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Chapter 2

HOW DO I KNOW WHOM TO INCLUDE?

A wedding is a good example of the challenges and complexities of involvement. It’s certainly something that is hard to do alone. And anyone who has ever planned a wedding knows that the question, “Whom will we include?” is a big, big deal.

The kind of wedding we want has a big influence on whom we invite. The answer can range from the Las Vegas quickie to a wedding on a royal scale at St. Paul’s Cathedral. If the couple chooses the Las Vegas option, fewer people are involved than in the royal scale wedding, which involves many people and many decisions. Most people come out somewhere in between.

Usually, the bride makes a list and the groom makes a list. Their lists include people they want to have there (like their best friends from school and their favorite aunts and uncles) as well as people they feel obligated to ask (like grouchy cousin Lula and brother-in-law Jack, who always gets drunk at weddings). Clashes arise between bride and groom over the size of their lists and specific inclusions and exclusions (such as old flames and buddies considered obnoxious by the opposite party). Eventually the parents of the bride and groom (who are often helping to pay for the whole deal) weigh in with their lists, including local friends and neighbors, business associates, and distant relatives who have never even met the bride and groom. The numbers begin to expand.

Soon the thinking turns to the support needed for the kind of wedding wanted: whom to include in the wedding party, the kind of clothing, the time of the event, the photographer, the videographer, the menu, the music, who sits with whom, and whose family tradition we follow for the first dance. Soon the mushrooming numbers rub up against such practical realities as the size of the catering hall and the budget. Sometimes the conflicts become so intense that the young lovers decide to elope instead—or call off the wedding altogether.

The kind of wedding we choose will determine whom to include and when. It raises issues dealing with different points of view, influence, and budget while at the same time keeping the fundamental goal in mind: making this a memorable and meaningful event for those getting married.

Just as people planning weddings often worry about whom to include, people in organizations worry about whom to include to get things done. Whether you are planning a wedding or your next staff meeting or leading a work initiative, whom to include is a big deal.

In answering the question, “How do I know whom to include?” we focus on three points:

• How do I involve more than the usual people?
• How many people should I include?
• Should the same people be involved throughout all the work?

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How Do I Involve More Than the Usual People?

In Chapter 1, you learned the importance of being clear about what you want to accomplish and what kind of involvement is needed. This determines the kind of people you need to include.

You probably have some people in mind to include in the work already. Some people are obvious choices because they match the work to be done due to the passion they exhibit, the knowledge and experience they bring, or the personal and political clout they wield.

But beyond these obvious choices, it’s helpful to have a framework for thinking about whom to include, one that will challenge you to think outside the box about those you might want to invite. Think beyond the people whom you normally invite, the “people who do everything” in your organization or community. (You know who they are—the usual suspects.) Make a deliberate effort to include people who may stretch, challenge, or change your usual way of thinking.

A police department in England was working on the design of a new jail cell. In an effort to stretch their thinking, the design committee decided to include members of a group most often ignored, though most directly affected—the prisoners themselves. The prisoners came up with a number of important contributions. For example, they pointed out that installing the cell door so that the hinge faced outward would reduce suicides by eliminating one surface on which a rope or bed sheet could be hung. This lifesaving insight could only be offered by someone who had spent long hours of loneliness and despair staring at a cell door—a vivid example of the value of including in your work participants who are normally excluded.

For all but the simplest work, get the advice of others before you shape your final invitation list. Simply asking the question, “Who else needs to be here?” will open up possibilities you otherwise would have missed. This model’s broad involvement, at a very early stage in the development of your work, sets a tone that will be increasingly valuable as the work proceeds. Remember John Donne’s observation: “No man is an island, entire of itself.”

If you are considering whom to invite to the next staff meeting, ask those present at the current meeting, “Who needs to be here?” If you are considering a larger initiative, then you need to convene a group to help plan whom to involve that mirrors those involved and impacted.

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Here is a framework to help you involve more than the usual people. It identifies six important categories to consider, each of which brings something different to the work. They are:

• People who care
• People with authority and responsibility
• People with information and expertise
• People who will be personally affected
• People with diverse points of view
• People who are considered troublemakers

Let’s talk about these categories in more detail.

People Who Care. People who care have passion, consider the work important, and are ready to devote their energy to ensuring a good outcome. They come in many types, including people who have a stake in the outcome of the work and people whose children the work might influence.

One way to find out who cares is to ask for volunteers—people who have a choice about whether to participate, not those who are told that they must come. When we volunteer time and energy, it shows we care.

In Naperville, Illinois, a town of 130,000, the local school district was planning a conference to create a vision for students in the twenty-first century. They decided to include some 300 people in creating the vision. The invitation list included students, teachers, and administrators; parents; representatives of local businesses that had partnered with the school system; and members of the larger community, such as a professor from the education department at a local university, local religious leaders, and city and county officials. They also wanted volunteers from the community, so they created a video for local cable television explaining the work and asking community members to participate in the conference. Articles in local newspapers were also used to invite participants.

Three hundred people became involved, including those who worked for the school system and were invited as well as volunteers from the community. They all gave two and a half days of their time to the effort, demonstrating vividly the depth of their commitment to the Naperville school district and its educational mission.

Some initiatives are more conducive to volunteering than others. If your work includes tasks that can be performed with minimal specific expertise, on an open schedule with flexible guidelines and quality standards, then volunteering can play a significant role. In our experience, there are few projects to which volunteers cannot contribute.

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The next question is how many volunteers should be included. We’ve seen organizations dedicate anywhere from 5 percent to 70 percent of the slots in each group to volunteers. If they get more volunteers than there are slots available, participants are selected randomly—drawing names from a hat, for instance—and in public, so that the process remains transparent.

People with Authority and Responsibility. People with authority and responsibility are important to the success of the work. We need them because they have unique information to share and control over necessary support and resources. People with authority and responsibility can run interference with the powers that be, win or grant approvals, and champion the work at higher levels of government, business, or civic society. They also follow up on the work and ensure that it is institutionalized or folded into the organization as the organization grows and changes.

In a meeting about restructuring the human resources department of an international airline, two options emerged, each with strong support. After extensive debate, a vote was taken. Option A won by a single vote. It was a moment of truth for the group. Given the narrow margin of victory, would debate resume, or would the organization move forward?

After a moment of silence, the corporation’s vice president for human resources spoke up. “Clearly we have a house divided. Both options are attractive. But a decision must be made. In keeping with our democratic tradition, we will abide by the will of the majority. We’ll follow Option A.”

Of all the people in the room, only the vice president had both the authority and the responsibility to make this decision. (She also had the personal courage to do so.) If she had not been in the room, it’s likely that the debate would have continued for the rest of the day. Instead, the group was able to move on and successfully implement Option A.

People with Information and Expertise. People with information and expertise offer crucial insights from many parts of an organization or community. They represent various hierarchical levels, functions, and periods of organizational memory. They also provide technical expertise that may be needed, such as financial acumen, marketing savvy, or computer skills.

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When a major hospital system wanted to create a vision for the future of their organization, the planners understood the importance of including a broad range of information and expertise providers. Their list of invitees included physicians from every hospital department, nurses representing each health care function, support staff (such as secretaries and maintenance workers), administrators and corporate staff members, patients (both satisfied and dissatisfied), insurance company representatives, health care consultants, and members of similar organizations that had conducted similar projects. Only by gathering all these diverse people in one room could the system hope to develop a future vision that was both broad and soundly based in the realities of the changing world of health care.

People Who Will Be Personally Affected. People who will be personally affected by the work need and deserve a place at the table. They might include workers whose jobs will change, clients whose experience of the organization will be altered, members of other organizations whose contacts will be affected by the project, and community members whose lives will be impacted and changed.

Involving a range of people who will be affected by any change sends an important message of empowerment. At one high-tech manufacturing plant, the supply chain that controlled the flow of raw materials into the factory as well as the development and shipping of finished products out of the factory was badly flawed. Several large meetings were held where customers, suppliers, workers, and managers came together to discuss the problems and create a new design for the supply chain.

In the midst of these conversations, one line worker at the plant who had been having difficulty getting a crucial part from a supplier took it upon himself to call the president of the supplier company. He explained the situation and got the part he needed the next day. Being involved in the supply chain design project had enabled this worker to take ownership of the problem and move forcefully to solve it.

People with Diverse Points of View. People with different points of view may include people who have minority opinions, people opposed to what is going on, people who play a different role in the organization or community, or people who represent a particular race, gender, age, or other significant characteristic.

You may feel reluctant—perhaps unconsciously—to include people with different points of view. After all, won’t dissenting voices just slow us down and prevent progress? Actually, the opposite may be true. Our experience has shown that the more points of view that are heard and understood during the development of any project, the more innovative the solutions devised. Bringing in people with different points of view is the only way to uncover what they all have in common and are willing to work for.

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Troublemakers. The sixth category of people to include is the troublemakers. Who are the troublemakers? In the typical workplace, organization, or community, most people know who the troublemakers are. They are the resistors, the dominators, and the detractors. They are the people who refuse to be team players. They irritate, annoy, alienate, and just plain bother everyone they come into contact with.

Why include troublemakers in your work? One reason is that troublemakers are centers of organizational energy. We prefer having the troublemaker using energy inside the work rather than stirring up trouble and distrust from the outside. If the troublemakers are working with us, we can welcome them, try to see the world through their eyes, treat them with respect, and find what is valuable in their input.

At a company where planning was under way to implement a new program of self-directed teamwork, one union steward was generally considered a troublemaker because she was always filing grievances. After much internal debate, the planning group decided to invite the steward to join. To widespread surprise, she became instrumental in leading the effort. The reason? For the first time, the steward had found a place where her voice would be heard and her concerns would be taken seriously.

In Figure 2.1, we present a simple tool to use in thinking about whom to include in your next work initiative. When first using this tool, fill in the types of people such as customers, suppliers, and partners, then in the next column brainstorm the actual names of people to include.

Some people find a visual map useful in helping them see who should be involved. This is another way to trigger your thinking to be more participative. Remember the school district that was working on a vision for the twenty-first century? After thinking through the categories of people they wanted to include, they created a visual map like the one in Figure 2.2 as a tool for identifying types of people that ought to participate. As the planning meeting began, they wrote the name of the district in the middle of the map, then invited people to call out the kinds of people that they saw as key to this event. The recorder wrote them on the map like branches on a tree. As a result, they saw that several of the categories produced the same kinds of roles and they were able to more easily attach names to the roles.

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FIGURE 2.1

THE WHOM TO INVOLVE TOOL

Work Name: _____________________________

Categories	Types	Names
People who care
People with authority and responsibility
People with information and expertise
People who will be personally affected
People with diverse points of view
People who are considered troublemakers

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FIGURE 2.2

THE WHOM TO INVOLVE MAP FOR THE NAPERVILLE, ILLINOIS, SCHOOL DISTRICT 203

How Many People Should I Include?

How to involve the right number of people is a concern shared by many involvers. If you involve too many people, you might not get the work done effectively because there are too many opinions to consider. If you involve too few, you might not get new thinking. You might also miss people who will help implement and coordinate the work.

Don’t assume that limiting the number of people involved will save you time and money. This assumption overlooks the costs associated with neglected points of view, limited perspectives, and the resistance that occurs when important people are left out of the conversation. And don’t assume that involving lots of people guarantees you success.

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A printing plant was transforming itself to a team-based organization.

Although they involved customers and suppliers in their redesign, they neglected to involve the company’s sales force. Why was this important? Because the sales force determined where products would be printed. As the plant’s culture began to shift, the sales force became nervous because things were done differently in the team-based plant. Consequently, the sales force was reluctant to assign product to this plant. Excluding the sales force’s voice in the transformation had unintended negative consequences for the plant.

As a general rule, the number of people to include depends on five key questions:

• How much energy do you want to create?
• How large is the scope of the task?
• How much time is available?
• How many people are needed to keep other organizational functions running?
• How much money can you spend?

If you want to create a lot of energy, larger groups are the most effective. These are best for system analysis and visioning. Smaller groups are best for doing detail work and working on smaller jobs. Furthermore, a large group is useful when you want to create a critical mass for change within the broader organization or community.

Consider, too, that the number of people you involve is likely to change over time. If the scope of the work is big, you will involve larger numbers of people. If it is narrower, then fewer people can do it. Many initiatives involve both large and small groups at various points in the life of the work.

The Naperville School District that was working on a vision for education in the twenty-first century had several groups of different sizes:

• A small combined group of four from the school board and administration determined the kind of visioning process they wished to engage in. They then organized a planning group of around twenty people to represent all constituencies. This group formed committees to work on logistics, communication, and invitations.
• A large group of 300 came together to create the vision.
• Ten task forces of approximately eight to fifteen people were formed by volunteers around the themes of the vision to recommend ways to implement them. The task forces added new members who were interested and had a member of the planning team to coordinate with the larger group.

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Involving people is not always such a complex undertaking. For example, moving a piano requires a small group of people to move the piano from here to there. You need a few strong bodies and at least one person who can think visually so the piano doesn’t get stuck when you’re trying to round the corner going up the stairs.

In working with clients, we use a concept called “critical mass” to identify the people that you must involve in order to succeed. Critical mass means enough of the right people to accomplish what you need to in any particular effort. What is your critical mass for this work? From the original list of brainstormed invitees, who must be involved? These are the people who could make or break your effort.

Then move to the next layer of people. Who would be nice to keep involved? These people would make everyone’s job easier, but if push came to shove, you could get by without them. Finally, is there anyone who would be okay not to involve? What are the consequences if they are not involved?

It may be helpful to fill in the worksheet in Figure 2.3 to get clear on these questions.

FIGURE 2.3

THE CRITICAL MASS WORKSHEET TOOL

People we must have involved    Why?

People we’d like to have involved    Why?

People that would be okay not to involve    Why?

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Using this tool helps you determine the number of people that you need to involve and why you need to involve them. This can also help you be respectful of their time if you are clear about how you wish to involve them.

Should the Same People Be Involved Throughout All the Work?

Sometimes everyone included is on board throughout. Sometimes some of the players change, as different knowledge, viewpoints, and skills are needed, while a core of people remains to provide continuity. In small jobs such as planning an awards banquet for the soccer team, you want the same crew involved throughout. In larger initiatives such as the Naperville Futures Project, some people change as the work changes.

Involving the right folks at the right time in the life of an initiative is crucial to its success. It infuses energy, stimulates creative solutions, and ensures that the right decisions are made. It also produces a set of champions who will act as advocates, marketers, and salespeople in the broader organization or community, ultimately involving many more people in the final implementation of your work.

By contrast, when the wrong people are involved, progress is likely to be slow. Because the necessary talents and knowledge are missing from around the table, flawed decisions are made and creative energy becomes dissipated. If you complete your planning efforts, support from the broader community may be lacking because key influencers are uninvolved or even actively hostile.

As you think about whom to involve at what stage of the job, keep in mind the following suggestions:

• In the early stages, you want people who are visionary and creative.
• When you want to review work done so far, you want people who are challenging, reflective, and honest.
• When you need to reach consensus, you want people who are collaborative, realistic, and unselfish.
• When you are doing detail work, you want people who are concrete, thorough, and meticulous.

Figure 2.4 presents a tool to use to prompt your thinking.

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FIGURE 2.4

THE TYPES OF PEOPLE TO INCLUDE AT DIFFERENT STAGES TOOL

Stage	Tasks	Types of People	Names
Early • Decide on the work and what kind of involvement is ineeded • Whom to include • How to invite them	• Gather information • Identify possibilities • Sort options • Discuss pros and cons • Decide	•Knowledgeable •Open minded •Visionary •Creative
Middle How to keep people involved	• Keep purpose front and center • Let people know how we are doing • Support people who are involved • Regularly reassess the kind of involvement needed • Stay open to those with differing points of view • Appreciate what people can contribute	• Challenging • Reflective • Collaborative • Meticulous • Honest
Late • How to finish the job	• Bring things to a close • Identify key events • Discuss experiences • Capture lessons	• Thorough • Concrete • Reflective • Curious • Honest

Chapter Checklist

The sequence for deciding whom to include in your work is:

• Think about how to involve more than the usual people based on the six categories: people who care, people with authority and responsibility, people with information and expertise, people who will be personally affected, people with diverse points of view, and people who are considered troublemakers.
• When considering how many people to include, think whom you must have to succeed and who would be nice to have to support the work.
• When thinking about whom to involve at what stage, chunk out what you see as the stages and think through the characteristics of people you would like to include. Remember you’ll have to adjust as you go along due to unplanned circumstances.