Creative tools / Beyond the blah blah / Atlassian community event / Ultimate skills workshop / Is it information or consultation?

Cut through the blah blah

It's a question we can wonder - how do we grab someone's attention or alert them to important information, how do we cut through all of the noise and information we're overloaded with.

If you've seen any of my 'stuff' you'll know I use visuals as a clever tool; for myself and my own thinking and for engaging, communicating and collaborating with others.

Oh, and it's a great influence tool too!

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Atlassian Community - Melbourne - Lynne Cazaly

Atlassian community - Melbourne

Join me at the next community event in Melbourne on July 24. I’ll speak about information overload and cognitive load coping as a modern way of working. The agenda is stacked with clever - not to be missed. Register here

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4 of my creative tools

This article prompted me to share some more insight about my creative processes.

This is a little more about the art we do ourselves and it doesn’t have to be that paint/draw/clay art you might think about when you see the word ‘art’.

Here are 4 ways I use art and creativity in my life and I know these help me feel better, get me through the shitty tough times in life (cancer, covid, grief), inspire and yet relax me, and give me ideas out of the … nowhere!!

Here we go :

1. SKETCHING and DOODLING

If you’ve seen my presentations, read my books, been in my workshops or read my posts you’ll see I use visuals. From originally using marker + paper 10 years ago, I’ve more regularly used an iPad + Pencil and many different apps. I make visuals for purposeful communication but also like ‘farting around’ 🤪 to see what I can do. Not trying to be perfect; just exploring and wondering. I'm running a skills workshop on this.

2. IMPROVISATION

For many years I’ve been a fan, audience member, student and now performer in shows with Impro Melbourne. There’s comedy improv we likely know but there’s also the learning and unleashing and making up stories improv. The spontaneity, narrative, stories, word play, characters and communication that improv gives me is multi-player, multi-level and multi-world stuff! There’s so much to learn yet it’s such a playful and creative art. I’m better with improv in my life and I feel blah and meh when it’s not part of my art.

3. WRITING

Yes I’ve written books, posts and blogs and some have called me ‘a machine’. But it is also creativity. I have a thought — oh my, lots and lots of thoughts — and I explore the thought with the written word. Are you imagining me sitting diligently at my laptop? No. I’m messy scribbling things in a journal, onto sticky notes all over the dining table, into a notes app. Anywhere. I love thinking deeply about things and writing with a marker from Muji and any paper or my digital device/s whether in a notes app or via voice to text.

4. FIBRE ARTS

This is my most recent creative arting. I’ve done a few basket weaving workshops and they’re wonderful but too small, constrained, prescriptive and ‘do it like this’.

I love the materials — leaves, vines, palms, sticks sticks give me sticks - I stop the car to ‘pick up sticks’ and add to my growing collection. Wonderfully surprising to me is how this art is evolving - I will be having an exhibition 7-27 October 2024 in Melbourne at Gasworks Arts Park in Port Melbourne. Details to come. I have more sticks to collect and things to make.

So there are 4 of my creative arts that mean I am a human and not a machine. That I think deeply, care even deeper and want to feel good about myself in this world like the rest of us.

Art is an essential.

Let me know, do you art, and what do you do?

And here's the article that inspired my thoughts...

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Invited to a consultation but it was an information dump - by Lynne Cazaly

Invited to a consultation -- but it was just more information

You know all of those consultations and conversations - promoted that way - but in reality, when we're there in the meeting, in the workshop, it's just more information?

If we're leading the consultation or meeting, we may not know how best to explain which pieces truly are for consultation and which bits are already set in stone.

We might fear the tension or conflict of people annoyed that they didn't get a say in a process.

Or we might ask for input secretly knowing nothing they say is going to make a shred of difference.

Sadly, then, we 'dress up' an information dump as consultation.

People give their thoughts, ideas and opinions and are of course annoyed when none of them are really recognised, acted on or implemented.

It's a modern day work pattern and it wastes plenty of time, effort, energy and ... performance theatre. It's also a part of the cynical cycle where we can't be bothered contributing to a consultation because ... 'well nothing ever happened with what we said anyway".

You can hear the cynicism and feel the defeatist feelings.

Check now:

• Where and when are you planning on consulting with people in your business?
• And exactly which pieces of information are you going to consult with them on?

If there's plenty of informing or information dumping on them, choose other ways than the valuable real time face-to-face meeting or workshop.

Make a video! A short one.

Go more asynchronous rather than a synchronous meeting.

And most of all, don't dress up an information session as consultation or worse... collaboration!

Is it for information only

The difference between being invited for consultation and information are so, so different. 

Yet they’re often substituted. 

🔅‘Please comment on this change’ is different to ‘this change is happening’. 

🔅‘What do you think of this proposed process’ is different to ‘things will change on the 8th of the month’. 

🔅’What’s your advice on this idea’ is different to ‘here’s how things are going to be’. 

Check if it’s really consultation or just information. 

Don’t invite people to a forum if there’s no discussion, input, invitation or conversation. 

That’s information. 

If it’s all PowerPoint and the same heads talking ... that’s information, not consultation. 

Sadly, many people are so ready to give their ideas and suggestions, but there’s no room. time or space for it. 

The newer world of work makes many more opportunities available for co-creation, consultation and collaboration ... not just communication. 

It’s acknowledging that people have plenty clever, creativity and ingenuity to share ... to help solve tricky problems, deliver greater value and make faster change. 

That’s richer than ‘for your information’. 

What can you turn from information into consultation? 

Engage BS* detector: "We want to consult with you on this..."

As you respond to the volatile world of change out there, and work hard to engage and consult with people around you or with clients, customers and stakeholders, please please please, think first about how involved you want people to be.

How involved do you want people to be in the change, transformation or piece of work you’re leading?

You may want them fully empowered. Or perhaps this is about some consultation. Or something else. At each step or stage or leading change, keep asking yourself questions like: 

• Is this a briefing or transfer of information? (inform)
• Is it a consultative thing - I want to ask some questions and find out what they think? (consult)
• Do I need to involve them in the design or development of a process, product or service? (involve)
• Is it about collaboration: ‘let's work on this thing together’. (collaborate) 
• Do I want them to pick up the ball and run with it, to empower them so that they act and decide? (empower)

Whichever of these you'd like to make happen – and you may want to achieve several on one piece of work - you need to be clear, otherwise it can get awkward, disengaging and cause some further hiccups. 

When people say 'we want to consult with you on this...', I make sure my BS detector is switched on. Because they may have already made up their minds!

So here's a continuum or scale that can guide you. Get your goggles on: how low do you wanna go?

A Depth Gauge: How low do you want to go?

 Informing people about change is very much on the surface. You tell them, they listen. You move on.

But you can go further. When you consult with people, you’re getting under the surface, you’re asking them what they think, you want their views and those views may well impact the shape and size of things to come.

To go deeper is to involve people. How do they see things? What would they do? What do they think needs to happen? Get their ideas, their thoughts, their ways of thinking and seeing and bring them into the change.

Oh, yes you can go further. To collaborate with people, you go deeper. ‘Co’ means to work together. Now you’re talking, listening, meeting, co-creating, co-designing and co-delivering this thing together. Regularly. Often. Most of the time.

And even further you can go where people are empowered to design, create, deliver or implement a change or initiative. Give them power, decision making, financial, resource, timing: it’s theirs for the making.

I regularly use these five levels and ‘depths’ of involvement and participation (adapted from the International Association for Public Participation, or IAP2) to guide me in:

• how to prepare for engaging with a team,
• how to set up and design an environment a team is going to meet or work in,
• what processes they'll work through when I’m facilitating a meeting or workshop, and
• how to handle the stuff that happens during that team’s meetings, work, conversations and projects.

What you do as a leader makes a b-i-g difference in how well a group or team goes towards achieving an outcome. And how you set the scene is super important.

If they aren't engaging...

It's not ‘their fault' or 'up to them'. It's on you. If you've called a meeting, are facilitating a workshop, leading a piece of work or responsible for getting the outcome, it really helps to get clear about what you’re going to do when and how you'll engage them to make something good happen. 

Those crusty old days of workshops, meetings or conversations to 'discuss, decree and demolish' are gone. That's disengaging and ineffective. It’s super low engagement.

Start with this ‘depth gauge’ of participation and swim down to the levels that suit the outcome you're after and the people you’re leading. If it’s just about informing – stay on the surface. If it’s about collaboration, you’re going to have to go deeper, do more, design more and set things up so that people do indeed collaborate.

Just as a trained scuba diver plans their dive, maps out the use of their oxygen supplies and prepares their equipment, leaders too need to plan the depth of involvement and engagement with their teams, colleagues and stakeholders during times of change.

Take a big breath... and off you go. 

*BS: Bullsh*t (or Bullshit for the non edited version)

How involved do you want people to be?

When you next need to get input or contributions from people, or you need to consult with a team on something, think first: how involved do you want people to be? 

This really is the question - just how deeply involved?

It can get messy if you think one thing and they think another. 

This quick video outlines a depth of involvement and participation. Go on, get into it. 

 For further information, read up on the IAP2 process here

A Blueprint for Meetings, Workshops, Conversations

When you get people together - face to face or via a hookup - you need to make something happen. 

 
Is it a briefing or transfer of information?
Is it a consultative thing - you want to ask some questions and find out what they think.
 
Maybe you need to involve them in the design or development of a process, product or service.
Perhaps it's about collaboration: 'let's work on this thing together'. 
 
And sometimes you want them to pick up the ball and run with it, toempower them so that they act and decide.
 
Whichever of these you'd like to make happen, you need to start with that in mind. Here's a continuum or scale that can guide you:



I regularly use these five levels and depths of participation (adapted from the International Association for Public Participation - or IAP2) to guide me in:

• how to prepare for the gathering,
• how to set up and design the environment they'll meet in,
• what processes they'll work through and
• how to handle the stuff that happens during that meeting.

What you do as a leader will make a b-i-g difference in how well the group goes towards achieving the outcome. 

It's not "their fault' or 'up to them'. It's on you. 

If you've called the meeting, are facilitating or leading it or are responsible for getting the outcome, it really helps to get clear about why they are in the room (or dialled in remotely) and how you'll engage them to make something good happen. 

Those crusty old days of workshops or conversations to 'discuss, decree and demolish' are gone. That's disengaging and ineffective. 

Start with this Blueprint and zoom in on the levels that suit the outcome you're after. 

The meeting, workshop or conversation will be more productive, more engaging and the people who've given their time to be there will oh-so grateful you got this sorted!