conversations is what you need to have right now, you’ve come to the right place, because there are some common assumptions that makes dialogue less likely.

Here are examples of these common assumptions. 

  • I don’t have time right now
  • I’ve got too much going on. 
  • Don’t bring me problems, just bring me the solutions.
  • I’m right and they’re wrong. 
  • My view is the only valid view here, there is really no other way of looking at this.
  • I’m the boss, it’s my job to decide.

We could’ve taken that route with my daughter (as her parents) about our sailing, but it would’ve been a slightly different outcome than the one we ended up with. 

Assumptions block true dialogue and lead to defending, which again, leads to the Groundhog Day situation, which we don’t want to be in. And none of us want to be having the same conversation over and over again, and yet we do, it happens to all of us. 

How Leaders Can Support More Dialogue

It’s for this reason, the most important activity of leaders, especially in the context of agility, is to create an environment that supports more dialogue and less monologue and debate. 

It’s the approach that executives and leaders must cultivate if they actually want to create the change that they say they want to see. 

Conversations, whether we are or aren’t having them and how we are having them are one of the greatest predictors of success. If we can learn to be more intentional in how we invite, cultivate, participate, and facilitate dialogue, there will not be any challenge or change that an organization cannot skillfully navigate to produce an effective outcome.

How does this work? Read part 3 of this series to learn more about what dialogue looks like in practice! 

If you’d rather take 30 minutes and watch Marsha present, click here to watch a video! 

How Daring to Dialogue Creates a Culture of Agility in Leadership (Part 1)

Have you ever experienced a time where you thought you were going to have a conversation, but instead you just got yelled at?

Have you ever thought you were going to have a conversation, but it ended up that one person spoke for the entire time and you didn’t get a word in?

 Of course, you have. We all have. 

And if we’re really honest, there are times when we have been the offender, rather than the victim of those. It makes sense, we’re working at a faster pace than ever in a time of constant change and it doesn’t always occur to us to be intentional about our conversation. 

In fact, Playwright, George Bernard Shaw summed it up pretty well when he said, 

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

A lot of times, we think we are communicating when we are really doing something else.

As an executive coach and team coach, and the author of The Art & Science of Facilitation, I work with leadership teams who are wrestling with big challenges that are getting in the way of the results that they really want. 

In this three-part series, I will share some practical and actionable ways that you can bring more dialogue into your conversations. We’re going to look at what kind of conversations you have, when you suspend, and when you defend, and four actions that are required in all conversations.

In this first article, we are going to name and identify the types of conversations we have.

The Monologue: A Type of Conversation 

Let’s look metaphorically at the kinds of conversations we engage in, and this comes from the work of William Issacs. 

The first kind is monologue and monologue is a single voice, it’s turn-taking. I’ll say everything that I’m going to say, and then you can go. 

It’s a monologue, it’s a download. 

Comedians do monologues at the start of their sets, like Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show. Monologues are effective for getting a bunch of information out and setting the stage. 

The Debate: A Type of Conversation

The next kind of conversation is debate, and it’s a beating down of the other.  It’s probably the least effective mode of conversation. 

This is advocacy for your point of view over others, and there will be a winner and a loser. In debate, I’m holding really strongly to my point of view. Unwilling to be swayed, my only job is to persuade or convince others of my way of thinking.

Debate can be very effective for highlighting the issues and really understanding the differences between two points of view. 

However, when overused, which is often, debate can be quite toxic. Why? Missing form this conversation is inquiry. 

For an example of debate, we can look at the political system here in the US. Political candidates often debate topics. And the mindset here is that there’s a right way and a wrong way to look at something. 

On a smaller scale, debate can happen anytime there’s a decision to be made. 

A common debate in my household is deciding what’s for dinner. This is my most dreaded conversation of each day. Either everybody wants something different and they’re advocating for what they want, or nobody has an answer at all. But if everybody wants something different and is unwilling to be persuaded, then we’re stuck. And deciding what’s for dinner at the end of the day is draining.

The Discussion: A Type of Conversation

The next kind of conversation is discussion and this word gets used a lot, usually with the intention of having a skillful conversation, which we’ll talk about in a moment, but it’s actually something a bit different.

Discussion is actually the kind of conversation that is set up for people to defend their points of view, but just in a more conversational way than we might think of as organized debate. 

In fact, discussion means to “break apart”. And it’s certainly not a toxic back and forth, in the way that debate can be, but it can feel a little bit like table tennis, lobbing the ball back and forth. 

Think about a time when you walked into a meeting and sat across the table from someone else and thought of yourself as separate from them and their issues.

A common example of a discussion (in Agile) is between a product owner and an architect. They’re working towards the goal of producing a product together, but they can often get stuck in thinking about their world or perspective that they bring. Thus think about end users versus technical design, and then the conversation can feel very broken apart in their different realms. 

How Skillful Conversations Work!

Now, let’s circle back to the idea of skillful conversation and what people are often thinking when they use the word discussion. 

In skillful conversation, we shift from thinking about sides to take and begin to look at the conversation itself as creating something. A bit like plowing the field where we’re digging under the surface, and this is where inquiry lives, and here the goal is to stay with something long enough to understand the thinking behind it.

In skillful conversation, we begin to shift from seeing just our differences to also seeing commonality, and this is where dialogue comes in. 

Dare to Dialogue!

Dialogue, this last part is the art of creating a shared pool of meaning, and it’s a conversation with outsides. Only the idea of being curious and inquiring into differences and other perspectives. It’s the space where new thinking and new ideas happen. 

In dialogue, like in debate, you can have a perspective, but your viewpoint doesn’t guide the conversation. In fact, in dialogue you suspend your point of view, not only to hear the others’ perspective, but to ask them more about it. 

This is the space of curiosity and inquiry and listening without resistance, because this is where new thinking and innovation live.

The Gift That Dialogue Brings

When conversations bring new thinking and new insights and a view that we can do it, we can do this together, this is the gift that dialogue brings, and it takes a lot of courage to create. 

Recap:

The kinds of conversations we engage in are 

  • Monologue
  • Debate
  • Discussion
  • Skillful conversation
  • Dialogue

Each of these has a place and a time, and we need to know how to do each of them. Most of us are brilliant at monologue, debate, and discussion. We do them well. We’ve had years of practice. 

In part two of this series, I will take you through examples of all five of these types of conversations, while part three will solely focus on dialogue. 

If you’d rather take 30 minutes and watch Marsha present, click here to watch a video!

How Daring to Dialogue Improves Performance and Create a Culture of Agility

How Daring to Dialogue Improves Performance and Creates a Culture of Agility

A keynote presented at AGILE AND SCRUM 2021 Online Conference #agilecon2021

Enjoy!

~Marsha

How to Lead Engaging and Productive Meetings (Part 2)

..with purpose, clarity and confidence so that Agile will work for you and your team. 

In part 1 of this series, I gave you scenarios on what successful facilitation looks like, and what common mistakes people make when first facilitating. 

Agile ceremonies seem simple enough, but leading them w/o any training in facilitation can get you into deep water with a team. 

The team will start to distrust you or more likely, the agile processes. Which ultimately leads to resistance of ‘agile’. 

Therefore, I’d like to take you through a 3 step process to lead engaging and productive meetings.

How to Lead with Purpose, Clarity and Confidence

1 The Mindset and Practice of Being Neutral

Maintaining neutrality is 1 of 5 cornerstones of our agile facilitation stance that we cover in our programs. 

2. The Key Steps of Planning and Designing

Collaborative meetings start before you ever get in the room – in person or remote! Learn the invaluable first two steps of our five step Facilitation process, so you can be more intentional and deliberate about your meeting design.

3. Decide How to Decide

It’s just what it sounds like. In the room, be transparent about the decision process.  

Don’t Participate, Facilitate!

Let’s start with one of the most common mistakes I see facilitators make. Participating rather than facilitating! 

Facilitation is both an art and a science. Yes, you need a process to help guide you in planning and design. And tools in your back pocket to help you navigate different stages of collaboration.

But most importantly you need first to work on your own mindset and beliefs about leadership and leading others. 

In our complete Facilitation course, we start with the mindset and beliefs about leading and facilitating, because if you can identify where your mindset might be getting in your way of your work with groups, then that’s the first thing to work on. 

We call this the Facilitation Stance – the mindset and beliefs of agile team facilitators. 

Interested in Reading and Learning More About Facilitation? 

In “The Art & Science of Facilitation”, I dive deep into all 5 cornerstones of facilitation. 

The cornerstones of the Agile Team Facilitation Stance include:

  • Honoring the wisdom of the group
  • Maintaining Neutrality
  • Upholding the Agile Mindset and Practices
  • Standing in the Storm
  • Holding the Group’s Agenda

Click the links of each cornerstone to learn more and visit the book’s website!

1 The Cornerstone of Maintain Neutrality 

The most common mistake I see is that people read these cornerstones and intellectually think – “I get this”! The challenge is that the nuances of implementing this are much more difficult. Some of these cornerstones are so nuanced in the moment, that they don’t feel like that big of a deal, when in reality these small choices you are making in the moment can be derailing your whole collaboration experience. 

How To Practice Neutrality

  • Focus on the process not the content
    • Facilitate don’t Participate! 

As the facilitator you own the process – the agenda, the room setup or virtual space configuration, how you’re going to get the group from point A to point B. That’s plenty to be focused on! Stay out of the content. Let the team own the work and what’s getting generated. No one wants to be invited to a meeting and asked for their opinion only to be told they got it all wrong or it’s not what you wanted. 

  • Define the role of facilitation up front with the team. 

Not everyone knows what it means to facilitate. AND how the job of the facilitator is to help the group achieve the desired outcomes. Not contribute to creating the outcomes. 

  • Explain the value of being neutral and holding process authority while the team will hold content authority
  • Ask permission from the team to facilitate – I’m going to try something different today. As long as we reach our desired outcome, are you willing to try this? By asking for permission, the power of facilitation is granted to you from the team. 

Facilitators Need To Stay Out of Content

As a general guideline you need to stay out of content! I always say, if this is something that you know about and you believe you have a perspective that might help the group right now, and continuing to remain silent feels inauthentic, then you may step aside from your facilitation role for a moment and contribute content or offer your perspective. 

Find a way to do so that is clear to both you and your team. You might say “I’m going to step out of facilitation for a minute” say what you need to say, then get back into the role. Do not ‘hang out there’ for the rest of the meeting. 

Here’s why clarity on the role is so important. Trust is needed within the team and between the facilitator and the team. They need to trust that when you say you’re going to help THEM get those objectives accomplished that you mean it. Not that you’ll help them until you believe you have a better way at which point you will shut them down, offer your own opinion, and then ask them if they agree with you. 

2 Get Input During Planning

Your stance is one component of skillful facilitation. But what do you do when you find yourself facing resistance to even coming to a meeting or participating? 

There can be lots of reasons why people resist  meetings, but here is one of the first places I look when people tell me that they are getting resistance to attending an agile meeting – Stand-up, Retrospective or any of the planning meetings. 

Don’t make These Mistakes During Planning

  • Not having a clearly designed purpose and agenda before the meeting starts.
  • Cutting short the planning and design phase or not planning at all before the meeting.

These mistakes result in meetings that people don’t know why they are there, or how they are supposed to contribute. The conversation goes in circles, one or two people dominate the conversation. The meeting ends without a clear decision or action item and overall participants feel like it was a waste of time. 

We are all stingy with our time. Many of us spend more than half our time in meetings each week. 

Look at this data:

We surveyed 182 senior managers in a range of industries: 

  • 65% said meetings keep them from completing their own work. 
  • 71% said meetings are unproductive and inefficient.
  •  64% said meetings come at the expense of deep thinking. 
  • 62%said meetings miss opportunities to bring the team closer together.
     

~ HBR August 2017 ‘Stop the Meeting Madness’

That’s incredible! Meetings are expensive and worth it – if done well. But look at the impact if they are not done well. 

What Participants Want From Meetings

They want meetings to be…

  • Relevant
  • Valuable
  • Purpose driven
  • Outcome oriented
  • Timeboxed
  • Clear on roles
  • Engaging
  • Collaborative

How do you solve this problem then? You start working on all those characteristics before you get in the room.

If you wait until you’re in the room to start, you’re too late! 

If your team finds Retrospectives a waste of time and does not want to participate, then find out why. There is likely a really good reason. Engage them in the planning and design for the meeting and Listen to what they have to say. 

At TeamCatapult, we use a five phase model for Facilitation called The Facilitation Process. 

Two of the most important, yet often skipped or minimized steps in this process is Planning and Design. Planning and Designing happen before the meeting starts, Conduct is what happens in the room. Then Document and Evaluate and Adapt take place after the meeting. 

Within Planning there are several very important scope and boundary activities going on but the one I want to highlight today is Identify the Participants and Involve the Participants! 

Just like you would not build a custom home for someone without talking to them first. Don’t design a custom meeting without knowing first what people hope to get out of the meeting. 

3 Deciding How To Decide

Do you remember the movie with Bill Murray called Ground Hog Day, where he kept waking up each day and having the same day all over again? 

If you make decisions in your meetings only to revisit them the next you get together, that’s a clear sign that your decision making process is missing it’s “stickiness” and your decisions are not durable, meaning they don’t last much beyond the meeting

Another sign is lack of energy or follow-through on implementing the decision. 

This will be that action item or decision that was made and somehow the progress on it just drags out and you might be perplexed about why it’s taking so long. 

A third sign of lack of durability is watching how engaged or not participants are in the decision making process itself. When people use language like ‘It’s fine’ or “yes, let’s just move on’ or ‘just tell me what you want me to do’. These are signs that something might be missing. 

Decide BEFORE the Meeting!

Meeting with your meeting sponsor during planning and talk with this person about these three questions:

  1. What is in the team’s scope of authority?
  2. How complex is this decision? 
  3. What are you seeking?  Consensu, Agreement or Majority Rules? 

The greater the complexity the greater the need for consensus. In the room with the team – be transparent about the decision process.  

How Will You Grow Your Facilitation and Team Coaching Skills?

Will you keep ‘winging it’ or make a deeper commitment to yourself? What do you want to be known for? How will you make a lasting difference in your team? One that outlasts your time with them? One that lives on with them regardless if you are there or not? Which way will you choose? 

You can spend a bunch of time attending free meetups, webinars and watching others as part of self -study. You might find a mentor who can give you some feedback. 

All of which can be  good strategies. But done alone don’t always provide you the solid foundation for really mastering the craft of facilitation.

Join us for a workshop or our 9 month cohort program. 

We need leaders, scrum masters, agile coaches who know how to skillfully connect others and lead collaboration!

If you’re charged with leading change in your organization – at any level – I want to leave you with this thought. Patrick Lencioni, in his book The Advantage said “There is no greater way to have a fundamental impact on an organization than by changing the way it does meetings.” 

I believe that we can change cultures by starting to change the way people meet. You don’t have to change your team, or your boss, or your HR department. You just need to shift your mindset and change the way you lead your meetings. 

Be the one who leads meetings that people will cancel other meetings in order to attend yours.

That’s how we start to change cultures. 

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Page 12
  • Page 13
  • Page 14
  • Page 15
  • Page 16
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Page 25
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • Why We Need to Invest in Behavior Change – Not of Another Tool
  • Why Thinking you Need to Have All the Answers is Counterproductive for your Team
  • How to Welcome Disagreement Within Your Team (and mean it)
  • How to Welcome Team Opposition from a Space of Confidence and Curiosity
  • Why a Difference of Opinion Makes Your Team Much More Effective

Recent Comments

    Archives

    • February 2024
    • October 2023
    • September 2023
    • August 2023
    • July 2023
    • June 2023
    • May 2023
    • April 2023
    • March 2023
    • February 2023
    • January 2023
    • December 2022
    • November 2022
    • October 2022
    • September 2022
    • August 2022
    • July 2022
    • May 2022
    • April 2022
    • March 2022
    • February 2022
    • January 2022
    • December 2021
    • November 2021
    • October 2021
    • September 2021
    • August 2021
    • July 2021
    • June 2021
    • May 2021
    • April 2021
    • March 2021
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • September 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • April 2017
    • September 2016
    • August 2016
    • July 2016
    • June 2016
    • May 2016
    • June 2015

    Categories

    • Agenda
    • Agile Coaching
    • Agile Principles
    • Agile Team Coaching
    • Agile Teams
    • Build Your Model for Leading Change
    • Certification
    • Cohort
    • Collaboration
    • Communication
    • Competency
    • Conferences
    • Defining Moments of Leadership
    • Dialogue Facilitation
    • Events
    • Facilitation
    • Facilitation Stance
    • Interview
    • Leadership
    • Leading Change
    • Leading in High Stakes
    • Making Behavioral Change Happen
    • Media Interview
    • Meetings
    • Mentoring
    • News
    • Read the Room
    • Team Coaching
    • Team Conflict
    • Testimonials
    • The Art & Science of Facilitation
    • The Leader's Edge
    • Training
    • Virtual Book Tour
    • Virtual Facilitation
    • Virtual Meetings
    • Workshop

    Meta

    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.org
    • Workshops
      • Agile Coaching Part 1: Team Facilitation (ICP-ATF)
      • Agile Coaching Part 2: Team Coaching (ICP-ACC)
      • Coaching Agility from Within (ICE-AC)
      • Virtual Facilitation Masterclass
      • Facilitating Engaging Retrospectives
      • Advanced Facilitation
      • Changing Behavior in High Stakes
    • Coaching
      • Leadership Coachin
      • Leadership Team Development
    • Resources
    Book a Discovery Session
    ©2020 TEAM CATAPULT | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
    Book a Discovery Session
  • start your journey
  • workshops
  • about us
  • podcast
  • coaching
  • blog
  • products
  • contact us
  • newsletter
  • © TEAM CATAPULT | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

    Copyright © 2025 · Lifestyle Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in