facilitation

3 Great Ways to Maintain Neutrality in Meetings as the Facilitator

Whether your meeting takes place in person or virtually, someone has to be in charge of the meeting. Someone has to lead and guide and be in charge of the agenda time keeping and more. That someone is the facilitator. But how does a facilitator go about maintaining neutrality especially when the stakes are high?

Facilitation is a skill that when put into practice, can continue to grow, expand and be refined. TeamCatapult has been teaching a variety of Facilitation workshops for years. To check out a sampling of our upcoming facilitation offerings, start here.

What is maintaining neutrality?

Maintaining neutrality refers to remaining impartial and unbiased in any given situation. It involves setting aside:

personal opinions
emotions
preconceived notions

in order to approach a matter objectively.

When someone maintains neutrality, they strive to gather diverse perspectives, evaluate information critically, and make decisions based on facts rather than personal biases. Neutrality requires self-awareness, open-mindedness, and a willingness to consider different viewpoints without favoring one side over another.

Maintaining neutrality does not mean being indifferent or passive, but rather actively engaging in thoughtful analysis while refraining from taking sides.

By maintaining neutrality, individuals can promote fairness, respect different opinions, and contribute to constructive dialogues and peace or conflict resolution processes.

Let’s learn more about how to remain neutral in different situations, including how to stay neutral at work!

What is the concept of neutrality?

The concept of neutrality revolves around the idea of remaining impartial and unbiased in various contexts. Neutrality implies not taking sides or favoring one position over another. It involves a state of objectivity where personal opinions, emotions, and prejudices are set aside to approach a situation or issue from a neutral standpoint.

Neutrality is often sought in areas such as mediation, journalism, diplomacy, and conflict resolution, where it is important to maintain fairness and promote open dialogue. It requires individuals to be aware of their own biases, actively seek diverse perspectives, and make decisions based on reliable information and evidence.

While achieving complete neutrality may be challenging, the concept serves as a guiding principle to encourage the principles of impartiality, respect for differing views, and the pursuit of balanced and unbiased judgments.

How do you develop neutrality?

Developing neutrality requires a conscious effort and ongoing practice. Here are some steps you can take to develop neutrality:

Self-reflection: Take the time to reflect on your own beliefs, biases, and emotions.
Seek diverse perspectives: Actively expose yourself to a range of viewpoints and opinions, especially those that differ from your own.
Question assumptions: Challenge your own assumptions and preconceived notions.
Practice empathy: Try to understand and empathize with the experiences, emotions, and motivations of others, even if you disagree with them.
Verify information: Ensure that the information you rely on is accurate and reliable. Fact-check claims and seek out reputable sources of information. .
Engage in critical thinking: Develop your critical thinking skills to evaluate information and arguments objectively.
Practice emotional detachment: While acknowledging emotions is important, strive to separate your emotions from your analysis of a situation.
Consider long-term consequences: Look beyond immediate outcomes and consider the potential long-term effects of different positions or decisions.
Stay informed: Continuously educate yourself on various topics and stay informed about current events.
Practice patience and humility: Developing neutrality is an ongoing process, and it’s important to be patient with yourself.

Why is it important to maintain neutrality when facilitating?

Maintaining neutrality when facilitating is important because it creates an environment of fairness and inclusivity. Neutrality allows facilitators to be impartial, ensuring that all participants feel respected and have an equal opportunity to contribute. It fosters open dialogue by creating a safe space where individuals can freely express their thoughts and opinions.

Neutrality is particularly vital in conflict resolution, as it helps facilitators navigate disputes without bias, guiding participants toward mutual understanding.

By remaining neutral, facilitators build trust among participants, promote fairness in decision-making, and minimize power dynamics in conflicts. Ultimately, neutrality is essential for effective facilitation, enabling a collaborative and productive process.

What does maintaining neutrality mean to a facilitator?

The facilitator of a collaborative meeting brings the objective and unbiased view to a group process, so that all voices can be heard and the team can access its collective intelligence.

How can this be achieved? It is done by maintaining neutrality on the facilitator’s part.

How can someone remain neutral?

Remaining neutral can be challenging, especially in situations where emotions or personal biases are involved. However, here are some strategies that can help someone strive for neutrality:

Awareness of personal biases: Recognize your own biases and understand how they might influence your perception and judgment. Be aware of any preconceived notions or prejudices you may have and make a conscious effort to set them aside.
Gather diverse perspectives: Seek out different viewpoints and opinions on the matter at hand. Engage in open-minded discussions with people who hold different beliefs or perspectives. This will help you broaden your understanding and challenge any inherent biases.
Critical thinking: Develop strong critical thinking skills to analyze information objectively. Evaluate evidence, assess logical arguments, and question assumptions. Rely on facts and data rather than emotions or personal anecdotes.
Practice empathy: Try to understand and empathize with all parties involved in a conflict or debate. Put yourself in their shoes and consider their motivations, experiences, and emotions. This can help you develop a more balanced and compassionate perspective.
Maintain emotional detachment: While it’s important to acknowledge and understand emotions, try to separate your own emotions from the situation. Emotional attachment can cloud judgment and lead to bias. Take a step back and approach the issue with a rational and calm mindset.
Consider the long-term consequences: Look beyond immediate outcomes and consider the potential long-term effects of different positions or decisions. Take into account the broader impact on individuals, groups, or society as a whole.
Seek reliable information: Ensure that you have access to accurate and trustworthy information. Rely on reputable sources and verify facts before forming an opinion. Avoid relying solely on biased or sensationalized media.
Take time for reflection: Before forming a conclusion or taking a position, take the time to reflect on the information you have gathered. Give yourself space to think critically and weigh different perspectives.
Accept uncertainty: Recognize that some issues may not have clear-cut solutions or that there may be unknown factors at play. Embrace the idea that it’s okay to have doubts or be uncertain about certain matters.
Be open to changing opinions: As new information emerges or as you gain more insights, be willing to reevaluate your stance. Being neutral means being open to reconsidering your position based on the available evidence.

Remember, achieving complete neutrality may not always be possible or necessary, as certain situations may call for taking a stance. However, by consciously striving for neutrality, you can become more objective and open-minded in your approach to various issues.

How can someone maintain neutrality in a meeting?

Maintaining neutrality in a meeting requires setting clear expectations for respectful dialogue, actively listening to participants without judgment, and suspending immediate conclusions.

As a facilitator, it is important to remain impartial, create a safe space for open discussion, and ensure equal participation. Focus on understanding each participant’s perspective, seeking clarification when needed, and basing discussions on facts and evidence.

Manage conflicts constructively, mediating discussions towards mutually acceptable solutions. Reflect on personal biases and triggers that may influence neutrality. Take notes to accurately capture contributions and summarize key points.

Follow up with fairness by implementing decisions transparently and treating all participants equitably. Maintaining neutrality in meetings requires ongoing commitment, self-awareness, and a dedication to fostering an inclusive and impartial environment.

What not to do when trying to remain neutral?

When trying to remain neutral, there are certain behaviors and actions that should be avoided.

First, it is important not to express personal biases or opinions that may sway the discussion in a particular direction. Avoid favoring one side or individual over another, as this undermines the goal of impartiality.

Next, do not dismiss or ignore perspectives that differ from your own. All viewpoints should be given a fair consideration and respect, even if they challenge your own beliefs. It is crucial not to let emotions overpower rational thinking or engage in personal attacks during discussions. Such behaviors hinder the maintenance of a neutral and respectful environment.

Lastly, do not make hasty judgments or decisions without thoroughly examining all available information. Neutrality requires a thoughtful and objective evaluation of facts and evidence. By avoiding these pitfalls, one can better defend and uphold neutrality and contribute to a fair and balanced discourse.

How is maintaining neutrality achieved?

The facilitator needs to own the process of the meeting while letting the participants own the content or topic.

Sounds easy?

Here is what it will look like.

As facilitator, you will need to engage in the following actions:

Setting the group’s direction to an agreed-upon outcome
Making process moves about how the group will work
Asking questions of the group
Building bridges between competing ideas
Sharing what you see happening in the group’s process without judgement.

While this might sound easy, it is not. In fact, some would argue that being completely neutral is not possible, that everything we say and do will be informed by our bias.

I do think it’s possible to maintain neutrality – especially if your focus is on the process not the content.

In this article, we will look at three ways to maintain neutrality.

1 Plan ahead: know before you go!

Before facilitating a meeting, it is important to know why the team is meeting and what they hope to accomplish. In addition, it’s important to know who is attending the meeting and who else needs to be in the room with this group.

This ‘Planning and Design for Facilitation’ needs to happen before the facilitator steps foot in the room.

Are you a facilitator? Plan to spend 2.5 times the length of the upcoming meeting on planning and design. Meaning that if the meeting is a 2-hour meeting, planning and design will take about 5 hours.

2 Grab a partner: share neutral leadership

Being the sole facilitator can be hard. Sharing neutral leadership means sharing the work of facilitation by rotating this role among the team members. It means having everyone take a turn owning the process and stepping out of the content.

This powerful practice of sharing neutral leadership serves two purposes. It helps you the facilitator develop your own skill set around maintaining neutrality and it develops the group’s ability to dig for their solutions with more trust.

3 Ask for feedback and support

Have I shared yet how ‘tricky’ maintaining neutrality is? Setting up a feedback process is essential for learning what is and what isn’t working.

This part is not about asking participants whether they liked the facilitation, it’s about determining if the group reached their desired outcomes through the facilitation process and if they held conversations that needed to be had.

Co-facilitation means having someone else in the room who can see the examples of where you might have slipped out of neutrality and can help you reflect on why it happened.

Co-facilitation is a great way to receive feedback, as long as you partner with someone more experienced.

More on co-facilitation

Co-facilitation refers to a collaborative approach in which two or more facilitators work together to lead a group or guide a process. It involves sharing the responsibilities and tasks associated with facilitation, such as planning, designing activities, managing discussions, and ensuring the overall success of the facilitated session or event.

Co-facilitation offers several advantages.

First, it brings a diversity of skills, expertise, and perspectives to the facilitation process, enriching the experience for participants. Each co-facilitator can contribute their unique strengths and knowledge, leading to a more comprehensive and well-rounded facilitation.

Second, it provides support and backup for each facilitator. If one facilitator encounters challenges or needs assistance, the other facilitators can step in to maintain the flow of the session and provide assistance as needed. This helps ensure a smooth facilitation process, especially in situations where unexpected issues arise or when dealing with larger groups.

Co-facilitation can enhance participant engagement and involvement. With multiple facilitators, there are more opportunities to interact with participants, address individual needs, and create a dynamic and interactive environment. Co-facilitators can take turns leading discussions, moderating activities, and providing individual support, resulting in a more inclusive and participatory experience for participants.

It promotes reflection and learning among facilitators. By working together, facilitators can observe and learn from each other’s styles, techniques, and approaches. They can provide feedback, share insights, and continuously improve their facilitation skills through collaboration and mutual support.

Learning more about maintaining neutrality

If you’re interested in learning more about maintaining neutrality in business, here are a few books that can provide valuable insights:

“Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High” by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler: While not solely focused on neutrality, this book offers practical strategies for engaging in difficult conversations and handling high-stakes situations with fairness and respect.
“Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making” by Sam Kaner, Lenny Lind, Catherine Toldi, Sarah Fisk, and Duane Berger: This guidebook provides facilitators with tools and techniques to navigate group decision-making processes while maintaining neutrality and promoting inclusivity.
“Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most” by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen: This book explores effective communication techniques for handling challenging conversations in a variety of settings, including the business world. It offers insights on maintaining objectivity, managing emotions, and finding common ground.
“The Skilled Facilitator: A Comprehensive Resource for Consultants, Facilitators, Managers, Trainers, and Coaches” by Roger Schwarz: This resource focuses on facilitation skills and techniques for creating collaborative and neutral environments. It covers topics such as managing group dynamics, promoting open dialogue, and facilitating effective decision-making.
“Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In” by Roger Fisher and William Ury: While primarily focused on negotiation, this classic book offers valuable guidance on maintaining neutrality, separating people from the problem, and finding win-win solutions in business interactions.
“The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization” by Peter Senge: This influential book emphasizes the importance of systems thinking and creating a learning culture within organizations. It explores concepts such as personal mastery, mental models, and dialogue, which can contribute to maintaining neutrality and fostering effective communication.

Last but not least, read “The Art & Science of Facilitation”

The Art & Science of Facilitation Book

You are invited to learn more about facilitation, our workshops and ‘The Art & Science of Facilitation‘ book and Virtual Book Tour, and download this FREE resource, The Facilitation Planning Toolkit!

Lastly, we extend an invitation to those who are ready to gain team coaching competency and confidence, including facilitation and agile team coaching by learning about our Coaching Agility From Within Cohort.

Ready to learn about the Five Guiding Principles of an Agile Team Facilitation Stance, start now.

What Kind of Leader Do You Aspire to Become in 2022?

We are all leaders. We create the world we live in and are shaped by the world we live in. As we look back, and celebrate, the accomplishments of the agile movement over the past 20 years we will look through the lens of leadership.

What role have “individuals and interactions” played in developing agility? What will be required of us, as leaders of collaboration, into the future?

I’ll share my story on the history of agile facilitation and coaching and encourage you to explore yours! Through sharing stories and exploring conversations you will craft your intention for leading into the future.

What kind of leader do you want to be in 2022?

Your Words Are Magic, and They Matter

In the book The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz, he explains that you can use your words for white magic; to create good in the world, or as black magic; to create chaos and spread negativity.

I like to think of this as my energy or emotions when I speak. If I’m fearful, feeling bad, angry, or upset, I’m not in integrity with my true self and my words can disrupt and hurt.

If I’m coming from a place of joy, love, abundance, feeling good and in alignment with what I value, then I’m coming from a place of white magic.

Several years ago I was leading a coaching and facilitation cohort. I had just finished watching the movie ‘Divergent’ and there was something in the movie that spoke to me and it had me thinking about divergence in group processes and how we need it. I showed up to the group call and we did a check-in – this is our way of speaking into the space about how we are each arriving and a bit of intention setting – what we want to get out of the call. I was so focused on divergence that I checked in with that intention. Well, my one take away from that call was that my words matter. Never again would I freely tempt the energy of a group by stating things that I did not want to actually see happen. Everything diverged on that call. My technology stopped working, I was dropped from the call and a whole series of divergent thoughts emerged.

If ever I doubted this notion of how words matter, that night cleared up any doubt I ever had.

How We Think is How We Lead

I recently wrote in my new book, The Art and Science of Facilitation, that ‘How We Think is How We Lead’.

Leaders are made, not born and we are all leaders – even my daughter as a five year old demonstrated leadership. Leadership is how we think and respond in the moment.

Aligning my values with my actions is the leadership work to do. And then being able to use my emotions as a guidance system that helps me know when I’m out of alignment with what I value.

Doing this mindset work paves the path for greater self-awareness and is the doorway to the most fully creative, capable and competent version of myself.

This is where I can truly be agile

The Principle of Intention

If words are magic and my mindset influences how I lead, then being clear about my intention seems important.

In the book Seat of the Soul by Gary Zuchochf he talks about the power of intention. He says:

“Every action, thought, and feeling is motivated by an intention, and that intention is a cause that exists as one with an effect. If we participate in the cause, it is not possible for us not to participate in the effect. In this most profound way we are held responsible for our every action, thought, and feeling, which is to say, for our every intention.”

It’s why as leaders, we are responsible for our intent and our impact. If you’ve ever given someone feedback and they have said in return “well that wasn’t my intent”: we can’t own just part of that equation, we have to own the whole thing. The intent and the impact – even if they are not the same.

When I facilitate or coach a team – my first question to the team is always:

What do you want the outcome to be?
How do you want to contribute to it?
Who do you want to be in the room if things go off the rails?

In my private coaching practice, I am often asking leaders “Who do you want to be at this moment?”

It’s this sense of intention that sets the energy for our interactions and energy is everything.

Intention is Law

The third law of physics states that for every action (force) in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction. In other words, if object A exerts a force on object B, then object B also exerts an equal and opposite force on object A.

Intention is everything.

The Agile Manifesto

The manifesto is a beautifully stated, simple intention.

“We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it.”

Now the challenge with intention setting is that it’s just that. It says – we want to improve how this works and help others do it.

The Challenge with Simplicity

The challenge with simplicity, especially for us linear thinkers, is that we say “Yes! Yes, I want that!”

Collaborate
Trust others
Respond to Change
Self-Organize
Create the Environment
Conversation is the most effective way to communicate

And then the next question is, but how?

I went looking for the process, the step by step guide to how to make it happen. I even had the nickname ‘process chick’ – the one who creates the process for what we do.

My Agile Story

The manifesto resonated with me because by 2001 I was working with a team and we had been experimenting with Extreme Programming since 1999. And I was just starting to see something in ‘agile’ that was far beyond development practices.

In 1994, 5 years earlier, I came to the world of professional facilitation – and it was the first time I had my eyes opened to the idea of group process. That there was a way to focus on the group

process so that the group could focus on their content and move the conversation along. I found these skills life changing – it forever changed my view of my own leadership and how I thought about my role in conversations.

By 1999 I had been practicing facilitation for about 5 years and desperately wanted developers, project managers and graphic artists to see the power of facilitation. But back in those days we called them ‘soft skills’ and there was not much appetite for them.

But what this agile manifesto was doing was introducing the notion of people and behaviors into the concept of development.

Through the values and intentions set in the manifesto of individuals and interactions and collaboration – I saw agile paving the way for bridging this processes oriented side – of what we do -with the people and behavior side of ‘“How” we work together.

It’s easy to say let’s collaborate but anyone who has been part of a collaboration that didn’t go well, will understand first hand that the human behavior side is the messy part. There is no playbook for that.

Now, this was also the moment that I decided I wanted to be the one to teach others about the people side of the equation.

Agile Gratitude: Listening To All Voices

Little did I know at the time just how little I knew about myself and working with human interactions. My unconscious incompetence was high. As I have reflected on the past 20 years I am humbled today by just how little I knew then and possibly how much more I have to learn in the future. But I’m grateful for so many learnings along the way. I’m grateful for self awareness and having more command of my own behaviors in the moment.

The agile movement has been one of my greatest teachers.

It has made it okay to talk about humans and interactions with engineers and managers.

I am grateful that today we talk freely and openly about collaboration. We don’t debate the need for the human side of this equation and there is value seen in the ability to bring both.

It is this gratitude that leads to one of my first intentions, which is that I am the kind of leader who bridges the human being and the technical so that all voices are heard.

Humility

We need all three communication domains—Power, Affect, Meaning— and I’ve learned to bring more balance into my leadership range and also set a clear intention that speaking about feelings is crucial to our ability to be in conversation and relationship with one another.

When organizations try to manage out any one of those communication domains it creates cultural traps and results in people feeling not heard.

Just like there is no one model of agility – there is no one model of leadership.

Agile Gratitude: Growing Leadership Range and Working with Difference

I have gratitude for finding range in my leadership. I have a deep appreciation that leadership can and does look different – and we need them all. Just because someone says it or does it differently does not make them less effective or impactful. It just makes them different.

And gratitude for difference and the ability to work with difference.

I am the kind of leader who brings range in my leadership so others can show up as their full selves too.

Big Magic

In her book Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert wrote something really profound. It was about ideas, and intention setting, and choosing what to say yes and no to.

“I believe that our planet is inhabited not only by animals and plants and bacteria and viruses, but also by ideas. Ideas are a disembodied, energetic life-form. They are completely separate from us, but capable of interacting with us—albeit strangely. Ideas have no material body, but they do have consciousness, and they most certainly have will. Ideas are driven by a single impulse: to be made manifest. And the only way an idea can be made manifest in our world is through collaboration with a human partner. It is only through a human’s efforts that an idea can be escorted out of the ether and into the realm of the actual. Therefore, ideas spend eternity swirling around us, searching for available and willing human partners. When an idea thinks it has found somebody—say, you—who might be able to bring it into the world, the idea will pay you a visit.

The idea will try to wave you down but when it finally realizes that you’re oblivious to its message, it will move on to someone else.

But sometimes – rarely, but magnificently – there comes a day when you’re open and relaxed to actually receive something. And you will start to notice all sorts of signs pointing you toward the idea. The idea will wake you up in the middle of the night and distract you from your daily work. “

~ Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert

I don’t know about you but I’ve had many ideas visit me. I’ve said no to some. And I’ve also said yes to many.

Agile Gratitude: Collaborations

I’m grateful for collaborations and collective intelligence.

I’m grateful for lifelong friends and partnerships that have endured the test of time.

I’m grateful for Collective intelligence. When you can look at something and say ‘we created that’ because it was through the conversation that new insights emerged and the final product could not be traced back to any one person – it emerged from the collective thinking.

I’m grateful for the world-wide impact that the track has had – far beyond what I ever thought might happen.

I’m grateful that we don’t generally have conversations in agility like ‘what is facilitation’ or ‘what is coaching’ and why would I need to know how to do that when I work with development teams?

We worried if we were setting the bar too high back then. We were not sure if people would find resonance or value in the learning guide we were creating.

I am the kind of leader who grows other leaders and creates space for collective intelligence.

How to Start a Movement

When your parent, aunt/uncle, or grandparent asks you ‘what is agile’? How do you answer them? I find it difficult to summarize a movement.

Agile is…a movement

A movement is not about the leader or the first follower, it’s about the movement. Agile isn’t owned by anyone. It’s had many lone nuts and first followers. It’s visible and collaborative and it requires leaders who have the courage to follow and nurture other followers.

The intention of the manifesto – was profound – to change the way we work. Change of that magnitude is messy. I had no idea the personal, inner growth that would be required of me in order to really lean into agile ways of working and leading

It’s not linear. It can’t be planned.

It needs process, leadership, dynamics, tools, frameworks, books, new competencies, new ways of leading. And today agile is spanning boundaries

But what I’m grateful for is the durability of the movement. It’s been 20 years and it’s still relevant. We are still talking about it. Reflecting on it. And iterating.

Although it took HBR until 2017 to give a formal acknowledgement that Agile was a relevant conversation to be having amongst the leadership team. Who could have imagined that 20 years later we would be talking about Business Agility, HR Agility, Finance, etc.

Agile Gratitude: A Movement with Durability

I’m grateful that I find it difficult to summarize in one sentence to my parents what ‘agile’ is. It’s not easily definable today and for that i’m grateful.

What if we can’t get it wrong?

The downside of a movement is that it cannot be confined or constrained. There are many that would argue we’ve lost our way. It’s too commercialized, productized, too soft and touchy, too esoteric, too much of an echo chamber, too tool driven, too polarized, too far from the roots of development, too focused on leadership, too big, etc. you get my point – and you might have your own that you would add.

But what if we can’t get it wrong?

What if the agile movement is exactly where it’s supposed to be? What if this is exactly what the movement needs to look like right now?

See, if everything were perfect then the work would be done. But this is about continuous improvement. Every time we see something that you want to critique, what if we turn it around and ask ourselves:

What Am I Longing For?

In 1999, the predominant way to get a facilitator for your team was to hire a professional facilitator. As I looked around in 2011 I thought this is absolutely crazy. Why would we save the skills of facilitation and coaching for an outside consultant or coach?

Not that you might never call on help from the outside. But day to day? We need everyone – agile coach, project manager, product owner, team members, engineers, executives – all to have the skill of leading collaborative conversations and change.

I am longing for teams to have access to their collective intelligence. This longing and intention has informed much of what I have done since then.

What if every time you have an impulse to criticize or point out what’s missing, that’s actually an idea circling you – trying to get your attention.

What if that is a moment of Big Magic calling you forward to make a decision, set an intention and be the first lone nut?

Buckminster Fuller said:

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

~ Buckminster Fuller

The reality of agility is not something to fight. It’s something to embrace. We are where we are! The question is, where are we going? What is the intention that you will set for yourself?

Making the Decision

Intention is everything. Setting an intention and making the clear decision to stick to it sets a whole world of possibility in motion.

William Murray said:

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans. That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.”

Setting an intention is the most important work to do.

I believe that we are all inherently working towards a greater purpose that we were put here on this earth for a greater reason. For some of us our greater calling can manifest in the way we are working and in the movement that we call ‘Agile’.

If we’re all here working towards the same thing then let’s be intentional about how we do it!

What Kind of Leader Do You Want to Be?

Set the intention, and claim it! Make the decision today.

What will be required of us, as leaders of agility, into the future? How can you be in service to your team? To your customer? To the future of agility? Create from the moment.

What’s your intention?

Be in your own leadership. Be intentional about how you show up and engage with others. It matters and it makes a difference. When things get tough or feel overwhelming, change the narrative.

~ Marsha

3 Actionable Tips To Plan and Prepare For Your Next Team Meeting

As we look towards a new year coming soon (Hello, 2022!), we can’t help but look back to what 2021 brought us.

During the early stages of the pandemic in 2020, teams were left scrambling to try working together from quickly thrown-together home offices – and adapt to this new normal of working from home while being part of a team.

Once 2021 came around and everyone hit their stride, new meeting formats emerged, and dare we say, are here to stay!

Post-Pandemic Meeting Formats

While these meeting formats aren’t new, they are now seen and used across the board in almost all companies we work with.

IN-PERSON: means that everyone that is attending the meeting will be located in the same physical space.

HYBRID: means that there will be people attending In-Person and Virtually

VIRTUAL: means that everyone attending the meeting will be connecting online.

The facilitation process for each of these types of meetings starts with planning and designing! One of the most important questions to get an answer to is “Why are we meeting?”

Why Are We Meeting?

The facilitator designs the meeting. A great place to start is by drafting an agenda.

Here are the questions that need answers!

What’s the purpose?
What are the desired outcomes
Who needs to be there?
How long?
What are the decisions? Who will make them and how will they make them?
What degree of facilitation is needed?
Could it be an email instead?

3 Actionable Tips to Plan and Prepare for Your Next Team Meeting

Here are three actionable tips to reignite your meetings!

1 Conduct a sponsor interview

Planning a meeting begins by envisioning what will have happened by the end of the meeting that will have made it successful “Start with the end in mind.”

An interview with the meeting sponsor, the person who will benefit from the outcome of the meeting, will help you identify the purpose and style of the meeting you are planning. If it’s more of a ‘tell’ vs ‘ask’ kind of meeting, you might need less design.

The more interaction, participation and input you are seeking from the group, the more planning and design time will be required.

2 Determine the type of meeting and degree of facilitation needed

Not every meeting needs a high degree of facilitation planning and design, but every meeting could benefit from someone who is able to step into the role of a facilitator, maintain neutrality and keep the conversation moving. Meetings that benefit greatly from intentional planning and design are meetings where new ideas and decision making are needed.

3 Create an agenda in question format

Most meeting agendas are written in phrases that refer to the topics as a noun like “release plan” or “team picnic” and include a verb in front like “discuss” or “decide”.

So the agenda might look like this:

Discuss risks
Decide on next release features

Here’s the challenge, how do we know when we’re done ‘discussing’ or when we’re ready to ‘decide’. It’s ambiguous and can be uninviting or confusing to participants.

Instead, view the meeting agenda as an opportunity to invite participants into a space to think together. Help them get warmed up by giving them an agenda in the format of questions to be answered.

5 Steps to Plan Your Next Team Meeting

Here are 5 steps the facilitator should take to ensure a successful team meeting.

Capture the meeting purpose.
Capture the outcomes.
Identify all the questions the team must answer that will lead to the answer of the meeting purpose and outcomes.
Identify the logical order for the team to answer the questions.
Send the agenda to participants ahead of time.

It’s imperative the facilitator carries this plan through during the meetings. That means the following:

Display the purpose, outcomes and agenda at the start so everyone can see them.
Review the meeting’s purpose, outcomes and agenda and answer any questions, if appropriate. Check for alignment from the group and address any issues, like not having the right people in the meeting or people thinking they were coming for a different purpose.

Next, read ‘How to Create Purposeful, Intentional Space for Effective Team Collaboration’ to learn more about facilitating hybrid meetings and download our FREE Facilitation Planning Toolkit!

How to Facilitate Meetings Like A Pro – and Get Results (Part 1)

Are you ready to lay the foundation for leading engaging and productive meetings with purpose, clarity and confidence so that you can support agility within your teams?

The skills of facilitation and coaching are needed in our world. Over the past year and a half, we have adapted and found ways to be separate but connected.

In this two-part series, I want to share some strategies for facilitation that 100% still apply even if you are leading virtually.

As facilitators, we convene and host. Our primary focus is to identify the desired outcomes and then create a space that fosters connection, authenticity, trust, and sharing. We can do this remotely, just like we do in the room. I’ll be sharing principles for how to do just that!

Improving How You Facilitate: What That Looks Like

Whether you are a scrum master, agile coach, project manager or team lead, if you are charged with launching a new agile team or helping an existing team move toward higher performance, chances are you would like to improve the way you meet in some way.

Maybe…

You’re wanting to lead meetings that are valuable, that get people engaged, are productive, outcome oriented and are seen as a good use of people’s time
You know the agile practices really well but you are struggling with the effectiveness of your meetings
You want your meetings to be engaging and productive, and not a waste of time where people don’t want to participate
You are looking for a structured process for planning and designing your facilitated meetings, something that helps you add order to your planning rather than just ‘flying by the seat of your pants’ when you’re leading a meeting.
You want to lead highly effective, collaborative meetings with ease and confidence, which is something we teach in all of our programs at TeamCatapult

Mistakes You Might Be Making as You Facilitate

One of the challenges to facilitation is that when it’s done well you hardly know it’s happening and if the facilitator is really good you might not even notice them much at all. As a participant, you will likely be caught in the topic of conversation with the other participants.

This type of scenario can create one of the greatest mistakes in facilitation…

1 Believing that you can just do facilitation after having seen others make it look so easy.

Facilitation is a professional discipline and it’s both art and science. Good facilitators make it look easy, like all you need to do is grab a marker and head to a flip chart. Or open up a Zoom line and invite people to start collaborating. In reality there is ALOT going on for a facilitator. It takes formal training and practice! Just like playing the piano or flying a plane.

2 Are you participating rather than facilitating?

These are two different roles and depending on what’s at stake for you or your team, it’s SUPER easy to blur these lines. We’re going to talk today about ways to become more aware of this.

3 Not having a clearly designed purpose and agenda before the meeting starts.

You need to define these before you get to the meeting. Cutting short the planning and design phase or not doing any planning at all. Typically, a skilled facilitator will spend 2.5 times the meeting time just planning and designing a session. (And if you’re facilitating virtually or hybrid it’s more!)

Do you treat every decision in a collaborative meeting the same way? Or seek ‘agreement’ from the group on the decision? This is another common mistake!

4 Lack of clarity, for yourself and your team, about the role of a facilitator.

Believing that your role in the meeting is helping the group reach a decision that has already been made.

You’ve learned the agile practices, but a few months into implementation the excitement is wearing off and you are not seeing the results you had hoped for. Understanding the agile practices is not enough, agile is first and foremost about communication, collaboration, trust, and learning to see and navigate the human systems.

Mistakes I Made When I First Started Facilitating

Can I be frank? I made mistakes when I first started facilitating. Here are a few of my mistakes.

I overly controlled the meetings. I would ask a question of the group and then ask them to write their answers on a sticky note. I was very careful to let people speak, but only when I called on them. I never would ask an open ended question to the group. I was AFRAID that I would either get crickets or that the group would go completely off topic and I would look like I could not control the meeting. I’m sure some of those participants in my early meetings might tell you that they felt ‘overly managed’ during the meetings.

I drove my own agenda. I was ensuring that people just went through the motions of what they were asked to do. But we left all sorts of other topics on the table that were never really addressed.

I only got input from the leader or meeting sponsor – not the team on what the meeting should be about. That led to multiple sessions where I got blindsided by issues that were surfaced during a meeting and I really had no idea how to handle them or what to do when they were surfaced. I was a consultant and feared looking stupid or not being seen as valuable if I had to get a group to come up with a solution. I needed to prove my value in some way.

Facilitation Done Right!

It wasn’t until many years later that I learned how to

really connect a group
have greater awareness of my own beliefs about the group and understand what a profound impact my beliefs had on my ability to work with a group
to let go of control, to turn it over to the group,
to really listen to what people needed or were trying to say.

These were profound shifts in my mindset which allowed me to move from just instructing people to write on sticky notes but never really get at the heart of the real issue, to leading meetings that really got at the heart of what was blocking the team, not just to support the team in continuing their same patterns.

You can learn this advanced facilitation process as well.

In the meantime, read Part 2 of this series:

‘How to Lead Engaging and Productive Meetings’ and download this free Facilitation Planning Toolkit!

How to Help a Team Become More Agile: Upholding the Agile Mindset

Upholding the agile mindset is the fifth principle of the Agile Team Facilitation Stance.

The five principles include:

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

If you are responsible for helping a team become more agile, and are looking for a way to assist a team adopt agility without telling them what to do, this is a good place to start.

It’s the Unique Position You Hold as a Part of the Team!

Agile facilitation is not unique because of the skills of facilitation it requires. What sets you apart as an agile facilitator is the unique position you hold as a part of the team.

As a member of the team, when facilitating, your role is to stand apart from the team.

This ‘dualism’ causes tension for many new facilitators.

Therefore it is important to acknowledge that if you are standing solidly in the other four principles of facilitation, you’ll be just fine – even if you don’t uphold the mindset of agility. You are still facilitating, you just won’t be supporting agility.

The Agile Mind Does Not Equate to Tools and Practices

Facilitating while upholding the agile mindset starts with one simple premise:

“You are the guardian of the values and principles of the agile mindset, not the adjuster of the agile practices.”

Telling people what to do, forcing process, or not listening to what’s happening on the team is not what upholding the agile mindset is about.

Upholding the agile mindset does not look like defending the use of retrospectives as a tried-and-true method of starting conversations.

So, what is and what does upholding an agile mindset look like?

Become the Guardian of the Values and Principles

When a team gets bored, or things aren’t working when leaning on practices in a particular agile framework, it’s time to look beyond what you know.

Lead the team and find inspiration in the practices that others have created, and try them.

You can’t ‘break agile’ when trying something new.

In part, your job as a facilitator is to help teams adapt by inventing their own framework for agility!

In David Kantor’s “Reading the Room” he observes that we all model build.

When we learn a new process, theory or skill set, we imitate first, then we feel constrained, and finally we create something new. We make it our own.

It Starts with Practice

Focusing on upholding the agile mindset means learning how to bridge the divide between principles and practices. It’s what we do in the moment. As facilitator, you’re the one who is able to help a team see where they might be living into the agile values – and where they might not be.

Four ways to practice upholding the Agile Mindset

Develop a deep understanding of the agile practices and mindset
Assess how agile the team is and ask, “Am I the right facilitator?”
Uncover the key for upholding agility with this particular team
Provide process, not solutions

In my book ‘The Art & Science of Facilitation’ based on the five principles of the Agile Team Facilitations Stance, I take a deep dive into each of these lessons.

Last Thoughts on Upholding an Agile Mindset

Upholding the agile mindset is not about convincing a team to buy into agile. It’s about helping a team focus on how they work.

It’s about looking for ways to improve how they work so that they can be more effective, empowered, enjoy their work, and experience better outcomes.

Agility in action can look different for different teams. What’s needed is a critical reflection about how well we’re doing at any given moment lives into and upholds the core values and principles.