3

Facilitating

MAKING IT EASIER WITH THREE CORE SKILLS

This chapter focuses on detailing three core skills for meeting leaders who value facilitation, servant leadership, and getting DONE faster (structure). As meeting facilitator, you need to command these core skills but, at the same time, remember to always reduce or eliminate distractions so that your group stays focused.

Three Core Skills of Meeting Leaders

The following are three core skills vital to effective meeting leadership:

1. Speaking and Questioning Clearly
   • – Being parsimonious—expressing the most with the least
   • – Clarifying the meaning of terms—timely expanding and focusing conversation
   • – Commanding the language—properly applying the parts of speech
   • – Discovering the objective evidence, examples, facts, and logic
   • – Distilling content contributions accurately, if not verbatim
   • – Seeking objective measurements behind subjective biases
2. Actively Listening and Observing Constantly
   • – Contacting and absorbing—noticing participants’ verbal, nonverbal, and paraverbal (such as tone) aspects
   • – Confirming—ensuring accuracy
   • – Monitoring time, pace, and other environmental “noise” that might get in the way
   • – Reflecting emotions, feelings, opinions, and other supporting rationale
   • – Scanning for acceptance, rejection, or uncertainty from any participant
3. Remaining Neutral and Controlling Context without Fail
   • – Applying ground rules to get more done faster
   • – Creating a climate of acceptance and trust
   • – Documenting options or action plans without bias
   • – Helping participants decide and prioritize without your judgment
   • – Instructing participants how to structure their doubts or fears
   • – Stimulating conversations about an answer, not the answer

ROSETTA STONE OF FACILITATION

Meetings reflect a complex blend of issues, personalities, and proposals. As the meeting facilitator, when these issues cause you to question what you should do, ask yourself this question: “If ________ happens, is it a distraction or not?”

Because this question provides a key or a way of shaping any question you have about what you should or should not do, I call this question the Rosetta stone of facilitation.¹ If the answer is yes—whatever issue you are wondering about is a distraction—then it is your responsibility to remove the cause of the distraction so that your group can remain sharp and focused. However, if the answer is no, it is not a distraction, then don’t worry about it.

The most formidable challenge for you and most facilitators is to get an intelligent group of people to focus on the same thing at the same time. Telling participants to focus will not work. Rather, you must persist in removing distractions so that whatever remains becomes the focal point. From start to finish, to create traction, removing distractions remains the essential discipline.

The Core Skill of Speaking Clearly

Clarity represents the extent to which a speaker’s intent secures the understanding they seek. Unfortunately, numerous filters and obstacles stand between a speaker’s intent and a listener’s understanding, such as these:

• Biases and prejudices
• Perceptual challenges
• Speaking mannerisms
• Technology hiccups
• Vague word choice (lack of rhetorical precision)

Power struggles between various departments or business units often result from language differences and word choice. Power struggles may not be intentional but may occur because of differing perspectives and definitions of terms and expressions.

In meetings, facilitators do not work with “words” so much as with the intent and meaning behind the words. Frequently, graphs, illustrations, and models are better universal sources of content than narrative descriptions.

FACILITATE MEANING, NOT WORDS

Meeting participants most frequently express and extract meaning from the world of words, which I refer to as “narrative.” Five common techniques, including narrative, express intent and meaning:

1. Narrative
2. Nonverbal
3. Illustrative
4. Iconic (symbols)
5. Numeric

NARRATIVE

Oral and written (narrative) rhetoric relies on words, the primary means of communicating in meetings. However, nonnarrative methods may be equally effective and sometimes preferred, especially when explaining complex topics and issues.

NONVERBAL

Substantial information during meetings transfers through body signals, openness (or closeness), shifting eyebrows, frowns of disapproval and grins of approval, and the like. Hand gestures help explain the passion and intensity behind some meeting participants’ claims, along with cadence, tone, and other paraverbal traits.

ILLUSTRATIVE

Drawings, illustrations, and pictures reflect intent and meaning and are particularly effective in explaining complex relationships. Pictures of birds provide much clearer understanding about birds than using words alone. Likewise, process flow and value stream diagrams may provide quick overviews more effectively and efficiently than verbal explanations.

ICONIC (OR SYMBOLIC)

Icons and symbols extend intent and meaning. Many icons are now universally acceptable and leapfrog the challenges associated with language challenges. Street signs, restroom symbols, and public transportation indicators do not leave much room for confusion or misunderstanding (take the stop sign, for example).

NUMERIC

Scorecards, spreadsheets, and other weighted ranking systems should be familiar. Additionally, I built my Quantitative TO-WS Analysis (chapter 6) to describe the Current Situation numerically, thus avoiding some of the emotion and passion that can bog people down in searching for the right words. By using numbers instead of words, participants strive to understand in addition to trying to be understood.

OTHER TECHNIQUES

Dance, movies, music, storytelling, and other formats also communicate intent and meaning. Most of us, however, rarely engage other formats for expressing our intent when we are working with business groups.

Rhetorical Precision: Why It Can Be Tricky

Languages are remarkably dynamic. The English language is particularly rich, with a heritage of diversity. Unlike French or Italian, English is not a fixed or static language. The meanings of English words are “not established, approved, and firmly set by some official committee charged with preserving its dignity and integrity.” Influenced heavily by other languages, the English language is renowned for its “capacity for foxy and relentlessly slippery flexibility.”²

Table 3.1. English: A Mash-Up of Words from Major Languages

Between 1590 and 1610 alone, more than 100,000 new words were added to the English language. Over time, some words do not survive, and others mutate into existence (for example, “Google” used as a verb). Because society itself introduces added terms, English becomes a hodgepodge of diverse and multicultural languages (see table 3.1).

I often ask students—and you may do the same before proceeding—to write down a single English term that describes the opposite of “life.” Most write down “death.” I then ask them to write down the opposite of “birth” and see a lot of smiles. Most would argue that the term “death” best answers the second challenge, and a better answer to the first challenge might be “lifelessness.”

Of the eight parts of speech in English grammar³ (the number varies for other languages), four are particularly problematic for facilitators working in English: adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and pronouns. Collectively we call these words “modifiers” (although prepositions may be better viewed as “containers”).

For example, if Sally claims she added value at her place of employment last week, few will dispute her statement. But if Sally claims she added a lot of value last week, guess which term we will talk about?

NOTE: When facilitating, be particularly careful with dialogue that includes “nyms”: antonyms, contronyms, homonyms, or synonyms. Challenge and precision are required to build solid consensus around synonyms, especially when they are used as modifiers such as adjectives and adverbs.⁴ With homonyms, someone in the group is most assuredly hearing the “wrong” term.⁵

Similar words may express substantive differences as well. Consensual understanding is challenged by the similarities and at the same time the differences in meaning among terms derived from Anglo-Saxon, French, and Latin or Greek origins, as shown in table 3.2.

Dictionary definitions are not enough. Dictionaries describe what something means but do not prescribe which meaning was intended. Grammar determines how words are converted to the intent or meaning behind them.

Grammar reflects part but not all the context required to determine meaning. The context surrounding words and intent has tremendous influence on our translation of words into meaning. For example, without context, I could use my dictionary’s fourth definition of “had,” third definition of “little,” and first definition of “lamb” to interpret the sentence “Mary had a little lamb” to mean that Mary may have eaten lamb for dinner! (Or maybe she took a small bite of lamb and did not like it!)

Even with supporting context, individual terms challenge people and cost organizations. Supposedly, the word “occurrence” cost the insurance policy consortium for the World Trade Center Towers nearly US$5 billion of additional risk, because the entire property was insured per “occurrence.”

NOTE: Was the situation on 9/11 involving New York’s World Trade Center destruction one “occurrence” or two “occurrences”? For a compelling discussion on this topic, see The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature, by Steven Pinker.

Even a basic term like “country” becomes surprisingly difficult to define. At one time, US Homeland Security offered 251 choices for the “country where you live,” each one with its own unique number and recognized as a valid country.

Table 3.2. Similar Yet Different

For example, combining multiple sources at the start of the new millennium, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta had only two buildings in Rome but had diplomatic relations with 100 countries. The Vatican is cloistered in four hectares in the middle of Italy’s capital but remained only an observer in the United Nations. Israel joined the world body in 1949, but twenty to thirty of the 192 UN members did not accept the Jewish state’s existence. One-half of UN members recognized Kosovo at a time when the UN itself did not recognize Kosovo. Your organization may have similar cultural challenges when defining even basic terms, such as “customer” or “goal.”

Moreover, context alone does not ensure consensual understanding, because the English language even permits contronyms, or words that mean the opposite of themselves, in context. For example, “garnish” can mean to furnish, as with food preparation, or to take away, as with wages; “refrain” could be to repeat or to halt; “screen” can mean to show (a movie) or conceal.

Are you beginning to see the importance of rhetorical precision?

NOTE: As a contronym, the term “consult” is nebulous and vague. When you say “consult” does that mean you are giving me something or that I need to give you something? Your guess is as good as mine!

KEEP IT SIMPLE

Regarding vocabulary, less is more. I should know; I struggle with this issue every day. Just ask my significant other. One trick I use is to remind myself to speak so that my grandmother will understand me. In other words, use the term “bunch” instead of “plethora.”

Much can be expressed using very few words. Or as my grandmother would have told you, “I’ve heard good sermons and I’ve heard long sermons, but I’ve never heard a good, long sermon.”

EMPHASIS ON PRECISION

Strive for precision, especially with your questions. For example, it is better to ask open-ended versions of questions than the ones we convert (unconsciously) to close-ended versions.

• “Anything else?” This common and vague question opens the floor to a plethora—oops, sorry, Grandma!—I mean, a bunch of out-of-scope and often confusing replies. Rather, contrast vagueness with the ease of repeating an entire question, such as “What are other ways we can improve food storage capacity in coastal Somalia?”
• “Do we all agree?” and “Do we have consensus?” are both unanswerable unless you are clairvoyant. However, “Will you support ________?” is answerable, both in the singular and the plural. “If we do ________, will you lose any sleep over it?” is also answerable by all participants.
• “Under what circumstances . . . ?” is immediately more effective than “Are there any circumstances . . . ?”
• “Who would like to share their thoughts. . . ?” does not compel a detailed response as well as “What are the arguments supporting [or against] . . . ?” (the question is also irrelevant since we care about what participants think and not who is doing the thinking).

Substance over Style

When training facilitators, I always stress substance over style. That said, effective presentation skills stimulate unique ideas, impressions, and intuitions. Presenting comes alive with qualities you bring:

• Cadence and tempo
• Eye contact (looking at participants increases trust)
• Gestures (no pointing at or turning your back on participants, for example)
• Inflections (avoid sounding monotone)
• Passion, pitch, and tone
• Pauses (do not fill them with meaningless words)
• Posture and movement—presenting yourself in a way that evokes credibility and respect (do not slouch or stand in one place, and do not hide behind the tables, podium, or flip charts)

VERBAL BLUNDERS

Being natural is more important than being polished. In the natural course of speech, people slip, stumble, and make verbal blunders (disfluencies).⁶ Strive to be conscious of disfluencies so that they do not become distractions. Repeated blunders, rather than one-time slips, should be particularly avoided and carefully monitored. But never fall short of being natural and trustworthy. A speaker whose style is too smooth comes across as fake and untrustworthy, because speaking in public scares most people.

In 2004, Robert Eklund estimated that about 6 percent of spoken words count as disfluent:

• Filled pauses (such as “uh,” “um”)—found in every language, even American Sign Language, and an important disfluency to monitor, if a distraction
• Mispronunciations—can be natural and solicit nonverbal response; don’t be bashful about asking for correction
• Prolongations of individual sounds—typically natural
• Truncations—careful with slang and proper pronunciation

Researcher Sharon Oviatt counted between 1.7 and 8.8 disfluencies per 100 words spoken. She found that 60 to 70 percent of disfluencies could be eliminated if the speaker’s questions and responses were simply shorter and more specific.

PUBLIC SPEAKING

Public speaking is the number one fear of Americans. Fear of dying rates number two. Comedian Jerry Seinfeld suggests that, statistically, more Americans attending a funeral would rather be in the casket than delivering the eulogy.

As the brain senses a threat in the environment, the amygdala (the gray matter inside each cerebral hemisphere, involved with the experiencing of emotions) responds by activating the “fight or flight” response. The response includes other biological changes like a faster heart rate and increased blood flow to the brain. When speaking in front of others, speakers with a fear of public speaking have more active amygdalae. For those who fear public speaking, additional scripting and practice help tremendously.

NOTE: Regarding fear of public speaking—scientists at 23andMe identified 802 genetic markers that are associated with fear of public speaking. Genetics and other factors like age, sex, and ancestry also influence fears.

According to the National Speakers Association (2006), the principles and practice of facilitating, rather than preaching, provide the most effective means to establish clear messaging. In other words, lead with questions rather than answers.

Toastmasters International helps speakers deliver clear messages using voice, vocabulary, and delivery that are fully under control and disciplined through rehearsal and practice. The organization’s founder (in 1907), Ralph Smedley, called the style “amplified conversation”: you do not speak to an audience but with an audience. According to Smedley, the two notable features are brevity and eye contact, combined with avoiding “um.” I also suggest taking up refereeing or coaching as a method to improve your public speaking skills and confidence.

NONVERBAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS

Keep your elbows tucked in, your hands below your heart, and your hands open, facing up. Be cautious with anything else.

For example, extending the index and little fingers upward from the fist to form a V (with the middle and pointer fingers tucked down into the palm, along with the thumb) can signify victory or good luck in the Americas but is considered quite vulgar in Italy.

A single thumb up, commonly used to express “fine with me” in the United States, counts as the number one in Germany and the number five in Japan, and is a vulgar insult in Afghanistan, among other places (akin to holding up only the middle finger in the United States). Scuba divers universally acknowledge the clasping of the thumb and index finger into a circle (or “A-OK”) as the buddy signal that “I’m OK.” The same gesture is perceived as a vulgar insult in Russia and Italy, while it signifies “pay me” in Japan and displays a sense of “worthlessness” in France.

YES OR NO?

In the United States, shaking your head from side to side typically signifies “no” or “I’m not in agreement.” However, it may signify “yes” or “no problem” in Bulgaria and elsewhere. The slight vertical nod of the head up and down signifies “I’m OK with it” in the United States but may signify “no” or “I don’t see it” in Greece and elsewhere. As a friend of mine suggested, “Understanding these cultural differences is so critical for international business.”

While nonverbal cues are intended to simplify understanding, they can complicate consensus in a multicultural setting. As with everything, context prevails. The role of the meeting facilitator requires you to police context on behalf of participants—so be careful.

Zen of the Experience

When seeking innovation and breakthrough during meetings or workshops, do not clone yourself. Keep your blend of participants highly diversified. I call it the “Zen of the experience”—speaking to all senses and perspectives to stimulate and maintain vibrancy.

Moods and judgments are profoundly influenced by experiences of sight and sound. For example, we feel happier on sunny days and more relaxed when listening to certain types of music. Negative environments produce contrary results. Research shows that heat and humidity provoke more fighting, violence, and even riots.

MUSIC HELPS A LOT

For my facilitation courses, I’ve created break timers that fuse musical memes that could be best described as eclectic—ranging from Frank Sinatra to Frank Zappa. My timers also include trivia questions for mental stimulation and some wonderful photography for visual stimulation.

TACTILE TRIGGERS

I have distributed chenille stems (also known as pipe cleaners) and foam stickers to meeting participants for years now, usually placing them beneath name tents. While some participants don’t bother using them, research by Joshua Ackerman, Christopher Nocera, and John Bargh proves that the weight, texture, and hardness of the things we touch unconsciously factor into decisions we make that have nothing to do with what is being touched.⁷

Most people associate smoothness and roughness with ease and difficulty, respectively. Note the expressions “smooth sailing” and “rough seas ahead.” According to Ackerman and colleagues, people who completed puzzles with pieces covered in sandpaper described their interaction as more difficult and awkward than those with smooth puzzles. Chenille stems offer both silky smoothness and flexibility, characteristics we seek from our participants and meetings. Chenille stems make everything seem better. They are effective, and research confirms why. Molding clay and Play-Doh are reasonable options, although some carry an odor you will want to avoid.

You will also find that the smell of citrus fruit and fresh air (along with alcohol-laden products like Purell) will alert and awaken participants who may be dozing off. Alternatively, consider using a 30-30, that is a 30-second “stand up and stretch” break every 30 minutes, to prevent doldrums.

USING VISUALS AND GRAPHICS

Nonnarrative or graphic methods provide an excellent alternative to words. Use matrices, tables, and diagrams to fuel basic information or hot innovative ideas. Graphic methods are highly supportive when . . .

• Agreeing on concepts
• Analyzing to be concise
• Exploring complex ideas
• Finding common ground during cross-cultural situations
• Scoping challenges
• Solving problems
• Strategically planning concepts for visions, missions, objectives

Table 3.3. Seven Formats, from Most to Least Complex

GRAPHIC IMPACT AND FORMATS

Complexity can be rendered more easily with charts than words. In 2008, Dr. Paul Krugman received the Nobel Prize for creating insight with his display of data, not for the originality of his ideas.⁸ Arthur Young and David Sibbet developed seven graphic formats based on increasing complexity.⁹ The formats engage people from conception through analysis and finally commitment to an idea. The seven formats are listed in table 3.3.

GRAPHICS IN MEETINGS

It is not enough to be comfortable drawing pictures. Knowing “which graphic format to use when” supports great meeting design. The graphic is the means to an end. Knowing the end and finding the appropriate means make for a more effective meeting. Realize that graphic formats help people think through problems and speed up the development of consensual solutions.

DOS AND DON’TS

The following are some basic guidelines for using graphics:

• Do build storyboards and other illustrations that link together concepts.
• Do worry about content. Do not worry about “artistry.”
• Explain instructions clearly. Don’t be vague or too restrictive.
• Learn if it doesn’t work. Don’t get worried. Fail with a bow.
• Let them know this is important and not “just fun stuff.”
• Make graphics a means to an end, not the reason for the effort.
• Whenever possible, use icons, illustrations, and multiple colors to break up the monotony of a single-color hue or the monotony of all-narrative content.

A FUN EXAMPLE OF VISUAL IMPACT

To understand the sheer power of infographics and visual displays, consider that the back of the retina is made up of brain cells, not eye cells. It is where seeing and thinking occur simultaneously.

Treat yourself to an original demonstration in a short film by Charles and Ray Eames, Powers of Ten (https://www.eamesoffice.com/education/powers-of-ten-2). While modern versions such as the one narrated by Morgan Freeman provide superior sound and graphics, the original 1977 IBM-sponsored version remains hard to beat. This site provides an alternative soundtrack to play while viewing: https://mimirosenbush.com/powers-of-ten/.

Which Path? The Art of Questioning

For longer than the recorded history of humans, hikers and mountaineers have turned around, faced their group or partner, and asked, “Which way?” and as soon as someone says, “To the left,” someone else asks, “Why?”¹⁰

As a climber, your decision or choice is a function of countless variables, including duration, distance, and elevation. Later in the journey, you will discover the best path is also influenced by sun orientation and wind direction. As the decision about which path to take becomes a function of those primary variables, you will also realize that those variables are not equally valued.

As an example, for one person or group, ambient comfort (with their purpose being “experience”) represents the highest importance, so sun exposure and wind chill are critical. Another group stresses elevation and distance (their purpose is “conditioning”). Both rationales are optimal for their respective groups. A neutral facilitator, armed with the appropriate Tools,¹¹ could help them both decide and agree on a path—and business decisions are usually far more complex than that.

A GUIDE ON THE SIDE, NOT A SAGE ON THE STAGE

Once you have confirmed that you accurately heard and understood what participants believe, use questions rather than edicts to advance the conversation. Use either prepared or impromptu questions that will:

• Build group cohesion
• Create receptiveness to change and development
• Direct teams to look for similarities—for example, apples and oranges are both fruit and similar in shape, size, and weight; they both bruise easily and rot as well
• Help maintain focus within scope
• Increase learning and innovative thinking

Questions are most effective when presented with an inquiring, probing, and neutral perspective. Effective questions are open-ended discoveries and not opinions disguised as questions.

• Questions that tend to shut down communication and turn off participants include these:
  • – “Don’t you think that. . . ?” (message: “Agree with me”)
  • – “Why don’t you . . . ?” (message: “Do what I want you to do” )
  • – “You don’t really believe that, do you?” (message: “You are stupid or naive”)
• Questions that stimulate communication and creativity include these:
  • – “In what ways might we. . . ?”
  • – “What are the advantages (or disadvantages) of . . . ?”
  • – “What do you think about . . . ?”
  • – “What options do you see . . . ?”

Do not ask for permission to ask questions. “Tell us why” is preferred to “Would you like to explain?”

Prepare yourself to challenge participants and get them to think more clearly about causes rather than symptoms. For example, why they are fatigued is more important than the fatigue—get to the cause.

• Get comfortable with your word choice. I frequently, and quickly, follow up participant comments with the challenge “Because?”—forcing them to explain the reason behind their claim.
• Highly effective and spontaneous challenges include variants of “Why are you certain?”
• Remember, it is participants’ responsibility to “speak clearly” and provide reasons to support their positions.

Superb questions convert subjective input into objective criteria, making it easier to build consensus:

• “What is the unit of measurement for ?”
• “What proof have you discovered?”
• “What type of evidence can you provide?”

For precision, break questions into detailed pieces. As you know, it is not easy for an individual to respond to questions like “How do you solve global hunger?” While meaningful, the question is too broad to stimulate specific, actionable responses like “convert abandoned mine shafts in coastal Somalia to food storage areas.”

We also tend to transition during meetings with questions like “Are we OK with this list?” or “Can you live with that?” Instead, apply precision and structure by adapting the following three questions to your situation, especially during transitions:

1. What do we need to clarify on this list?
2. What do we need to delete?
3. What needs to be added to this list?

These three transition questions make it easier for meeting participants to analyze, agree, and move on. The questions produce more powerful results than questions no one can answer, such as “Does everyone agree with . . . ?” (no one is able to read the minds of other participants).

HOW TO ASK

Follow a basic pattern when asking questions:

• Ask
• Long pause (three to five seconds)
• Invite

This pattern avoids placing participants on the spot. It allows the entire group to answer, yet enables you to nonverbally solicit an answer from a particular person should no one volunteer.

Remember that challenging participants to be clear and complete benefits everyone. Do not construe your challenges as stepping out of role, because clarification makes it easier for everyone to understand. Challenge whenever you sense nonverbal signals of fear, uncertainty, or doubt (FUD).

While we are interested in what participants think, consensus is built around why they think that way, and unanimity occurs when your challenges result in objective proof. Consider the following sequence that demonstrates increasing robustness:

1. What they know or believe to be true—good
2. Why they believe something to be true—better
3. Proof for their belief or claim—best

CAUTION

Questioning can represent your technique or obstacle, depending on how you use questions. Use questions to guide and stimulate your group, not to dominate or manipulate it. When fielding questions, you must be able to sort context questions from questions about content. Answer the context questions directly and act like Teflon to deflect all questions of content.

For example, if you are asked by a meeting participant which option you favor (content), reflect the option back to other participants with: “It doesn’t matter what I think. What do you folks think about ______?”

However, if asked by a meeting participant which tool you plan to use to prioritize a set of criteria, NEVER ask them which tool they would like to use (context). As their “process policeperson” step up and tell them exactly what Tools are anticipated to help them analyze their own content.

INTERACTIVE LISTENING QUESTIONS

The following questions have been “scrubbed” as solid, open-ended questions that demand more than a yes or no (or maybe) answer:

• “And then what?”
• “Because?”
• “Share with us . . .”

Avoid interrupting:

• Don’t change the subject without announcing your intention to do so.
• Interrupt only to clarify questions or to increase momentum through a quick comment.

Clarify:

• “Explain how . . . ?”
• “How do you mean that. . . ?”
• “How will that impact . . . ?”
• “Huh?”
• Practice saying “Go ahead . . .”

Encourage without validating:

• “Hmmm. . .”
• “No kidding”
• “Really”
• “That’s interesting”
• “Wow”

At the end of the comments, summarize important points and ask for confirmation that everyone understood the issue or interest:

• “To what extent have we captured your point of view correctly?”
• “Your position on the matter of ________ is . . .”

Leverage body language:

• Involved posture: lean forward, don’t fold arms, and avoid cold shoulder.
• Use pleasant, encouraging facial expression—smile.

Maintain silence:

• A silence lasting three to five seconds encourages the other person to say more.

Restate and ask for confirmation:

• “Let’s see if we understand that correctly. We heard that . . .”

FACILITATION’S DARK SECRET: LISTENING IS MORE PERSUASIVE THAN SPEAKING

A senior vice president at Honeywell once told me, “Selling is a series of well-thought-out questions.” We know “facilitating” secures consensual answers to questions by “making it easier.” Therefore, facilitating is a method of making it easier to sell and persuade by asking a series of well-thought-out questions. And it begins by listening to understand and not listening to reply.

NOTE: Dr. Amy Cuddy’s research demonstrates that people answer two questions when they first meet someone:

• – Can they TRUST the person?
• – Can they RESPECT the person?

Others may refer to these two dimensions as “warmth” and “competence.” Cuddy effectively asserts they clearly develop in the sequence shown. Trust always comes before respect. ¹²

Silence generates trust when the persona exudes authenticity, compassion, and warmth. The tendency of most of us is to believe that competence comes first. However, belief in competence does not develop until trust is established.

Listening, not speaking, makes you a more powerful negotiator. Likewise, silence can make you appear warmer and more trustworthy.

Reducing errors helps reduce costs within products, projects, and processes, but preventing omissions may help even more. Groups recall and remember more than individuals and may use the input from individuals to create a response that integrates multiple viewpoints. Questions drive consensual understanding by minimizing errors, but more important, proper challenges help prevent costly omissions.

The Core Skill of Active Listening

For servant leadership and effective facilitation, active listening becomes indispensable. As a practitioner you will discover that feeding back (reflecting, restating) what the participant said never compares to the value of understanding and sharing why they said it.

NATURE PROVIDES TWO EARS YET ONLY ONE MOUTH

Active listening serves to benefit dyads, groups, teams, and tribes for these reasons:

• Arguments and evidence encourage everyone to comment.
• Often, participants formulate ideas spontaneously, and feedback helps refine their thoughts. The act of communicating affects what is being communicated.
• Participants value being heard—listened to.
• With an attitude of openness and listening, we can all learn something new.

In a conversation we make contact and absorb what the other person is saying. Then we move on to the next question. With active listening we need to feed back the reasons for what we have heard, confirm whether we got it right, and challenge them for anything substantive we may be missing (see table 3.4).

Conversations take less time. However, active listening prevents misunderstandings and helps generate options that were previously not considered, thus improving decision quality.

ACTIVE LISTENING PROCEDURE

People don’t care what you know until they know that you care. Genuine active listening connotes empathy and requires four activities:

Table 3.4. It’s Easier to Have a Conversation

• Contact—Connect with the participant who is speaking. Make eye contact. Maintain an open posture.
• Absorb—Take in all aspects of what is being said. Do not judge or evaluate.
• Reflective feedback—Mirror, reflect, or give feedback about what you have heard and why the participant’s claims are valid.
• Confirm—Obtain confirmation that you heard the participant’s message accurately. If not, start the sequence over again at the beginning by having the participant restate his or her view.

THE FEEDBACK DIFFERENCE

Reflection distinguishes active listening from passive listening, in which people conversationally move from one statement to the next without verifying that content has been understood. Reflection may be oral or visual.

Capturing input verbatim is preferred, but at least provide feedback and confirm using one of three responses:

• Summarize—Much communication occurs without foresight. Often more words are used than necessary. When you summarize, boil input down to its essence or core message, ideally to the point of isolating the key verb and noun components first. Participants argue most frequently about adjectives and adverbs (modifiers), rarely about nouns or verbs.
• Synthesize—Shape fragments into a whole, integrate the stream of consciousness intended by group conversations.
• Paraphrase—Repeat what participants said using fewer words while preserving the original meaning and intent.

When reflecting feedback, depersonalize a participant’s content with pluralistic rhetoric. Do not say “You said . . .” Rather, convert participants’ expressions with integrative rhetoric such as “We heard . . .”

Strive for completeness when providing reflection. Try to avoid general expressions like “Does everyone agree with that?” (What was “that”?) Substitute specific content for impersonal pronouns such as “that,” “these,” “it,” and so on. For example, “Does everyone agree that torture can be consciously objectionable because it is inhumane and opposed to the Geneva Convention?” works better than “Does everyone agree with that?” because participants understand precisely what is meant.

THE WORD “LISTEN” USES THE SAME LETTERS AS “SILENT”

Active listening captures a powerful discipline that builds relationships among participants. Exercising active listening sets an example for your participants and lays the foundation for building clarity and shared understanding. Active listening makes it easier to see the world through others’ eyes.

REFLECTING THEIR CONTENT WITH PAPER

Large Post-it presentation sheets provide immediate and visual feedback. Working with paper makes confirmation and editing faster and more thorough than trying to remember what someone said earlier. For me, working with paper is also faster than capturing content in electronic form, especially in group sessions, when participants are tempted to spell-check and edit anything being projected, blocking the creative flow.

Remember the following when reflecting participants’ content with paper:

• Anticipate where sheets will be mounted. Be sensitive about everyone’s sight lines. Save your prime real estate, front and center, for your work in progress (WiP).
• Banners and headlines provide a perfect opportunity to splash color and graphics. Create them in advance. When unveiled, your preparation connotes a sense of importance.
• Experts recommend a minimum of three colors per sheet. Use only black or dark blue for primary content. Use red for edits and scoring; use green for linking, or later edits (shows chronological shift). Use lighter colors for grid lines, underscores, and highlights.
• Predrawing illustrations (in pencil or light marker) enables you to draw over light or thin lines with broad markers, like tracing paper.
• Rip and mount your pages, never simply flip completed pages. Participants need to see their prior work. A bunch of flipped sticky pages nested in a clump becomes difficult to disentangle.
• Speed up content capture by using two scribes. Work this system out in advance, and if relying on another participant for documenter help, give them some time at the end to add their own content.
• Use hyphens and indent content four to six inches along the left-hand column to be further defined or scored during analysis, such as when using the PowerBalls Tool (chapter 7).
• Use flip chart graph paper with blue-line squares to keep the size of writing consistent. Test the size of your letters before the meeting to see whether the person farthest away can read them. Normally, capital letters should be two to three inches tall, and lowercase letters should be one to two inches in height.

PUNCTUATION

When capturing online or on paper, do not forget the power of tiny punctuation marks either.¹³ Compare the potential distraction factor of an example like this: “Let’s eat, grandma” versus “Let’s eat grandma”!

Facilitation Power: Observing

Observation and remaining neutral fortify active listening. Use observation (for example, eye contact) to manage the collective dynamics and energies of the group.

Observation depends on both gazing and focusing. Improve your peripheral vision so that you can do both at the same time. Understandably, online meetings reduce the benefits of observation because we cannot see everything nor sense as much. However, observation remains critical.

GAZING

Gazing is the predominant form of looking around. Gazing is not judgmental, evaluative, visually prodding, or analytical. When gazing:

• Eyes are serene and unfocused.
• Eyes may move steadily from one participant to another.
• Online, in “gallery view” (with “no hiding” as a ground rule), continually scan participants.
• When you make transitions, step forward and smile, lower your voice and raise your eyebrows, open your hands, and scan the room—intuitively sense that everyone “can live with it” and “support it.”

LASER FOCUSING

Laser focusing is more direct—almost staring, while sharply focused. The eyes do not move. When focusing:

• Make direct eye contact; do not glance away too quickly, and keep it comfortable by lingering two to three seconds.
• During online meetings, move your face closer to the camera, taking up about one-third of the screen. Don’t be afraid to “cut off your head” so that the eyes are clearly dominant.
• Make use of single-pointedness. Use laser focusing when you require concentration to hear and understand participants. Also use laser focusing to manage people with problems—letting them know that you are aware of their distracting behavior.

STROLLING HELPS

Increase your friendliness further by avoiding podiums. Being conversational and natural increases likability. Get closer, measured in terms of physical proximity, to your participants. The easiest way to achieve closeness without violating personal space is to stroll toward participants. Moving closer to someone increases their feelings of warmth for you.¹⁴

Stroll forward during appropriate moments—particularly in these situations:

• As select personality types are inclined to become disruptive
• To display a stronger sense of engagement and active listening
• While making introductory remarks for both your meeting and for each Agenda Step (with online meetings, move your face closer to the camera if you are sitting; if you are standing, stroll directly to the camera)

Strolling is difficult when stuck in a small conference room with a big table or a huddle room with little perimeter, but walk around the table and the room anyway to keep people engaged. A U-shaped seating arrangement always makes it easier to stroll, positions you closer to participants, and enables you to be more conversational.

Use your space wisely. When participants are vibrant and need a scribe, stay at the easel as a documenter while their energy remains high. But as uncertainty or disagreement develop, slowly stroll forward to make it easier to vivify active listening and to demonstrate respect and value for the participant speaking.

During online workshops, I use three cameras: one for sitting and observing while others are facilitating; one for standing, while capturing participants’ content on one of two easels, or pointing to wall space to the side and behind (standing and movement add to the feel and “texture” of an online experience); and a third camera for clear and detailed zooming and sharing of documents and artifacts.

During arguments, make sure that evidence and claims to support participants’ interests go through you and not around you. There is no better time to be in the middle of the U-shaped seating environment than when participants are arguing. They need a referee, and serving as referee may be a significant part of your role as meeting facilitator.

SMILING HELPS

Two universally accepted nonverbal gestures are open hands and smiling. Open hands signify culturally that you have no weapons and will not harm the other person. Open hands are far more welcoming than the opposite—pointing. Open hands are also impactful during online meetings as you move closer to the camera making your hands larger and more pronounced.

With online meetings, the act of genuine smiling is encouraged among all cultures. A genuine smile is found appealing and increases the likelihood that your participants will warm to you. We must be careful, however, not to smile too much, not to smile inappropriately, and not to laugh too loud.

Smile occasionally, even with serious topics. If the meeting facilitator remains too stern and sober, the participants tense up, reducing the likelihood of collaboration and innovative thinking. If you need further help learning to smile, practice. Use your Launch scripting (chapter 5) for practice, and ask coworkers or family members to comment on the timing and effectiveness of your smile.

The Core Skill and Discipline of Remaining Neutral

Neutrality may be your most significant challenge, but it is also a defense mechanism. Being neutral means letting go of the “I,” the ego, a personal stake in the specific output of a meeting.

As you maintain neutrality, you will never be viewed as wrong when using participants’ verbatim content (their words). Neutrality means staying focused on the Meeting Approach, not a specific solution. Additionally, neutrality captures an attitude of acceptance of various points of view and . . .

• Becomes vital for effective conflict resolution
• Preserves the context, putting the burden of content on your participants

Staying neutral means keeping your opinions to yourself. You do not lose your opinions—but you learn to keep your mouth shut about content. Remember that an important part of your role is about keeping your opinions to yourself. Neutrality represents a discipline that does the following:

• Conveys acceptance of opposing views
• Draws out quiet people and perspectives
• Prevents facilitator alignment with “sides”
• Validates the Meeting Approach

KEEPING NEUTRAL

If you align yourself with a participant’s point of view, you become another participant. You must learn to draw out others’ perspectives without disclosing your own opinion. If you lose neutrality, stop the meeting, or simply ask the group to rein you in so that you can ask for forgiveness and move on. If your tendency is to violate neutrality, begin the meeting by telling the group that your role demands neutrality. If necessary, have participants police your actions, behaviors, and comments. Your candor will help a great deal.

STAYING HUMBLE

Neutrality is amplified by being perceived as humble. Remember, “Humble does not mean you think less of yourself. It simply means you think of yourself less often.” (I wish I had said that first. C. S. Lewis is considered the original source.)¹⁵

“WE” AND NOT “I”

Speak in pluralistic terms, using “we” instead of “I.” To make the group responsible for commitments and obligations, avoid expressions such as “I think,” “I want,” or “my plan.”

Embrace pluralistic rhetoric with your questions. Instead of saying, “I wonder what would happen if we raised prices?,” try saying, “What if we raised prices?”

• As the group makes progress, use “we.”
• When claiming success, use “we.”
• And when you are tempted to take credit, use “we.”

NOTE: Notice the difference between the words “illness” and “wellness” (singular versus plural first person).

YOUR IDEA SUCKS

Dr. Thomas Gordon’s seminal research confirmed that your judgment of their content will shut them down.¹⁶ Counterintuitively, his research also revealed that it is better to tell someone in a group that he or she has a bad idea than to tell the participant that he or she has a promising idea. You should do neither, and here is why.

If you tell participants their ideas suck, they will disconnect, and you will lose them for the rest of the meeting. However, if you tell a participant that he or she had a great idea, chances are you shut that person down as well, because he or she can now go home a “winner” by not opening his or her mouth again in the meeting. Simultaneously, someone who does not agree with your judgment, and does not think the idea was great, will also disconnect from you and the meeting because that person’s judgment is different from yours. Now you have lost two (or more) participants. So stop cheerleading!

IF ALL ELSE FAILS

If biting your tongue, candor, and conscious behavior fail you, consider the following ideas:

• Neutrality is not without passion. Share your passion about the Meeting Approach and its impact, but not about specific content.
• Dispense your expertise before a meeting (for example pre-read or Participants’ Package, chapter 5).
• Present your knowledge as a discrete activity before the meeting when you assume a different role, as presenter.
• Integrate your expertise around questions: repeat what is needed and then solicit participants’ recommendations about how they would respond.
• Bite your tongue—do not “switch hats” back and forth between being an expert (a consultant) and a facilitator. You will be viewed as potentially psychotic.
• Be painfully honest. Ask participants to object when you violate neutrality.

Neutrality is one of the few characteristics that are black-and-white. People will not view you as partly neutral any more than someone might say “I am partly pregnant.” You are viewed as either neutral or not. When you are not neutral, you are leaving your participants without a facilitator because you have become another participant.

Quick Summary on Facilitating

Consensus is not compromise. By definition, a compromise is a lose-lose situation; both sides give in. Consensus is a win-win resolution, because everyone can live with it, support it, and not lose any sleep over it.

CONSENSUS, NOT COMPROMISE

Your meeting participants must also understand the difference between consensus and compromise, and it is your job to carefully clarify that consensus does not mean giving in or conceding. Rather, consensus means “I can live with it” or “I will not lose any sleep over it.” Participants need to understand that, even though the deliverable (decision, final agreement, or whatever it is) may not be the “favorite” of any single participant, everyone has agreed that the deliverable is robust enough to support, making it the best deliverable for the group. Everyone can live with and support the deliverable, even if each preferred something else. Also, participants will not denigrate the deliverable in the hallway or subvert it when they get back to their office.

NOTE: You cannot control a participant’s integrity. If someone says one thing in the meeting and something else in the hallway, shame on them. As well-paid professional adults, participants have a duty and an obligation to speak up when they have pertinent content to share. Remember, your meeting is not an opportunity for them to contribute—rather, contributing is an obligation. And while it’s your obligation to protect them, it is not your responsibility to reach down their throats and pull their contribution out of them.

A BALANCING ACT

As the meeting leader you are responsible to balance the following imperatives:

• Being a leader—and serving the group
• Challenging and probing—while remaining content neutral
• Focusing on your tasks—while also focusing on their tasks
• Forging consensus—while listening to outliers
• Policing context—while inspiring content
• Staying in the moment—yet anticipating what comes next
• Waiting for a response—yet urging participation

Anyone who thinks all this is easy is clueless. Moreover, we have not addressed two of the more difficult aspects of successful meeting leadership—namely, managing dysfunction (conflict) and completing your meeting design. Fortunately, we have the rest of the book to make both these tasks easier for you.

¹ The Rosetta stone is a large stone carved and discovered in Egypt that enabled the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Facilitators use the imaginary Rosetta stone of “distractions” to arrive at an answer about behavior. If something is a distraction, it should not happen; if it’s not a distraction, don’t worry about it.

² Simon Winchester, The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary (2003), 29.

³ Noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and interjection.

⁴ A synonym is a word or phrase that means nearly the same as another word or phrase in the same language, for example, “begin” can be a synonym of “start.”

⁵ A homonym is each of two or more words having the same spelling but different meanings—for example, “lie” (recline) or “lie” (untruth).

⁶ Michael Erard, Um: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean (2007).

⁷ Joshua M. Ackerman, Christopher C. Nocera, and John A. Bargh, “Incidental Haptic Sensations Influence Social Judgments and Decisions” (2010).

⁸ Nobel Prize, “Paul Krugman,” press release, October 13, 2008.

⁹ See various works beginning with David Sibbet, “Encountering the Theory,” n.d., ArthurYoung.com, https://arthuryoung.com/sibbet.html, and David Sibbet, “Standing Up to the Sixth Extinction,” January 4, 2021, https://davidsibbet.com/category/process-theory/.

¹⁰ In my household, my significant other and our youngest child would ask, “Which left?”

¹¹ When using the italicized term “Tools,” the term refers to something specific in this book that might also be used as an individual Agenda Step or an entire Meeting Approach. For example, the procedure of using the Root Cause Analysis Tool frequently represents an entire meeting. When not italicized, the general term “tool” also refers to other tools or devices that are not included or discussed in this book.

¹² Amy Cuddy, Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges (2018).

¹³ If you need to brush up on your punctuation, with a little humor, check out Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (New York: Avery Publishing, 2004).

¹⁴ Harvey Black, “Stop Slouching!” (2010).

¹⁵ C. S. Lewis was an Irish-born scholar, novelist, and author of about 40 books. See “C. S. Lewis: Quotes,” Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7288468-humility-is-not-thinking-less-of-yourself-it-s-thinking-of.

¹⁶ See Parent Effectiveness Training, by Dr. Thomas Gordon (2000).