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Collaborating

HOW YOU CAN MANAGE CONFLICT

Meeting conflict derives primarily from individual thinking styles, individual behavior, group dynamics, and other situational factors, including the facilitator and their environment. The meeting facilitator is not responsible for resolving conflict. However, they must have a procedure for (and therefore be confident about) managing arguments, conflicting claims, and contradictory evidence.

The Ways People Think

As a meeting facilitator, you empower participants by enhancing their ability to understand and communicate with one another. You also inspire them to think creatively about their business. But not all participants respond to messages the same way (figure 4.1).

PEOPLE PRINCIPLES

Participants in a meeting argue over an elementary issue. Two people hear the same thing and react as if they were in different meetings. Why? Because people interpret information differently.

PEOPLE THINK DIFFERENTLY

There are many theories about how people process information. One theory states that the two hemispheres of the brain govern our thinking with right brain or left brain bias. Another theory, explained in the book Communicoding and summarized in table 4.1, states that the two primary modes of processing information are vertical and horizontal.1 Either way, people with opposing modes of thinking have a tough time communicating with each other because each perceives the world differently.

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Figure 4.1. Individual Thinking Style

VERTICAL THINKERS FIND DIFFERENCES (THINK ENGINEERING)

Vertical thinkers find differences, decompose issues, and design something new from the pieces (inductive reasoning). Vertical thinkers are logical, organized, and detail oriented. They will . . .

  • Easily discern immediate dynamics of a problem
  • Identify specific details and relate issues to reality
  • Know what can be accomplished within a given time
  • See barriers and obstacles to be removed
  • Take the common path to reach results

HORIZONTAL THINKERS FIND SIMILARITIES (THINK MARKETING)

Horizontal thinkers find similarities and common threads, making new associations among unrelated items (deductive reasoning). Horizontal thinkers are far-sighted, innovative, and conceptual. They will . . .

Table 4.1. Critical Thinking Comparison

Vertical Thinking

Horizontal Thinking

Explains the “plot” when describing a book or movie

Explains the “message” when describing a book or movie

Finds differences

Finds similarities

Fits into structure

Prefers the unstructured

Looks for risks

Looks at the benefits

Processes language

Processes visually, sees patterns

Seems logical

Seems intuitive

Thinks sequentially

Thinks nonsequentially

  • Easily discern the underlying dynamics of a problem
  • Identify contextual details, relating issues to a larger perspective
  • Know what impact can be achieved within a given context
  • See possibilities and benefits
  • Take an unlikely path to reach results

You cannot change the way people think—nor should you ever label participants. Your role is to help participants to hear one another and to better understand their communication challenges. Clues that thinking differences are causing problems include the following:

  • One person is arguing about the problems, while another is focused on the benefits.
  • One person is trying to get to the details, while the other is trying to focus on the ideas.
  • People are using the same words yet meaning something different or arguing as if they are saying something different.
  • People are using different words that seem to be saying the same thing.

THERE ARE NO SAFE PLACES, ONLY SAFE PEOPLE

As I begin to explain how to manage these and other differences, don’t forget my Rosetta stone: remove distractions. Therefore, my cardinal rule will be to not embarrass people. I don’t have this rule because we are professionals or compassionate. Rather, in the role of meeting facilitator, embarrassment is the single most powerful cause of a participant being distracted.

Thus, I encourage you to apply the following guiding principles when dealing with people (based on the golden rule of treating others as you wish to be treated):2

  • Never embarrass people, especially in public.
  • People are intrinsically reasonable.
  • People do not like to be blamed.
  • People have different goals in life.
  • People prefer the positive to the negative.
  • People share similar fears.

Evidence: Smart People Make Dumb Decisions

There is a fine line between embarrassing someone and challenging their thinking. Challenging meeting participants to provide objective proof, evidence, and examples is necessary to effective facilitation. All people are influenced by cognitive biases. Original writings by cognitive scientists like Daniel Kahneman3 and Nassim Nicholas Taleb4 should be consulted for a thorough, if not scary, treatment on this topic of biases, filters, and heuristics. Major errors, biases, and illusions they have identified, proven, and illustrated include these:

  • Anchoring or availability error—People seize on the first piece of information that makes an impression.
  • Attribution error—People rely on stereotypes for judgment.
  • Control error—People behave as if chance events are subject to their influence. Simply stated, people who believe that they have some control over their situation perceive “odds of success” that are much higher than they actually are. Numerous studies have proven the illusion of control. Money managers, for example, behave as if they can beat the market when, in fact, no one consistently outperforms the major indices.
  • Superiority error—Most people consider themselves “above average” drivers. Likewise, most professionals place themselves in the top half of performers. Clearly, these judgments are absurd, because statistically at least one-half of drivers are “below average.” People maintain an unrealistically positive view of themselves because not everyone can be above average. According to one large study, more than 80 percent of those surveyed considered themselves above average. Remarkably, and scarily too, the least capable people often have the largest gaps between their perception and reality. Those in the bottom quartile of assorted studies dramatically overstate their abilities. And everyone tends to dismiss his or her shortcomings as inconsequential.

According to the World Future Society, multiple studies over various periods of time and place consistently show that numerous factors bias group decision-making.5 For example, everyone poorly estimates the time needed to complete a task. Psychologists call it the planning fallacy and the bias of overconfidence. Fallacies and biases put us all at increased risk of failing to reach our objectives and include these issues:

  • Confusing desirability and familiarity with probability
  • Distorting data through selection and repetition
  • Forecasting with a preference toward change or biased by patterns
  • Framing complex issues in a skewed fashion (selective perception)
  • Homogenizing multiple data sources (for cost savings)
  • Lacking clear confidence intervals (how clean the data are)
  • Mistaking correlation for causation (a quite common error)
  • Over-immersion in local social values or filtered perceptions

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Figure 4.2. Individual Behavior

“Politikos”: The Science of People

The term “politikos” translates as “the science of people.” Find comfort in knowing that you will deal better with participants as you gain more experience and come to recognize common patterns of behavior that occur predictably (figure 4.2). In the meantime, keep one fact constant; participants cause problems for a finite period. Often a participant causing problems becomes productive in a different situation. Do not label people permanently. There are no “problem people,” only “people with problems,” and that means all of us at one time or another.

PRAISE IN PUBLIC, DISCIPLINE IN PRIVATE

The unit of measurement for assessing problems becomes the extent to which a participant’s behavior is distracting. Assume that people have good intentions, and focus your energy on discovering what is causing the difficulty. In other words, identify the problem—do not highlight the person with the problem.

Learn to be kind, but at the same time don’t be too nice. While the difference remains difficult to explain, here are two examples:

  • Nice is volunteering to share responsibility with someone else. Kind is permitting one and only one person responsibility so that when others have questions, there is no finger-pointing between the two cochairs. Have you ever contacted a cochair only to have them tell you that they thought the other cochair was working on it—ad infinitum?
  • Nice is donating money to an indigent “street person.” Kind is taking a few moments to engage the person in a compassionate conversation about his or her actual well-being, showing that you care.

FIRM BUT FLEXIBLE

Empower your participants. The deliverable or decision must be theirs to own, not yours. Manage politics by removing ideas from the individual participant and turning them over to the entire group. It’s not who is right, rather, what is right that we seek. Ideas belong to the group—never to an individual. But when erratic or distracting behavior occurs, be prepared to control it. Ground Rules (next section) will help manage much of the nonmalicious behavior.

MANAGING SYMPTOMS

Here are the tactics I rely on, listed in order of priority and frequency of use for managing personalities:

  • Conversations with your participants (detailed in chapter 5)
  • Ground Rules
  • Eye contact
  • Body position
  • Intervention tools
  • Take a break

GROUND RULES

Ground Rules provide norms for the behavior of groups. Rules help you and the group establish decorum, keep conversations on track, and get DONE faster. Ground Rules apply to participants equally and, therefore, are unbiased. One popular facilitation method begins its workshops by building Ground Rules with the participants. Others call Ground Rules “working agreements” or “working assumptions” because the term “rule” feels too harsh.

Solicit and Present

When explaining Ground Rules during your meeting Launch (chapter 5), present the primary Ground Rules that will be used in every session. Do not skip or remove any of the first four Ground Rules (five when you add “no hiding” for online meetings). Provide additional Ground Rules when you realize they are needed. Do not use more than nine Ground Rules total or they will become burdensome rather than a device for getting done faster.

Primary Ground Rules
  1. Be Here Now: The first Ground Rule addresses electronic leashes and punctuality. Encourage people to keep laptops down and phones on stun (vibrate only). Do not permit text messaging during the meeting.

    Ask people to take calls and reply to messages in the hallway so as not to distract others. Studies have shown that participants who insist they can “multitask” display a meeting IQ that drops below that of a chimpanzee! So avoid facilitating a room full of monkeys.6

    Since you won’t be able to change an entire culture with only three words (“be here now”) in your Ground Rules, meet with participants in advance and secure their permission and agreement to stay away from non-meeting-related material during the meeting.

    Tardiness is often caused by “back-to-back” meetings, so schedule 50-minute meetings instead of one-hour meetings. Begin meetings at five minutes after the hour and finish by five minutes before the hour.

  2. Silence or Absence Implies Consensus: As meeting facilitator, you must stress that each participant has a fiduciary responsibility. If participants have content relevant to the conversation, it is their duty and responsibility to mention it. Also, their contributions are not voluntary, optional, or an opportunity. Rather, they must be viewed as the obligation and fiduciary obligation of a well-paid professional adult.

    Your job is to protect participants and separate judgment of their contribution from their personae. However, if participants intentionally fail to contribute, they have violated integrity, something you cannot control. Again, you must stress fiduciary responsibility, since participants are not accustomed to having an obligation to speak up. Most participants treat meetings as an opportunity and therefore leave with much of their wisdom and their feelings “contained.” You need to make it noticeably clear that their sharing is an obligation; if a participant cannot support that principle, he or she should be replaced or cancel the entire meeting. If participants have content that needs to be considered, shame on them if they do not share it openly.

    Silence or absence indicates that participants have provided their assent. If they cannot support the responsibility and obligation to make content contributions about their subject matter expertise, then you have much bigger problems than the meeting (see also “How to Manage Quiet People,” chapter 4).

  3. Consensus Means “I Can Live with It”: Carefully define consensus so that people know it does not necessarily mean that they will get their “favorite” outcome. However, consensus does imply that we are 100 percent in agreement to support the result, though it might not be everyone’s or even anyone’s personal favorite.

    As a group, you are seeking a resolution that is robust enough for everyone to support and not cause anyone to lose sleep over it. So rather than asking the unanswerable question, “Do we have consensus?,” ask whether everyone will support the outcome or whether anyone will lose sleep over it. These are surrogate questions, implying consensus, that each individual can answer.

  4. Make Your Thinking Visible: People do not think causally. They think symptomatically. Additionally, they rarely argue about verbs and nouns. Rather, they argue about modifiers (such as adjectives). For example, two people eating the same type of curry may argue over how “spicy” it is. To one, the curry is hot. To the other, it is not. They are both correct.

    A great meeting facilitator will get the two people to “objectify” their claims so that they both can agree that the curry rates 1,400 Scoville Heat Units. However, they are not predisposed to think about Scoville Heat Units. They think “hot.” As meeting facilitator, you must challenge participants to make their thinking visible.

  5. No Hiding: For video conferences, enforce a rule that prohibits people from turning off their live video stream. When hidden, no one has any idea what they are doing or if they are even listening. Dr. Tufte uses the term “flatland” to describe the two-dimensional view, such as the view of online participants on a screen. Working in flatland makes it difficult enough to observe nonverbal reactions. Culturally, you may need to get participants’ permission to use this rule, but don’t back down. Enforce “no hiding.”
Optional Ground Rules

I refer to other Ground Rules as situational. Vary their use depending on the meeting type, participants, deliverable, and timing. Secondary Ground Rules I have found effective include these:

  • Bring a problem, bring a solution.
  • Chime in or chill out.
  • Everyone will hear one another and be heard.
  • Focus on “what” not “how.”
  • Hard on facts, soft on people.
  • It’s not who is right; it’s what is right.
  • No “yeah, but”—make it “yeah, and . . .”
  • No big egos or war stories.
  • Nobody is smarter than everybody.
  • No praying underneath the table (texting).
  • One conversation at a time (share airtime).
  • Openly share relevant information.
  • Players win games; teams win championships.
  • Share reasons behind questions and answers—because?
  • Speak for easy listening—headline first, background later.
  • Topless meetings (laptops down).
  • Ventilate undiscussable issues.
Audiovisual Support

In addition to the narrative Ground Rules, you may select some audiovisual recordings to support and reinforce the Ground Rules. I rely on public domain commercials that help emphasize these principles:

  • Be here now.
  • Speak clearly.
  • Things are not the way they always appear to be.
  • Trust one another.

GETTING FULL PARTICIPATION

What can you do to inspire participation, especially among quieter or socially reserved participants? I rely on five activities described under the “Quiet Person” (next section) that secure critical input from all participants. Additional suggestions proven to work include the following.

  • Brain breaks: Stimulate the mental aspects with quick challenges, riddles, and other warm-up exercises. Keep your cadence energetic.
  • Deepen your ice breakers and team-building exercises so that participants motivate one another with comments and deeper, personal, sharing.
  • Go kinesthetic: Keep people active, not passive. Use Breakout Teams (chapter 6) for online meetings and distribute tactile props for in-person meetings such as modeling clay and chenille stems.
  • Increase the fun level: Even serious topics should be treated loosely enough that participants don’t tighten up too much. Remind people that deliverables serve the people and not the other way around.
  • Texture: Continually stimulate the auditory, kinesthetic, and visual pathways with music, activities, and emphasis on graphic stimulation.

Table 4.2 covers different people’s characteristics and useful suggestions for specific problems. These tips have proven highly effective with certain personality types.

Groups Evolve, Then Regress

As meeting facilitator, you may also witness conflict coming from the entire group. Internal and external conflict reflect emotions that, when harnessed, enable creative change.

DON’T RUN

It’s your job to understand and manage group dynamics and conflict (figure 4.3). A meeting without conflict is a boring meeting, and I have seen truly little value derived from predictable and unexciting meetings and workshops.

Additionally, the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) aspires for you to do the following:

  • “Help individuals identify and review underlying assumptions,
  • Recognize conflict and its role within group learning / maturity,
  • Provide a safe environment for conflict to surface,
  • Manage disruptive group behavior, and
  • Support the group through resolution of conflict.”7

EVOLUTION

Facilitators manage groups, and groups are not stagnant. You need to understand how groups develop and appropriate ways to help them without getting in their way. The following sections outline the evolution of groups and two primary types of behavior to exhibit: relationship behaviors and task behaviors.

GROUP LIFE CYCLE

Groups, like people, develop and evolve. Groups can also regress. As meeting facilitator, you are responsible for moving a group through a developmental process. Every group goes through four stages as it evolves through its life cycle. For any given group, you may see only the first two or three stages.

Table 4.2. People with Problems, or “Wait—Why Am I Talking?”

Title

Characteristics

What to Do

Can’t Stay

Jeopardizes progress and damages morale by leaving meeting early

They may have a legitimate reason such as another meeting, day care pickup, or van pool departure. Understand constraints before the meeting begins and schedule accordingly.

Cliquer

Close friends who whisper during meetings and hold sidebar conversations

Standing close to Cliquers will stop their conversation. Enforce “one conversation at a time” Ground Rule. Also enforce this rule if you sense too much private online chatting.

Controller

Keeps telling the meeting facilitator what to do—or not do; attempts to control the meeting by changing the activities and procedures

Listen first; however, never turn over control. Talk to the Controller during breaks. Enforce scope carefully to avoid scope creep.

Disapprover

Actively expresses disapproval using body language and nonverbal cues such as rolling eyes, shaking head, crossing arms, and so on

Move near the Disapprover. Direct open hands in the person’s direction, seeking viable counter-positions. Gently call on online participants by name, but always give online participants the option of saying “pass” whenever called upon.

Disengaged

Constantly engaged with their smart phones or laptop; ignores the facilitator; may read unrelated materials

Use laser focus so that the Disengaged person knows you see him or her. During breaks, talk to them. Do not publicly call out their name. Encourage your culture to embrace the “topless meetings” Ground Rule that prohibits laptops and handheld devices. For online violators, send a private chat.

Genius

Uses credentials, age, seniority, or stratospheric intelligence to argue his or her point

Writing down the Genius’s input fully will satisfy him or her. Interrupt Geniuses who repeat themselves, reading back to them what you have. Carefully challenge them to explain how their contribution relates to the question at hand (to avoid scope creep).

Impatient

Jumps into the conversation and cuts off someone else; acts impatient or concerned that his or her ideas will not be acknowledged

Interrupt Impatient participants immediately to protect the person interrupted, but do not forget to return to them later. Impatience is preferred over apathy.

Monopolizer or Randomizer

Talks often and loudly; dominates conversations and is difficult to shut up; may be someone who has a higher rank outside of the meeting than others

Record input if in scope of the question at hand. If not in scope, ask Monopolizers to write the question down so they don’t forget it when you turn to them later. Use Breakout Teams (chapter 6) and round-robins to prevent the opportunity for them to dominate.

Quiet Person

We are not going to convert quiet people into extroverts, but five activities will transform the quantity of contributions from quieter participants

  1. Interview your participants
  2. Breakout Teams
  3. Nonverbal solicitation
  4. Reinforce during break
  5. Round-robins and Post-it note techniques

Repeater

Brings up the same point repeatedly; tries to focus airtime on his or her issue

Repeaters need to understand that their point of view has been captured. Document their input. Show them visually that you “got it.” When they begin to repeat themselves, interrupt them and read back what you have. Ask them, “What would you like to add?”

Skeptic

Voices skepticism shrouded with genuine concern; may degrade someone else’s performance

Use the “What—So What—Now What” Content Management Tool (chapter 9). Skeptics may justify their skepticism with facts or examples. Through conversations in advance of the meeting, anticipate them speaking up and give them an optimal time to bring up their concerns. Skeptics offer more value than someone apathetic or quiet.

Snoozer

Challenged to stay awake, especially early morning or around 3 p.m.

Enforce the “no hiding” Ground Rule for online participants who must open their video windows. When in person, walk around the room or take a quick ergonomic break.

Spinner or Twister

Speaks for someone else; twists ideas or meanings and frequently distorts them when interpreting

First get the original speaker to confirm you received his or her input correctly and then offer the Spinner time to add his or her own point of view.

Tardy

Arrives late and may insist on catching up with what he or she missed

Use 50-minute meeting intervals to allow people some transition time between back-to-back meetings. Enforce “be here now” and “no hiding” Ground Rules. Do not interrupt the meeting. Review material during a break or after but not during the meeting—or pair participants off with someone else to give them a recap in the hallway or chat room.

Unexpected

Shows up without an invitation

Explain and enforce the role of observers, noting that they may speak during breaks or after the session has completed.

Verbal Attacker

Launches verbal, personal attacks on other group members or facilitator; ridicules a specific point of view

Stand between two people arguing. Immediately interrupt online attacks and mute the attacker if necessary. Make sure comments remain professional and not personal.

Workaholic

In and out of meetings; gives impression of being so important he or she is missed elsewhere

Treat the same way as someone who fits the Tardy or Can’t Stay descriptions; enforce the “be here now” Ground Rule. Allow frequent bio-breaks, even when meetings are online, for people to respond to bodily needs and their electronic leash requests.

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Figure 4.3. Group Dynamics

The following are stages and characteristics of group development (see figure 4.4):

  • Forming—orientation, hesitant participation, search for meaning and purpose
  • Storming—conflict, dominance, rebelliousness, power, and ignorance
  • Norming—expression of opinions, development of group cohesion
  • Performing—integrated solutions, formation of a cohesive “team,” pluralistic rhetoric (“we” and “us”), telling you what to do (“write that down”)
Stage 1

Forming—State of Confusion

Key words: “I,” “confusion,” “why”

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Figure 4.4. Four Stages of Group Performance and Individual Consciousness

Note: The four stages are adapted from B. W. Tuckman, “Development Sequence in Small Groups” (1965), 384–399. (Tuckman added a fifth stage, called adjourning, that we intentionally do not discuss.) These stages are overlaid with Ken Wilber’s integral theory (“I”) and Metz’s facilitated meeting stages (Command). Osburn, Moran, Musselwhite, and Zenger (1990) added labels for the stages: (1) confusion, (2) leader-centered, (3) tightly formed, and (4) self-directed (Agile).

Facilitator response: command control (seven-activity Launch in chapter 5)

  • Groups at this early stage are working on two primary areas—the reason they are attending (purpose) and social relationships. These are some typical landmarks:
    • – Concern over purpose, relevance of meeting, “How does this help?”
    • – Looking to the leader for structure, answers, approval, acceptance
    • – Looking to the leader to prove that their time will be worthwhile
    • – Quiet groups
  • Participants meanwhile stay focused on “I” concerns, such as these:
    • – “Why am I here?”
    • – “I wish I had eaten something before this meeting.”
    • – “I wish I had that seat over there.”
    • – “I wish I had gone to the bathroom first.”
Stage 2

Storming—Leader-Centered

Key words: “what,” “FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt),” more “what”

Facilitator response: cultivating, explaining, and redirecting

  • Some participants “get it” and some don’t
  • Participants begin to acknowledge differences in perspectives; conflict is characteristic between members or between members and leader. Some landmarks:
    • – Hostility toward leader or others
    • – Looking to or expecting the leader to be magical
    • – Open expression of differences
    • – Some members with strong needs to dominate
    • – Struggle for control, potential for scope creep
  • Participants get nudged to begin thinking about what “it” is that justifies our time together (namely, the deliverable), why the effort is important, and how much the effort is worth ($ or FTP).
Stage 3

Norming—Tightly Formed

Key words: “I can,” “You should,” “Who will?,” “ fear,” “belief,” “hope”

Facilitator response: cadence, clarity, communications, creativity

  • The participants are more comfortable about expressing their opinions. Some landmarks:
    • – Focus on the deliverable—getting done
    • – More open communication and questions between participants
    • – Selective intermember support
    • – Some unwillingness to be fully responsible for outcome or ownership
  • Individuals start thinking about how the deliverable impacts “its” people and resources throughout the organization.
Stage 4

Performing—Self-directed

Key words: “we” (“We can,” “We should,” “We might”), “us,” “community,” “collaboration,” “confidence”

Facilitator response: optimally becomes a scribe for the group (“Write that down”)

  • Participants recognize their commonalities, interdependencies, and shared interests. They form a cohesive team—they unite and collaborate. Some landmarks:
    • – Creativity and exploration (“What if. . . ?”)
    • – Integrated team functioning—a community
    • – Pride in the group’s ability and contributions
    • – Sense of urgency
  • They are individuals no longer; they have become a collaborative team and view themselves as an integral unit, known as “we.”
Unclear Boundaries

Boundaries between stages are not always clear, nor does a group permanently move from one stage to another. You guide the group through the earlier stages toward a high-performance mode, understanding the likelihood that even high-performance teams may regress.

Anticipate regression when something new enters the picture, whether a new team member, new Agenda Step, or even a new Tool. The group may return to “storming” with questions like, “Now why are we doing that?”

NOTE: There is no law that groups must reach Stage 4 and become collaborative and high-performing. Most groups never make it past a basic level of competence (Stage 3) in the group life cycle. For groups that reach high-performance mode (Stage 4), your role changes from facilitator to documenter as they tell you what to do (“Write that down”).

Facilitating Multiple Generations at the Same Time

Staying relevant and compelling when you facilitate multiple generations presents significant challenges. Problems develop when meetings include different mindsets, communication styles, and priorities. Scheduling, work patterns, and technology intensify friction. Teams are ever-changing and often cross time zones and cultural boundaries. An attitude of acceptance provides you with an effortless secret when you facilitate multiple generations—several types of people—because one trait, common to everyone, is that people would rather be asked than told.

Whether you prefer the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator, the DiSC assessment, the E-Colors indicator, or something else, it is clear that not everyone thinks alike. Overgeneralizing should be avoided, but trends suggest the following:

  • Baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) remain competitive
  • Gen Xers (born between 1965 and 1977) exhibit skepticism
  • Gen Yers (also known as millennials, born since 1978) prefer technology

In addition to projecting an attitude of acceptance, embrace the following:

  • Anticipate a variety of personality types and learning styles
  • Be careful not to stereotype based on appearances and comments
  • Don’t overgeneralize groups based on individual character traits
  • Prepare as if every type of person plans to attend your meeting

Suggestions for all generations include these:

  • Appeal to the Zen of the experience. Use break timers with music. Provide and build graphical support to enliven the narrative world. Remember, we facilitate “meaning,” not words; nonnarrative evidence makes it easier to dispel fake news and misinformation.
  • Because meaning can be captured with illustrations, icons, and numbers, use the Creativity Tool (chapter 8) or Coat of Arms (chapter 6) to drive nonnarrative input.
  • Be flexible and willing to adjust and accommodate constraints such as timing and availability. When a participant runs into an unexpected personal “issue,” let’s do what we can as a group to show support and respect for that person, rather than charging ahead. Decision quality correlates with complete or comprehensive answers rather than quick answers; see Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow (2013).
  • Demand that participants leave their egos and titles in the hallway. If they cannot leave their titles behind, do not invite them or ask them to leave. If they are “senior” and already have an answer, do not have a meeting. Meetings are an ineffective and expensive form of persuasion.8
  • Do not let one person or group dominate. Prevent Repeaters by writing down their contributions on a whiteboard or large format paper. Prevent scope creep by asking precise questions. Avoid DUMB questions (Dull, Ubiquitous, Myopic, and Broad) through rhetorical precision.
  • Embrace Icebreakers or Check-In activities (chapter 5) to get everyone contributing sooner. Likewise, anticipate and plan for additional team-building activities as appropriate. Make it easier for your participants to enjoy and value one another. Similarly, prepare some quick exercises (such as “Lost on the Moon”)9 that prove “nobody is smarter than everybody.”
  • Keep people moving around. Supplement Breakout Teams (chapter 6) with ergonomic “stretching” every 30 minutes. Take longer breaks every 60 to 75 minutes so that participants have ample time to reply to their electronic mail and messages. Do not wait two hours between breaks.
  • Spend some personal time with your participants and get to know them better. Meeting participants respond better to leaders they respect, and respect must be earned. Formally or informally conduct conversations with participants. Discern their core competencies, concerns, and unique talents—everyone has one.10
  • Stay neutral and stress your content neutrality. Stop judging (or even cheerleading), don’t make comments about content, and avoid using the deadly first person singular “I.”
  • Use breakout activities liberally by mixing up your Breakout Teams frequently. People become more conversational in small groups (two to five people) and develop a stronger appreciation for one another. As you sense dysfunction, intervene. Coach participants about how to treat one another in a public environment. You will discover that more conflict arises because of personality characteristics and toxicity than because of age, culture, or diversity factors.

Situational Causes of Conflict

Hopefully, you begin to see conflict as both challenge and opportunity. Meetings are expensive and mitigating conflict provides one of the absolute best reasons for meetings. However, conflict also comes from the situation, and from you (figure 4.5).

“THREE TROLLS WITH THE COURAGE OF ONE”: INTERNAL CONFLICT

Internal conflict is fear, something everyone experiences.11 All people have some fear. When we allow fear to control us, we lose our ability to perform. The first step is to understand our fears. Once we do, we can control them. Fears never go away—we simply learn to acknowledge or contain them. Below are some typical meeting facilitator fears:

  • Challenges and attacks
  • Equipment breakdowns and technology malfunctions, especially with online meetings
  • Inability to persuade, motivate
  • Looking like a beginner

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    Figure 4.5. Situational Factors

  • Losing control—asserting control
  • Making mistakes or failing
  • People with problems (managing conflict)
  • Public speaking
  • Wanting to be liked and to gain approval
  • Wanting to give advice or ideas
  • What to do about silence

FLY IN FORMATION

Once you identify your personal fears, you can make them work to your advantage. Adrenaline gives you an edge. Remember that the butterflies in your stomach will always be there. You don’t want to eliminate them. You want to teach them to fly in formation.

A WHIFF OF PINE, A HINT OF SKUNK (EXTERNAL CONFLICT)

Conflict is natural and not necessarily bad, when responsibly managed. Managing conflict justifies the time and expense of face-to-face meetings because conflict cannot be resolved effectively by exchanging documents, email, and text messages.

Facilitative leaders can channel conflict into productivity. Look at the US Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.12 Managed well, conflict leads to expanded information exchange, surfaced rationales, more options, and higher-quality decisions. Managed poorly, conflict destroys. Effectively managed, conflict leads to transformation. If left festering in the hallways, conflict leads to chaos.

NOTE: “A peaceful, harmonious place can be the worst thing possible for a business. Research shows that the biggest predictor of poor company performance is complacency. Conflict can shake things up and boost your staff’s energy and creativity.”13

Society places negative values on conflict at home and at school. We have not received formal instruction about collaborative problem-solving skills. The following sections on external sources of conflict, barriers you will encounter, and a four-activity Argument Resolution response show you how to manage meeting conflict.

Two leading indicators of external sources of conflict are tenure (how long somebody has been around) and reorganization—whenever participants’ jobs, titles, or reporting situations are at risk or being changed. External sources of meeting conflict include the following:

  • Habits—accustomed to disagreeing or arguing, cultural
  • Misinformation—rumors, especially about change
  • Participants’ problems—out of control, unable to excel or bond
  • Priorities—similar values, but varying priorities
  • Semantics—understanding of words and intent
  • Situations—business process improvement, restructuring
  • Ways participants view others—biases, heuristics, prejudices

OTHER BARRIERS

Your ability to manage conflict is also inhibited by other barriers. Knowing about them in advance becomes the best way to overcome them. Once you are aware and prepared, you can adjust. When you are unaware or unconscious, all hell breaks loose. These other barriers include:

  • Ability or willingness to listen—yours and theirs
  • Copper or fiber (online meetings)—inability to challenge participants in person
  • Image—inability to save face
  • Lack of skill—a weak or poorly trained facilitator
  • Time—consensus is seldom achieved quickly

Paradigm Challenges

Paradigms are established, accepted norms, patterns of behavior, or shared sets of assumptions. They are models that establish boundaries or rules for success. Paradigms may present structural barriers to creativity based on psychological, cultural, and environmental factors. Examples include:

  • Flow charts, diagrams, and other conventions that people get comfortable with when presenting information that they rely on habitually (like swim lanes)
  • Stereotypes about men and women and their roles in business, family, and society
  • Where people sit in meetings, when in person—once they find a seat it becomes “their seat” for the rest of the meeting, or meetings, if the seat associates with their own desired level of position or power (could be high or low, a seat up front or far back)

GROUPTHINK

As creatures of habit, we blindly subscribe to our cultural paradigms, unknowingly allowing our biases and prejudices to affect our decision-making and readily falling prey to groupthink. There is power in large numbers but not necessarily an increase in quality. Voting reflects a method of groupthink decision-making. The winner is not necessarily a better decision; it just reflects a bigger number of supporters.

CHALLENGE BOTH

To cause groups to challenge their own paradigms or groupthink, try the following:

  • Ask about “paradigm shift”—“What is impossible today, but if made possible . . . What would you do differently?”
  • Force the group to look at a familiar idea or scenario in a new way by using the Perspective Tool in chapter 8. Shifting perspectives frequently helps “shake” paradigms.
  • Consider using Dr. Edward de Bono’s Thinking Hats (chapter 8) exercise, in which you impose a perspective, such as that of a monastery contrasted with that of an organized crime syndicate.14

Have a few tools in your hip pocket, usually visual or riddle-based. While thousands of such challenges may be found online or in books and libraries, my all-time favorite remains the “bookworm challenge” in figure 4.6. Provide a simple, mathematical answer to the problem before proceeding (hint: the answer has two digits).

This is not a trick question. The books are lined up in proper sequence from left to right, standing up vertically. Simply estimate the straight line distance from the first page in the set of four books to the last page in the set of four books.

I have conducted this challenge with thousands of people and barely a dozen have correctly answered the challenge. Nearly all participants—more than 95 percent—provide answers between 21 and 25 centimeters.

After you capture everyone’s answer, you demonstrate statistical confidence by discarding the outliers, averaging the balance, and allowing a range of freedom of plus or minus 10 percent. The results yield a high confidence interval suggesting that the group should be 95 percent confident that the answer is between, for example, 21 and 25 centimeters, and everyone can go home confident.

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Figure 4.6. Bookworm Challenge

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Figure 4.7. Bookworm Answer

Yet the correct answer is out of the range, by a factor of nearly 100 percent. You see, the correct answer is 13 centimeters. Few believe it until they see it, so I display the answer (see figure 4.7)—along with a clear message: voting sucks.

We may have even thrown away the closest answer because it deviated so much from the other answers that we assumed it had to be wrong. We’re smart people; we can’t all be wrong by that much, right? Well, yes, we can, because we got caught up in groupthink, also known as the lemming solution, and we just fell off the cliff by agreeing to an answer somewhere around 23 centimeters.

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Figure 4.8. Four Activities

Conflict as Challenge and Opportunity

There is no instructional class in the world that will teach you how to facilitate a resolution to all meeting conflict, especially arguments. Sometimes, people or parties refuse to agree simply because they do not like each other.

It is not your responsibility to resolve the conflict. However, you can rely on four steps to help you manage meeting conflict that frequently yield consensus (figure 4.8). Fortunately, the four steps are effective and repeatable:

1. CONFIRM OR CLARIFY PURPOSE

Begin to resolve conflict within a meeting by first understanding, clarifying, and confirming the purpose of the object15 or topic being deliberated (figure 4.9). Effective conflict resolution depends on shared purpose. Competing purposes lead to competing solutions.

Your meeting design role demands that you build consensus around the purpose of the object the deliverable supports, the intent of the object, and why it is important. You cannot afford to have a moving target if you want to build consensus. Make the group’s integrated purpose around the topic or object clear and visible. Document and display the purpose for everyone to confirm. Use the Purpose Tool (chapter 7) as a quick and effective means of writing a consensual expression of purpose. By visually displaying the narrative content, you make it easier to confirm whether everyone can support it or not.

Many analysts are surprised to discover that arguments around requirements and prioritization surfaced because participants could not agree on the purpose of some feature, object, or process. Some arguments are resolved by this clarification of purpose alone. Other arguments persist. If so, move on to the next activity.

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Figure 4.9. Confirm Purpose

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Figure 4.10. Document Positions

2. DOCUMENT POSITIONS AND INTERESTS

Active listening demands that the facilitator provide reflection and confirmation of what the speaker said (figure 4.10).

When meeting conflict develops, participants may hear what was said, but they need to understand under what conditions the position holds true (and remains valid or not). My own experience has shown that it is critical to reflect why the speaker said something. Typically, speakers’ first statements are about their position. Understanding the why behind their positioning requires additional challenge, leading to disclosure of their true interests.

For example, as a homeowner, I may not want a sewage treatment plant near my backyard. If I am challenged—“Why not?”—my position states, “Because it stinks.” After further challenge we discover that the prevailing wind correlates strongly with the amount of stink and that my primary concern is that the treatment plant be located downwind from my residence. However, I become focused on my position. I don’t think “prevailing wind”; rather, I think “stink.”

Consensus is not built at the symptomatic level but at the causal level. Begin by getting everyone to understand under what conditions certain claims hold valid. Therefore, challenging the why behind what was said becomes critical. Solid facilitation effectively challenges participants to make their thinking visible by using one question: “because?”

Sometimes people who are in violent agreement with one another do a poor job of listening. So amplify your active listening during conflict. Remember that active listening comprises four separate activities:

  • Make contact with the speaker; typically eye contact is leveraged to ensure the speaker is acknowledged, engaged, and valued.
  • Absorb what is being said with serious intent so that you can provide the entire group an accurate and comprehensive reflection of what the speaker said.
  • Reflect what was said to ensure the speaker understands what he or she said. But more important, reflect why the speaker made that statement. Reflect how the speaker’s position and interests relate to the question at hand (frequently it is best to show the reflection in writing on a large piece of Post-it paper).
  • And always confirm that the speaker’s content, as reflected, is correct—because sometimes we get it wrong.

At least one person in any given group does not listen or hear what another person says. Some people don’t even listen to themselves. Reflection provides an essential activity of effective, active listening. However, you must confirm and not assume that your reflection is accurate.

Once two or more interests have been understood and documented well enough to satisfy the advocates, some arguments will drop by the wayside. Others will advance, so proceed with the third step.

3. APPEAL TO OBJECTIVES

Sometimes people understand each other and yet continue to disagree. Many arguments of this nature are about future conditions that cannot be proven one way or another. Participants may even rely on the same evidence-based support, such as facts, projections, and trends, but interpret this evidence differently in a future world.

To help resolve conflict, learn to sequentially appeal to objectives (figure 4.11), starting with the objectives of the product or project, and then proceeding with objectives of the department or program, of the business unit, and of the entire organization that your meeting supports. If the CEO were in the meeting, which argument would he or she say better supports organizational objectives—and, more important, why?

Carefully and fully document conflicting arguments with supporting claims, evidence, and examples. Have the group contrast their positions by asking them “to what extent” each interest supports the various objectives using the Alignment Tool (chapter 6). Specifically, ask these questions:

  • To what extent does (each position or interest) support the overall project objectives?
  • To what extent does (each position or interest) support the program objectives (the reasons for approving the project)?
  • To what extent does (each position or interest) support the business unit objectives (what would the executive sponsor say)?

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Figure 4.11. Appeal to Objectives

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Figure 4.12. Escalate

  • To what extent does (each position or interest) support the organizational objectives (what would the chief executive officer say)?

Appealing to the various objectives will reconcile some remaining meeting conflict, but not all of it. In some cultures, for example, safety is critical, and if one position can be viewed as “riskier,” it will be rejected immediately. Consider using the holarchy (see figure 2.1 in chapter 2) for visually illustrating how competing interests should be compared to the various objectives.

So, what do you do, as meeting facilitator, if appealing to objectives fails?

4. ESCALATE

If the first three steps, in sequence, fail to drive consensual resolution, escalate decision-making by taking the documented positions back to the executive sponsor, steering team, or decision review board (figure 4.12). Show them the purpose and position documents and explain how you attempted to use them to arrive at consensual understanding.

Tell the executives that the group participants reached an impasse in the meeting and need help. Ask the executives to reach a decision and, more important, share the rationale behind it, so that this “because” can be brought back to the participants and make the group more effective with subsequent decision-making.

Sometimes participants fail to agree with one another based on irrational or irreconcilable terms. No meeting facilitator can build consensus around every issue, but having a method to manage the conflict provides confidence that you have performed professionally.

HERE’S WHAT HAPPENS

Executives absorb what you have provided. They review the documented statements of purpose and position and then go back and appeal to their own objectives, asking questions like:

  • Why did we approve this project or initiative?
  • Why was this important to my department or business unit?
  • How does this initiative support the organization’s forward-looking strategy and future?

Typically, executives have better line of site because they are more intimate with plans, shaping curves, and transitional and transformational efforts underway to ensure an organization reaches its vision than meeting participants will be. After the executives share their reasoning with you, take their rationale back to the group and empower participants to make higher-quality decisions in future meetings.

Surprisingly, when threatened with taking the decision out of the meeting room, many times participants acquiesce and suddenly become more flexible than ever before. Remember, no one likes to be told what to do.

Anger and Some Other Stuff

How well do you personally respond to conflict? To effectively facilitate conflict, you must keep the situation constructive:

  • Build a toolkit for immediate help and prepare a hip-pocket set of Tools and procedures for the unexpected.
  • Challenge—when people raise objectives, discover the cause of the objection. By challenging participants, you convert their “subject matter” bias into its objective nature. What causes the objection, and what is the measurement of the cause? “The chili is too spicy” (subjective) may be converted into “The chili’s spiciness measures 1,400 Scoville units” (objective).
  • Know how to communicate acceptance by promoting integral thinking—display a “Yes, and . . .” attitude, not a “Yes, but . . .” attitude.

ANGER—ONE LETTER SHORT OF DANGER

Realize that anger is as normal as any other emotion. We expect or want things to be different or better. Most people direct their anger at those who have some control over them. Anger can be healthy and is different from hostility, which is not healthy. Anger is often used to hide other feelings such as hurt or disappointment. Learn how to deal with anger in others and in yourself. Remain cautious, however, because the term “anger” is only one letter short of the term “danger.”

When dealing with others’ anger:

  • Acknowledge and affirm the participant’s beliefs.
  • Encourage the participant to talk about the reasons for being angry. This helps diffuse the anger.
  • Let the participant vent before trying to explain or apologize.
  • Use nonjudgmental active listening. This lets the participant know that you care.

When dealing with your own anger:

  • Acknowledge and accept the anger. Do not deny it, or it will resurface at the wrong time.
  • Deal with the problem that caused the anger as quickly as is practical. However, do not make decisions when your anger is in control.
  • Take a break, whether in person or online. Take a walk and reprogram yourself.

When you listen to participants, they become more prepared to listen to one another. Anger often dissipates, and trust begins to emerge. Make sure that both you and the participants avoid communicating rejection. Rejection incites defensiveness and blocks listening.

Quick Summary on Collaborating

All consensus-oriented meeting facilitators are responsible for maintaining balance:

  • Avoid being the expert authority on the subject. You can be an authority figure, but your role is to listen, question, enforce the procedure, or offer optional methods.
  • Avoid using participants’ names; doing so may display favoritism or too much “friendliness.”
  • Challenge with follow-up inquiries such as “because . . . ?” Why people justify the way they feel is more powerful than what they feel.
  • Do not let your personal prejudices interfere with your role as meeting leader. Let go of the need to win everyone over to your point of view. You are there to serve the group and seeking to understand their point of view by using impeccable listening skills.
  • Don’t talk too much. Let the group speak—you are seeking an answer they will own.
  • If an overarching issue develops that affects the rest of the meeting and jeopardizes the deliverable, stop the meeting, and secure a resolution. Do not stick it in the “Parking Lot” (an area reserved for important yet unreconciled issues to be managed later; this is more fully explained in chapter 5).
  • If you feel compelled to give them praise, commend them only for the quantity of work completed, not quality of work.
  • Learn to expect hostility, but do not become hostile. Develop an attitude of acceptance. You may not agree with what is being said, but you can listen and record their answers and opinions. If you need to discount their content, do it after the meeting, privately.
  • Recognize any contributions and encourage participation. Your ability to convey interest and enthusiasm about the importance of the deliverable will be critical to your success.
  • Stay neutral (Did we say “stay neutral” yet?). Do not lose your neutrality. Allow me to repeat that statement: Do not lose your neutrality. The greatest facilitators in the world exude neutrality. The worst facilitators already have an answer.
  • Stop a meeting if the group is sluggish and difficult to control, even if participants wish to continue. When people are burned-out, no progress occurs.
  • You will be phenomenally successful if you do just one thing to change your behavior: do not use the singular first person “I” or “me”; be pluralistic, and use “us” or “we.”

DON’T FORGET

It is not your job to resolve every piece of conflict and each argument. Rather, it is your responsibility to have a method for managing conflict and arguments. And when you follow the advice and sequence of the four steps in this chapter, you have a method for managing all types of conflict in business settings.

1 Susan Tynan and Ruth Feldman, Communicoding (1989).

2 See the appendix for golden rule comparisons in 13 cultures or languages, as well as the silver rule: “Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself.”

3 Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (2013).

4 Nassim Taleb, Incerto: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile (2016).

5 World Future Society, home page, n.d., https://www.worldfuture.org.

6 Apologies for the insult to my primate brothers and sisters.

7 International Association of Facilitators (IAF), home page, https://www.iaf-world.org/site/.

8 One alumnus told us that the US Joint Chiefs of Staff on occasion wear sweaters over their uniforms to hide rank. They understand how important it is for everyone to have permission to speak freely, regardless of rank, during select facilitated sessions.

9 See the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) website for a public domain challenge of prioritizing 15 items that need to be carried a long distance by foot when stranded on the surface of the moon: https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/166504main_Survival.pdf.

10 See Howard Gardner’s “Theory of Multiple Intelligences,” https://howardgardner.com.

11 Nobody understands the title of this section, but I can’t seem to let it go. Three trolls, in The 10th Kingdom (Mill Creek Ent.), an American fairytale fantasy miniseries, proudly call themselves “three trolls with the courage of one,” oblivious to the line’s meaning that each troll has only one-third the normal amount of courage.

12 By the way, the penalty for a federal mediator who violates neutrality is prison.

13 Joni Saj-nicole and Damon Beyer, “How to Pick a Good Fight” (2009), 50.

14 Edward De Bono, “Six Thinking Hats,” n.d., https://www.debonogroup.com/services/core-programs/six-thinking-hats/.

15 “Object” here means the person, place, thing, or event to be directly affected by the “objective” (deliverable) of the meeting.

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