1. Ask them to answer the question:  What accomplishment are they most proud of?  I pose the question, give them time to think, and then go around the circle listening to their answers  I summarize the themes I hear.  I love how their accomplishments are always impressive, and show clearly what they most value.  It has the effect of leveling the playing field even when what they share is very different.  Pride does that, I think.

2. Ask them what is the one thing they want to accomplish before they die/stop working/retire.  Same process as above, and the answers can be breath-taking.

What about you?  Are there any icebreakers you find work especially well with executives?  Share!

Here are two ways to fit in an icebreaker:

Turn breakfast into a mixer. Here’s how:  Most all day meetings have name tags or table tents.  You can use these to seat people in random groups, then give them something to talk about either at their table or with the person sitting next to them over breakfast.  Just write the table number on the back of the name tag or tent, label the tables and put a topic for discussion at each table.  The topic can be anything from “where did you go to school?” or “how did you get your first name”to “what’s your favorite thing about your work?

Use the content of the meeting as an icebreaker. This is as simple as making the exercise “rank order the organization’s 5 goals (list provided)” in an annual goals planning meeting.   Or, “list as many activities as you can for each goal.”   When you incorporate the content of the meeting, you’ve used an icebreaker to give participants a jumpstart.  You can do this at the start of an agenda item, not just at the start of the meeting.

One thing that distinguishes an icebreaker from “real” work is that every answer is the right answer and people are expected to have fun.  With that in mind, start looking to the content of your meeting to design your own icebreakers.  To liven up any icebreaker, set an impossible time frame, like 30 seconds, or have participant’s work through drawings only – no talking.   Then let everyone know it’s a competition and give a goofy prize for the most original, or the worst answer.

Those are some of my ideas for shoe-horning an icebreaker into a full agenda.   What do you do?

I like their dumpster swimming pool projects too:

Looking at the way they juxtapose ideas and locations inspires me.  How can I do this in my life and work  How can you do it in yours?  The comments are open – I’d love to hear about how you’re doing this.

I think we can do much, much better better than 80%.   Why not shoot for a 100% failure rate?  We’re so close.  Here is my top 3 list for failing at organizational change:

#3. Underfund the change, either in terms of time or money. The more severely you underfund, the more quickly the change will tank. Unfortunately, if you overfund it, you can also sink your change initiative.  Luckily, there’s a key to getting it wrong 100% of the time:  Don’t review your original assumptions.  Yes, it really is that simple!  Just stick unwaveringly to your original plans, ignoring new information.  Extra credit:  call people names when they disagree.

Overfunding and underfunding are two sides of the same coin. We underfund, because we are in denial about what it will take to get what we want. We overfund because the change feels big to us, so it must be big.  And, we do one of these because we’re keeping the change at arms distance. It’s not close enough to us to know it well. No need to fuss about which it is. If your project is sputtering from neglect or drowning in personnel without achieving commensurate results, take another look. It’s probably this second key to failing at Organizational Change:

#2. Fail to define goals for the change that are clear, specific and measurable. Instead, use words like “better,” more,” and “less.” Or, say “we’re going to implement this model and leave it up to each person to operationalize.”

This is a fine place to start exploration and change, not the place to leave it. It’s a cop-out not to push through to clarity, to the place where your simple, single-pointed message vibrates, it’s so alive. You’ll know you’ve got it when you can easily see how to measure it – both that it is happening (the behavior changes) and that it makes a difference (your business goals).

Pushing for clarity of what to measure is the number one way to find out what you really want out of this. Do it early. It will improve everything and chew your project down to size. If you don’t know how to measure it, or can’t find the time, what does that tell you about your commitment level? Exactly. Which leads us to the number 1 way to guarantee an organizational change initiative fails:

#1. Fail to change yourself. It’s the you-change-I-don’t-have-to model. Works like a hot knife through butter. If leadership isn’t changing, it telegraphs to the entire organization that it’s business as usual. No matter what else you do, people will follow your lead. Your behavioral lead. They’ll watch what you do, rather than listen to what you say. After all, you aren’t listening to you. Why should they?

I hear people bemoan the terrible communication in their organization. To which I say HA! Gossip is a fabulous communication system, always working, always free. Imitation is the same: always working, always free. It’s built in to the human organism through something called mirror neurons, and popularized in the phrase “monkey see, monkey do.” Employee see, employee do. It’s simple: If you ask them to make uncomfortable changes and you yourself stay in the comfortable tracks of habit and certainty, monkey see, monkey do. If the change isn’t taking hold, look at the face in the mirror and start there.

That’s why you go through the agony of #3 and #2. Because it changes you.

Er, I mean, that’s why you refuse to go through 2 and 3. So you can refuse to change. At all. So you can get to 100% failure.

X was chafing for a bigger field to play in, a place she could make a bigger difference. Her boss chose not to give her that chance.

X quit, choosing to believe in herself. She chose to believe that her skills and her vision belonged on a bigger playing field, and that she would find it. She had no idea where to look. It was hard to leave what she’d spend years creating.

She consulted, took an interim job, consulted some more. She stayed restless and dissatisfied, and questioned daily her decision to leave the safety of what she’d created for the vagaries of what she believed could be. In the middle of this, the recession hit hard with its high unemployment and dearth of opportunities. I felt a little bad for encouraging her to follow her star.

But X is a fighter.

Last night we had dinner together and she told me about her new gig, doing what she alone can do, fully supported and appropriately compensated. It’s huge, what she’s bitten off.

The story of X reminds me of Kenneth Atchity’s three rules of time management:

Don’t do anything that doesn’t need to be done.
Don’t do anything that someone else will do if you stop doing it.
Only do what only you can do.

X is the right one to get this done. I can’t wait for updates.

Just yesterday, I was talking to local luthier, Kenny Hill. We were in his shop where he was working on a copy of a 1856 Torres classical guitar. He was telling me about his process, and how the historical copies he made taught him the principles he used in his modern, experimental line of guitars. To make a long story short, he viewed the whole thing as one continuous mistake: he tried things and then, if he liked them, he tried to sell them. If they sold, he turned the design over the his assistants and they made them in bigger quantities. Sometimes he’d put a guitar away for months or years, thinking it was a lost cause only to take it off the shelf and be surprised by what was there. The whole process seemed to bemuse him, which fascinated me, because his guitars are highly prized by classical guitarists all over the world.

It got me to thinking about the things we show up for at work everyday: The tasks, the mission, the people. And about how all of them can lose their luster over time due to boredom or frustration. It’s painful to invest ourselves in something or someone and not get what we worked so hard for. So, like Kenny with a guitar that isn’t working, we put it away for awhile and focus our attention elsewhere. Kenny comes back to his “failed” guitars with curiosity and the soul of an inventor: what can I learn? Edgar Schein calls this “accessing your ignorance” and considers it a cornerstone of effective consulting.

That got me thinking about how we stop showing up. How we decide the guitar, the person, the situation is a failure, and not worth further attention, and leave it on the shelf. The key seems to being willing to change our preconceptions and learn to approach our guitars – the situation or the people in our lives – differently.  To approach from the perspective of what I don’t know, rather than all I’m certain of through previous painful experience.  To let go of my wounded – and wounding – certainty.

I used to joke about combining these two quotes, “Follow your bliss” and “Ignorance is bliss,” saying if both are true, then following your ignorance must be surest path to bliss.

Well, yeah.

________________________
Add your voice to the conversation.

Bowen theory (the short version)
In a nutshell, Bowen believes that all groups – families, teams, organizations – form systems based on the anxiety that arises when choosing between our ‘self’ and belonging to the group. We pass this anxiety around like a cold: Someone is always infected. In Bowen’s view, our role in this system determines our behavior more than our personal characteristics. Unless and until I’m willing to stop reacting to that underlying anxiety and choose a response that takes everybody’s needs into account – mine included. In this view, autocratic behavior is just another word for anxiety. Always being the one to stay late and do something for a client or the team is too.

What to do about it (in general)
In his approach, you stay connected with everyone in the system and maintain your own integrity. It’s not either-or, it’s both-and. You don’t join others at your expense and you don’t take your marbles and go home. This is not the comfortable choice. It’s more like a crucible out of which comes maturity and growth, not just for you, but for the whole system. But it’s not you righteously modeling a behavior you want others to adopt – it’s you choosing your path and sticking with it while staying connected and available to others, despite the flack they are giving you. You listen, and you connect, and you decide what to do about what others are telling you. This requires thoughtfulness and commitment without shutting others out. Bowen calls this differentiation.

An Example
The best example I can think of is having someone edit your writing. It’s your writing – you are the author. It’s your voice, your point of view, your self-expression. You are the final decision-maker. The editor gives you her opinion, often quite forcefully. As you take it in, you are beset with many thoughts: This editor is an idiot, she doesn’t get me at all. Or: This editor is an expert, I’d better do exactly what she says or my piece won’t be any good. With experience, you know that a good night’s sleep will allow a third voice to enter the conversation in your head: Some of these suggestions are great, even though they’ll require re-working entire sections. Some of them seem picayune, so I’ll ignore them, and other seem over-zealous, and appear to miss my point. I’ve got to talk those over with her.

Bowen’s theory explains so much of what I see in myself and in my clients. And it explains it in a way that doesn’t fence anyone in, which is why I love it. Trouble is, I don’t yet know how to apply it. That’s the tricky thing about theory: No user manual. So, into the lab we go. Let the experiments begin.

What to do about it (the specifics)
Decisions are anxiety-laden. Even simple decisions get complicated by the underlying emotional process that glues us together. It goes like this: I think the decision is mine alone to make and you think I should have consulted you. The leaders I coach often find themselves in this dilemma. They want to build a team, and they want to control the decisions for which they are held responsible. It looks unsolvable, and to some extent it is. By that I mean it’s a dilemma that never goes away. There is no one-size-fits-all approach which means you have to think your way through each decision. Analyze it to see which parts involve others and which are your alone. When we are reactive and wanting primarily to reduce our anxiety, we get this wrong.

Each decision has two aspects: What’s mine alone to decide, and what involves someone else. If I slow my automatic reaction down and go step-by-step, this distinction pops out. When I react automatically, I miss it. They key is to refuse to choose between them and me.

I’ll give you a universal example: A client wants the impossible, and right now. I want to go home on time and have dinner with my friends and play music. On the surface my evening looks doomed. I seem to have been presented with an either or decision: either I do what the client wants, or I have my evening. It’s that self vs. other dilemma. If the client is senior to me, I know what I have to do, at least that’s what our anxious mind says. Or, I may be so angry at these requests and the sacrifices I’ve made to honor them, that I simply say no.

The third way
Virginia Satir, another pioneer in the systems approach to groups, advised her students to never leave their clients with only two choices. She advocated te power of the third way, believing the third option is what took a client out of reactivity and into authentic choice.

The third option in the above situation stands a much better chance of satisfying each of you. Here’s one way it might sound: “I’ve got a dilemma: You want me to stay late tonight to work on this and I have plans I cherish and want to keep. How can we both get what we want?” Your job in the ensuing conversation is to refuse to choose between your needs and their needs. Do not settle for less than meeting both of your needs. This requires you to immunize yourself against their anxiety and increase your tolerance for discomfort – theirs and yours. The pay-off is a stronger relationship with your client, a better solution to the current dilemma, and the delicious surge of energy that comes from standing up to anxiety.

I’m very curious to know what you think about this. What’s your experience with the third way? And, because I’m writing on a topic I’m still digesting, I wonder if I’m making sense. I welcome your feedback.

For those of you who receive this by email, here’s a link to the blog post so you can leave a comment. Scroll down a little to the comment box.

GROUP 1: The 10 group members were excruciatingly polite, walking on eggshells, careful not to offend.  Some focused on making themselves known while taking up quite a bit of airtime; others held back, waiting for a place to jump in.    Some made little speeches, advocating their point of view.  Some talked about their feelings.   Those who advocated a point of view did nothing to invite others into dialog with them.  Those who talked about their feelings did not ask others how they felt.  It was like the dialog in a Woody Allen movie:  serial presentations that do not relate to the presentation that went before it.   They looked at each other, then looked down at their copy of the article they were discussing.   They wanted to connect, or so it seemed.   Their process began to look excruciatingly political:  12 people looking for a leader, or permission to become a leader or perhaps vying to become a leader.  It was hard to tell.    At the 20-minute mark, each of them closed the magazine with the article and began to focus exclusively on each other.  At the last minute, one group member posed an open ended question to the group and didn’t answer it herself.   The timekeeper signalled the end of the meeting.

GROUP 2: The group of 3 was busy deciding what to write on the flip chart.  Each of them was clear what was expected of their group:  To tell the rest of the group the key points of the article they’d read the night before.  They were all looking primarily at the flipchart one of them was writing on, and they were contending with each other.  Their progress was rapid, their interactions crisp and focused.  They contended easily and openly about the meaning of what they’d read, and about which points to convey.  In 10 minutes, they were finished with their task, energized and a bit feisty.

I wonder if you’ve seen – or been in – groups like these two.  How do you account for the differences between them?  You can let us know in the comments below.  Thanks for chiming in.

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.

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.