Leader as Coach: T-o-o s-l-o-w

The Leader as Coach approach has been a leadership staple in many industries and organisations for years.

This is where a leader schedules one-on-one conversations and meetings with their team members. These conversations may be about helping that team member progress and develop, help them uncover ideas and actions to tackle challenges or barriers getting in that person's way or to perhaps have a tricky or difficult conversation about behaviour or performance.

'Train the Coach', 'Coach the Coach' or 'Leader as Coach' programs have been a popular part of the learning and development offer for years.

I recall delivering a coaching training program for leaders for a large banking and financial institution about ten+ years ago. They wanted to ensure their leaders adopted a coaching culture and in turn, help them be more effective at those crucial one-on-one conversations. 

So, yes, coaching is a highly valued and valid leadership tool.

But there's a but: it can be so. freakin'. s-l-o-w.

Many leaders find the drain, drag and pace of one-to-ones across their team less efficient than they'd like ... and less efficient for the time they have available. 

As one leader in the bank's coaching program I ran said (in objection to doing coaching):

"It takes so long to get that person to realise what needs to be done, to go through the GROW model or whatever tool we're working on. I just don't think I have the time or the patience for this all the time".

While that type of comment may run counter to what leadership or leaders should be like (read: more patient or more effective at coaching or more 'something'), the realities of pressured schedules, busy teams and project deadlines mean many leaders avoid the one-on-one or push it out and delay it or try and reschedule it time and again.

As a result, communication, leadership, colalboration, performance and engagement all suffer.

Rather than telling leaders to coach more or insisting they must coach more, I believe we need to acknowledge that leaders have time to leverage and the better they can do that, the greater impact they'll have - certainly more than what a raft of one-to-ones can achieve.

To all the coaches or pro-coaches out there... relax, this is not to say one-on-one coaching conversations aren't needed; they are. For things like performance and development and tricky situations, sure; book a room, one-on-one and go coach. They will always be needed.

But for some organisations who adopt and prioritise coaching, it can seem as if every conversation a leader has to have with their team members has the danger of turning into a book-a-meeting-room-for-a-one-on-one kind of meeting.

When a business decrees that coaching or one-on-one conversations are the priority to lift performance or address issues, it can begin to chew up a lot of time in the diary.

As a leader in a tech organisation said to me recently,

"I've got a team of 12. When you add in the time of having heaps of one-on-ones with them, along with the team and group meetings, and the other responsibilities I have influencing and managing stuff, it all gets too much. I find myself thinking how else could I be leveraging this time".

Not more meetings

Please don't assume we're talking about running more meetings here. Meetings are already under pressure for wasting time, running off topic and being dominated by the loudest voices.

But what I do think can be done is having more group conversations and sessions - small or larger groups.

These small or larger group sessions can be focused on the same sort of development, barriers, progress... whatever other topics need to be managed for that team - but done in a group setting rather than always believing it needs to be done via a bunch of one-on-ones.

This is where the leader as coach, shifts into a leader as facilitator.

For some leaders there is a fear there; 'I don't want to be running a group session' or'Then the whole thing will get out of control; I'll never reign them in!' or 'How do I shut them up?' or 'I don't want things going off-track or getting to negative or turning into a whinge-fest'.

Still other leaders are nervous in front of a group or worry about the questions they'll be asked or if they'd ever be bombarded or ambushed by a team of clique of people.

But these are simply some of the fears of facilitation, the fears of working with and leading a group... and these fears can be allayed when you know what to do with a group or team in a group setting.

Leverage for impact

Indeed it's time for leaders to better leverage their time as well as the time of their team members. Rather than going s-l-o-w with lots of one-on-ones, leaders need to bring those individuals together to have more effective and impactful group sessions: both small group: twos, threes or fours... and larger groups seven, 10, 12, 25, 40 people.

Time gets leveraged for all. Rather that 12 x 1 hour meetings, get everyone (or groups of everyone!) in the room and have a 15, 30 or 45 minute engaging session and conversation - well-facilitated by the leader.

Lift the game

Lazy leaders limp into meetings, slump into chairs and bark commands or tap their pens on the table. It's old school, last century and not facilitative. At all. Lazy leaders interrupt, bluff and bluster their way through BS jargon and wonder whey they have a disengaged and disempowered team.

The leader as facilitator is a different way of behaving and leading. It requires a lift in your thinking and capability.

The shift from 'Leader as Coach' to 'Leader as Facilitator' is underway and I see it as one of the most exciting shifts in leadership today.

When a leader facilitates, group harmony and cohesion is strengthened and the sheer energy or vibe of the team, tribe or group coming together lift people to higher levels of performance. 

Facilitators make progress easy... or easier. They run a process, respond to what happens and draw on very cool tools to make progress. 

As a participant in my Leader as Facilitator program said:

"Now I'm able to get stuff done; we talk as a team, I can help remove barriers across the team, we can make decisions as a team and I'm better able to handle the general sh*t that goes down daily in our team."

(Note, this leader wasn't naming his people as sh*t; it was more about the finicky, challenging issues and hiccups that happen throughout a typical day when leading a diverse team).

There are authentic, empathic and realistic ways to get stuff done in teams and keep the team connected to the work to be done, all via the power of facilitation. This is about being more of a Leader as Facilitator.

The #1 capability that will make you a better leader

If you were asked to rank the #1 thing you could do as a leader that would make a difference to your team, your customers, your organisation, yourself, the products or services you provide or the stakeholders you work with, what capability would you say?

Listening?

Being present?

Mindfulness?

Being more influential or persuasive?

Managing your time better?

Being able to make quicker decisions?

Whatever your thoughts right now, I reckon it’s about being able to create an environment. Creating an environment where you are a context setter. I think it’s making your workplace a place where:

• people feel safe to contribute, speak up and participate
• you have you own sh*t together so you can be a great leader
• you are able to handle meetings, conversations and situations when you are interacting with others of all cultures, experiences and roles; and 
• where you are able to help people get things done.

While I think some of these are demonstrated by the physical and practical behaviours of facilitation, I think there is a distinct ‘social intelligence’ that is required of leaders today -- more than ever.

This is a social intelligence of being able to connect with others, and in turn, help others connect. 

Think about it as how you help people connect with other members on your team, how you connect with customers, how you facilitate the interactions between the members of your team and other parts of the organisation and how you create a great space and environment for that to happen - that’s the best leadership capacity and capability I think there is.

Work keeps changing; leadership keeps changing

Leadership styles continue to shift from a leader as a director, beyond the leader as coach mode to more of a leader as a facilitator. 

From control, to consult and beyond... through to co-creator. From commander and parent to a partner. And from directing and evolving to being a curator of the team’s work and thinking. 

In engagement approach, leaders need to shift from tell, to beyond asking, to elicit -- to be able to draw out information. From telling instructions or asking questions to being able to set a bigger picture or context. From their one voice, to on-on-one conversations that are inefficient and low in leverage, to a one-to-many where the whole group (or smaller sub-groups) are led and inspired. Engagement shifts from lone workers, through simply being together to the cohesion that is about helping people get more done than they would alone. Engagement shifts from threats and compliance, beyond the will to be engaged to them truly buying into the work and the why of the work. 

As a result, team performance lifts. Rather than the team being pushed, or even pulling themselves into the work, they truly engage with it. From being a group, to a team, they look and act more like a tribe. Em Campbell-Pretty's recent book on 'Tribal Unity' is a great read on this aspect of leadership.

And from the team being required to do things, or their barriers or obstacles being uncovered, it’s not about the leader harnessing the collective power and capabilities of the team, no matter what they are. Above all, instead of performance or leadership being one way or following a set formula of "do this on Mondays, do that for 15 mins and have these meetings 3 times a quarter", the whole team and their leader are integrated, working well, and are better together and lifting the level of what’s possible. 

From 'Leader as Facilitator: How to engage, inspire and get work done'

The Social Intelligence Factor

And of this 'social intelligence'...

As Daniel Goleman says in his book ‘Social Intelligence':

“Our sense of well-being depends to some extent on others regarding us as a You; our yearning for connection is a primal human need, minimally for a cushion for survival. Today the neural echo of that need heightens our sensitivity to the difference between It and You—and makes us feel social rejection as deeply as physical pain.” 

And that's what happens. Pain. Ouch! When people aren’t listened to or their ideas are brushed aside, when they’re interrupted or not recognised as the contributor of a solution -- these are some of the workplace things that hurt us.

We wonder why engagement scores are low. However, it may well be the leader who is doing something unknowingly that is pushing people away. Their social intelligence may be a bit 'off'. Perhaps they aren't regarding people as a 'You', or not inspiring them, perhaps dismissing their contributions with a look or a sniff or a scoff or 'hmpf' sound effect. Maybe that team member's presence, their contributions and capabilities and their important purpose in that team and organisation has been overlooked, missed or just passed over in the busy-ness of present-day leadership KPIs, presentations, off-sites and information packs.

Focus on how you can build up your social intelligence and your capability to create an environment where people can connect with each other.

And then when you use that social intelligence - that is, in every meeting, every interaction with every person, every day - this is where you can show the #1 leadership capability you have that makes the biggest difference on those around you.

Leaders increasingly need to be the glue or the bond that helps groups work better together, that helps them tick (and stick!) and helps them be more cohesive. It's less about pushing people together and saying, ‘Hey you lot, collaborate will you’, but rather being the person who helps make that collaboration easier, helps make it happen, helps make it the norm of how you do work in your team, in your organisation and a part of your culture.

You help. Not rescue or remedy or rehabilitate, but facilitate that performance, facilitate the engagement and most of all, make the environment ripe for great work to be done by already awesome people. 

8 Strategies for Leading in a Crisis

In the wake of the Australian Dreamworld disaster recently and the subsequent public views that things weren't perhaps handled as well as they should have been, it’s a timely reminder for leaders in all organizations, teams and businesses - of any sort and size - to be prepared when something unexpected and dreadful happens. 

It’s not a pleasant topic*; for many leaders, this type of talk and preparation for a crisis that hasn’t happened takes them away from their daily work and can feel like a waste of time or a distraction from the priorities at hand. You may think, ‘yes I’ll handle that when it happens’ but your role in leading and facilitating in a crisis requires some prevention. 

*Why am I writing about leading or facilitating in a crisis? My current work is as a speaker, author and facilitator. I’m a communications specialist. I’ve spent many years in my career studying and then lecturing in under-graduate and post-graduate Public Relations, Advertising and Communications and being the full-time leader in communications roles in health, education, government, sport. I held consultant roles for many other businesses over the first 20 years of running my own business. During this time I learned that responding to and facilitating in a crisis is a part of leadership. You take it on when you sign up to be a leader. You can’t hide or escape. So I was ‘in’ for leading and facilitating in a crisis when I took on a leadership role in an organisation. And then as a PR practitioner, I was doubly in. I had to be a facilitator of other leaders during times of crisis.

I see there are some strong key pillars of timeless advice to be aware of and to put to work when a crisis hits, no matter what business you’re in, no matter your leadership role. 

1. Be ready

Always be ready. Crises aren't planned. You don't schedule them so you can't say ‘Let's have a meeting and do our media training in the two hours after the crisis'. You've got to be ready. Now. What if something happens today, or tonight or overnight? Or tomorrow afternoon? Would you be right to go? Would you really be ready? A crisis is an almighty shock for an organisation. It feels like it has come out of nowhere and then all of a sudden you are in it; it’s all around you; it’s everything you see and hear and it’s unexpected. But you still need to be ready. 

2. What's your response?

You need to know what you will do as a business. Just as you have an evacuation plan if there is a fire in your premises, what's your broad plan for if something tragic, disastrous and dreadful happens? For example, who’s on your Crisis Response Team - or whatever you call it. Who are they? And what will they do? Does the board meet immediately or have a phone hookup or does Leader A take the first media calls (or Leader B or C if A is on leave; and if they’re ill or away then is it Leader D and then Leader E if B and C are in Bali)? What’s your hierarchy or handling what’s about to unfold? Work it out. Now. 

All leaders need to have been grilled with media and customer key message training. Recently. This is not so you can come up with smart arse legal-ese answers but so you can calmly and professionally handle the valid questions that will be asked of you by customers, families, staff, media, sponsors, suppliers, stakeholders, investors…

By the way, they are not annoying questions, they are valid questions being asked by people who want to know. 

So yes, your actual messages to families, staff and media may need some crafting and tweaking from PR gurus and speechwriting former political sidekick geniuses but people will want to hear from you. They need to hear and see your organisation represented and speaking. Swiftly. That’s how communication is. Quick. Even if there isn't much to say right now, you've got to be seen and heard. Either onsite where the crisis occurred or at a head office or work location and in your work clothes. It's all about visibility.

If it looks at all like you’re absent, even if you're working so bloody hard behind the scenes, you still appear invisible and guilty and uncaring. The longer it takes you to come out and say something - even if you are consulting your legal team on the exact wording - the worse things starts to look. 

Remember the look of Premier Anna Bligh after the disastrous Queensland floods. Sleeves rolled up and moleskins on and working. Not working sweeping out flooded shops. But working with the information coming through from the weather bureau and getting information together and attending briefings and then delivering her media conferences - both prepared messages and taking questions from the media. She was visible. Seen. Heard. Continually. And this visibility gave her great credibility. 

3. Contacts at the ready

Who’s on your list? Do you have your stakeholders and key contacts at the ready?

Media contacts. Board. Key leadership staff and employees. Stakeholders. Legal. Suppliers.

Can you put your hands on that list of information immediately? Who are they and what are their emails and phone numbers. Is it up to date? 

But can you really touch that information now? Do you need to ring someone else to get this? Too slow. 

I remember observing a team who took about two hours to bring together all the contact information they needed. This was after the crisis had hit. It was awful. Crazy. Do it today. Get it ready. Keep it updated. 

4. War room, Board room or Bunker

Where will your crisis response team meet? Where is your bunker? Where will you operate from? Is it adequately resourced with phones and printers and wifi and food and beverages? This is for the team (internal staff plus external consultants) who will be managing your organisation’s response to the crisis full time over the next days, weeks and months. It's also for the media and families and stakeholders who will be nearby, and in your face. They have questions and will need answers. 

Coordinate it and control it from somewhere. Is there a space where you can run rolling media conferences -- because as new information comes to hand you'll need to speak to people on an ongoing basis. If you don't keep speaking you'll get intercepted as you leave your glamourous house in the morning, all freshly washed and showered and breakfasted. Not a good look to relatives and families traumatised by the crisis currently oozing from your company. Even if you’ve been working all night, we can’t see that. Get your team in that room and then get visible. You need to do and say something.

5. Mindful Mantras 

The sh*t is most certainly hitting the fan. Beyond the horror of a crisis, things will feel increasingly awful for the leaders involved. So what will you use to guide how you keep responding and managing through the crisis?

Some of the best historical PR advice was 'tell it all and tell it fast.’ My sense is that isn’t adopted so much today. It’s more like ‘tell them some stuff but hold that and edit that bit and don’t you dare say that’. But other great kernels of PR advice are 'bad news doesn't get better with age’. It still stinks when it finally comes out so you can go with it now or let it fester some more. You choose. 

Plenty of responses I see companies use seem to be legally based on a 'don't admit fault’ response. But then if that IS the advice, some leaders then translate that so they present with a 'show no emotion whatsoever’ approach or 'don't express sadness and grief'. But you are human. Your organisation is a group of humans working together. And you deliver services for humans. And some of the humans have been impacted - badly. Remember this. Show this.  is a group of humans working together. And you deliver services for humans. Remember this. Show this. 

I recall hearing about a CEO of an airline who was photographed as they hugged a distraught relative. That's human. Better than saying 'our organisation has the highest levels of safety systems and audits in place and we are focused on the safety and health of blah blah crap and cliche down on the corner of Not Listening Street and Robot Voice Road.'

Dull. Cold. Inhuman. Rich. Ivory tower. Distanced. Removed. Out of touch. Heartless. Money hungry. Bonus = my lifetime income. Uncaring. 

This is what it progressively conveys. True or not it’s a heightened emotional environment in times of a crisis. 

Customer centricity is such a thing today and thinking you are distanced from real customers is folly. They are right there. Watching you and waiting for you to show what type of company you really are, what type of leader you really are.

6. Remain Calm

There was a classic PR textbook ‘Public Relations Practice’ when I was lecturing and practicing and in learning about communicating in a crisis, students would giggle at the matter-of-fact checklist we used to drill them on in preparation for a crisis. The checklist had ten points, of which numbers one, three, seven and ten read ‘Remain Calm’. Throughout all the advice you have to remember to keep it together and so ‘Remain Calm’ got repeated on high rotation. 

Anxious and crisis-fueled people say things. Some of that might not be helpful to traumatised customers or families or staff. Leaders under pressure can go all boss-like and 'I'm right’ and say things like ‘Yeah but I did do that' and then it's a ‘You took it out of context’ statement and urrrgh now the crisis is about how you’re responding to it, not about the tragedy that occurred and how awful people are feeling about it and what you're doing about it. This is called leadership. You will feel like sh*t during this but you need to stay calm.  Leaders under pressure can go all boss-like and 'I'm right’ and say things like, ‘Yeah but I did do that' and then it's a ‘You took it out of context’ statement and now the crisis is about how you’re responding to it, not about the tragedy that occurred and how awful people are feeling about it. It's called leadership. You will feel like sh*t during this but you need to stay calm.  how you’re responding to it, not about the tragedy that occurred and how awful people are feeling about it. It's called leadership. You will feel like sh*t during this but you need to stay calm. 

In the midst of a crisis, the PR team I worked in would say to each other 'this will get worse before it gets better'. And it does. It feels like a movie ‘Under Siege’; you feel under attack, on the defensive and like you’re being blamed for every thing that's happened over the entire life of the organisation. But keep it together. It will likely get worse before it gets better. More information will come out. Media will arrive on the doorstep. Any doorstep. Your doorstep. All doorsteps.

I remember working in a hospital and in times of crisis (infection outbreaks, doctors strikes, accidental deaths and other awful system failures) that media and journalists would interview staff in the car park arriving for work. The media were simply looking for information. Staff were briefed to direct them to the PR team. I’d be circling the hospital and I’d say to the media, 'Come in. We have our media centre up and running with rolling news conferences from team experts and other information on hand for you. Let's get you a coffee and get you set up. The CEO will next speak at 11'. briefed to direct them to the PR team. I’d be circling the hospital and I’d say 'Come in. We have our media centre up and running with rolling news conferences from team experts and other information on hand for you. Let's get you a coffee and get you set up. The CEO will next speak at 11'.

And they'd come in. And we’d be in better control of what was getting out there. 

And it was madness. For days. Little sleep. A disrupted life. But you have to remember that people have suffered or died or been injured and families and relatives are having a frightful time right now and for the rest of their lives. Keep it in perspective. You have a job here to do. A leadership job. 

Indeed as more information came to light it did get worse before it got better. More details would be uncovered and you could start to see what went wrong or where the system or people or situation had fallen or failed. And that’s just awful too. 

But then the intensity would start to level out and we would begin to just carry on...in the new world we called 'post crisis world'. The business is never the same. People are never the same after the gut wrenching experience of tragedy and crisis in a company, particularly where people are badly injured or killed. There is a scar tissue and it never really feels like it heals. 

7. Get real practice

When schooling PR students in undergraduate and post graduate communications programs as a lecturer and tutor in the evening (after I’d just come from working in PR practice during the day) I was big on students applying learning to real life situations. No blah-blah lecture. Let’s get real here. Let’s look at something that’s happening now.  communications programs as a lecturer and tutor in the evening (after I’d just come from working in PR practice during the day) I was big on students applying learning to real life situations. No blah-blah lecture. Let’s get real here. Let’s look at something that’s happening now.  situations. No blah-blah lecture. Let’s get real here. Let’s look at something that’s happening now. 

The unfolding of crises like the Thredbo landslide disaster and a Russian submarine sinking, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, plane crashes and bridge collapses and product tampering and food poisoning outbreaks and bushfires and floods and terrorism and earthquakes and countless other horrendous and heartbreaking tragedies that impact hundreds of people from the victims and their grief stricken families, the first responders and the staff who are part of the wider work family.  

In several organisations I worked in, we would practice our public response to a crisis. Not just who would wear the hard hat and direct the ambulances, but who was waiting out at the helipad to greet the media. Who was running the first news conference. Who got the first statement written. Who was caring for customers. Who was handling relatives. Who organised the catering for relatives. Time and again we would practice the response of the wider team. We'd practice the phone chain and the email announcement to staff and the media liaison. All practiced and drilled and tested. Where were the points of failure? How long did that take to do? That’s not swift enough - let’s tighten that process up. How could we do it better? Is there a way to streamline that flow of information?  Who was handling Who the catering for relatives. Time and again we would practice the response of the wider team. We'd practice the phone chain and the email announcement to staff and the media liaison. All practiced and drilled and tested. Where were the points of failure? How long did that take to do? That’s not swift enough - let’s tighten that process up. How could we do it better? Is there a way to streamline that flow of information? 

Our theory was that our brain doesn't know the difference between practice and reality. Let's drill ourselves in this so we are ready and practiced with real experiences. 

Because point #1: It might happen tomorrow. 

8. Look and listen 

Crisis management is a domain of PR expertise. Any crisis that surprises us often stems from that other domain of PR expertise known as 'Issues Management,’ that is, an unattended situation or issue or ‘thing’ may build up and cause you a crisis one day. It’s good to be scanning what’s going on and keeping an Issues Register to track risk and what’s going on across an ’s operations.  

In training students and in consulting with business, I've always aimed to alert people to thinking about the smoke before the fire or the hint that all may not have been well for some time prior to the crisis. For so many organisations there are hints of an impending crisis but the comments, concerns or complaints from customers or the feedback and reporting of issues from staff have little impact. They’re not heard. Some businesses don't want to press ‘pause' on their services - whether that be transportation or logistics, operations on patients, flights, machinery and equipment - because of the great inconvenience and impact it will have on daily operations and service. If it’s just to simply investigate another comment or concern and to check if something might need fixing, it’s all a tad annoying really. 

But the true tragedy is that so often the crisis was a puff of smoke somewhere in the history of operations of the business. No matter how small or insignificant that puff of smoke was, it's how it manifests further into the future that creates the true sadness of a tragedy: that something serious may have indeed been prevented. 

Why be a leader who facilitates?

Facilitation has probably been around as a competency for thousands of years.

But in recent decades it’s been the realm of the expert: you bring in an expert facilitator to lead your strategic planning session or run your team workshop.

But I see that things are changing.

In this increasingly collaborative world, teams are working together like never before. When you bring people together, you bring diversity and difference. And it’s wonderful! And it’s challenging when you are tasked with leading a team. It’s not easy knowing what to do when something happens with all that diversity and difference bubbling around in the room!

Perhaps the topic has gone off track or maybe you’re struggling to get decisions made. Maybe there are some louder voices in the team and some quieter people who don’t contribute as much. Perhaps you have someone playing politics or pushing their agenda a little too much. Maybe there’s conflict or aggression, or maybe everyone’s being so nice to each other and so agreeable that you’re not uncovering what’s really going on!

Whatever the human challenges you have in front of you, facilitation has come of age. Its time is now. And yes, you could outsource it to an external facilitator, but aren't you wanting to build stronger relationships with your team, your organisation and your industry? Using facilitation skills to be the facilitator in the room is a key way you can do this.

There’s never been a better time to get people together, get work done and do it in a way that’s:

• Respectful
• Collaborative
• Productive and
• Engaging.

In the hundreds of workshops I’ve facilitated and training people in the Leader as Facilitator capability, I often ask ‘Why are you here?’ or ‘Why do you think you need to learn this now?’

One of the biggest reasons is because of something broadly called:

Challenging situations

As organisations grow and more and more people find themselves attached to more projects and other people across the organisation, things start to get more complex. There are more people to consult with, the gain input from, to collaborate with. The bigger the organisation, the more facilitative you need to be. You can try to tell people what to do and go all hierarchical on them so… yep, good luck with that!

As you’re bringing all of these people together, there are always tricky situations that need to be handled or addressed. When people are passionate, get emotional and outspoken, when some people contribute a little too much and when others don’t contribute at all.

When there are quieter members of the team, when you have introverts, extroverts, ambiverts, loud mouths, power people, disenfranchised, disengaged, disinterested… whatever you want to label people (but please don’t label people), they are people and they’re doing the best they can.

Still, these challenging situations arise and stepping into a role of facilitation can help. It can help:

• When you need to get disparate views combined into one.
• When you need to get agreement.
• When people are frustrated or have different expectations.
• When you need to brainstorm ideas and solutions.
• When people won’t stop talking.
• When you don’t have much time.
• When you’re running against the clock or the calendar.

These are all situations that can be resolved and managed by a leader adopting a practice of facilitation. You don’t need to be a teacher, parent or boss; just be a leader who can facilitate… and all will be well.

Influence and change

Workplaces the world over are going through constant change. Leaders need to influence their teams to get on board with the changes they’re driving and leading.

Leaders can wait and wait for people to get on board and buy-in when they are ready and many leaders don’t ‘do’ anything but wait. Some leaders feel as if they are pushing people or it is counter to good leadership.

But between doing nothing and pushing is this thing called ‘facilitation’. There’s nothing like a big change or transformation in an organisation to create the perfect conditions for facilitation. And change is everywhere.

Compliance requirements

For many leaders facilitation is now ‘required’ of them; they must use facilitation as a tool and approach to engage with other parts of the business and stakeholders (internal and external to the business) to get work done. There’s no other accepted way. You must consult, you must encourage people to participate, you must find out what others think and involve them in the process.

Dictation is done

Yes the role of leaders is changing. Dictation is done. Engagement is here. And we’re not doing it well enough. This sweet phrase of ‘bringing people into the process’ was added in a facilitation training program by a participant from a local government council recently. She explained that Council officers needed to be better at engaging their communities, at bringing them into the project or program of work. It applies to so many fields and industries; it’s time to bring people into the work, bring them into the process. Facilitation will help you do that.

Virtual teams

The rise of remote and distributed workers all over the world means that workplaces have a rich multicultural and multigenerational mix. The likelihood of some of your team being out of physical reach of you is a given. There WILL be people in other locations, cities, time zones. And that’s not changing or stopping soon. Engaging with them is vital. Working with them is expected, but it’s how you go about it that makes the difference. Facilitation capabilities can absolutely make the biggest difference; little else will like facilitation.

More with less

As we try to do more with less or quicker with fewer, lean organisations are rising to the top. Those businesses that can identify waste and work with leaner processes are proving their mettle in changing times. They’re able to learn and adapt and respond.

Using facilitation capabilities to engage with people, get them on board and participating and making changes to become more lean is a fruitful and productive use of facilitation.

Silos, sections, teams and departments

Many businesses complain of silos across the organisation. Those disparate groups and teams who stick to their own company, who don’t much care to crossover to another part of the business lest they be foreign and unusual and difficult to work with.

But in this difference is opportunity.

Approaching the challenge of silos with a facilitation mindset makes progress easier. You might not rid the organisation of silos, but you’ll be able to approach other parts of the business, engage in conversations, work and dialogue - and get better outcomes than without facilitation. 

Customer centric

Businesses of all sorts need to connect, communicate and engage better than ever. Customers want to have input into the design, development and testing of products and services. User experience and customer facing teams need to connect with customers to gain true insights, learnings and lessons. It’s only through these truthful interactions can products and services be designed to suit customer needs.

Facilitation is a powerful technique to use to elicit information from users and customers; you can connect with them better, ask better questions and then go deeper, finding out what’s really happening and how best to fix, respond or solve it.

And when things don’t go so well in the customer interaction department, facilitation skills help customer-facing staff handle complaints and ensure customer interactions are enhanced.

Amorphous collaboration

Many teams in business are being thrown together and expected to collaborate, now! They have little ‘get to know you time’ and are expected to get up to speed or be up and running within a short time.

This includes remote and distributed teams; with some members never getting to meet each other face-to-face. In this situation, facilitation practices by the leader are crucial. They need to help this team form, gel and glue. They need to help create the conditions where this team can feel comfortable and start working together. The leader plays the role of facilitator – not parent or teacher or boss or police officer. Facilitator…making things easier.

Meeting dysfunction 

When we get our team together, we meet. Endlessly. And we often repeat our bad meeting behaviours. Endlessly. It’s like an infinity loop with no end. A facilitator is needed to guide, coach, elicit, set the environment and make it okay for everyone to contribute and participate.

The Leader as Facilitator is a leader who helps get sh*t done. They make the situation suitable for great, productive work.

When people bring or push their own agenda or when the meeting goes off track, the leader can step in and help guide things to safety. When people have different objectives, cross-purposes or different visions – when they’re not on the same page – the Leader as a Facilitator can assist. Not solve, but make things easier. When a meeting has little or no focus, or loses its way, the Leader as a Facilitator can help.

And.... Cultural change

Above all, a Leader as Facilitator approach helps build a more positive, inclusive and collaborative culture both within teams and across the wider organisation. The practices of facilitation help influence, shift and change culture – for the better. When people listen better, participate more, contribute their best and play with a collaborative spirit, good things happen.

3 reasons why that meeting didn't make a decision

‘That’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back’

‘Urgh! There was no point in me even being there’.

‘And the purpose of that was *crickets*…’

If you’ve felt the annoyance of an outcome-less meeting you’ll know it’s lost time, an hour or more of time you ‘can’t get back’.

In an era where everyone’s got stuff to do, priorities of their own and deadlines to make, a time-wasting meeting is frustrating. It’s a career limiter too - particularly if you’re leading the meeting. You’re likely to get known as ‘that person that never gets decisions made’.

The Cost of Lost

Meetings that don’t make a decision are sources of lost time; they’re a waste of the incredible experience and brain-power in the room and there’s the cost of the actual working time of the people in the room. What a tragic ROI?! And don’t even start about the waste of a good meeting room when meeting space can be hard to come by in many workplaces!

But did we get anything done?

Yes, sure, there are times when you don’t need to make a decision in a meeting – it’s a meeting that’s about information sharing, or announcing something or it’s an ideas fest – but most meetings do need to get consensus or agreement or some type of outcome.

It’s what most meetings are judged on: ‘did we get sh*t done?’

What I hear a lot from people when I’m working with them to develop their Leader as Facilitator skills is that the meetings they run just don’t get the decision part done.

And now you’ve got to … Schedule. Another. Freakin’. Meeting.

Yes, you’ll need another meeting time in a week or two to do what should have been done in that meeting that just finished.

Hostage Situations, Time Wasters & High-Priced Parties

I think you need to avoid the ‘hostage situation’ as well as the ‘time waster’ types of meetings. This is where people are there against their will or you’ve got the wrong people in the room or didn’t get to an outcome.

Meetings need to be high on engagement andhigh on outcomes.

Avoid the ‘high-priced party’ meeting too, unless it really is a celebration and there’s little or no work to be done. (That’s where we’re having a great time but not doing anything!)

For meetings in today’s workplaces, it’s about engagement + outcomes. You have to have people contributing and participating AND you need to get stuff done, the good stuff, the right stuff… not just any stuff.

3 Reasons why there's no decision

There are three reasons why meetings don’t make decisions when they should have.

[Remember though that meetings are made up of people; people talking and working together. It’s not an automatic robotic machine meeting. We aren’t machines – we are people. We are people and we do things so we need to do something to make adjustments in meetings to make sure the right things get done. And decisions are a big part of that.]

The three reasons why that meeting didn’t make a decision is ... something wasn’t clear:

1.  The reason why you were making the decision wasn’t clear.

2.  The decision to be made wasn’t clear.

3.  The way you were going to decide wasn’t clear.

You see, it’s all too fuzzy. If it were clear, it would have happened. The leader, the meeting, the people would have been able to navigate through. But you didn’t. And I reckon it’s one or more of the three reasons. Here they are in a slightly new way of thinking:

1.           You (or the group or the leader or facilitator) didn’t decide why you were making the decision.

2.           You (or the group or the leader or facilitator) didn’t decide what the decision is

3.           You (or the group or the leader or facilitator) didn’t decide how you were going to decide

That’s a Why, What and How. Sounds a little like ‘Start with Why’ doesn’t it?

So before any type of meeting where a decision is expected, hoped or needing to be made:

1.  Know WHY you need to make the decision

2.  Know WHAT the decision is that needs to be made

3.  Decide HOW you’re going to decide.

That third one sound funny? Deciding how to decide? Yes, it’s a thing. (More on how to make the decision in my next post).

Don't leave it to hope or luck

Too many workplaces simply bring people together and hope they’ll talk enough to finally get to a point where they decide – or give in through exhaustion and frustration!

Don’t leave decision-making to random events, luck or hope. You may have to do some deciding before the meeting or at least, before the meeting makes that all-important decision.

Get clear on your why, what and how of decisions to be made and you’ll get known as ‘the person who helps us get sh*t done’!