Dialogue Facilitation

Leadership is a Conversation: The Importance of Creating Space for Dialogue

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On May 20, 2021 I was a guest speaker at the Business Agility Meetup – Twin Cities edition.

This BAM presentation is part of a series of interviews and conversations I am having about facilitation with the agile community and people in leadership. As the author of ‘The Art & Science of Facilitation’, I am essentially on my second Book Tour!

Join me as I revisit this conversation about dialogue. Make sure to read to the end and watch the full video!

Conversations are Elusive

Effective conversations are elusive. We think we are communicating effectively only to find out that we didn’t.

Instead, we end up in the same conversation over and over again aka a groundhog conversation. People nod politely as if in agreement and then go tell their colleague what they really think after the meeting. Or, there are so many ideas on the table that we lose focus and none of them get adequately completed.

No individual, group or organization is immune to these patterns in conversation.

Conversations: Effectiveness and Breakdowns

It’s not if conversations will become ineffective or lead to breakdowns, it’s when, how often and how leaders are able to respond in the moment when it happens that makes the difference.

Leaders Hold the Key to… More Agility

Leadership is a conversation. And leaders who can create the conditions – facilitate – effective conversations will hold the key to higher performance, greater alignment, and more agility.

In their Harvard Business Review article, ‘Embracing Agile’, authors Rigby, Sutherland and Takeuchi wrote

“Agile has revolutionized the software industry…Now it is poised to transform nearly every other function in the industry. At this point, the greatest impediment is not the need for better methodologies, empirical evidence or significant benefits, or proof that agile can work outside IT. It is the behavior of executives.”

Leading Through Conversation

In the video below, I explored with the attendees of Business Agility Meetup what it means to lead through conversation. We discussed the following:

Understanding the importance of reading the room and why it’s everyone’s job
Learning a language for reading the room and how to model it for others
Gaining strategies for how to start facilitating conversations more effectively today

I don’t want to give it all away right here – head on over to the YouTube video to listen to this invigorating conversation!

Watch the Full Video: Leadership is a Conversation

Ready To Learn More About (Virtual) Facilitation

We thought you might be!

This summer, get more knowledge about facilitation by participating in the next Virtual Facilitation Masterclass: “Leading Engaging and Productive Virtual Collaboration”

We’ll show you the common mistakes that keep remote teams from realizing true agility.

Then, you’ll learn practical solutions to plan and design virtual meetings so you can:

Facilitate genuine connection and trust among remote team members
Turn virtual meetings into effective, efficient decision-making tools
Engage your team’s creative power regardless of zip code
Motivate your remote team members to perform to their capabilities with ease
Build a truly collaborative team that gets results

Explore this workshop now!

Group Dynamics: How to Honor the Wisdom of the Group

When groups convene, they have the power to create something together that would not be possible from the thinking of just one or two people. Groups can see problems in new ways and craft solutions that weren’t apparent before, leveraging the dynamics of leadership and group dynamics.

But, there is a caveat. The creation of new thinking relies on a group’s ability to access their collective intelligence and navigate the intricacies of leadership group dynamics.

Everyone on the Team Has Wisdom to Gain, Wisdom to Share in leadership and group dynamics.

In theory, honoring the wisdom of the group in leadership and group dynamics is really easy. Often, both leaders and group members agree: of course the group has wisdom.

Then real life happens. Decisions need to be made. Directions need to be set.

It’s often easier to honor the wisdom of the group in principle than it is in the moment. In high-pressure moments, leaders, in particular, might be challenged by the concept of honoring the group’s wisdom in leadership in group dynamics. They would rather just make a decision on their own and tell the group what to do.

Putting Honoring the Wisdom of the Group in Leadership and Group Dynamics into Practice

Honoring the wisdom of the group in leadership and group dynamics means placing your full attention on what the group needs rather than focusing on your own needs. It starts with being deliberate about why you are meeting and how you can help invite full participation by creating and sustaining a space that will support it, taking into account the dynamics of group structure.

Here are four lessons on how to plan and design a collaborative meeting to set the group up for success.

1 Help the Sponsor Get Clear on the Level of Collaboration Needed

Factors to determine the degree of collaboration.

One way we honor wisdom in groups is by not wasting their time. Being intentional and deliberate about when collaborative decision-making is an appropriate process to meet the needs of the moment – and when someone just needs to make a decision and move forward.

Not every topic, problem, or decision needs to be collaborative. Higher complexity in decisions means a greater degree of collaboration will be important.

When you interview the sponsor and evaluate the complexity of a decision to be made, think about the scope:

Urgency
Risk
Impact
Durability
Buy-in

2 Decide How to Decide

Not every decision lends itself to consensus and it’s okay. It often depends on the type and complexity of the decision being made.

Help the sponsor and other stakeholders agree to both the decision-making process and the boundaries of the decision prior to the meeting. Here are the types of decisions to choose from:

Leader decides
The leader holds veto power
Consensus Building
Majority Rule

Caution: Teams often decide to “majority rules” likely because reaching consensus can take more time and some teams or leaders become frustrated with the process. If you use “majority rules” as your primary way of making decisions, you might be missing an opportunity to uncover more insight and wisdom, which could improve the shared vision, increase understanding, and change the nature of the conversation and outcomes more positively over time.

3 Design Group Processes That Invite All Voices

The objective is to design a way for all voices to be heard in the room. Factors to consider in your design include:

What is the purpose of the meeting?
What is the desired outcome?
How many people are participating?
Will others be observing?
How will you be meeting?
How long do you have?

The primary question across the design process is: What is the highest and best use of our time together?

4 Invite Opposition – and Separate Yourself From The Process

Opposition is needed in a group in order to have an effective dialogue and, therefore, to access the wisdom of the group. Inviting opposition builds on the practices of ‘Standing in the Storm’.

There are two fundamental principles of inviting opposition:

If opposition is not coming into the conversation organically, ask for someone who sees the topic differently.
When opposition does emerge, don’t shut it down!

As the facilitator, it’s important for you to find ways to invite the opposition in the conversation. But as you develop your skills in relation to opposition, it’s also important to recognize when to separate yourself from the process.

Remember: you are not the process and the process is not you!

Honoring the Wisdom of the Group

Sometimes we can be really good at creating a vision for what we want: teamwork, collaboration, agility. But in execution, we can be really good at getting in our own way.

One of the greatest gifts you can bring to the group is to hold the belief that the team has the wisdom it needs, even when it feels difficult.

Even if the road is bumpy and it feels like you took a wrong exit, holding firm in this stance is one of the most empowering things you can do for a team.

Are you a facilitator in need of more wisdom?

Learn more about The Art & Science of Facilitation by visiting our website!

How To Navigate Team Conflict and Stand Steadfast in the Storm

Within a group, storms emerge from opposition and high-tension situations.

While storms are places of difference, they are also places of energy.

Most groups do not naturally want to stay in conflict situations. In fact, they usually have patterns of avoiding them, often at all costs.

What does this mean for you, the facilitator of the group?

This article will help you navigate team conflict by giving you tips on how to weather the storm.

What is Standing in the Storm?

The facilitation stance of ‘Standing in the Storm’ is about being able to recognize the storm and understanding how to weather it – because there is greater clarity in a group’s thinking on the other side.

Standing in the storm is about staying with conflict and difference instead of avoiding it, recognizing that different points of view provide clarity, discernment, deeper understanding and energy.

When There’s a Storm on the Horizon

When there’s a storm on the horizon, it’s easy to imagine that the meeting will completely unravel, that you’ll be blamed, and that you’ll look like an ineffective facilitator.

Anxious thoughts may creep in:

How do I handle this much opposition?
What if we don’t achieve what we need to do today?
How will I be viewed?

Storms are those places when working with a group feels uncomfortable. For you or for them. For one person or the whole group. But standing in it together is a profound way to transform discomfort into something more productive and thoughtful.

Putting ‘Standing in the Storm’ into Practice: 3 Tips

As the facilitator what do you need to believe about yourself and your group as you facilitate?

Here are the guiding principles I reference in my book.

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

Today, I’d like to share three tips to help you stand in the storm.

1 Cultivate self-awareness and management to stay in the situation.

When put into a situation where you as the facilitator are standing in a storm, self-awareness is an important tool to stay in that storm, especially if you are asked to move on from a ‘high-heat topic’.

The first step to take is to ask for context.

Next, you need to clarify what happens moving forward.

The important thing to recognize when learning to stand in the storm is that staying with situations and group dynamics can feel difficult. So start practicing in small ways to help you prepare for the big moment.

2 Learn to Press “Pause”

Sometimes what’s needed in the midst of a storm is your own personal ‘pause’ button.

Because when you feel like slowing down and taking a breath is the very last thing you can do, it’s exactly what you need to do!

Learn to recognize these moments and to be prepared to take your pause, even when it feels like the hardest thing.

Plant your feet firmly on the ground and stand with the principles of this facilitation stance
Take a deep breath
Remember that whatever is happening is not really about you. It’s about them
Slow down the pace for yourself.

As the group responds to your pause, gather data about what’s happening for them. This will help you decide what to do next.

Remember you don’t have to figure out the next four things. You just need to figure out the one thing that will move the group forward in this moment.

3 Deepen your understanding of Group Dynamics

Models and frameworks for understanding group dynamics help us make sense of what we’re experiencing in the room.

Structural dynamics is a theory of face-to-face communications developed by David Kantor.

It provides a way to naming, at four different levels, the structure of communication as it’s taking place in the moment.

These are called

Move
Follow
Oppose
Bystand

In order for conversations to be skillful and effective, groups need all four of these actions to be voiced in conversation. Learn more about structural dynamics here.

The Art & Science of Facilitation

Without difference, there is no insight, clarity, energy, passion, or conviction. Storms give us these things – which means we have to stay with the storm no matter how uncomfortable it feels.

Read the Art & Science of Facilitation to dive deeper into this topic of ‘Standing in the Storm’ and watch this space for more on the facilitation stances mentioned in my book.

The Five Cornerstones of the Agile Team Facilitation Stance Explained

The Art & Science of Facilitation Book Tour

On March 9, 2021 I was the guest speaker at Agile Austin to talk about my book ‘The Art & Science of Facilitation’.

I enjoyed this conversation so very much that I am sharing a condensed version of some of the things we discussed, as well as the full recording of this lively conversation about facilitation.

Join me for this Virtual Book Tour event, won’t you?

What Does Facilitation Mean to You?

We started the evening by answering the following question.

’What does facilitation mean to you?’

Several people eagerly shared what facilitation means to them.

Here are their definitions!

Facilitation is ‘keeping the conversation going’. The conversation needs to move, not get stuck.
Facilitation is helping guide people to a common end.
Facilitation is creating and holding the container for all the magic to happen inside. Magic means the space where the folks inside can solve problems, be creative, innovate. The connection between human beings.
Good facilitation encourages participation. Everyone should have a voice, not be scared to speak. Flow, safety.
Facilitation means feeling psychologically safe, a healthy discourse!
Facilitation is about the feelings and understanding of the team, each team member. Empathizing with the team.
Facilitation is making things easier. Make it easier on the team.

Facilitation Is Both Art and Science

The dictionary defines ‘facilitating’ as
“make (an action or process) easy or easier.”

There is science that sits behind what we do, and art as well! Hence the name of my book.

A facilitated session includes all of the following:

All Voices
Process
Desired outcome
Flow
Discourse
Harmony
Bring Inquiry

‘What’s happening when all of things are taking place in a meeting? What is the facilitator doing, or not doing when all these things are taking place?’

It’s how you show up as a facilitator.

The Agile Team Facilitation Stance

What do you need to believe about yourself and your group as you facilitate?

Here are the guiding principles I reference in my book.

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.

Next, the Zoom participants broke into Zoom rooms. They were asked to create a definition about one of these five cornerstones during a 10 minute group discussion before coming back and sharing their insights.

The Full Agile Austin Conversation

If you missed this Agile Austin conversation with us and you couldn’t participate, please know we’d love for you to watch the evening’s discussion right here.

Join Me For Additional Facilitation Conversations!

The first part of my Virtual Book Tour in January and February of 2021 consisted of a self-hosted series of live conversations with facilitation experts.

Starting this month, March 2021, I am ‘making the rounds’ and bringing ‘The Art & Science of Facilitation’ to groups all over the country.

You can check out my upcoming Virtual Book Tour schedule here.

For TeamCatapult workshops, check the schedule below.

Here are several opportunities for you to learn more.:

Agile Team Facilitation Workshop March 22-26, 2021
Advanced Facilitation Workshop April 28-May 5, 2021

Join us for one, or all, Virtual Workshops. TeamCatapult workshops are a great stepping stone to our cohort.

Learn more about our Coaching Agility from Within ‘A Cohort Journey to Masterful Agile Team Coaching’ and apply to join in May 2021.

Is Collective Power of the Group the Best Avenue to Team Facilitation?

Team Facilitation: Who Are We Facilitating?

While listening and watching one of the five Virtual Book Tour stops for ‘The Art & Science of Facilitation‘, one of the participants had one of those moments of clarity that we might describe as ‘an aha-moment’.

Art Moore of Clear Systems, LLC was listening in on my conversation with Ahmed Sidky, Deborah Grayson Riegel, Lyssa Adkins and Tricia Broderick. The topic of that Virtual Book tour stop was: Leadership is a conversation: The importance of facilitating collaborative conversations.

Here is what happened in Art’s own words.

Who Are We Facilitating?

By: Art Moore

We talk a lot about the collective power of the group. The whole is greater than the parts. Believe in the ability of the team. These are great principles. And yet I have always sensed they were somehow incomplete, not the exact story.

I can only say this in retrospect, after a recent moment of clarity. It happened while I was sitting in on one of Marsha Acker’s virtual book tour events for her new book, The Art and Science of Facilitation. She and the astonishing panel she’d assembled[1] had begun talking about achieving a level of co-creation; and the missing piece fell in place.

For me, that missing piece, the underlying truth, is that a great facilitator, leader, human, starts first with belief in the individual; that one person and the fountain of creative potential they possess.

Belief in people really means belief in many individuals and, as individuals, their ability to co-create. It is each individual rising above himself to create with others who are also creating. As the panel said, this is not “mere” collaboration. It is not just more, but different. It is each reaching fully and their ideas co-mingling with others who are doing the same.

The orchestra analogy is apt. This viewpoint and approach, pushed out to its boundary, promoted out as a model of leadership and working, establishes a new North Star not just for individual leaders but for human society. “Here is what I am tremendously interested in. Are you interested in it too? Let’s go together.” There is an idea, but it can be fully co-owned.

So we’re not really honoring “the group.” We’re believing in something much more powerful. The ability of individuals to co-create. It is no small skill. It is, I believe, the skill, the one that will elevate us to the society we are capable of becoming together.

[1] Marsha Acker, Ahmed Sidky, Deborah Grayson Riegel, Lyssa Adkins and Tricia Broderick

Are you curious about the rest of this conversation?
We recorded all of it and it’s available right here!

Our gratitude goes out to Art Moore for sharing his experience with us.

Art Moore, Author

Mr. Moore’s career spans software development, practice management, methodology development, training and strategic consulting, in both federal and private sectors. He has provided industry thought leadership in multiple disciplines, from data warehousing, to business rules, requirements engineering and Agile, and brings decades of experience in building high performing teams. That is the focus of Clear Systems LLC, which he founded in 2005, providing Lean/Agile training, coaching, and transformation at the team and organization level. (CSP, CSPO, CSM, CAL1, Scrum@Scale, LeSS, SPC, KMP II, ICP-ATF, ICP-ACC, ICP-BAF, Certified ICAgile Instructor

Republished with permission

Did you know: TeamCatapult has been training facilitators for years!

Here are several upcoming opportunities for you:

Virtual Facilitation Masterclass March 18-19, 2021
Agile Team Facilitation Workshop March 22-26, 2021
Advanced Facilitation Workshop April 28-May 5, 2021

Join us for one, or all, Virtual Workshops!

These workshops are a great stepping stone to our cohort.

Learn more about our Coaching Agility from Within ‘A Cohort Journey to Masterful Agile Team Coaching’ and apply to join in May 2021.