Last week, a client emailed me asking for help with facilitation skills. So, I went to youtube.com thinking I could find some high quality training videos in a jiffy. Nope. I found a lot of folks slinging lingo and jousting with jargon, but I didn’t find anyone who could talk about facilitation without slipping into one of two traps:

1. Drowning me in a blizzard of meaningless buzzwords until the room started to spin. If I’d been near an open window, I’d have jumped. Gleefully.

2. Standing in the front of the room with a marker saying things like, “Yes! Action is doing something - very good!” followed by “That’s it! We need a process to do something. You’d be amazed at how many leaders do not understand the need for process.” It was like day care in hell.

I love facilitating meetings, and I was bored to distraction. I know many of the people in those videos love meeting facilitation and the magic of groups too. What is it that makes us so tongue-tied about this key leadership skill? Why do we either bury it in corpo-speak or find ourselves making ringing proclamations of the obvious. Either way, why do we sound like such nitwits?

Because facilitating a meeting is simple. It’s so simple, it doesn’t seem possible that all that power could come from something so simple. So, we over-complicate it with lofty talk or overstate it’s simplicity with an almost psychotic passion.

Wanting to comes first
The raison d’etre of every meeting to to motivate a group of individuals to join forces to get something done. To be come something more than a collection of individuals. It’s not convincing them. It’s not persuading them. It’s not leading them. It’s not making it happen, because motivating someone else isn’t possible. They must motivate themselves. Motivation comes from wanting to do something. Group motivation comes from individuals connecting with each other - igniting each other until they are a great, roaring bonfire. Without the “want to,” you’ve got nothing. In the case of many meetings, you’ve got quite a bit less than nothing as group members spend time getting over the barren wasteland of meeting after meeting without even a spark.

All of which means that meetings are about letting a group talk themselves into wanting to do what needs to be done. That’s best done by asking for their help figuring out how to do it, then getting out of the way while they ignite each other. You’d best be ignited first, either with excitement or frustration or doubt, it doesn’t much matter which. A group that catches fire turns all of those into fuel.

That’s all for this week. I’m going to keep posting about meetings and groups for the next few weeks. I want to see how long I can write about meetings without using the word “process.” Anyone want to make a bet?

Let’s say you’ve got a group with a little free-floating rage. Nothing too terrible, just a little, you know, frustration, marked by an inability to move on, perhaps for years. You can try the old chestnut where you list all the issues, declare them in the past and agree never to speak of them again. Except you’ve just spent 30-60 (or more!) minutes reinforcing the complaints and negativity, amping up the limbic system and reinforcing the very neuronal paths you want to extinguish. Probably not the best approach. And, saying “you can’t talk about that” just drives them underground. Besides, you want these complaints as a springboard for problem-solving. What you need is a way to hold them differently, a way to create some transformation space around them. Here are two ideas:

1. Have pairs, trios or some other subgroup create skits depicting the frustrating situation then follow that up with one depicting the situation as they’ like it to be. Ideally, you’d ask them to do something creative with this: act it out as if everyone were animals, do a group sculpture showing the relative position of everyone in the drama, perform a song, limerick or haiku - something that engages a different part of the brain than the part that’s stuck. Watch all the performances, then, in the debrief, use the positive version as a spring board for action planning.

2. Rework the board game CLUE! This is riskier, faster, high-energy fun. Have the group generate new CLUE! solutions based on the frustrating situation. You can prime the pump by making the following three lists:
Places (can include virtual places)
Categories of people (probably job titles)
Murder weapons (these can be objects or behaviors)

After you’ve had the group list all three, have them generate new solutions in this format:
It was (category of person) in the (place) with a (murder weapon).

Examples:
It was the executive in the boardroom with a powerpoint
It was HR in the computer with an email

After they’ve had their fun with others, have them generate some more, this time using this format:

It was the team member in the (place) with the (murder weapon).

This gives the group a fun and easy way to make the shift from blaming others to seeing their own culpability and returning them to a sense of personal power. Productive action planning follows naturally.

First came the desire. After the desire came the giddy excitement. After the excitement came the clear goals. After the goals, the false starts. After the false starts, the shame. After the shame came the mean voices. After the mean voices, terror descends like a visit from the dysfunctional family you moved across the country to avoid. Their voices reverberate through the house, explaining in detail why every idea you’ve ever had cannot work. Your excitement evaporates, the desire begins to seem like a weakness or a character flaw. The garage that’s been a mess for 17 years becomes the most important task on earth: You must clean it, now. The exciting project can wait. The oscillation has set in: excitement, fear, distraction, shame, self-criticism; Repeat. It’s exhausting to stay in one place. We are built for movement, no matter what Uncle Harry whispers to Aunt Agnus as they roll their eyes and smirk.

This is the cycle I see in my clients. The project they start, humbly, in the small corner of the organization that is theirs somehow becomes the center of the universe, and a threat to its orderly existence. So, they stop cold, disappointing those who had been relying on their leadership.

This is the cycle I experience myself, never more than this year when I declared that I would publish.

It does seem that the bolder and more clear the goal, the more fierce is the resistance to it. Thing is, resistance is merely a sign of anxiety, and anxiety is like sweat: A by-product. It’s not feedback. It’s not a warning of dire consequences to come. It doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong or you should stop. It means you’re doing. That’s it. Anxiety is the by-product of change like sweat is the by-product of exercise. And, just like sweat, you brush anxiety out of your eyes and keep going.

If you pause for too long, you’ll start to believe the voices you hear. If you linger longer, what the voices whisper will become the truth of you experience. Uncle Harry and Aunt Agnes will nod in that irritating way they have.

Instead, find a way to keep moving toward your desire. Here’s what I do:

1. Pick a smaller goal, a tiny, insignificant first step. I want to write, right? I know that when I set that intention, the ideas start popping up at the most inconvenient times. So my first tiny step was to make sure I had post-it notes and a pen everywhere I might need them: in the car, in the bathroom, next to the bed, in my gym bag. A tiny step, so easy to do, it engenders no resistance. It’s even kinda fun.

2. Resolve to do it badly. Really badly. Epically, catastrophically badly. Like the grammar of those last 2 sentences. Annie Lamott encourages her students to write a “shitty first draft.” Years ago I read about a group of friends who got together weekly for “bad art night.” Their goal was to have fun creating. Their one rule was that anyone who got into turning their art piece into a thing of quality had to immediately “wreck” it.

3. Get help. When your mind like a rat wheel. going over and over the same info, but getting nowhere, it’s time to get help. Talk to someone. Think out loud. Find a forum online and post an inquiry. Hire someone to help you. I was struggling with a vexing pellet stove problem that’s gone on for 2 years. No one I’ve talked to could help me. I read, posted to forums, brooded and froze all last winter without heat. The other day, I was talking to a neighbor and he suggested the approach I’ll be trying next week. It was a much better idea than the one I’d settled on and was avoiding. Now I’m excited and energized.

4. Pick much larger goal, one that shocks all mean voices to silence. No, bigger than that. Really, it should crack you up with it’s audacity. If it’s crazy enough, it will make you smile inside. It’s important that you have no idea how to accomplish it.

5. Take a walk. If I don’t sweat profusely at least 4 times a week, I’m overrun with stress. In order to move forward toward my goals, I’ve got to be spending myself physically. It gives me energy and it shows me how inexhaustible my source is. It orders my thoughts too.

6. Do something you’ve always wanted to do, but were afraid to. Maybe it seems frivolous, or you could never be a person who does that, or you can’t possibly learn it. Then do it. Sometimes, the nasty voices become so involved with saving you from that crazy endeavor, it’s easier to evade them on other topics.

I still remember buying my first tambourine. I’d fallen in love with the middle eastern style of playing and gone to a workshop to try it out. I became so besotted, I bought a professional quality, beginner’s tambourine for $75.00. All through the long drive home, I heard my mother’s voice saying “75 dollars for a TAMBOURINE?” For some reason, this cracked me up and a talked and joked with that voice all the way home, Years later when I bought a tambourine costing 10 times that much, mom had nothing more to add.

When the going gets tough, I write haiku. Personal haiku, political haiku, random haiku - I find it soothing to take something overwhelming and pack up all its punch in only 17 syllables. This week, I’ve been seeing the effects of fear everywhere I look, including the mirror. These 6 haiku are as much for me as for my clients and friends. Hope you enjoy them.

#1
Can’t do this, Can’t do
that. Start, stop, start, stop. Afraid.
That’s no way to lead.

#2
Start strong, keep going.
Shadows follow, never lead.
They cannot catch you.

#3
Do too little, do
too much, gossip, distance, blame.
Anxiety sucks.

#4
Tired? Stuck? Fear has
you. Get up! Energy comes
from movement, not thought.

#5
Wanting to rush through
I slow down. Key points I miss
now bite me later.

#6
Natural to push,
threaten, shout in times like these.
Counterproductive.

One of my coaching clients told me about a moment of such consulting brilliance that I had to share. She manages the workflow of an internal advertising agency. Her daily bread is the impossible deadline: A brochure takes 3 weeks, the account manager wants it in 3 days, because the client needs it. I’ve been infiltrating her organization with The Anxious Organization, by Jeffrey Miller, and reinforcing his basic message: Responding to another’s anxiety with your own anxiety makes everyone more crazy. Better to calmly stand for what’s correct, proper and factual. That way everyone calms down and can think more clearly.

So, she gets one of these crazy requests, with an added detail: the event the brochure is meant to support is in 3 days. So, she calmly says: “A brochure like that takes 3 weeks. Tell your client that and ask if they still want the brochure. If they do, we’ll be happy to produce it.”

Pure genius.

The message behind the words is this: “We want to help, we say yes to the brochure and yes to you and your client, and we say no to the deadline.” The effect of calmly pointing out the obvious is that everyone relaxes and is able to focus on the real issue: The client needs something in 3 days and it can’t be a brochure. Problem-solving ensues. If I’m the client, I might say “What can you get me in 3 days?” And, if I were my client, I might say “What are you hoping to accomplish?” Horse-trading ensues, this time about real needs rather than imaginary solutions.

She could have said: “3 days? Are you crazy? We can’t do a brochure in 3 days! We can’t do it.” And waited for the call from her boss’s boss’s boss, telling her to do it anyway. That’s the usual response to saying no the work, the account manager and the client.

She could have said “That’s an impossible deadline. We’ll do what we can,” and delivered the brochure in 3 weeks, while being hounded by the account manager and the client, and damaging her organization’s credibility. We’ve all heard the lie meant to soothe: The check is in the mail. Your new kitchen will be ready in 2 weeks. I’m from HR, I’m here to help.

The key is this: Say no to the crazy deadline, the idea that will make things worse, the plan that is doomed. But say yes the to person, the relationship, the goal, the inspiration, the aspiration, the ideal, the desire, the yearning that led them to make such a hair-brained request in the first place. That’s where the home run is, lurking just under the request that makes you want to scream.

Think of the client or the request you most want to say no to. Separate out the part you will say no to from the part you can authentically support. Treat them separately, and speak the unanxious truth to both. In the midst of all the noes you must say, what can you say yes to?

Christine Kane calls gratitude “the ultimate bringer of more. It is the ultimate releaser of drama.” This article from Pepperdine University links expressing gratitude to increased cardiovascular and immune function as well as increased optimism and success. Martin Seligman’s research suggests that a daily practice of gratitudes is as effective at combating depression as cognitive therapy and anti-depressants combined.

So, why not use it for a team that’s running on fumes and could use some encouragement? Why not use it to sustain your high-performing team? It’s easy, uplifting and fun to replace whining, complaining and gossiping with appreciation, gratitude and counting your blessings.

This attitude of gratitude icebreaker comes in two flavors: face-to-face and virtual.

Face-to-face: At the start of your meeting (team, project, staff, annual planning - any meeting) ask everyone to list 3 things they’re grateful for in the last 24 hours. Then go around the room having each person read their list. That’s it. The real pay-off is in doing it every time you meet, making it your practice.

Virtual: Send a group email to your team every morning, listing three things you’re grateful for in the last 24 hours. Ask each of them to do the same and watch the positive momentum build.

I’ve been doing the virtual version for the last month with members of my business group, the BUGs. It’s made a huge difference: I’m not interested in finding things to complain about anymore. Instead, I find I’m focused on making each experience something I can be grateful for which is so much more fun! The practice has made me much more creative - more of a problem solver - and much more peaceful. I’m more optimistic too. Try it with your team and let me know how it goes.

My uncle owns a garage that specializes in tires. When I’m in town for a visit, I go to the garage and talk to him while he works. I watch him balance each tire before he mounts it. It’s mesmerizing to watch the tire wobble on the balancing machine, and to watch his hands notice the exact place the tire needs a small weight pounded into the rim. He’s been doing this so long (he’s 86), he’s a tire psychic. After he’s done, it’s satisfying to watch the way tire spins when it’s perfectly balanced. It doesn’t wobble. With one tiny push, it spins and floats. It’s light as a feather, a perpetual motion tire.

Putting a balanced tire on a car makes the whole car run better: The tires want to spin! With balanced tires, the car gets better mileage, and it’s more fun to drive.

Aligning the front end of the car distributes the load evenly. It feels like less weight. It handles more easily, and is more responsive to the driver. The tire appears light as a feather when it’s balanced, and the car seems to weight less when it’s aligned.

It’s these two things that add up to relevance: You balance each task before you add it to the mix. You make sure the task is aligned with the goals of the department and the company, and then you align them with the goals of the person doing the task. Same workload, but it’s easier to carry. Same tasks, but they seem to spin on their own. We’ve all worked like this: It’s fun.

Balancing the task
A task will spin on it’s own when nothing is bogging it down. When a task wobbles and threatens to lose momentum, we’re quick to point to the motivation, skills and even the character of the person doing the task. And, that is one element of balancing the task: Making sure the task fits the skills of the person doing it. But, the other elements can be far more important: Is the task properly budgeted for, adequately staffed, and has it’s impact been thought out? Is there someone in the organization who hates what this task or project and has the power to stop it? Is there another department or person who’s life will be made miserable if this task is completed? Anticipating these obstacles and planning for them eliminates the wobble. Being blind-sided by them wipes out momentum.

And, finally, if this task is done successfully, will the person be rewarded or punished for it? This one is worth lingering on: If I give you a difficult, gnarly project and you knock it out of the park, is giving you another tricky, difficult project a reward or a punishment? This is personal and can vary moment-to-moment. If you can’t answer that question for everyone who works for you, you’ll never be able to get a task to spin.

Aligning the task with the organization and the person: WIIFM.
Nothing gives a task wings like alignment. You’ve seen how people can work when they believe in something. You’ve experienced it yourself: When the task matches your talents and goals, it’s worth all the energy it takes. That’s how you know it’s aligned with the person doing it. Organizational alignment shows up in organizational commitment: People walk their talk, the project is funded, when people get wind of what you’re doing, they get involved and spend time with you. It’s easy to get appointments with stakeholders, and they help you. You can see the momentum build.

WIIFM - What’s in it for me? - is always operating, for the organization and each person in it. Fighting it doesn’t work for long. Joining it builds momentum. Which will you choose? Write and let me know - I’d love to hear about how you navigate this.

There is a relationship between how hard a goal is to achieve and how motivated we are to achieve it. If it’s too easy, we are barely engaged and may miss it through neglect. Even if we make the goal, it won’t be our best work. If it’s too hard, we give up in despair and may think less of the person who set the goal. Or, we may get frozen in anxiety and turn in a lackluster performance, which is discouraging. If that weren’t enough, finding the motivation zone varies from person to person and from moment to moment.

It sometimes seems that making a goal achievable is itself unachievable.

Which is why it’s so lucky that you can just ask. Oh sure - you can lock yourself up in your office and slave over your keyboard looking the the magic wording, the right balance between stretch goal and boredom, then present your perfect goal to your employee, team, partner, colleague.

Or, you can ask:

“How should we set the goal so it triggers your best performance?”

That’s it. Simple, easier than slaving alone in your office, engaging, fun. Remember: if you’re working harder than they are, stop it!

Don’t forget to set a follow-up date so you can stay in touch and make corrections as needed.

Measurement is about paying attention to the right things at the right time. It’s not about enslaving yourself to meaningless numbers, and driving yourself mercilessly to achieve them. Unless, for your business, that is the right thing to be paying attention to. What you measure is what you and others will pay the most attention to and focus their efforts on. It’s what will grow and change about your business. Choosing what you will attend to shows others what you are committed to. Measurement is potent that way. Which is why some of us shy away from it: What if we choose the wrong thing to watch and people start acting in unexpected ways? Choosing what to measure and how to measure it is the tricky part.

WHAT TO MEASURE: Some Guidelines

Relax. If it’s worth doing - and it is - it’s worth doing badly. Just pick something, track it for a bit and see if it gets you the behavior and results you want. If it doesn’t, notice that and choose something else. If this is explicitly collaborative process - that is, you do it out loud - that’s even better. Then everyone sees that paying attention and making adjustments is normal, natural and everybody’s business.

Expect it to be awkward at first. Measuring makes performance public. This makes some of us squirm. We’ll adjust as long as the attention is fair, kind and has some connection with what matters, both to us and for the business. In fact, when you get this right, it’s like having the wind under your wings.

Some of what you pay attention to can shift over time. For a new business, a focus on cash flow is the right thing. Most new businesses find that their attention naturally goes here, because if cash flow isn’t primary, the business won’t make it to the next stage. For a more mature business, a focus on cash flow stunts growth rather than supports it. On a team, an exclusive focus on goals can lead to a lack of team behaviors. When you see team members undercutting each other, look at what you’re measuring and adjust it.

Some of what you measure will not shift over time. Your company values are on this list, as are the goals and performance measures that define your business. These two components make up your company’s identity. Measuring these is like checking your route you’re driving against the directions you got form mapquest: Are you still on track for your original destination? Are you still behaving according to the values you established for yourself? These two things can beat each other up - if you stop attending to one of them, that one will fall by the wayside.

HOW TO MEASURE

You can count anything if you can see it and name it, the more specifically, the better. Most of us count money, and count how many activities we complete. That’s a good start. Even better is finding a way to count results, rather than just activities. Is your 90% on-time delivery rate (an easy to count activity) pleasing your customers (the trickier to count result). They key here is to look for the observable behavior and count that. What do customers do when they aren’t pleased? Two things: They complain and they use someone else. So, count customer compliments vs. complaints and count customers retained and customers lost. Make sure to ask them why they stay or go.

What about so-called “soft skills:” How do you count those? Remember: If you can see it and specify it, you can count it. Let’s take the example of “teamwork.” Everybody wants good teamwork. Trouble is, we often don’t specify what we mean by that. This is like saying “I want to business growth” without specifying what you mean (more business in the stores you have, or more stores; more students in the classes you offer, or more classes, and so on). If we do specify what we mean, we don’t get down to the level of observable behavior - what do people who are team players do? How often, and with what sort of result? If you’re stymied at this point, ask yourself how you know you lack teamwork? Chances are, it’s because of something you see or hear. Behaviors are what you see or hear, like a lack of asking for help or receiving it. Turn these around - state them in the positive - set a target, and start counting.

You may also see a lack of teamwork show up in your business results, often in poor customer service, as when one team member throws a customer concern over the wall and hopes that someone else will attend to it, but without making sure this happens. “Throwing it over the wall” and “dropping balls” are two ways lack of teamwork makes itself visible. Turn these around, set a target, and count start counting.

Make it easy and if at all possible, fun. If it’s too complicated, you won’t do it. Keep it simple, easy to do and small. If it’s handled lightly and with humor, you’ll increase willingness a hundred-fold.

Change it up. If you don’t, everyone will start phoning it in or gaming the measurements you’ve chosen.

What’s your experience with this? Your wisdom is welcome in the comments below.

“That was a great report!” vs.”I loved the way you used white space in that report and the pull quotes on the side were pure genius. Best of all though, was the content: Clear, concise and at exactly the right level of detail. The tone you used was also spot on: Casual and accessible without being condescending. Thank you for doing such a great job.”

“All weekly status reports must be completed in a timely manner.” vs.
“Weekly status reports are due by noon every Friday. Please email them to me using the attached format.”

“I want you to lead this project. You’ve shown such exemplary leadership, I know you’re up to it. Any questions?” vs.
“Biff, the plunger improvement project needs your skills. I’ve watched you pull together teams that were fighting and get them working together to come up with innovative approaches. The fly swatter improvement project you led was breath-taking. No one else would have thought to use the fly’s sense of smell against it like that. We need that kind of breakthrough thinking here. What questions do you have so far?”

Specific. It’s a matter of giving someone enough information to be successful rather than giving them a vague notion and shoving them off a cliff. When you follow-up, you find out how unclear you are. These too aspects of the SMART goals create an ideal communication loop.

And there’s a bonus: When you are specific, you find out exactly how much control you are willing to give up. Here’s the surprising part:

The more specifc you are, they less likely you are to micro-manage. I think we often believe that when we are vague, we are showing respect, and giving them plenty of room. There are 2 problems with this: 1) Being vague means you are asking someone to read your mind. This is not a management skill. 2) Being vague is what we do when we aren’t ready to give up control. In either case, the see-sawing begins: Vague directions and expressions of confidence alternate with intense micro-managing or doing it yourself. There are many, many flavors between giving someone absolute freedom and micro-managing them within an inch of their lives.

When you’re specific, it gives someone a more precise target to shoot for. It lets you know when to step in and when to butt out. When you are specific about what you want to see, what you liked, what you want done, you will be more comfortable leaving how it gets done to someone else. Conversely, when you are vague about what you want, your only recourse is to micro-manage. That’s because the specifcs you thought obvious aren’t. Not until you speak them. My advice: Do this in the beginning so your employees can spend their energy producing amazing work rather than trying to guess what’s in your head. The world is still waiting for a breakthrough plunger technology.