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 so 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?

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?

“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.

We’ve all done it: We’re running a meeting and someone says something that just floors us, something like “That will never work - we’ve done it before and it failed. It will fail this time too.” You want to say something…pointed. But you know better. It’s your job to stay calm, cool, collected and above it all. To lead. To keep things moving. After all, there are 8 other people in the room and they are all looking at you.

So you say everything but what’s on your mind. You say, “I understand your point of view, but” Or “Thanks for that, John. Let’s get back to our…” Or: “I think it will work and here’s why.” Or “Things are different now and I need your help.” Or, you say “That’s great, John, we’ll explore that in a minute,” but your palms are facing John and pushing toward him. Pushing him and his ideas away. Running right over him.

Everyone of those tells John to shut up. He hears it, and so do the other 8 people in the room.

There is another choice, and it works better. By better, I mean faster and you get to take John with you into the rest of the meeting.

Tell rather than show. Instead of showing your irritation, anxiety and time pressure, just say it. But not just part of it: Tell John all of what’s on your mind. It might sound something like this: “John, I hate hearing that. I find it discouraging and that makes tense up and want to push right past you.” (Pause here and exhale. Notice that John has not exploded or expired from the force of your rage.) Then say the rest: “And, I know you’re trying to tell me something that’s important to you, so I’m going to do my best to listen. What is it you want us to know?”

Several things are possible now: John has a much better chance of articulating the information concealed in his unskillful first attempt (it is in there, and may have little to do with what he said at first), and you have a better chance of feeling more sane, human and connected as does the rest of your team. Chances are good that someone is smiling, maybe even John. Maybe you.

Even if John stands by his original complaint, it will have less bite. And, no one will be squirming.

Two things make this effective:

1. Say both sides of what you’re thinking - share both sides of your dilemma. You hate hearing it AND you know you must. Leave the first out and you risk sounding insincere; leave out the second and your risk sounding hostile.

2. Keep it in the present. This is not the time to let all your frustration at John’s past — and probable future — negativity spill out. It’s a moment - a moment for John, a moment for you. That’s all the weight it deserves. Staying in the here and now keeps it at the right level of intensity and lightness.

The careful reader will notice that I only listed 5 ways to say shut up. I was hoping to get your help with the other 45. I’ll start:

Refusing eye contact, saying nothing, looking at our watch, multi-tasking, reading anything, turning away, shuffling papers, talking over someone, interrupting, saying “I hear what you’re saying…”

You know how sometimes you feel kind of itchy, but you don’t know why? You’re not unhappy, or dissatisfied with anything in particular, you’re just not all in. That’s how I was when I got off the plane in Maui. So, when Rex got me singing in baggage claim, I started smiling deep inside, and that got my attention.

I woke up the next morning with one thought: I want a ukulele.

So I went to the local music store and bought one. I’m in love with it.

Until I notice that it won’t play in tune. Back to the store it must go, but not before I head to the shop of the guy who made it to make inquiries.

The maker’s shop is a room full of ukuleles. There’s an old/ageless man in the corner playing amazing uke and another sitting across from him strumming along. I plop down next to the strummer and make my confession about buying one of their ukes with bad intonation. I ask for help. They assure me that their ukes play in tune and that my new uke is hiding in that shop. Soon, one ukulele after another is being put in my hands and the old/ageless man is teaching me song after song. My partner, Carolyn, (who initially hoped this would be a quick transaction, gives in and) supplies the vocals in her lovely lilting soprano. 2 hours pass in ukulele bliss, but without a resolution to my problem: I love a ukulele that won’t play in tune. What to do?

In the morning, clarity dawns: Though completely besotted, I am unable to play anything out of tune, so I return it to the music store and confess to having perfect pitch. One of the owners is similarly afflicted. One after another, he puts all the expensive ukes in my hands to prove that they can play in tune. They can, and beautifully.

But, $1600.00 seems catastrophically expensive for a vacation whim. And, even in that price range, I’m still not besotted.

Finally, the owner hands me his own uke, an 8-string Kamaka tenor, made by a Hawaiian family for 3 generations. I like it, but I’m not in love with it. It’s cheaper than $1600, but still quite a bit more than I want to pay. He says “we’re getting a shipment of Kamaka ukes in two days. I might have one that isn’t already sold.”

I spend the next couple of days playing every tenor uke on Maui. Though I find many that play in tune, I do not fall in love. I fall slightly in like with one, but it’s go one of those 4-digit price tags. I’m starting to think I’ll be going home ukulele-less.

When the Kamakas comes in, I figure I’ve got nothing to lose, so back to the store I go. The ukes are stacked in their cases on a table in the back of the store, at least 30 or them and in all sizes. I start with a tenor and fall in love on the first strum. I hear myself say “I’ll take it.”

I’ve got a ukulele, and I’ve been invited into several stories now - the real estate agent wanting everyone to love Maui as much as he does, the music store owner wanting me to love my ukulele as much as he loved his, the guys in the maker’s shop, wanting me to love playing the as much as they do - and to join the worldwide community of ukesters. I resonate with each of those stories. I’m drawn to them. And I’m still not sure what my storyline is here. It’s no longer “I bought a uke on a vacation whim.” After several days of focusing exclusively on it, I’m way past the whim stage. I think it’s now officially a project. Because what is a project, but a story? And what is a story but a description of a journey? Project, story, journey, initiative - all synonyms.

And, at this point, the story is so far from being over.

I’ll bring you up to date in a day or two, then get back to my regular Monday posts.

I wasn’t in Maui 2 minutes when the uke bug bit me. Waiting for our luggage, I heard a light, resonant strumming. Turning to find the sound I locked eyes with Rex, a local real estate agent, who invited me to sing along. Why not? His friend handed me the lyrics: “Tiny bubbles…” our little group warbled. When we got to the end, we started over. “It’s the only song I know,” Rex said with a grin.

When we stopped for a breather, Rex explained how much he loved Maui and wanted to make sure his high school friend, visiting for the first time in 45 years, felt welcome to the island. Rex was so full of aloha, he pulled us all right in. Another couple made eye contact with Rex and I handed them the lyric sheet. We all sang the only song Rex knew. Before we parted, I had his card and a great lunch recommendation and - best of all - I was part of a story.

All that from one guy being willing to sing his song and invite others to join him.

That got me thinking: What’s the story I invite people into? It’s the storyline I’m always telling no matter what I do, just like Rex with his ukulele. It’s the thing about me, about each of us, that affects people most. I don’t know about you, but people’s storylines captivate me.

More about this in my next post as this one is already late (!) and finding your storyline is a big topic. Not to mention ukuleles.

This week has been full of interesting conversations. First Liz Strauss got me thinking about what is it I really do for clients. I think what I really do is make people shiny. Then we shine up the team together, which shines up the organization. It’s mostly a matter of reconnecting with our brilliance and making it visible to one another.

This means I have to keep myself shiny and bright, which means I need a little help from my brilliant friends and colleagues.

So a few days later, I’m talking to Marjorie Weingrow. She directs the SAGE Scholars program at UC Berkleley, a fabulous, inspiring program I’m looking to get involved with. We were musing about deeply embedded prejudices and how we all have them. Whether we want them or not. No matter how much work we’ve done to eliminate them. All of us. Every dang one of us.

Prejudice: It’s not just for white men anymore. It may be the most equal-opportunity thing about us.

Marjorie and I got to talking about the legion of things that can set us off: race and gender, sure; ethnicity and religion, check; but, wait - there’s so much more! What about more subtle, less obvious things: the way someone looks, or talks, or the position they hold in an organization? What about the way you don’t seem to listen to me when I talk to you? What about the way I dim myself slightly to be in your presence because you’re an executive?

You snub me in the hallway and I decide you’re a snob. I start ignoring you - Ha! I’ll show you!

You wear a black suit, and talk fast using big words, so I decide you’re an empty suit. I start talking you down behind your back - I must warn others about your callow ways!

You grew up in the American South, England, Pakistan, the wrong side of the tracks, with a silver spoon in your mouth. We all know what that means. No? Then let me fill you in…

Here’s the thing though: When I start reacting to one tiny aspect of you, I can start to mistake it for all of you. Pretty soon I’m interacting not with you, but with my assumptions about you. There you are, shining in the way only you can, and I can’t see a thing but my belief about executives or union members or people who wear black. You may be reaching out to me, you may be asking as clearly as you can, but I don’t respond. I can’t hear you - I can only hear your suit, your title, your status.

I have the most trouble with this when it’s triggered by something so tiny it barely registers - a loud speaking voice, a mannerism or gesture. But register it does - then it worms around in me to the point where I don’t dare question my assumptions about you, because they’re all I’ve got. Soon, I’ll have no choice about how to react to you. As a result, I get smaller, dimmer.

Yuck. Or, more accurately, STUCK. And we all do it. I sometimes think it’s the one thing we have in common with everyone we meet. The one thing we can count on.

One of these tiny, potentially wormy assumptions popped up the other day. I mentioned I lived in a houseboat to a client. What I meant as throw-away comment brought our conversation to a full stop:

“A houseboat? I thought you lived in a gated community.”

Which is true, just not in the way she meant it: “Well, yeah - we keep the gate locked so no one wanders onto the docks and falls through them. We don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

Silence, then laughter. I got to tell her how funky houseboat living is, and why I love it. She got to tell me how surprised she was, and how delighted. Our conversation got more spacious, and our relationship more real and powerful. We got shiny with each other.

This is a contest I just made up. It’s either last night’s Academy Awards show or all the reading I’ve been doing about positive psychology, saying thank-you and filling yer bucket. It could also be the fact that I woke up with the sound of Julie Andrews singing “My Favorite Things” in my head this morning. Seems clear to me that we’re not doing nearly enough to appreciate and recognize those collaborative break-throughs we’ve all experienced. According to the experts, that means we’re leaving a lot of happiness on the table. I say it’s time for a little experiment.

I’m kicking this off with three or my all-time favorite moments. There’s plenty of room for yours in the comments below. Let’s get happy!

The Plate Incident. The scene: A weekly staff meeting where a group of 7 intrepid survivors of a recent organizational bloodletting, struggle to find a new purpose that will attract funding and clients. The manager is showing signs of agitation: if the furrow in her brow gets any deeper, we’ll have a place to put the hamster Oz has been trying to unload.

The manager erupts: “Why is it that every time I speak the rest of you stop talking?” Out of the arctic silence, a single voice quavers: “Because I assume you’ve made a decision, and further discussion is pointless.” Cult-like, we all nod.

“But, that’s not…I don’t always…” The realization breaks over her face like the yolk of a 3-minute egg and she grabs 2 of the paper plates we always have handy. She writes “D” on one and “O” on anther. “I’ll hold up D when I’ve decided and O is when I’m adding my opinion to the conversation.” Which she did from then on. It was just one tiny moment, but the hamster lost her new home, and our team transformed.

The Come to Jesus Meeting. The scene: I’m facilitating a weekly work group meeting to design a structure that will give nurses a voice in decision affecting them. The team is mostly staff nurses.

Word has gotten back to the nursing exec sponsor that a group member has been speaking out of school. Apparently, he’s mis-characterized what team members think of what they’re doing, telling the board of the nurses union that “we all know this is just an exercise management is taking us through.” Watching the nursing exec confront him and admit to feeling betrayed, him admit to speaking those words, and each nurse say “you don’t speak for me” was like watching the wave at a baseball game: slo-mo wonderment. Except I felt much, much fuller.

“You Can Say That?” The scene: An annual care-planning meeting at an eldercare facility. The team is multi-disciplinary, the participation lop-sided. The doctor gives a not-very-inspiring recitation of the treatment plan (meds, vitals, symptoms) and the others, who have much more contact with the patient, say nothing. The meeting feels like the moment before a thunderstorm, when the skies want to erupt, but can’t. In my role as meeting coach, I say: “So far Dr. X has been doing most of the talking. I don’t see how such a one-sided conversation can add up to a care plan, especially when the rest of you have more contact with the patient.” In the stunned silence that follows, the social worker turns to me and says: “You can say that?” It’s the doctor who says “YES.” Now everyone is talking, and leaning forward, their faces alive: The social worker, the nurses aide, the housekeeper. The new aide mentions a chance observation, nothing much, but the room goes silent and the doctor is looking at the aide like a compass tuned to true north. 2 questions later and the treatment and care plans have both changed.

It’s working - as I write, I’m smiling.  I can’t wait to hear about your moments.

The best staff meeting I ever attended was the one where the 7 of us decided to ask to be laid off. It was a sterling example of collaboration and authenticity. We were trying to figure out how to re-invigorate ourselves after our boss’s 100-person department had been re-orged out from under her. We were the remnant without clients, without a budget and without hope.

We’d soldiered on for the last several months, but we were shouting into to a void: no matter how many big binders full of impressive plans and analyses we’d produced, we got no response from prospective clients. We were talking about our lack of success and what else to try, when Rich said: “I’m going to ask to be laid off.”

We all went silent - so silent, you could hear cells dividing.

Rich explains his thinking
Finally someone sputtered: “L-l-l-laid off?” Not the most elegant paraphrase, but it got the job done.

“Yes. Think about it: there’s an excellent severance package right now. We have no budget and can’t get anyone to fund us. We’re going to get laid off, it’s just a matter of when; I’d prefer to be laid off under this package, not the downgraded one that’s sure to follow.”

Several more cells divided as we stared at Rich.

Someone said: “Rich, that’s brilliant.”

And, one by one, the rats began to jump off the sinking ship. It was the most spontaneous, open and personal conversation I’d experienced in a meeting. We talked about what we’d each do when laid off. Rich wanted to go back to school, 2 of us had always wanted to start our own businesses, the other 3 wanted to apply for a different job within the organization, something being laid off would give them time to do.

We all turned to our boss, who hadn’t said a word. She said: “I want to be laid off too - it’s clear to me that this job, and this department are going nowhere. I’ll go talk to my boss after this meeting.” By the end of the day, we had each chosen a lay-off date and signed the necessary papers.

I’ve never forgetten the way our energy built as we told each other more and more of our own truths, brainstorming about possible futures. I’ve experienced that kind of excitement and the thrill of co-creation many times since then, and I do all I can to facilitate it in the teams I work with. That staff meeting is where it all began for me, my first experience of what was possible with a group willing to be both honest and collaborative.

In fact, that’s the only staff meeting I remember in 15 years of attending them.

I bet you’ve got stories too. Tell me - what’s your favorite staff meeting story?

When he was very young, my older brother used to wake up each morning and vow to start his life over as a new, improved version of himself: Someone kinder, smarter, and more moral. He was so earnest, so sincere, so handsome, so doomed.

What I love about him is how smart he was, even then. No matter how forcefully he declared his intention, no matter how deeply he meant it, he never achieved it. It’s tempting to think that’s because he wasn’t good enough or strong enough or disciplined enough.

But I think the opposite is true. I think that he never became that improved version of himself because he didn’t need to. He already was that. The proof is in the resolution: because he was so moral and so good, he wanted to be better. His desire to start over in order to be a better person was a manifestation of how good he already was, not a deficiency he had.

In some of us, the mind won’t be convinced of this. Instead, it hijacks all that goodness and began to blackmail us with the fear that we’ll never be good enough.

It’s exhausting, being nattered at like that. It’s exhausting to keep working at something that never feels done. Our self-improvement takes on a driven, haunted quality.

When we overuse any strength, it becomes a weakness. Self-improvement can be a fetish, something we just can’t get enough of, even though it never satisfies. Which makes me wonder: Are we being too hard on ourselves? How do you know when you’ve arrived at “good?” How do you know that you left “good” in the first place?