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?

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…”

Sit down and get comfy, because today’s post is all about focus. Your mission is watch this 90-second video and follow the instructions therein.

And the Answer is…
How did that go? Not too difficult was it? You just had to focus tightly enough so you could see only what the white team did. In the book, The Open Focus Brain, that’s called narrow, objective focus. It’s the mode we do most of our work - really most of our life - in: We focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else. Pretty soon, we think what’s in our field of vision, or our belief system, is all there is. We’re convinced there are no other options. I don’t know about you, but I had trouble seeing the moonwalking bear the second time too, even though I was focusing on it. I just couldn’t believe it was there. Now, after a little practice, I can’t not see the bear.

How this looks in real life
I was at a wedding over the weekend, and the bride and groom were from wildly different backgrounds. I’ll give you a snapshot of what I mean: She sings opera and teaches classical voice; he’s gone to The Soup and Burning Man from the beginning. Got the picture?

At the reception, a woman both stylishly dressed and tastefully adorned in glittering, real rocks sidled up to another, similarly adorned woman and said in a clubby, confidential tone, “You must be a friend of the bride’s.” To which woman number 2 responded, “Oh no - I met the bride only recently but I’ve known the groom for years. We studied middle eastern frame drumming together.” The conversation faltered and woman number 1 drifted away.

I think she wasn’t ready to see the moonwalking bear. Like me with the video, she couldn’t believe in it.

Practice makes permanent
It seems like magic, but seeing the bear and being able to count the white team’s passes is a matter of practice. To practice expanding your focus so it can encompass more complexity, try “accessing your ignorance” (thanks to Edgar Schein) Instead of going into every situation looking for confirmation of what you know to be so, include what you don’t know in your awareness. Better yet, court it.

Try this
1. Walk up to the people you don’t know in a room and start an awkward conversation based on what you don’t know about them. Ah, c’mon - it’s fun!

2. Talk to the CEO and ask an ignorance-based question. Here’s one that always works, because you can’t know the answer unless you read minds: “What question do you wish someone had asked/would ask you?” You can’t know what question the CEO would love to answer, or wonders about, so it’s an ignorant question, not a stupid one.

3. Watch the video again (and again) and widen your focus so you can see the bear as you count the white team’s passes.  It took me three tries to count 13 passes and see the bear’s entire dance.  Tensing up to do it didn’t work - I succeeded by relaxing and allowing myself to see it all.  It felt great.

4. Your suggestion is welcome - what have you done to shift your focus and see something differently?

This is simple, even obvious. You’re going to kick yourself when I tell you, because you already know this. Are you ready?

ASK.

Just ask. Here’s a question you can steal: “What will it take for you to be fully committed to this approach?”

That’s it.

When you ask this question, it shows you’re committed to the course of action you’re proposing. This is rare. More often, I see managers trying to get buy-in for an approach they aren’t committed to. Here’s how you can tell: Buy-in is enthusiastic follow-through. It’s visible. It builds momentum. If you aren’t getting buy-in from others, look in the mirror. Are you following through enthusiastically, even aggressively? No? There’s your problem.

Before leaping into ineffective action and hoping others will join you, ask yourself this: What would it take to get my full commitment to this? Then follow up enthusiastically. You’ll be amazed at how receptive people are when you ask for what you need to commit to their goals.

Might it feel awkward? It could – you are saying a whole-hearted yes, which might be a new experience for each of you. Will you get “push-back” and have to horse trade a bit? Of course. Stick it out and make sure you get what you need to do your best for them. You’ll be delighted to discover what it’s like to work with the wind at your back instead of beating into it.

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?

You know how there seems to be a lot of complaining in meetings? Like when someone proposes an idea, someone else discounts it, pointing out everything that is wrong with it? Or, when trying to resolve a situation that’s really stuck, the finger-pointing can get quite intense? The recriminations can even begin to sound a little crazy: “You never do any work.” “You’ve never bothered to show up on time,” and so on. Perhaps my least favorite interpersonal situation involves gossip: talking about a group or person who isn’t present. “Ain’t it awful how…”

The typical strategies involve taking the high road: inviting the complainer to make a proposal of their own, enforcing ground rules about how to talk about the situation (focus on the problem not the person), pick up the phone and get the gossipee on the line. These are excellent strategies and I use them all the time.

But when a person, dyad or group is really, really stuck in their story of victimhood, injury and powerlessness, I invite them to lean into it and hold nothing back. I want to hear how awful it is. Except they have to do it while keeping their tongue pressed against the back of their bottom teeth.

It’s called talking funny, and it’s impossible to do this for very long without laughing. It’s impossible to stay stuck when you’re laughing. The cramp in your brain eases, and the thoughts start to flow. Your IQ rises like a balloon full of helium.

(You can test this right now. Go get your journal. Find a page full of self-pity. Now read it out loud, keeping your tongue glued to the inside of your bottom teeth. See?)

Possible uses: 1) Your company is about to fail and you’re out of ideas. Have a meeting to discuss the situation and have everyone talk funny. 2) Your co-worker has just conrnered you to complain about someone else. You say, “Tell me all about it, sweetie - but first put your tongue against your bottom teeth and keep it there.” 3) You’ve grown to hate your co-manager. You find yourself in a meeting and it all comes out. Let it rip - but plant that tongue first. 4) That other department just isn’t respecting you - they keep giving you impossible deadlines. Plant your tongue and let it rip.

After the laughter abates, you can get on with the real business at hand - you can resolve the conflict, plan the come-back or whatever else needs doing. You’ll have more oxygen in your brain and more brain cells to work with. It will be much easier and refreshing. Try it and let me know how it works for you.

I love the most recent post on Ask a Manager. In it, Manager deftly mines the results of a Cornell study on incompetent people for excellent advice to managers. Bottom line: the incompetent are too incompetent to recognize their own shortcomings, so you must be explicit and specific with your feedback. I won’t repeat the rest of AaM’s post here. It’s excellent, short and well worth a read.

In fact, go read it now, then come right back. I want to tell you how to know when your feedback has hit the mark. After all, you don’t want to be heavy-handed or rude, and you do want to have an effect. Knowing about the normal response to feedback helps you gauge your own behavior. Knowing that you have to stick with it all the way through each of the responses below helps you not quit too soon.

(I’m indebted to the late Brendan Reddy and his partner, Chuck Phillips of Reddy-Phillips for the information that follows. Not only did they teach it in a seminar, they indavertently demonstrated it with each other right in front of us all, and had the good grace to laugh about it.) The person receiving the feedback responds in pretty much this order:

1. First, they reverse blame. The most famous public instance sounds like this “You should have spoken up sooner, Anita Hill.” Reversing blame means you use some sort of magical thinking to make the giver of feedback responsible for your behavior. In the world of work, it might be: “You didn’t tell me I was supposed to get that in this Thursday.”

2. They intellectualize or minimize the effect of their actions. “Well, how often does this happen, really?” “It’s no big deal.” “I don’t think anyone noticed.” “Studies show that .01% lead in drinking water is safe, so how big a deal is a momentary spike of 200? We caught it right away.”

3. They argue intent versus effect. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you in front of your boss and co-workers. I think that story about you and the diaper pail makes you sound more human.” Or, “That was your boss? Oh…I never meant to imply there was anything shady about that deal. You have to believe me.”

Of course they didn’t mean to – the fact is they did. Feedback is never about someone’s intent – they are the expert on that. It’s always about the effect they’ve had on you – and you are the expert on that. Validate their good intent, and separate it from the bad effect on you. Stick with it until you hear them say “I can see how that would have been embarrassing/might have ended your career here.”

4. They defend or agree with you. Which is the same thing. Defending goes like this: “That’s not what happened at all!” Agreeing sounds like this: “Yeah, I know. I always do that. I’m just not someone who can be on time.”

In either case, you get the feeling of elusiveness. There is no connection, no give and take. In the defensive reaction, there is rigidity or rejection and no interest in strengthening the relationship; in agreeing there is collapse and no interest in strengthening the relationship.

The situation would seem dire and you might give up right here if you didn’t know that the next predictable response to feedback is:

5. Listening/hearing. Listening always asks for more information or offers a paraphrase that shows they got it - really got it. And from that comes learning, a renegotiated agreement and a strengthened relationship.

I have this theory: I think when we get a strong reaction like any of the first four above, we begin to think we’re doing it wrong, and we stop. But that’s not necessarily so. Even when you’re doing it right, this is the path the brain takes on its way to learning. Who knew?

Last week I was in L.A. teaching a favorite class, Consulting Skills: Bringing Your Authentic Selves Forward. It’s one of several excellent workshops designed by the consulting firm Gelinas James. The big topics are covered: saying yes and saying no. We go over the what and the how of it - when you have to say no to say yes to what you and your client want more, as well as how to recognize the difference between a crazy demand and a legitimate business need. The real trick is how to say yes to the need while saying no to the crazy demand, especially as they are often presented as one and the same. Which they are not.

An example we were batting around in class is the necessarily high quality for a piece of work coupled with a deadline that’s impossible. What my students often hear is: “That’s just what I want - but I need it faster and cheaper.” When invited to respond authentically, one participant said “Of course you do. Who doesn’t?” It had the effect that simply saying what’s so often has: After the briefest slience, we all laughed. For one thing, it’s true: I always want the best quality for less than it seems to cost. Doesn’t everyone? The pain comes when you realize you must choose one over the other.

The other reason her response had such power was that she said said something true without a trace of blame or judgement. Her tone was matter-of-fact, verging on empathetic. I call this leaving off the comma. If she’d used a tone that conveyed “Of course you do. Who doesn’t, you jerk!,” it’s easy to imagine how quickly she’d have been called in by her boss’s boss and reprimanded. Instead, her tone and delivery were comma-free - there was no way to add the “(comma) you jerk” at the end. This is so rarely the case. We think we’re clean, but our utterances drip with attitude and our clients react accordingly.