Careful, your status is showing

Leaders in organisations, wherever they go, sit, leave, speak, eat ... come with status attached. It can't be hidden.

At a client workshop recently, about two hours in to the session, a senior leader tip-toed into the room, closing the door gently. They were trying not to disturb the session. But really? They couldn’t be missed.

😩

Their status comes in the door first!

At other workshops and meetings, many leaders have said, ‘ I’m not participating today, I’m just observing’.

Now even more of your status is showing.

As a modern leader in today’s work environment it’s wise to stop making yourself even more separate, different and higher.

There’s a decision to make : either be IN it with the team in the room, or get OUT of it and leave them to do the work of the workshop or meeting.

Also, quick question :
Why and what are you 'observing'?
Why not get involved?

There’s rarely a need for leaders to be 'on the fringes’ of a workshop or meeting, doing the watching, checking, observing, judging.

Participate, do the work, connect and listen to people, get your hands dirty, hear their stories, be there, getting it. Or vanish.

A special title isn’t special when it comes to working with a team in a practical session.

I’d prefer leaders either remove themselves and their status, or reduce their status and stay.


👀 Seen some status recently? How else do leaders show or throw their status around, perhaps unknowingly?

The myth of engagement

‘When you lose ‘em, you’ve lost ‘em for good!’ said the shouty presenter at the leadership conference.

And that’s not true.

It almost sounds like a threat that you need to keep people hooked in or you’ll lose them.

But we all lose focus and attention, all the time. As leaders, speakers, trainers or facilitators, we can’t hold people’s engagement all of the time.

So yes, we will ‘lose them.’ We all drift away. But it doesn’t mean they are forever ‘lost’.

Attention ebbs and flows. We can’t give 100% attention, 100% of the time.

The task becomes then: how do you get them back? And when they come back, how do you catch them up (not catch them out) with what has been happening - whether they’re ‘gone’ for 15 seconds or 15 minutes?

The work then is to firstly DESIGN for engagement.

And then to invite, welcome and DELIVER for reengagement. And repeated reengagement, precisely because our attention lapses.

Rather than the control freak in us expecting or demanding 100% attention from a team or group (and performing games, tricks and ra-ra entertainment for fear of losing it), work to earn engagement and to hold it, understanding that it will leave at times.

And then work to always encourage, and warmly and kindly welcome re-engagement, whenever it comes. 

Do you make it easier

Today I’m working with a group of leaders on building their facilitation skills.

Facilitation at its heart means ‘ease’, to make progress with ease.

And ease is a great perspective to take.

Ask yourself
- are we making this harder than it needs to be?
- what could we do that would make it easier?
- how can I make it easier for them?
- what does the team think would make it easier?

Easy doesn’t mean it’s not good or not valuable.

It’s about being able to manage and juggle a mix of things happening in teams :

🌕 Engagement - that we are connected to this work

🌕 Involvement - that we are doing something with the work

🌕 Contribution - that we bring our ideas and efforts to the work.

🌕 Productivity - that we are getting the work that needs to be done, done.

The skills of getting people aligned, engaged, inspired and participating doesn’t happen automatically.

You’ll have to do something. Many things. Many micro things that together make great progress.

Facilitation skills apply to work, communities, groups and causes where people are in-person, online and in the changing world of what hybrid work is and how it happens.

This is work I am mildly obsessed with 😁😁

The capability to facilitate...

... it's increasingly becoming one of this decade's critical skills for managers and people leaders in business.

Any time you're with a group and need to achieve an outcome, you'll need facilitation skills, tools and techniques to help and guide that group.

These elegant, collaborative and engaging capabilities are no longer just for professional facilitators.

Business owners, executives, leaders and managers, as well as those who lead or work with groups in any situation are seeing and experiencing the benefits of being able to simply do group stuff better.

That is:
Coaches who need to work with a group.
Speakers who are speaking to a group.
Government officers who are meeting with a group.
Project managers who are consulting with a group.
Leaders who are leading a group, a team.

Most of us can do better at this.

That means:
🟡 better engage with a group or team,
🟡 draw information from that group, and then
🟡 help them collaborate to achieve an agreed outcome.

I've always got training programs running on my facilitation skills methodology - either public programs, online or for businesses and teams. 

The next public program, live and online is:

January 16, 2025
9am - 4pm AEDT
Recordings available if you can't attend or want to rewatch/review.

Read more here

A past participant said: "This was one of the most valuable courses I have attended. Full of great tools, advice, ideas and thoughtful information. Facilitation skills delivered as learning experience in a new way - facilitation + experiential".

Coaching as a clever skill

Great to read that Canva is developing many, many of its managers with the brilliant capability of coaching.

Run via their internal leadership academy, Canva is equipping their people with these skills to help with:
1️⃣ delivering actionable feedback
2️⃣ managing hybrid teams, and
3️⃣ building trust among staffers.

What a wonderful opportunity for managers who may have had little or no formalised experience with coaching - except being on the receiving end of it, and it not being that great!

The 5000 strong company is often seen as unstoppable in its market valuation, growth, innovation and adaptability.

Now, what impact will this capability have across all staff, teams, projects and units? It will be great to watch how the effects roll out and lift teams from here... to there.

Watch and learn at Canva's in-house leadership academy, the 12 week course in coaching, and the focused nature of the content.

Some skills - like coaching - can be dismissed as 'we don't really need it', or 'we're focussing on technical capabilities' or 'we're doing OK without it thanks' but so many situations, challenges and issues across businesses could be resolved with a manager's capability to have a better interaction, conversation and problem solving discussion.

Read more in this Fortune piece by Emma Burleigh and Brit Morse