Three Purposes for the Behaviors

The eight behaviors (Figure 5.1) serve several purposes. First, they guide your behavior in your facilitative role. To help groups become more effective, you need to act effectively. You use the behaviors to guide your talk, increase your own effectiveness, and help the group better accomplish its goals. By modeling the behaviors, you demonstrate how group members can do the same.

Second, the behaviors help you diagnose group behavior and intervene. By becoming familiar with the behaviors, you can watch a group in action and immediately identify when group members are reducing their effectiveness by not using one or more of the eight behaviors. Then you use the behaviors to intervene with the group to help increase its effectiveness.

Finally, the behaviors can serve as ground rules for the groups you work with. In the Skilled Facilitator approach, the behaviors that are effective for your facilitative role are the same behaviors that are effective for group members. When a group understands the behaviors and commits to using them, they become the ground rules—expectations for how members will interact with each other.² This enables the group to share responsibility for improving its process, a goal of developmental facilitation. In other words, when a group commits to using the behaviors as ground rules for interactions between group members, you can help the group learn to use the behaviors just as you do: to guide its own behavior and to serve as a diagnostic frame for improving that behavior.

In this chapter, we will focus on the first use of the behaviors—using them to increase your effectiveness. In later chapters, we will explore how to use the behaviors to diagnose and intervene, and how groups can use them as their ground rules.

Although the behaviors are numbered, you don't use them in any particular order. You use the behavior that is called for, often using several at the same time. I think of them as dance steps to be combined in a variety of ways, depending on the specific situation.

What Stating Your View and Asking a Genuine Question Accomplishes

Stating your view and asking a genuine question accomplishes several goals. First, it helps others understand your thinking and helps you understand what others are thinking. When you share your view, others understand what you're thinking. When you ask others questions, you understand what they're thinking. When everyone understands what everyone else is thinking, you and the group have the relevant information to better solve problems.

If you only inquire, you don't help others understand your reasoning and why you're asking. Alone, either stating your view or asking a question are both ways of unilaterally controlling the conversation; both can easily contribute to defensive behavior in others.

Second, stating views and asking genuine questions shifts a meeting from a series of comments to a focused conversation. If you watch meetings, people take turns saying what they think, but often members make comments that don't build on the previous person's comments, and in some cases they make comments that don't even seem to be related. This happens partly because when one person finishes talking, he or she doesn't ask others what they think. When you finish your comment by asking the group an explicit question, you immediately increase the probability that the person who responds will address your question. If everyone follows their statements by a question, then the group creates a focused conversation.

Third, the behavior increases the speed at which you and the group can learn. One of the mutual learning assumptions is that differences are opportunities for learning. One of the mutual learning principles is to move toward the differences. When you share your view and your reasoning and then ask others about it, group members can determine whether they agree with your reasoning or see parts of it differently. By identifying where members' reasoning differs from yours, you can help the group explore what leads to the different reasoning. Are they using different data, are they considering different interests, are they using different assumptions or values, or are they assigning different priorities to certain issues?

Whatever your facilitative role, it's essential that you know whether the group shares your views and if not, why not. If it doesn't share your views, it is unlikely to accept your action or any recommendations that are based on it.

Some facilitators, consultants, and trainers tend to avoid or minimize differences in the group, including differences between them and the group. If you minimize differences, you may be concerned that focusing on different views creates unnecessary conflict and defensive behavior that you won't be able to handle effectively. You may have learned inaccurately that by first focusing on common ground, you build the group's ability to deal with any differences. This will lead you to spend unnecessary amounts of time on what the group agrees on, which reduces the amount of time for identifying the differences and resolving them. The sooner you identify the differences, the sooner you can help the group address them.

Finally, stating views and asking genuine questions reduces defensive behavior. If you state your view without asking a genuine question, others will respond in kind by stating their own point of view, which leads you to respond in kind. This creates a negative reinforcing cycle in which each person is stating his or her view, trying to convince the others. But when you state your views and ask a genuine question, others see your comments not as a challenge, but as an invitation to share a different view. Therefore, they have less need to respond defensively. Your ability to increase learning and reduce defensive reactions depends on how you ask questions.

What to Be Curious About

When you become genuinely curious, you will naturally find the questions you want to ask. Until then, here are some examples of types of questions that are useful to ask.

What's Relevant Information?

Relevant information is any information that might affect the decision that you or others make, how you go about making the decision, or your thoughts and feelings about it. Sharing relevant information doesn't necessarily mean that you say everything you know about a topic or everything that enters your mind during a conversation. For each situation, you need to make some judgments about what is relevant information.

Unfortunately, in challenging situations, people use a unilateral control approach. That leads you to strategically withhold information, leaving a significant gap between what you're saying and what you're thinking and feeling. Sharing relevant information means reducing that gap in a way that's productive. Here are several principles for deciding whether you're sharing all relevant information.

• Share information consistent with your facilitative role.
• Carry your own water; have other people carry theirs.
• Share information that doesn't support your view.
• Share your feelings.

Share Information Consistent with Your Facilitative Role

If you're a facilitative consultant, trainer, or coach, your content expertise is relevant information to share. That's why groups hire you. But, as I described in Chapter 2, if you're a facilitator, sharing your content expertise is inconsistent with your role, unless you and the group have explicitly agreed when you can temporarily leave your role as a content-neutral facilitator to share your expertise on a particular topic. If you share information—even relevant information—that is at odds with your role, you risk reducing your credibility and the group's trust in you, and undermining your effectiveness. The same is true for facilitative coaches.

Don't Carry Others' Water

Share information for which you are the source, but don't share others' information for them. When you share information that others should be sharing, you are carrying their water. This reduces their transparency and accountability and inappropriately shifts it to you. In addition, because it's not your information, you can't fully answer questions people have about the reasoning underlying the information. For example, if a senior leader asks you to convey to one of his teams his purpose in having you work with the team, he's asking you to carry his water.

The information that others are asking you to share is usually relevant; it's just not your relevant information—it's theirs. The way to address this is to talk with the persons who are asking you to carry their water. We'll explore this in Chapter 13, on contracting.

Share Information That Doesn't Support Your View

Sharing relevant information includes sharing information that doesn't support your preferred solution. If you believe that the group would be better served by taking more time on the current agenda item and not discussing all the scheduled topics, you share your reasoning and you also explain the potential risks of not completing the scheduled agenda. If you're a facilitative consultant discussing a particular performance management plan that you strongly support, you also share the potential challenges of the plan. When you share information that doesn't support your preferred solution, it's fine to put it in context. You might say something like, “Even though there are a couple of challenges to using the X performance management plan, on balance I think it's the best option for you because…”

Share Your Feelings

There is no place for feelings in unilateral control—especially negative feelings. But in mutual learning, feelings are an essential part of the conversation and solving problems. When you share your feelings appropriately, you are sharing an essential and often ignored part of relevant information. You're also modeling effective behavior for the group that may seem counterintuitive to the group. Sharing your feelings helps people better understand how you view the content of the conversation.

Are you surprised—pleasantly or unpleasantly—when the group does something? Are you frustrated when the group seems not to follow through on commitments it made to you? Do you feel empathy for the challenge that the team is facing? Feelings are a natural and important part of the human condition; sharing them helps the groups you work with better understand and respond to you.

The challenge with sharing your feelings is to make sure you're sharing them effectively. As Aristotle wrote in the Nicomachean Ethics, “Getting angry is easy. But to get angry with the right person, in the right way, for the right reasons…that is not easy.” Sharing your feelings effectively means that the feelings you're expressing are based on what has happened with you and the group, not on assumptions, inferences, or attributions you're making about the group. It means not only sharing the appropriate degree of feeling but also feeling the appropriate degree of feeling. Feeling annoyed, angry, or enraged are increasing degrees of the same basic feeling. There have been only a few times when I have felt very angry toward a group I was working with, but even those times were unwarranted. When faced with emotionally difficult situations, a unilateral control mindset leads us to feel stronger negative feelings and weaker positive feelings than are sometimes warranted based on the facts. We'll explore addressing feelings—group members' and yours—in Chapter 12, on emotions.

The next three behaviors are about the types of relevant information to share.

Say What You Mean to Say

Facilitators, consultants, coaches, and trainers sometimes don't say what they really mean. We use indirect language and create misunderstanding. Trainers often ask participants whether they completed an assignment by saying, “Did you get a chance to…?” I used to ask this question too, until a group of police chiefs broke me of the habit. I was helping the group learn how to manage conflict and started by asking, “How many of you had a chance to read the article I asked you to read?” To my pleasant surprise, all 50 hands went up. “That's impressive,” I said. “This is the first group I've worked with where everyone has read the article.” One of the police chiefs spoke up. “Roger, you didn't ask us if we read the article; you asked us if we had a chance to read it. We all had a chance.” “You're right,” I said. “Let me try this again. How many of you read the assignment?” This time only about one third of the police chiefs raised their hands. At that moment, I realized I had asked, “Did you have a chance to…?” because I was trying to save face for those people who might not have completed the assignment. But, in doing so, I wasn't asking what I really meant and I wasn't asking people to be accountable.

It's easy to literally speak the words, “Did you read the assignment?” but to be willing to say them, you may need to change your mindset. Instead of thinking that by directly asking people if they completed an assignment you're putting them on the spot, when you operate from mutual learning, you see this as being transparent, accountable, curious, and compassionate.

Name Names

If you want the group to understand whom you are talking about, it helps to name names. If you're concerned that Erin and Eduardo haven't shared their view and Joan is speaking repeatedly on the topic, saying, “Let's hear from some people who haven't spoken yet” doesn't tell people whom you want to hear from. Even if you say, “Erin and Eduardo, I'd like to hear what your thoughts are,” you're omitting the point that Joan's frequent comments seem to be hindering their speaking. To be transparent and accountable, you would say, “I haven't heard Erin and Eduardo's thoughts yet. Joan, you've spoken a number of times on this topic—have I missed anything? If not, would you be willing to let Erin and Eduardo share their thoughts at this point?”

If you're concerned about saying what I suggested, it may be because you see my comment as criticizing Joan, and you may be operating from the principle “praise in public, criticize in private.” Unfortunately, the principle stems from a unilateral control assumption: Discussing your concerns about others' behavior is criticism, and criticism in the group is at odds with minimizing the expression of negative feelings. The principle is based on saving face—for others and for yourself. But, as you shift toward a mutual learning approach, you begin to think of these situations differently—as an opportunity to learn something you may have missed and to help members understand how they may have acted in a way that, perhaps without intention, reduced the group's effectiveness.

Use Specific Examples

Ironically, people often disagree on the meaning of words that they most commonly use. In a strategy meeting, people often have different definitions of strategy. In HR meetings, people often have different meanings of the word accountability. And people often have different definitions of what it means to start a meeting on time. In your facilitative role, you probably use terms from your field that have a meaning that is different from the general meaning of that term.

One way to determine whether you're using a word to mean the same thing as others is to give an example. If you suggest that the group make a decision by consensus, it's likely that members will have different definitions of consensus. To some members, it may mean that a simple majority of people support the decision; to others it may mean that most people support it; and to still others it means unanimous support. The first time the group agrees to make a decision by consensus and the decision has majority but not unanimous support, you'll discover that people have different definitions.

To agree on what consensus means, you can say,

When I say consensus, I mean unanimous support and not majority support. In practice, this means each of you can say you will implement the decision, given your role in the organization. If the decision is about IT, supporting it means that you, Pradeep, will have a significant implementation job, given your role as CIO. For Angie and Yosef, as heads of marketing and sales, supporting it may mean that your folks simply use the new system. My definition doesn't mean that you can't tell your direct reports about any concerns you might have about implementing the decision. It does mean saying something like, “Even though I have these concerns, I support the decision to implement it.” Does anyone have a different definition of consensus?

Notice that giving an example with specific behaviors is part of describing what a word means and that it helps also to give an example of what it does not mean.

Be Transparent about Your Strategy

One of the most important types of reasoning to be transparent about is the strategy you're using to work with and influence the group. This includes the process you're using to help a group solve a problem, how you move from topic to topic, and even how you handle ineffective behavior in the group. In your facilitative role, you're often responsible for designing and managing the group process. If the group doesn't know why you are doing what you're doing, you're not being transparent about your strategy. In Chapter 3, Barbara's strategy was to use unilateral control strategies that she would have found difficult to share with the group.

When you're not being transparent about your strategy, group members may become concerned that you're trying to manipulate them—even if you're not. When you're being transparent about your strategy, group members can understand the reasoning for your actions and you build trust with them.

Often you may not share your strategy simply because you think it's too much detail. When you operate from a unilateral control mindset, you withhold your strategy because sharing it reduces your ability to implement it. If people knew your strategy, they might not agree to follow it.

Take the Transparency Test

Here's a simple and powerful three-step thought experiment to figure out if you're about to use a unilaterally controlling strategy. I call it the transparency test. To show you how to use it, I'll use one of my favorite examples of strategies that people don't explain—the sandwich approach to negative feedback. If you've learned this approach, you know that when you have negative feedback to give someone, you sandwich it between two pieces of positive feedback. Here are the three steps for determining if your strategy is a unilateral controlling one:

1. Identify the strategy you're using to have the conversation. In the sandwich approach, the strategy when you have negative feedback to give is to start off on a positive note to make the person or people feel more comfortable and to make it easier to hear your negative feedback without getting defensive. Next, give the negative feedback, which is the reason you wanted to talk. Finally, give some more positive feedback, so the person or people will leave the meeting with self-esteem in place and won't be as angry with you.
2. Imagine explaining your strategy to the ones you are using it with. Also, imagine asking them how the strategy will work for them. Let's imagine you're using the sandwich approach with a group: “I called you in here to give you some negative feedback, and I want to let you know my strategy for having the conversation and see if it will work for you. First, I'm going to give you some positive feedback to make you feel more comfortable and get you ready for the negative feedback, because I think you're going to get defensive. Then, I'll give you the negative feedback, which is why I called you in here today. Finally, I'll give you some more positive feedback so you'll feel better about yourself and won't be as angry with me. How will that work for you?”
3. Notice your reaction. If you find yourself laughing at the absurdity of what you're thinking, or if you're thinking I could never share that strategy, you've probably identified a unilateral control strategy that keeps you from being transparent. You keep your unilateral control strategies private because they work only when others don't know what you're doing or when they agree to play along.

The solution here isn't being transparent about your unilaterally controlling strategy; it's shifting your mindset so you begin using mutual learning strategies that become more effective when you share them with others.

How You Make Meaning: The Ladder of Inference

To understand how we make meaning, let's consider a facilitator called Tye who is making a high-level inference about Cheryl, who is part of the team he is facilitating. The short left-hand column case (Exhibit 5.1) shows Tye's conversation with Cheryl and his thoughts and feelings. We'll use this example to explain the ladder of inference and how to test an inference you make.

How you make meaning is illustrated in the ladder of inference (Figure 5.2), which I have adapted from Argyris and Schön and also from Action Design, which built on Argyris and Schön's work. Like a real ladder, you start at the bottom of the ladder of inference and climb up.

At the bottom of the ladder of inference is all the observable information available to you. As you climb the ladder, you encounter three rungs: (1) observe and select information, (2) make meaning, and (3) decide how to respond. Let's start at the bottom and explore each part. Figure 5.3 shows Tye's ladder of inference during his conversation with Cheryl.

Your Inferences Become Data

The ladder of inference is self-reinforcing. Notice the arrow on the left side of the ladder? It's called a reflexive loop. It turns the untested assumptions, inferences, and attributions you make into “facts” that lead you to look for data that confirm your “facts” and to also interpret ambiguous data as confirming your “facts.” For example, Tye will use his inference—that Cheryl doesn't want Jim and Lena's project to start—to systematically select data from future interactions with the team to confirm his inference and attribution about Cheryl. If Cheryl makes an ambiguous comment, Tye is likely to interpret it as another example of the same. This reflexive loop leads you to create what you think is a solid basis for a conclusion. However, you create a large set of untested inferences that may be completely flawed.

Lower Your Ladder: Make Your Inference Testable

The main rule for using the ladder of inference is the same as a real ladder: Don't climb any higher than you need to. Just like a real ladder, the higher you climb, the more dangerous it becomes. We climb up the ladder higher than we need to when we make an inference that is further removed from the data than necessary. I call these high-level inferences. You've probably seen others make these high-level inferences. Imagine that you make a suggestion for how to improve a project and a group member responds, “You're just trying to make me fail!” You're probably thinking, How did he possibly reach that conclusion? That's so far removed from what I said! In the CIO case in Chapter 3, Barbara made several high-level inferences, including one at the very end of the case. When Frank said, “How about a break now? I'd like us to mull this question over and revisit it this afternoon,” Barbara thought, Oh, that's great. He obviously thinks I'm an idiot and doesn't want to release the stuff. Her inference that Frank obviously thinks she's an idiot is greatly removed from the data she used to reach the conclusion. Similarly, in our example above, Tye's high-level inference was that Cheryl wanted Jim and Lena's project to fail and his high-level attribution was that Cheryl was seeking retaliation.

When you make a high-level inference, your final inference is supported by many other intermediary inferences. Like a house of cards, if one of the intermediary inferences is false, the logic collapses and the final inference can't be supported. We have a clinical term for people who routinely make certain types of very high-level negative inferences (and attributions) with little or no data: paranoid. Still, all of us make high-level inferences at times, especially when we are faced with challenging situations, including ones that make us anxious. Although you may make positive high-level inferences about others (she gave me a big smile—she's attracted to me), in challenging situations, our high-level inference is usually negative (as in Barbara's case: Frank asked for a break; he obviously thinks I'm an idiot).

With practice, you will make fewer high-level inferences that you need to lower. But you will still make high-level inferences at times. To test these inferences without getting others defensive, you need to realize when you're making a high-level inference and convert it to a low-level inference. I call this lowering your ladder. Figure 5.4 shows the two-step process. First, after you have made meaning and before you choose how to respond, ask yourself, What did the person say or do that leads me to believe this? This leads you to climb back down the ladder and recall and reexamine the data you used to make your inferences. You may realize that the person didn't say what you thought she said or that you didn't pay attention to something she did say. In Tye's case (see Figure 5.5), he would discover that Cheryl had also said, “I told you earlier, and you didn't respond.”

Second, ask yourself, “Using a mutual learning approach, what explanation is closer to the data and more generous of spirit?” In other words, what inference would be reasonable to make using mutual learning and generosity as your guide? I'm not asking you to abandon reality or to be naïve. Your new inference still needs to fit with the data. In Tye's case, he might have inferred that Cheryl was frustrated with Jim and Lena and also frustrated with him because Cheryl had raised her concern earlier and Tye hadn't helped her address it with the team.

Decide Whether to Test Your New Inference

After you've made a new inference based on mutual learning and a generosity of spirit, you can decide whether you want to test it to see if it's true. You may decide it's still worth testing or it's not necessary. You can't test out every inference you make. If you did, you would drive people crazy.

To decide whether to test an inference, I ask myself, What are the consequences if I act on my inference as if it is true and it is false? Tye might decide that he needs to test out his inference because he needs to determine if he did not respond to Cheryl's earlier concern.

Testing Your Inference: The Mutual Learning Cycle

The mutual learning cycle (see Figure 5.6) is a tool for productively testing your inferences. The cycle has two sides. The left side is what you are thinking and feeling, and the right side is what you say. You've already learned the left side; it's your ladder of inference using a mutual learning approach.

Once you've completed the left side, the right side is easy to complete. You take your thoughts and feelings from the left side and share them on the right side (Figure 5.7). Here is how it works, step-by-step, using Tye's example:

1. Step 4:

   “Cheryl, you said that you told me earlier about what Jim and Lena had done that led you to say they were slowing down your project, but I didn't respond to you. Did I get that right?” [If Cheryl says yes, Tye continues.]

2. Step 5:

   “I'm thinking you're frustrated that I didn't follow up with you as well as frustrated with Jim and Lena. Is that what you're feeling, or am I wrong?” [If Cheryl agrees this is what she is feeling, Tye continues.]

3. Step 6:

   “I didn't mean to not respond or frustrate you. I suggest we go back to your concern and find out what Jim and Lena's thoughts are. How does that sound to you?”

The Mutual Learning Cycle Uses Most of the Eight Behaviors

The mutual learning cycle is powerful in part because it uses most of the eight behaviors. In step 4 of the cycle, you test your observation by using specific examples so you can agree on what important words mean (behavior 3) and you share all the relevant information (behavior 2) that leads you to make your inference. Step 5, testing your meaning, is the same as testing inferences and assumptions (behavior 6). In step 6, you jointly decide with others how to move forward (behavior 7, which we will explore next). Steps 4, 5, and 6 each have two parts. In the first part, you state your view, and in the second part, you ask a genuine question (behavior 1). Finally, the right side of the cycle states, “Explain reasoning and intent” (behavior 4). By using the mutual learning cycle, you are naturally using a mutual learning approach.

A note about language: You don't have to use the words infer and inference. If these words sound unnatural or like jargon, you can say, “I'm thinking that…,” “It sounds to me like…,” or something similar. Honor the meaning of the words and find your own voice.

Using the Mutual Learning Cycle to Diagnose and Intervene in Groups

In the beginning of this chapter, I said that you can use the eight behaviors to guide your own behavior as well as to diagnose and intervene in the group. The mutual learning cycle is the fundamental tool you use to diagnose and intervene, no matter what behaviors you're diagnosing and intervening on, and no matter what your facilitative role. The mutual learning cycle structures how you think and how you say what you're thinking. In Chapters 7 through 10, I show you how to use the cycle to diagnose and intervene with groups.

Beginning Meetings: Purpose before Process before Content

Effective meetings have an agreed-upon purpose and process. Unless the meeting was called spontaneously, the purpose and process should be agreed on before the meeting occurs. This enables everyone attending to prepare for the items on the agenda and even to find out if their attendance is needed given the topics. Meetings can have more than one purpose, and each agenda topic can reflect a different purpose. If you're a facilitator or facilitative consultant, you may be responsible for recommending a process to accomplish the meeting purpose and you may even be involved in helping the group shape the purpose of the meeting.

While effective meetings begin with an agreed-upon purpose and process, you may need to revisit and modify the purpose and/or process during the meeting. Sometimes a group discovers that it needs to accomplish another purpose before it is able to achieve the original purpose of the meeting. Sometimes, a group discovers that the process they are using to achieve a purpose fails to address all the issues that need to be considered to achieve the purpose.

Whether you are setting the purpose and process initially or modifying them during the meeting, the key point is to design them jointly with the group. Even if you're the person drafting a recommendation, you would share the meeting purpose and process with the group, explain your reasoning for structuring the purpose and process, and then ask, “What changes, if any, do you think we need to make to the proposed purpose and process?”

Agreeing on Whether Someone Is Off Track

Keeping a group focused on their topic is an important part of your facilitative role. But you may be doing this unilaterally. For example, consider a group discussing how to increase sales to current customers. If group member Yvonne says, “I think we have a problem with our billing cycles,” and you respond, “That's a different topic,” you're unilaterally controlling the conversation. Your comment assumes that Yvonne's comment is unrelated to the current topic. If she thinks her comment is on topic, she may stop participating in the meeting. As a result, the group doesn't get the benefit of using her relevant information in deciding a course of action. In addition, she may end up not being committed to the course of action that the group decides on.

If you're using the behavior of jointly designing next steps, you would say something like, “Yvonne, I don't see how your point about the problem with billing cycles is related to increasing sales to current customers. Maybe I'm missing something. Can you help me understand how you see them being related?” When Yvonne responds, you and the group members might learn about a connection between the two topics that you and they haven't previously considered. For example, the organization's billing cycles may create a long enough time lag that salespeople don't have real-time data about their customers' inventory. If there is a connection, the group can decide whether it makes more sense to pursue Yvonne's idea now or later. If it turns out that her comment isn't related, you can ask the group whether and when it wants to address it.

Designing Ways to Test Differences about the Facts

Sometimes groups get stuck when they can't agree on what the facts are. Without agreement on the facts—a key part of relevant information—it's difficult to make decisions that all group members are committed to. Unfortunately, when groups find themselves in this situation, they often create an escalating cycle in which each member tries to convince the others that his or her own position is correct. Each member offers evidence to support his or her position. Each doubts the other's data, and none are likely to offer data to weaken their own positions. Even after the disagreement is over, the “losers” are still likely to believe they are right.

When you help a group jointly design a way to test disagreements about the facts, you help it move forward in a way that all members agree on the facts. When I think of this behavior, I imagine two scientists with competing hypotheses who are able to design only one experiment to test their competing hypotheses. To conduct the experiment, they need to jointly design it so that it is rigorous enough to meet both of their standards and for them to accept the data and the implications that result from the data.

Consider an IT leadership team in which members disagree about the amount of time that it currently takes IT support staff to respond to and resolve employee IT problems. As a facilitator or consultant, you might begin by asking, “How can you jointly design a way to figure out what the current response time is?” You can begin helping the team develop a joint design by agreeing on what it means by the words current, respond to, and resolve. Next, you might ask the team how it can analyze available data and/or collect new data to answer the team's question.

It's essential that the team jointly design the methods it will use to answer its question. If the team doesn't, when the results are generated, some team members are likely to state that the team used a nonrepresentative sample, didn't collect the right data, or analyzed the data incorrectly. It's also important to have the team agree in advance on what kinds of results will lead the team to take certain actions. For example, what percentage of the IT problems would have to take longer than a certain amount of time for IT staff to resolve for the team to agree that there was a problem that needed to be solved.

Some disagreements are easier to address than others. Deciding what a particular memo says may be as simple as opening the file and looking at it together. Agreeing on what has been said in previous meetings may require talking to a number of people and trying to reconstruct the conversation. Particularly difficult is deciding what the effects will be of implementing a strategy or policy. Still, if the effects of the choice are significant, group members can collect data from other organizations that have already implemented a similar strategy or policy; or you can help the group simulate the effects by using systems-thinking modeling.

Degrees of Joint Design

No matter what your facilitative role, there is a continuum of joint design. At one end of the continuum, you design the next step on your own with no input from group members, except to ask if they have any concerns. This is often the case with simple next steps, such as suggesting that it looks like a good time to take a break or to recommend how the group get out all the relevant information needed for the decision. At the other end of the continuum, you and the group are full partners in designing the next step. This is often the case, when a group realizes it needs to change the purpose of the meeting or when a team is concerned that the current meeting process is not helping it accomplish the meeting's purpose.

The Problem with Not Discussing Undiscussable Issues

You create undiscussable issues when you operate from a unilateral control mindset. If you value minimizing the expression of negatives feelings, you're concerned that if you raise these difficult issues, others may get defensive, you may get defensive, and you will negatively affect your working relationship with the group you're supposed to be helping. Ironically, by not discussing the undiscussable issue, you create the negative effect you're trying to avoid.

If you value minimizing the expression of negative feelings, you also want to save face for others—and often for yourself, too. In short, you see discussing undiscussable issues as putting people on the spot and not being compassionate. But when you don't discuss undiscussable issues, you withhold relevant information from others and prevent them from making an informed choice. Here, too, you might ironically create the opposite of what you're trying to create. Instead of being compassionate, you create problems for others. In the extreme, preventing the group from making an informed choice can be cruel instead of compassionate.

Finally, if you're also operating from the unilateral control value of “win; don't lose,” you may be concerned that raising an undiscussable issue will reduce the chance that you will win.

In short, unilateral control teaches us to praise in public, criticize in private. That prevents us from discussing undiscussable issues with the group.

How to Raise Your Undiscussable Issue

Using mutual learning means raising the undiscussable issue in the place where the relevant information is and the people who are present can address the problem. If the undiscussable issue involves the group and you, you raise it with the full group.

Discussing undiscussable issues doesn't involve any new mindset or behaviors. I made this a separate behavior only because it feels much more difficult to use. But to use the behavior, you use the mutual learning mindset and behaviors that we've already discussed. You assume that you may be missing things that others are seeing and that you may be contributing to the problem you're privately complaining about. You also assume that others' motives are pure, and value compassion for others and yourself. When you raise and discuss an undiscussable issue, you share relevant but difficult information with the group so that you and the group can jointly make an informed choice about what if anything to do differently. You state your views and ask genuine questions, use specific examples, agree on what important words mean, share your reasoning and intent, focus on interests, test your assumptions and inferences, and jointly design next steps with the group.

Here is what you might say if you were raising the undiscussable issue of the group not completing work that makes it difficult for you to perform your role:

I want to raise an issue that I think is keeping me from helping you achieve your goals. I've noticed in the last three meetings that, as a group, you've not completed the assignments you committed to get to me before the meetings, and as a result I haven't been able to adequately prepare to help you make decisions in the meetings. Is each of you willing to discuss this issue? [If yes, continue.] Okay, I want to suggest a process we can use to discuss the issue and check to see if it works for everyone. First, I'd like to provide a few examples of the issue and check to see whether each of you is seeing what I saw or is seeing it differently. I want to make sure we agree on what's happened before we move forward. Second, if we agree this is happening, I'd like for us to explore what is causing the behavior. I'm open to the possibility that I'm doing things that are making it difficult for you to complete the assignments you agreed to. Third, I'd like for us to identify the interests we need to meet for any solution to work. Finally, I'd like us to craft a solution that addresses the root causes and meets everyone's interest. Does anyone have any concerns about the process I'm suggesting or want to suggest an improvement? [If not, continue.] OK, is each of you willing to use this process?

Notice that when I raise the undiscussable issue, I am jointly designing next steps with the group, stating my views and asking genuine questions, explaining my reasoning, and identifying people's interests.