About that meeting you were in that just didn't make sense...🤯

We're familiar with the dull meeting, droning on, not achieving anything. But just as frustrating is the meeting that's a messy, confusing and complicated sh*t storm. Things are tricky, frustrating, perhaps complex. All those different views and ideas!

How do you find your way out of it all towards a conclusion or outcome? This is the everyday struggle of the 'meeting that doesn’t make sense.' It’s grossly inefficient to all sit around a table and try to talk through everything on the agenda.

That's a big ask of words alone.

I’ve posted previously on 'sensemaking'; how we understand the deeper meaning of what’s going on. Well there’s 'Collective Sensemaking' too: how we work things out as a group, team, project ... together, collectively.

A team trying to work out what the heck is happening, planning for an uncertain future under changing conditions, would do well to know not just how to make sense individually, alone ... but how to make sense collectively, together.

Continue to cause damage - or decide you’ll make a difference

I’ve been posting this week on how being a leader who has contemporary facilitation skills is a huge advantage in today's workplace.

The time we waste in dull/boring/ineffective meetings should be enough of an incentive to make change!

Massive productivity gains are made when leaders know how to lead engaging, inspiring and productive meetings that get work done AND protect people’s self esteem so they stay engaged.

You can change culture by changing how you run meetings, workshops, consultations and conversations.

But damage is done to people in meetings when they're treated poorly, ignored, interrupted, excluded, forgotten, shut down.

It’s not on them to ‘speak up’; it’s on you to extend your leadership capability to include people, elicit information and contributions, helping to make work easier.

Facilitation is a life skill to be developed, not a simple skill to read a few articles about.

Do you commit to putting facilitation on your professional development agenda?

The difference you'll make will be immeasurable; the damage to people otherwise could be extreme. 

We’ve all experienced ‘average' facilitation

Facilitation: someone at the front of room, leading a meeting/workshop, helping make things easier. (Whether it's the right definition or not isn't what this is about.)

My point is: there's an abysmal standard of facilitation in workplaces today.

You might think it’s not ‘that bad' or workshops you’ve attended have been mostly ok.

Not so quick. Know that facilitation is something you learn: like making an omelette, riding a horse, flying a kite. You’re not born with facilitation skills, you learn. It's not long at work before we experience average facilitation.

Think of all the sh*tful meetings you’ve been in.

Meetings that:

😖ran over time

🤯were dull and disengaging

😠achieved few outcomes

🤢were dominated by a few/same voices

😱were unsafe or awkward ... the list goes on.

Bad workplace meetings contribute to bad workplaces and working environments. They're time wasting, energy-draining, enthusiasm-robbing ... feeding cynicism, negativity and disengagement.

Yuk!

If you're a leader or want to be, it starts with you at every meeting.

You can learn contemporary facilitation skills. Then you won't lead sh*tful meetings. 

'The consultant’s facilitation skills were average'

I heard this comment from a big company ... reporting on a big consulting firm’s management consultant... and how average their facilitation skills had been at a significant workshop event.

The fee that consulting firm charged for their services DID NOT MEET the value or expectation of the calibre of facilitation skills that were required.

And it was one of the BIG consulting firms.

You’d think - or assume - that the facilitation capabilities of management consultants would be contemporary, collaborative, impactful. They're always leading meetings and workshops as part of company transformations and consulting engagements.

But nope. It was average. Most average.

Time on your feet does not equal quality. Most of us think we're better at facilitating meetings and workshops than we are. It's like driving. Most of us think we're above average drivers. We're not. Some of us suck. We think we’re good but we’re average. Most average.

When we don’t know, deny or doubt our value ...

... we prevent people from experiencing our thoughts, ideas and purpose.

Many of us spend so much time - err, waste so much time - in cycles of doubt and denial of our own ingenuity.

⏹ When we say ‘I’m not creative’, we're in denial and doubt of our value.

⏹ When we say ‘It’s not very good’, that's denial and doubt too.

⏹ And when we dismiss an idea before we’ve even spoken it or shared it, that's another negative hit to our value.

So let's zip it. Ssshhh!

In workshops and sessions with teams, I’m often saddened at the number of people who openly dismiss their own work and ideas ... usually just before they’re about to present them! 'This isn't very good', or 'This is a crappy idea' - hey, no more of this stuff, ok?

Hold off on verbally denying the value in your thinking or ideas.

If you think your stuff is worth less, who’s likely to think it’s worth more?