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. 

Premature solution giving.

When we’re thinking or talking in a meeting and someone jumps in with ’the solution’... Ta da! Big fanfare! Once they’ve spoken it’s as if no other solutions are welcome or matter.

The problem isn’t the person jumping in with the solution. They’ve had an idea and they’ve said it. Good on them!

The issue is with the meeting leader. 'Premature solution giving' is an example of what happens when meetings don't have an effective process.

I’m not talking about the agenda of the meeting, but the process or ‘way’ the meeting is happening.

Designing a process is a contemporary facilitation capability that today’s ‘leader as facilitator’ needs, so they can:

🌕 Create better and safer environments

🌕 Lead more productive meetings

🌕 Guide more effective team interactions

🌕 Respond more swiftly when some sh*t goes down in a meeting. (That is, no sweeping it under the carpet or ‘parking’ it in a carpark flip chart).

Learning the facilitation capability builds leadership confidence, boosts productivity and lifts psychological safety.

Urgh! What else kills that feeling of safety in a meeting?

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!

Sensemaking is like listening on steroids

The performance enhancing tool for workplaces today is sensemaking. It's the skill of connecting dots and understanding the deeper meaning of what’s being discussed.

When we try to take information in, understand what’s going on or decide what to do, we can use sensemaking to help us listen, think and decide. Too often we suffer misunderstandings, time wasting repetition, conversations that go around in circles, people interrupting, and still others who repeat information … but LOUDER! We’re all trying to understand what’s going on, and work out what we need to do about it.

It can be too hard (and dull) to make sense just sitting around a table or via remote hookup looking at each other. That’s because sensemaking may not come as naturally as we assume it does. 'I can listen, I can think, I can talk. Therefore I can make sense, can’t I?’

We need to do something more. We need to write some stuff down, to map it out - and thankfully, 'any old map will do’, says sensemaking guru Karl Weick.

More to come this week on sensemaking...if you'd like more info on sense making, let me know. 

Beware the thieves of clarity

Are you tuned in to what steals clarity in your team, unit or organisation?

Is it meetings?

Lengthy reports?

Status updates?

Decks and presentations with complicated models, too much text, too many chevrons, arrows and ‘pillars’ or icebergs? 😜

The race is on for meaning and understanding. The sooner we understand, the sooner we can make decisions, get into action and get feedback and insights on that action.

But how much might we hiding behind work, tasks and activities that actually steal clarity, create ambiguity and generate more confusion? Do we busy ourselves working on stuff that doesn’t really support clarity … but rather steals it?

In this complex world, it’s better to be known for being able to cut through and get to clarity; not overly simplified, not dumbed down … just c-l-e-a-r. Today, be on the look out for the thieves of clarity. Don’t let them get away with it. Bring it back, hold onto it, keep it together because other people in the room, in the team, across the organisation need you to … stand up for clarity.

What do you see that steals clarity and understanding in your world of work?