Facilitating Brainstorming

November 24, 2009 by · Comments Off 

One of the challenges for the brain-storming session facilitator is finding the balance between giving everyone an opportunity to participate while directing the flow and the process.

People with problems, who feel passionate about their unmet needs, may not be ready to articulate an idea or solution but have a strong desire to be heard. So they tell their story in detail and understandably, resent being interrupted. However, most detail and back-story falls outside the session’s purpose and can result in resentment from the group if too much time gets used up in the telling.

Facilitators can handle this typical scenario by making a brief, simple and friendly upfront agreement with the group, requesting that people:

  • present an idea or solution to a problem, or…
  • present a problem and ask the group for solutions or ideas

Asking for a show of hands as agreement to the process works great. At the closing, thanking the group for their behavioral change provides acknowledgment and reinforcement.

Its unlikely that everyone will change. Some people may fall back into their habit of providing more data and detail than is needed or desired. In those cases, its probably better for the overall dynamic to let it go because anything more than a gentle and friendly reminder could have a negative impact on the individual and on the energy in the room.

Notice your own feelings. If there’s frustration in you, remind yourself that perfectionism and over-reliance on process are creativity and spontaneity killers. You can improvise and make adjustments to the content and the schedule on the fly. Those are small trade-offs for creating an atmosphere of inclusiveness, trust and respect.

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Filed under: communications leadership, Creativity, inclusion, self-awareness, self-management, social communications, team leadership, trust
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Discernment – Its An Honor

October 18, 2009 by · Comments Off 

Discernment: The “D” in DRIVE

One of the 5 requisites of the RedShift DRIVE Self-Awareness and Change Leadership Model, and key to shifting identity in the meta-cognitive dimension, is Discernment.

Question Knowledge

Our default response is to form opinions and make personal, professional and business decisions based upon what we know: what’s worked or failed in the past, what we’ve read, heard, learned and been advised about by experts. What’s still often ignored is a sense response to subtle yet profound shifts and getting at “what we don’t know we don’t know” or “what we know but don’t know we know”.

I recently observed an example in a growing company in crisis due to lack of available financing in the current credit crunch. The management team’s opinion was that securing venture financing was the only way to survive. The founder/CEO wanted to hang on and self-fund in spite of looming insolvency rather than give up control and ownership. Months of endless meetings, opinions and arguments led to deadlock because there was no framework for knowledge awareness. Both sides were totally convinced of and attached to the rightness of their respective knowledge so could not brainstorm any breakthrough short-term, or transformational long-term, ideas.

These kinds of scenarios are played out every day as individuals and organizations try to figure out “where do we, or I, go from here?” The answer doesn’t seem to be more knowledge and advice, but rather a facilitated process to uncover the logic and truth driving every opinion and to examine if those beliefs hold true or need to be changed or replaced. The prerequisite for questioning knowledge is the agreement to suspend judgment and will. Those who refuse to learn and practice these skills will become increasing ineffective in the decision making, problem solving and innovation process.

Trust Intuition

Here’s a new way to think about lead generation: make yourself a funnel for your intuitive leads, pay attention and act on them without hesitation. As metaphysician Florence Scovel Shinn taught “Intuition is a spiritual faculty and does not explain, but simply points the way.” To better discern among myriad choices, change responses and scenarios why not just ask for leads from a higher intelligence that’s always available and take it from there?

Honor Creative Power

Although we emphasize it more, we still tend to think about creative in terms of talent and visible output where team stars rise to the top and good managers find, cultivate and retain the stars for competitive advantage. That’s how organizations and teams succeed. But is it the only way to discern success?

I was recently part of a team of 8 women who got together to row in the Head of the Charles in a very competitive event. We had less than a month to organize and practice a few times but it quickly became apparent that there was a special dynamic among us. It was about more than appreciation for each others’ experience, talent, commitment and training. There was no “rah rah” about what we could achieve and there was no resentment about problems that came up or a result that was disappointing. It was bigger than any of that. It was about honoring our power to create an experience that served our greater selves. It seemed to arise naturally out of appreciation and gratitude for each other, the sport, the river, the rowing community and beyond.

Discernment is about what to yes to and what to say no. These decisions are shaped by our expectations about the (usually quantifiable) results we want from ourselves or our team. Self-aware teams will achieve so much more through honoring their creative power and achieving the possibly immeasurable result of natural influence.

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Filed under: change leadership, integral, intuition, knowledge, Natural influence, self-awareness, shift, team leadership
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