Meetings

How and Why Holding the Group’s Agenda is Paramount in Facilitation

As a facilitator, holding the group’s agenda is one of five guiding principles to keep the meeting moving forward.

When a group is resisting the decision they are narrowing in toward or responding with reluctance toward every attempt to move the meeting forward, you are likely encountering the tension between two unspoken but competing agendas in the room.

The principle we are looking at today, ‘holding the group’s agenda, is about continually asking “How can I best serve this group?”. It’s about wondering “ What does this group really need right now?” It’s letting your agenda take the backseat so that you can help a group tackle emergent dynamics. It’s about uncovering what’s really going on in the group so that they can move forward as a team.

The Three Group Agendas To Hold When Facilitating

The first step when it comes to holding the group’s agenda is to understand that there are three different levels of agendas that a group can have:

The Presenting Agenda
The Emergent Agenda
The Developmental Agenda

Let’s look at each of these separately

The Presenting Agenda

This agenda, the presenting agenda encompasses the meeting’s purpose, desired outcomes, and plan. It’s why this group has come together, and it includes the facilitation design anticipated to help the group achieve what it hopes to achieve.

The Emergent Agenda

The emergent agenda is what emergentes live in the room as conversations happen, new perspectives are voiced, and ideas are generated.

New thinking is often behind the emergence of this level of group agenda.

The Developmental Agenda

The developmental agenda is a deeper agenda that focuses on how the group works together. It’s about group behavior and dynamics. Facilitators working with agile teams are not just trying to help a group achieve an outcome for a meeting, they are often helping a team develop.

Hold the Group’s Agenda, Not Your Own!

When you, the group facilitator, work with a group, it’s helpful to know where they want to go. Knowing their presenting agenda enables your to hold their desired outcome – what they hope to achieve from working together – and more fully comprehend what else is happening in the room.

Because along their journey, groups can get in their own way, and it can get especially complicated as a facilitator when what the group thinks they need and what they actually need are two different things.

When you hold the group’s agenda – presenting, emergent, or developmental – you are choosing to be of service to the group over yourself, your position, and your perception of our own worth.

This is about them, not you!

The principle of holding the group’s agenda is about being aware of what the group wants and how they also might be getting in their own way. It’s about being able to really listen to what’s emerging in the team – hearing what the team needs – while remaining aware of what your own agenda might be and not letting it take over.

Go Slow To Go Fast

The slippery slope with agendas is that when your own agenda feels so right to you, you risk missing the group’s agenda. And if you are facilitating a team in which you are a member of the team, discerning your agenda from the team’s agenda becomes even more difficult.

In my book ‘The Art & Science of Facilitation’ I go deeper into these agendas and show what holding the group’s agenda looks like in practice!

“You owe it to yourself and the team to challenge the notion of certain agendas”

Holding the Group’s Agenda is Big Work!

The way to change meetings is to help teams and groups move the meeting from a surface-level conversation where they may as well be rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic to a place where it’s okay and even expected to have real conversations.

Most groups need guidance and help getting to this place, and the organization’s culture and team dynamics will have a big impact on how easy the process is.

There is work to do. Without it, you’re wasting time – yours and everyone else’s.

Don’t shy away from emergent and developmental agendas,, even when it’s tough. This work lays the track for agile teams to become agile, and each meeting is a meaningful step toward more systemic change within the team or organizational culture.

The Five Cornerstones of the Agile Team Facilitation Stance

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

Learn more about each stance by clicking the links!

How to Work with Conflict in Teams: The Agile Team Facilitation Stance

I always say: “A great leader is ready to merge from everyone!”

Today I would like to share my recent talk with Agile Toronto. We had a conversation about how to work with conflict in teams.

NOTE: If you’d rather listen to me talk than read this article first, feel free to skip to the bottom of this article and find the embedded recording, but …you’ll miss some great visuals!

Conflict… and Standing in the Storm

My definition of a “Storm” is when conflict emerges in the room, or when conflict isn’t in the room but it’s going somewhere else and it’s undermining what happens.

Together, let’s look at conversations, and the way we engage in conversation as a lens for looking at conflict, how teams communicate and how that makes a team effective, or ineffective.

I am going to start with the Kantor 4 player model.

Kantor 4 Player Model

“The structure of our conversation determines the outcome of it.” ~ David Kantor, Theory of Structural Dynamics.

Everything that we say, every sentence, every speech-act can be coded into one of four actions.

Coded into one of these four:

MOVE – sets direction in the conversation
FOLLOW – supports the move
OPPOSE – offers correction or constraint
BYSTAND – offers a morally neutral comment on what’s happening in the conversation

Here is an example of how a conversation with all of these 4 actions would go:

In a foodie group conversation:

“Lets go get Sushi in the 5-star restaurant on the corner” That’s a MOVE!
Your FOLLOW would be “Sounds good. Would love to.”
An OPPOSE response is something like this: “Hey I am not so sure, I am not feeling Sushi tonight”
While the BYSTAND action would go something like this: “It sounds like we have an idea on the table” – naming what’s happening.

MOVE and OPPOSE are the vocal actions of advocacy, bringing something forward and taking a stand for something.

FOLLOW and BYSTAND are vocal actions of inquiry and they provide curiosity and more data.

We need all four of these to be active and voiced in a conversation, when one or more are missing some common patterns emerge.

Common patterns often point to a way of looking at breakdown or conflict in our conversations, doing it in a structural way.

Common Stuck Patterns That Happen in Teams

Having the same conversation over and over again should throw up a bunch of yellow flags!

Here are 4 stuck patterns that happen in teams:

SERIAL MOVING – Not really sure what we accomplished: nothing carried to completion
COURTEOUS COMPLIANCE – Over time, this points to covert opposition.
COVERT OPPOSITION – the thing that is said is different that I really intend or for somebody to bystand what I oppose.
POINT-COUNTER-POINT – move on the table and a very clear oppose. Feels like people are locked in conflict.

When MOVE and OPPOSE are the predominant acts, we are missing a FOLLOW and a BYSTAND. Structure becomes a way to look at to bring attention to or call for one of the missing actions.

Going from Locked Opposition, MOVE and OPPOSE, to being able to bridge and find context, something that I can follow or support, something that you’re seeing, being able to name it and bring it into the conversation, keeps us in the conversation and allows us to move forward!

Groundhog Day Conversations!

Groundhog day conversations are those conversations we are having, over and over without resolution.

What patterns might this type of conversation be falling into? How can you change the nature of the conversation by bringing in a different vocal act?

You would need to manage opposition out of the room. The voice of opposition is needed! When it’s not voiced it’s an indicator that it’s coming out in one of the different actions i.e. move, follow or bystand.

Step back and look at the structure of the conversation and yourself:

Can I name what’s happening?
Can I name structurally what’s happening?
Can I let the name of the structural pattern inform how I might make an action as leader, as a facilitator in that conversation?

To listen to this conversation, and the Q & A session, watch this QuickTalk YouTube Video!

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.

Five Guiding Principles of an Agile Team Facilitation Stance

Collaboration Is a Core Value In Agile

Regardless of the agile framework(s) you use, agile practices require some level of collaboration within teams or between teams, customers and stakeholders.

Collaboration is two or more people coming together to co-create something. When collaboration is effective it can have a euphoric feeling of accomplishment, success, trust, and teamwork. When collaboration is ineffective it can drain a team – that feeling that you get of ‘here we go again…same discussion, same outcome, just a different day’. Effective or ineffective, collaboration is messy – you can’t predict how it will go, things don’t always unfold the way you might think they will, and it’s always emergent.

Facilitation is a core competency for Agile Coaches – teams need facilitators who can foster effective collaboration, support meaningful dialogues and enable team decision-making.

In this introduction to developing guiding principles, we’ll identify and offer guidance regarding four of the most common traits that can subtly surface and begin to erode a team’s efficacy. Implementing core values needs to involve team members and the organization’s values alike.

First, here are some common challenges that can get in the way of effective collaboration in agile teams.

Asking for input when you’ve already made up your mind about what the decision or outcome will be
Using your positional authority of leading a meeting to drive your own agenda and influence a particular outcome
An unclear purpose and/or desired outcome for the collaboration
The team is unclear about how the final decision will be made (i.e. Is the group making a recommendation or a final decision? Will majority rule or will we strive for consensus?)

How We Think Is How We Lead

Learning facilitation tools and techniques are really useful but if what you believe is different from what you’re doing, well, the tools won’t really matter. Collaboration will be frustrating and less impactful than you might desire. In essence, we are searching for the values of a good facilitator.

It Begins With You

Facilitation is like a complex dance of polarities. When teams come together to collaborate, rarely are topics or decisions black and white with a clear ‘right’ answer. At any given time when you are leading a group from a facilitative stance, you’re interweaving different ideas and perspectives together, creating a rich and textured network of ideas that serve to deepen understanding and seek diversity. You’re helping the group define the shades of gray so that they can make more informed decisions.

You Are Managing Yourself

It takes a high degree of self-awareness, self-management and group awareness to navigate the dance. People are putting their trust in you to lead them through a complex process; to be heard, to be respected, to be valued and to contribute to something greater than what they could accomplish on their own.

Facilitators, you’ll prepare for this kind of work by starting with what you believe. In other words, create guiding principles for leading community members and teams.

How We Think Informs How We Act

The Five Guiding Principles

The five guiding principles of The Agile Team Facilitation Stance form the foundation upon what we believe about groups and teams and how those beliefs might show up in the room. Creating guiding principles for your team facilitation work will prepare you as you facilitate!

1) Maintain Neutrality

At the highest level, this principle is about you owning the process, and the team owning the content.
In practice, this looks like bridging competing ideas, sharing what you see in the process with facts, and without judgment.

Review the following tables for each guiding principle and see what each one can look like in action

Internal Assumptions and Beliefs

I am active and engaged (not passive)
I own the process, they own the content
I add value by reflecting back to the group what’s actually happening
I am open minded and see value in all voices
Polarities in opinions offer opportunities to find common ground
I am vested in helping the group achieve their desired outcomes
Critique about the group process is not a critique about who I am

Practices

Say what you see, in a factual, non-judgmental way
Let go of judging right vs wrong
Take a systems perspective
Bridge competing ideas
Listen for the 2% common ground
Offer ideas with no attachment to the outcome
Inquire by asking powerful questions
Seek to understand and deepen the group’s understanding

2) Stand in the Storm

The term “storm” can look, feel and behave differently in each team. This is about seeking out and really listening to differing stances, perspectives, options, solutions, and paths. Without taking sides, a facilitator holds the space for all to speak and be heard during a meeting.

Internal Assumptions and Beliefs

Storms create deeper understanding and context for what’s being discussed
I don’t need to take sides; I need to be able to help the group hear all perspectives
Opposition offers correction
The purpose of conflict is to be helpful to a process
Dysfunctional behavior is a sign of displeasure with something that is happening or something that is wanting to happen, more often than it is about what it looks like in the moment (i.e., interpersonal conflict)
I don’t need to have the answers; I need to help the group find the solution

Practices

Create the container that allows for storms
Sense when there is dissonance – either overt or covert
Have empathy with each member of the group
Inquire about opposition
Be fully present
Be self-aware of your own personal bias
Adjust the process if the conflict calls for it
Activate bystanders – voice what you are seeing or hearing
Turn it back to the group to decide

3) Hold the Group’s Agenda

By continually asking, “How can I best serve this group?” or “What does this group really need right now?” you’ll be operating within this principle. At times, a feeling of resistance, or an instinct to shut down may arise. Perhaps you receive feedback about the process and you feel the beginnings of defensive feelings. The best tool to meet that feeling with is curiosity and a focus on holding the group’s agenda.

Internal Assumptions and Beliefs

This is their Agenda (Big ‘A’ agenda – the underlying need; not little ‘a’ agenda of a meeting)
Resistance is not dysfunctional; it’s trying to be helpful
Inability to converge or decide may mean there is something that needs to be discussed that has not been discussed

Practices

Always be asking ‘How can I best serve this group?’
Treating all actions by the group as data about what they really need
Meeting resistance with curiosity
Aware of the difference between the facilitators desire and what the group needs
Creating a space that allows for opposition to both process and content
Owning the process and being open to feedback about the process

4) Honor the Wisdom of the Group

Related to Stand in the Storm, mentioned earlier, this principle, at its core is about trust. Trusting that the group has it’s own wisdom and developing an environment where each member of the team can grow, stretch and achieve as a respected and valued collaborator. Everyone on the team has both wisdom to learn and wisdom to share.

Internal Assumptions and Beliefs

Trust in the collective intelligence, capacity, and experience of the group
People are more committed to what they have helped to create
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
Diversity and difference enhance the outcome
Inclusiveness and engagement of all is needed
An environment of trust will lead to participation by all
The group already has all it needs, my job is to help them access that knowledge

Practices

Create a container that fosters trust, connection, and inclusiveness
Design group processes that engage the whole group
Make it safe for all voices
Ask for the opposing voice
Find the thread that leads to consensus, and help the group pull it through

5) Uphold the Agile Mindset

In practice, this principle can be agility itself: mindset, methods, and actions. There’s a foundational belief that a facilitator can help the team adapt the agile practices in the moment while still upholding the agile values and principles. Best accomplished by modeling agile values and maintaining a servant leadership stance.

Internal Assumptions and Beliefs

I honor the values and principles of the agile mindset, and use it to inform group processes, both planned and in the moment
I hold the agile mindset, lightly, so that the way the group holds the mindset can be prominent
I understand the agile practices well enough to support the team
I can adapt the agile practices in the moment while still upholding the agile values

Practices

Model agile practices
Adapt the practices based on the performance, maturity, and needs of the team
Embrace a lean/agile mindset
Lead with servant leadership

Five Guiding Principles In Action

These are, on the surface, simple principles. You’ve likely noticed in the sections of internal assumptions and practices that it can get complex quickly. Each guiding principle offers its own complex, rich lessons and dynamics. In future posts, we’ll take deeper dives into these complexities with specific examples of each principle in action. We’ll show what they are in action…and what they aren’t too.

For now, which of these principles feels like a mindset that you already hold – it comes naturally for you?

Which principle feels more like a stretch?

What’s one belief you might “try on” in an upcoming meeting?

What actions would you take that might be different from what you have done in the past?

Do you want to learn how to facilitate guiding principles?