Put experience on the agenda

I’ve been writing about the untapped expertise that lives in your team and business. It’s vital you uncover it because there’s much to be gained.

Be sure to allow some time for it, like at your next meeting. Just put some time on the agenda. You could hold an entire meeting to go through everyone’s expertise, but there are other ways too.

A couple of people could present at each meeting, sharing their ‘experience maps’ as I explained a couple of days ago.

Set the time aside, and then provide some protection of the people while they’re sharing their experience. Why protection? I know some organisations where this meeting would be the most wonderfully respectful experience. I also know other teams and organisations where some people will be rude, impatient, checking their device, agitated that things are moving too 'slowly'. So you may need to chill a little. Allow time, knowing that what you’ll uncover will build connections and trust and help you know more about the people you lead. Let people share their experience - then watch what happens in the team.

>> How might sharing your experience in a team you're part of help enhance and change culture? 

Hidden experience is a huge cause of productivity loss

This week I’m writing about experience people have that you might be ignoring. A barrier to hearing people’s experience is often the leader’s resistance to it.

- Why wouldn’t you want to know about expertise that exists in your team?

- Why wouldn't you want to know this information?

- Why wouldn’t you want to hear it?

‘Why don’t people listen?’ author, Hugh Mackay says we don’t want to listen due to the fear that what we hear will change us.

Australian Olympic athlete Cathy Freeman says 'when I'm in a bad mood, I don't listen.'

Oscar Trimboli, author of ‘Deep Listening' says by not listening ’the same issues keep occurring therefore people are blamed.’ Excuses like: No time Too much to do Too hard Too many people to get through ...are excuses with simple answers.

It takes effort and empathy to pay attention to people, especially when they're sharing their story, and it’s not about you. New ways of working require us to change what we do so we can make progress through these tricky times. To listen and learn from others is a key part of this. And for many people this indeed is a 'new way of working'. 

The tragedy of untapped expertise

The tragedy of untapped expertise.

How often in a meeting, you know what’s happening, you have experience to add, you’ve seen the thing, done the thing the group is thinking about or working on ... yet your experience is:

* Overlooked

* Ignored

* Forgotten

* Dismissed

* Excluded

* Bypassed

* Invisible?

A life hack calendar on my wall has the quote: "Learning from mistakes is wise, learning from the mistakes of others is quicker and easier”. Your experience is awesome and valuable. Do not ever, ever doubt that.

What’s missing is a way to gather that experience, synthesise it, make sense of it and bring it into the team and organisation. Simply telling an ‘I’ve done this’ or a ‘When I worked at x’ story doesn't seem to cover the breadth and depth of our experiences.

So leaders: you must elicit the expertise in the room, team or group. No matter who, or what or from where. It’s one of the biggest no-brainers in the workplace today too often overlooked. For planning, strategy, problem solving, you don’t need to always start at the zero point. You’ve got incredible expertise on tap, and you’re simply - and seriously - not tapping it. Get tapping.

How does it feel to not be 'seen' or heard?

There is power in 'collective sense'

There is power in 'collective sense'. This week I'm posting on sensemaking, the skill in understanding the deeper meaning of something.

How do you do it? Write some stuff down and write it in a layout that looks more like a map rather than a list. When you do this in a meeting and other people can see that map, you start to do ‘collective sensemaking’. Making sense of things together.

Collective sense is in contrast to lone voices and egos who dominate meetings, propose solutions prematurely, or shut people down. It’s in contrast to the loud speakers, the interrupters and the repeaters. Collective sensemaking makes better leaders, and it's a skill today's leaders need to sharpen up on.

I’ll leave you with these four templates from my book ‘Making Sense: A Handbook for the Future of Work’:

1. a simple line or continuum

2. a set of stairs (have you ever presented information about 'stepping up or improving'; this is an ideal shape and template)

3. a path or road with signs (journey, anyone?)

4. network diagram (from earlier this week). Give a like if you've learned something this week about sensemaking.

🤔 What are you trying to make sense of at work? 

Minutes are meaningless

We still use an archaic 18th Century practice of capturing ‘little notes’ or minutes in our meetings ... in our 21st Century workplaces made up of 21st Century people.

It's crazy. We're still using 18th Century meeting procedures too!

Tired old structures and systems that slow things down, put us to sleep and carve away at interest and engagement. Those old style meetings don’t make sense. And neither do the minutes from those meetings.

It’s time to make a cultural change in how you make sense of information in meetings. Taking, making and sharing minutes is an utter waste of time, an activity bottleneck and a momentum killer. In meetings, don't just document decisions - the act of making sense involves more than this.

Minutes are dead and distract us from the real work. (Ok unless you need them legally e.g. a board meeting or committee that votes or decides and minutes are evidence of that decision, yes fine have them then!) And here's to the poor souls who type them up to circulate them to people who will never read them. This week I'm posting on sensemaking.

And minutes don't make sense!