How do you plan to include people

It sucks to be forgotten, ignored, excluded or left out. So in a team or group meeting, how are you planning to include people? 

In meetings and workshops we may have presentations scheduled, information to share and decisions to be made. 

But how will you involve and include people in the session? 

Inclusion happens better when it’s by design. 

We know that people get excluded, overlooked and forgotten if we leave it to chance, or our bias and ego. 

Take that meeting agenda you’ve got and work out when and how you’ll deliberately include and involve people. 

Where can you :
- Ask people their thoughts and opinions
- Encourage them to share stories
- Invite comments, answers and suggestions
- Welcome questions, queries and insights 
...and more. 

Too many meetings have the ‘any other questions?’ footnote at the end as a way of involving people. 

But by then, it’s kind of too late. 

Start sooner. Right off the bat!

Create opportunities for involvement, participation, contribution and inclusion. 

It makes for stronger engagement ... as well as better outcomes. 

Engagement myth : ‘Once you lose them you lose them’.

It’s not true. 

We lose focus and attention all the time. As leaders, speakers or trainers, 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: how do you get them back... and when they come back, how do you catch them up 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, because our attention lapses. 

Rather than the control freak in us expecting or demanding 100% attention, work to earn engagement and to hold it, understanding that it will leave at times. 

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

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. 

The 2 things for better cognitive load management

In their prediction for the skills we’d be needing now, by 2020, the Institute for the Future identified Cognitive Load Management in the Top 10.

It's about how we cope with all that information.

But it’s not one thing; I see Cognitive Load Management involving 2 capabilities:

🔹 To discriminate + filter information for importance, and

🔸To understand how to maximize our cognitive function (using a variety of tools and techniques.)

The answer is not about having a new app to manage, store or retrieve our own information better. We need to be able to firstly identify what’s important in the information we’re exposed to. And then we need to work with our own thinking, listening and sensemaking capabilities to handle that information better than we currently do.

I’m helping teams (via 1/2 day workshops) and individuals (via 1:1 skills sessions online) to build skill and change the way they cope with information.

It could be the best value session of your development program this year - being able to handle information better. What’s that worth to you? 

Start with shy

In meetings, sessions or workshops, why not start as if everyone in the room is shy?

The MC at the conference who declares after opening housekeeping announcements that everyone needs to ‘go and meet someone you don’t know’ makes me cringe.

The socially anxious, awkward, introverted, fearful ... and others may just want to run and hide.

'Don’t make me meet someone just yet.’

‘Don’t make me break into a group.'

'Don't make me look silly.'

'I just want to run away! (Or at least slip out of the main room and go have a coffee).

We need to build the safety and engagement in rooms, groups, gatherings and meetings and do it better than we are. Stop the rush. Build safety bit by bit, step by step. If the goal is to network, then build towards it. Don’t start with it. It’s all too much, too soon.

Extroverts and social folks love to get talking, and they will, but plan to start with shy. Start with the shyest person in mind to design your agenda, activities & program.

Cater to the most introverted people and you'll build the greatest safety from there.

Pssst, are you shy? How do you like to be engaged and involved in meetings? Like and let me know below.