Leadership.

First, we have to agree on what AI is. Then, we can help employees adopt it.

In March, tech gurus including Steve Wosniak and Elon Musk signed an open letter calling for a pause in AI development, citing “human-competitive intelligence (that might) post profound risks to society and humanity.”

More recently, Geoffrey Hinton, hailed as the godfather of AI, quit Google so he could air his concerns independently. In a 2021 commencement address, Hinton said, “I believe that the rapid progress of AI is going to transform society in ways we do not fully understand and not all of the effects are going to be good.” For Hinton, the downsides seem to outweigh the benefits, like improvements in healthcare. The risks he envisions range from job elimination to lethal autonomous weapons. He also says AI might create a world where we will “not be able to know what is true anymore.”

Speaking of misinformation…these stories made it to the table at The View, where hosts weighed in. They talked about the pros and cons of AI, but couldn’t even agree on what AI is. Notably, Whoopi Goldberg said that she defines AI as something “sentient” that “can think for itself.”

Whoa. I’m not saying a robot boyfriend is not in my future, but sentience is NOT what the scientists are talking about. There’s a big difference between smart or fast or autonomous and self-aware.

The lesson for those of us who help the workforce deal with change is this: AI is scary to some people, and possibly for the wrong reasons.

Let’s say your organization is adopting AI to gain efficiencies, reduce costs, or deliver better customer value. How should you approach employees about it?

1. Mind your language.

Maybe don’t call it “artificial intelligence.” I’m not suggesting lying to people; just the opposite. Explain exactly what the new technology will do.

The term “AI” can be triggering. Moreover, “AI” is too broad a term to be useful when talking to employees. AI is a huge category; labeling a new tool “AI” gives very little information to the people who are desperate to know how it’s going to change their work lives.

Think of it this way — will your AI solution detect and prevent dangers in the workplace? Say that! Call it Safety Software. Is AI going to supply customer service agents with better, faster answers to help customers? Say that! Call it Your Customer Service Assistant.

2. Get real.

Approaching any change, what do employees want to know? They want to know how it will affect them – their job responsibilities, their daily tasks, their compensation, their team performance, and their job security.

Get ahead of the resistance by answering questions honestly and thoroughly. Yes, even the bad news. If your new AI… sorry, Customer Service Assistant…will eliminate jobs, be up-front about it.

Most important: document and communicate the day-to-day work that will be different after implementation.

If you don’t tell people the story, they will fill the gap with their own.

3. Reframe AI.

Is the anxiety warranted? Maybe some of it. But AI can also benefit workers — sometimes in big ways. In fact, some employees have already adopted the positive mindset you’re hoping for. A Pew Research study shows 37% of workers are “purely excited” about AI.

And there’s plenty of evidence to back their enthusiasm. AI solutions, like tech before it, can take mundane, focus-intensive tasks off employees’ plates, freeing them up for more analytical and creative work.

One real-world study showed that AI offered big benefits for inexperienced or less-skilled workers by raising the quality of their work and productivity to be on par with their best-performing colleagues.

Armed with facts, examples, and those 37% already excited about it (your “early adopters”), you can – with authenticity — frame your AI adoption as a win-win.

When we need to worry about killer robots, we’ll worry about killer robots. In the present day, lead the change by taking these three steps. You can definitely make AI work for both your bottom line and your human workforce.

How to Win Back Trust and Stay Engaged With the Remaining Employees

If you’ve had to lay off employees, it’s been a rough time. If the layoff was significant, you literally have a new organization to run. That’s a big transition. How do you start?.

How does an organization rebuild trust, maintain morale, foster engagement, and ensure the productivity you need to survive?

Here are some of your first steps.

1. Don’t pretend. The layoffs happened and that impacts everyone. Employees and management will have to deal with survivor guilt, anxiety about the future, disengagement from leadership, and a host of other emotions.

What should the next days look like? As they say, the fastest way out is through. Standford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman recommends finding ways to get over emotional obstacles faster. “By front-loading emotions, you effectively discharge them.” The first step is acknowledging that something painful has happened. Then, find the right ways to provide time, space, and support.

2. Over-engage. Tell them why. Share the problem facing the organization, the alternatives, and why the solution included layoffs. In many cases, an employee would reach the same conclusion.

Then, describe the experience for remaining employees. How will workflow and responsibilities change? Answer the question on each employee’s mind: “What about me?” Get tactical, specific, and local.

Finally, ask employees for help in planning the next phase. This activates a sense of control. There’s nothing like a layoff to make people feel powerless and afraid; fear doesn’t bring out the best. But including employees in plans that affect them gives them a sense of control. Control feels safe. It frees up people’s energy for what you want – doing their jobs and moving the organization forward.

3. Help them connect. Many employees will feel the loss of these splintered relationships. For some, their friends just got fired. For employees who didn’t lose friends, their teams and support structures are broken. Help them create new connections within the new organization.

For example, you might start communities of interest or “book clubs” on development topics. These groups work across functions and allow people to discover connections in unlikely places. This promotes an informal cross-functional network that can pay off for the organization. And your efforts don’t have to be work-related. Simply creating spaces for social interaction can foster new friendships.

4. Revive enthusiasm. What comes next? If you’ve done the work to dissipate negative emotions and engage, the next step is giving people a focus for their energy.

So be sure you have a clear vision and you share it. But, beyond that, make sure your message lands. What future is in store for the organization? How can everyone help get there? What’s your rallying cry? Create a shared purpose on which everyone can focus.

Layoffs are never a good thing, but they can ensure the survival of your organization. If you do it right, employees can emerge stronger and more engaged than before.

You’re judging me. As you read, you’re evaluating whether what I say is true or false. You’re deciding whether I’m credible. You’re gauging my words against your experience to determine whether or not my advice will work for you.

Your people do the same to you. They judge every word you say and write, and every action you take. It’s constant and unconscious, and it’s hard-coded in their DNA to keep them safe.

And what’s behind it—the comparison—is a leadership superpower, if you know how to use it.

People constantly, actively, and unconsciously compare.

They compare your price to what you charged before, and to what they can get elsewhere. They compare their raise to what they read on Glassdoor. They compare your presentation to what they heard on the grapevine.

These comparative judgements affect behavior. People buy, join, quit, collaborate, adopt, undermine, and make deals based on those comparisons.

As you lead, ask yourself: What are they comparing this to? If you know the answer to that, you can create trust and influence behavior.

Here’s why.

Comparisons help us gauge safety.

Scary or sweet?

What’s your reaction to the picture above?

If you have been bitten by a dog, this picture is upsetting. If you love dogs, you might find the picture endearing, knowing that “mouthing” is a sign of attachment. You have compared this picture to your experience and responded based on that.

At Emerson Human Capital, we see it in business as well.

Research shows that the most successful source of new hires is referral. Why? Because the employer compares the candidate to the trusted employee. The candidate compares the company to their friend’s stories. Both the company and the candidate feel safer moving forward.

This is also true for sales. Sales people often look for referrals or “warm leads”—an introduction by a friend. They know that the buyer will assume their experience with the friend will be similar. That makes the sales conversation safe and increases the chances of succeeding.

If you want your team to feel safe, learn what they might be comparing against from their experience, and make sure it’s safe.

Comparisons determine value.

Let’s say you want to buy an airline ticket for your next vacation. You might find a United flight for $1,240. Then you check American. They have flights, but they require layovers. You go back to Google Flights and suddenly see the rates across all the airlines have gone up to $3,950. Now, the original price feels like a bargain. The $1,240 price didn’t change—what changed is the price you’re comparing against.

Reed Hasting, Co-CEO, employed this comparison strategy when he described Netflix’ performance on the July 19, 2022 earnings call.

“Looking at the quarter…we’re executing really well on the content side…we’re talking about losing 1 million instead of losing 2 million.”

Most people want to associate their initiative with something that’s good, to make it feel safe. However, negative comparisons are powerful when you need people to act.

For example, my parents had a beautiful RV they wanted to sell. The dealer so loved it, he kept it at the lot entrance to impress people as they arrived. The camper sat there for over a year. Finally, we asked him if he had another vehicle that was less appealing. He did. So we asked him to park our RV next to it, and price ours slightly lower. The camper sold within three days.

A value comparison is about changing the conversation.

It’s about taking a person from one reference point to another. Academics call this reframing. If you want your people to see value in what you’re doing, compare against something that shows value.

Comparisons help us learn new information.

When we learn something new, we compare it to what we already know. That helps us retain and recall information. When we don’t have a good comparison, we have to create a new category in our mind, which makes information much harder to learn.

Let’s say you plan to visit our office in a month. I tell you the office door code is 3120, but you cannot write it down. You may or may not remember that number. But, if I tell you it’s the Chicago area code with a zero, it’s more likely you will remember it. You have a way to hook the new data to something you already know.

If you want people to remember something important, compare it to or contrast it with something familiar.

Comparisons create expertise.

A novice understands a category. An expert understands differences between similar items within that category. For example, if I ask you to tell me what a fish is, you’ll probably say that it’s something that lives in water, uses gills to breathe, and fins to move. But an expert can identify a muskie from a salmon based on precise characteristics, like the shape of the tail, the color of the skin, the size of the eyes. An expert developed that expertise by learning the differences between fish.

If you want your team to be experts, help them understand precise differences.

Comparisons evoke emotion.

A vivid comparison will make dull data come to life. Let’s say you’re showing a financial report that shows a new business unit with great potential but poor performance. You can show graphs on a PowerPoint slide with arrows pointing up. But you capture imagination if you describe the new business unit as Rich Strike, the 80-to-1 come-from-behind winner of the Kentucky Derby.

The CEO of a food products company recently announced a reorganization. His goal was to normalize the reorganization. This company had multiple flavors of their products, which required them to change the configuration of their manufacturing lines every day. To employees, that was a normal, predictable operation. So, he compared the reorganization to reconfiguring a product line. It made what could feel frightening seem normal.

People don’t change in response to data.

They change—they act differently—in response to how they feel about what you say. Your comparisons are a powerful tool because they impact the emotions that drive behavior.

Leaders create meaning by interpreting events, memorializing history, and describing a compelling future. Events are about meaning, and nothing helps people create meaning like a strategic comparison. To be effective, you need to know what people are conjuring up in their minds, and if necessary, change that reference point. You need the right comparison.

If you were to ask a friend or family member how they’re feeling right now, their answer might be, “stressed,” “burnt out,” or “overwhelmed”. That’s what vacation is for, right? Well, two to four weeks of PTO is not enough to relieve the burnout employees are facing.

Just look at the numbers. Employees who say they very often or always experience burnout at work are:

• 63% more likely to take a sick day.
• 23% more likely to visit the emergency room.
• 6 times more likely to be actively seeking a different job.⁴

Clearly, that stress is outpacing PTO’s ability to deal with it. Leaders often recognize this, but don’t know what to do about it.

Burnout Is a Business Problem

According to Webster’s dictionary, burnout is, “physical or mental collapse caused by overwork or stress.”¹ The primary driver is occupational stress, but it’s not that simple. Other factors often contribute to burnout, including unrealistic work expectations, health issues, family caregiving responsibilities, and the uncertainty of environmental and societal change.

Over time, our “energy bank” that started with a healthy balance becomes overdrawn. We might experience physical and emotional effects like fatigue, attention problems, irritability, anxiety, and depression.

In this state, we can’t show up for work as our best selves.

We become pessimistic, defensive, apathetic, disengaged, and isolated. In fact, the norms of many workplaces keep us from being nipping burnout in the bud by speaking up and seeking help. Stressed employees are simply not strong enough to deliver on organizational goals.

What Leaders Can Do

1. Lead. Take an active role in preventing and addressing burnout. Feeling seen and supported by leadership goes a long way. ​
2. Streamline. Help employees work smarter, not harder. Promote reasonable workload management, through teaming, delegation, and flexible goals and metrics.
3. Empower. Set clear goals and expectations in collaboration with individual employees. Make sure work expectations consider the risk of burnout. Use an ongoing development process that acknowledges the need to avoid burnout.
4. Nurture. Prioritize holistic well-being​. Recognize that employees with full, healthy lives perform better. Promoting health and happiness is a great investment in your workforce.

The play is proactive reduction of stress. The goal is a culture of balance that supports sustainably strong performance.

References:

1. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/burnout
2. https://positivepsychology.com/burnout/
3. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/burnout
4. Employee Burnout: Causes and Cures (gallup.com)

What your road trip can teach you about project success.

I recently returned from vacation. My family and I joined many of our fellow Texans in the annual summer escape from the heat and ventured to the mountains of Colorado. Sure, we could have flown, but we decided to take to the road and enjoy the freedom that comes from being in control of the journey. As we drove, the experience started to remind me of a project.

Road Trip

Day 1

The trip started out early on a Sunday morning. We were full of energy. The SUV was packed, YETIs were filled with coffee, snacks were at the ready, and teenage sons had their phones fully charged. Things were great, until they weren’t. After five hours of driving, with five more to go, my back started to hurt. My teenagers were bickering like eight-year-olds, and everyone was starving. I even heard a few “how much longer?” comments. I started having doubts…was driving the right decision? Images of the Griswold family flashed through my head.

Family photo op at the halfway point (Texas panhandle).

Fast-forward another five hours: after stops for lunch, fuel, and restroom breaks we approached our day-one Texas Panhandle destination. We made it! As we approached the highway hotel and the end of the day’s journey, I felt new energy. Sure, we weren’t in Colorado yet, our stopping point was far from glamorous, and there was more driving the next day, but we all felt a sense of accomplishment.

Day 2

We hit the road after a quick, mediocre, breakfast buffet at the hotel. The good news: the day 2 trek was only six hours; the bad news: the day 2 trek was six hours. Coming off a below-average night’s sleep in a crowded double queen room filled with road noise, I felt less than spectacular. Why did we do this again?

Fast forward…Traci (my wife) offered to do much of the driving, and I dozed off while listening to music. We made it to our high-elevation destination by mid-afternoon. The mountains were spectacular, the condo was spacious with a great view, and we were walking distance from everything we needed. After a nice walk, a couple drinks, and a casual dinner with the family, all was well. It was worth it! We did it! We were ready to enjoy a week in the mountains. We even felt confident about the drive home at the end of the week.

Projects

The incredible Rocky Mountain views.

What the heck does a road trip have to do with a project? Surprisingly, they elicit similar thoughts and reactions. Think about it. How do you feel at the beginning of a project? What about the middle? How does it feel when you hit a milestone or — even better — complete the project?

Project Beginnings

Most people are highly motivated at the beginning of a project. Sure, there is some nervous energy, but there is energy…natural energy! Leaders and team members are eager to get started and ready to take on whatever comes their way. Project leaders may even organize a kickoff event, complete with team dinner or celebration, to mark the occasion.

Change management practitioners should capitalize on the project beginning and design interventions that create even more “buzz.”

It’s a great time to seek out and engage the Innovators and Early Adopters in the organization. These people will be on board with the change and will build support from within the organization.

Project Middles

The middle is a slog. Middles are the time when people think, “Why did I sign up for this?” Project Managers and Change Managers must engineer wins to keep the team going. Maybe the project is organized in sprints. Sprints create natural milestones that team members rally around. Even better, they are often followed by “sprint retrospective” meetings to discuss what went well and what could be done better in the next sprint. Retrospectives give team members an opportunity to be heard and play a role in what happens next. This is essential to engagement, because people crave a sense of control.

Change Managers work with project managers to identify and create interim goals. We want team members to think “I was successful, and I can be successful again.” Interim goals feel more attainable than project completion. Team members are motivated when milestones or goals are met. They feel a boost.

Organizations should reward people when goals and milestones are met.

For example,  “down days” (no meetings allowed), offsite events where the team completes a non-work activity together (e.g., a community service project), or spotlight awards – nominees are acknowledged and thanked by leadership and nominators are entered into a raffle for a prize.

Project Ends

Just as sprinters run a little faster at the end of the race, team members are motivated to push a little harder at the end. Natural energy abounds. Team members begin to evaluate the experience as a whole. Ends create a great opportunity to motivate through connection and impact. Are there photos of teamwork, quotes from stakeholders, events for sharing stories, or music that sums up the experience? Use them. Change and Project Managers must capitalize on desire to finish strong.

Conclusion

The element of time is powerful. Daniel Pink writes about this in his book, When. There are times when energy and motivation come naturally and times when they don’t. Change practitioners must intentionally capitalize on times of high performance and shore up points of lower performance. And travelers should plan their road trips accordingly.

Use this four-part agenda to launch and support a strong, focused team.

We talk about the need to both perform and transform. If you only transform but don’t perform, you have no here and now. If you only perform but don’t transform, you have no future. — Frans van Houten, CEO of Royal Philips Electronics

A few years ago, a friend began a company turnaround. His first task: tell his executive team they would not receive bonuses due to missed goals, despite growing revenue and EBITDA.

The team had never met face-to-face. Some had been through three management changes; others were new hires. This is a surprisingly common problem. As Jon R. Katzenbach writes, “Even in the best of companies, a so-called top team seldom functions as a real team. The fact is, a team’s know-how and experience inevitably lose power and focus at the top of the corporate hierarchy. And simply labeling the leadership group a team does not make it one.”

My friend was up against this daunting challenge. He couldn’t afford to build a new team from scratch, so he asked for our help to build his team as they were running the company. They needed both performance, in the moment, and transformation to their vision for the future.

In preparation for our working sessions, we agreed on the following principle:

High impact teams result from meaningful work, not team-building exercises.

We met in a series of four meetings. Over the following two years, this team increased sales 50% and EBITDA 300%.

Meeting 1 Outcomes – Strategy and Working Agreements

The CEO had an overall vision for the turnaround. The team, shell-shocked from bad news, needed to hear it. Because they needed to jell quickly, we wanted them to explicitly agree on how they would work together.

At the first meeting, we:

• Defined the culture they wanted.
• Described the strategy using four key words and personal stories.
• Determined specific actions for the next 180 days.
• Agreed on how to work together.

Meeting 2 Outcomes — Momentum, Working Styles, and Profit

In the first 180 days, the team agreed on a new budget, met five new distributors, introduced three products, and hit their targets.

In this second meeting, we:

• Celebrated a successful quarter.
• Identified their preferred working styles and examined ways to adapt to their colleagues’ styles.
• Explored how to work with existing assets to increase profitability.

Meeting 3 Outcomes: A Visual Vision

People crave meaning. The most successful companies are clear on what they stand for, and why. Now that the team had worked together for a while, they were ready to clearly articulate their direction.

Here, we summarized their:

• Core Values – what they stand for
• Core Purpose – what they exist to do
• Aspirations – what they want to be
• Visual Vision – what the future looks like, in hindsight

Meeting 4 Outcomes: Focus, Goals, and Connection

The team was winning, clearly focused on a differentiator, and they had resolved factory capacity to increase profits. The CEO wanted them to sustain progress into the new year, create long term impact, and strengthen their connections as a high-functioning team.

So we:

• Examined how they accomplished what they did, and how to sustain it.
• Created steps to achieve their personal goals with the differentiator.
• Applied strategies to stay focused.

The CEO had inherited this collection of executives. Using a thoughtful structure, we created an experience that turned them into a team.

A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Messaging Go Down

Have you had to deliver any hard messages lately? If you lead a team or an organization, the answer is probably “Yes.” Maybe it’s your company’s vaccine mandate, safety protocols, rules about where and how to work, or covering employee shortages. When you have challenging news to share, is there a right way?

There is a right way, for your organization. The right way depends on your culture. In addition to the basics (be direct, transparent, and empathetic) your organizational culture points the way.

Why? Because culture is powerful. It’s the unconscious mechanism that drives decisions and work in your organization. Put another way, it’s your organization’s immune system.

Information and messages that fit the culture are accepted and absorbed, but content that doesn’t fit the culture is rejected.

What is your organization’s culture? Many people know the answer because their company has done some kind of culture assessment. But if you don’t have a definitive answer from a valid assessment instrument, you can often make an educated guess.

When we approach culture, we like to use the work of Carol Pearson. Pearson established culture archetypes – each one describes how the organization operates and presents itself to the world. Do you see your organization in any of the types below?

If you know which one best fits the culture of your organization (or the subculture of your division or team), you’ve got a key you can use to effectively deliver information.

So why not get a leg up on those tough communications? Embed these message themes, based on your culture.

The right messaging will help your change plans go down easy. People will recognize themselves, and the organization they belong to, in the communications. That’s half the battle.

References:

1. https://www.carolspearson.com/about/the-pearson-12-archetype-system-human-development-and-evolution
2. http://integralleadershipreview.com/3158-organizational-archetypes-and-the-spiral-dynamics/ 

Don’t schedule your strategic planning session until you figure this out.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Time for those leadership sessions we use to plan for the future. But before you clear those calendars and head into days-long meetings, ask yourselves: what question are you trying to answer?

We’ve helped many leadership teams plan for the following year. It’s surprising how many companies schedule an off-site or a series of working sessions without clarity on exactly what problem they’re trying to solve and what objectives they want to hit.

So before you schedule, figure out which questions you’re trying to answer.

1. Who are we and where are we headed?

Every executive team must align around their purpose, vision, and values. But not every team knows how to align. It takes practice. The process builds relationships as team members discuss, work, collaborate, and agree on a singular view of the future.

This work might seem unnecessary; most organizations already have a purpose, vision, and values. But it’s worth asking whether these “truths” require revision. Triggers include acquisitions, changes in leadership, and significant market shifts.

2. Are we organized to achieve our vision?

A good operating model is the blueprint of your organization, It shows all the key  components that contribute to the organization’s value stream, including inputs, outputs, processes, metrics, and technology. It highlights the interdependencies within teams and processes and how they deliver value.

By constructing the model together, the leadership team develops a greater awareness and appreciation of all contributions and understands the importance of acting in unity.

Again, you probably already have an operating model. Or do you? Many of our clients are surprised to discover they don’t have it documented, and certainly not accessible to the company or used as guidance for day-to-day work. Even a strong operating model is worth refreshing every few years.

3. How do we get there?

“There” is wherever you plan to go—the mission, the vision, the operating model… Businesses thrive when the organization knows what it wants to achieve and by when. Every company should have a roadmap.

Executives are responsible for identifying the high-level “what and when.” The session should include representatives of key business functions to determine the “how.”

4. What is our message to the organization?

If an organization must change in any way, it needs a message. As the executive team creates the message frame—the four key words that anchor the message—they clarify and align on the change.

The message frame ensures all leaders and advocates tell the same compelling story, consistently and authentically, without relying on written materials or PowerPoint decks. Each communicator customizes the story with details and data that mean something to that particular audience—this is what gets your entire organization pulling in the same direction.

5. How should we work together?

We all have natural patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Effective teams understand how these patterns impact the overall team dynamic and how to use the strengths of their members to deliver results and move the organization forward. Smart teams create working agreements that take into account different working styles and reduce conflict. Agreements should be simple and direct, created by the team, and present at all meetings.

One of our favorite tools to craft these agreements: the Clifton Strengthfinder™ Survey. We work with a team to find each member’s unique contributions and leverage them in service of the strategy. Then we define team agreements, taking working styles and culture into consideration.

6. How do we sharpen our performance?

To make improvements in business processes, org structure, and behaviors, leaders need to know what’s working and what’s not. A working session can pinpoint what should change, and determine how.

Some of the tools we use as a first step: 1) SWOT analysis, which identifies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and 2) the Start, Stop, Continue exercise. Then we take those findings, prioritize, and plan implementation.

Many executive teams blend these types of sessions into something custom that works for them. What’s most important is clarity—understanding your problem, the process you will use, and the outcomes you want—before you start.

Lead • er • ship (noun)

The action of influencing or directing a group of people or an organization

Fa • cil • i • tate (verb)

• to make easier
• help move forward (an action)
• assist the progress of 

Early in my career, I was working with a team of engineers in Phoenix. Their communication with other teams were a dysfunctional political minefield. Specifically, poor collaboration with their marketing team was impeding their business goals. They needed help. They asked me to improve the way they communicated their software updates so that the marketing team could get the right information out to clients before a launch and promote new features, improving sales.

I planned a 1:00 pm on-site meeting on a sunny day in July. About an hour before the meeting, I ran an errand. I parked my car for a quick in-and-out. When I hopped back in my car, it wouldn’t start. The battery was dead, a casualty of the Arizona summer. I was totally stuck, and sweating. And beginning to freak out. I was at the mercy of anyone willing to lend aid, and jumper cables, in the scorching heat.

By the time I got back to the office, I just had a few minutes to prepare before the meeting started. One look in the mirror confirmed that I needed to explain my appearance—my face was shiny with sweat; my hair had frizzed up. I was a mess. I was thinking, “How am I going to explain this?”

Here’s what came to me: As a facilitator, I’m like those jumper cables. We have a hot, sticky situation between two parties who can’t find a way to move toward their destination. And I’m here to make the right connections that will jump-start their performance.

The magic of facilitation lies in how we get people thinking and talking in a way that helps the organization move.

Over the years, this metaphor has occurred to me often. But not necessarily when I was in a room “facilitating.” It applied to most of my challenges as a leader.

Finding a way through the biggest leadership challenges I’ve faced has always involved facilitating a group of people toward a business goal. The value of my skills in strategy, management, and planning pale in comparison to the value of good facilitation.

Here are some of the “jumper cables” a good facilitative leader employs:

• The Power of Inquiry. Leaders should use the organization as a source of wisdom, experience, expertise, and insight. Skilled leaders know how to draw out the best from the team.
• The Power of Improvisation. Good leaders are nimble; they foster creativity and innovation, so the organization can respond to challenges with strength. For example, behaviors from improvisational comedy — like “yes, and,” “make your partner look good,” and “making random connections” – create synergy and bubble-up the best ideas.
• The Power of Process. It takes patience and experience to trust the process of collaboration. It’s not the shortest path to a result, but it does produce the best result.

When we jump-start productive work with groups of people, we all get stronger. That’s what leadership is all about.

Facilitate the hell out of your next executive session

Leave them wanting more. Is that even possible with a meeting? People want fewer meetings, right? Or maybe you’re doing it wrong.

2021 is the perfect opportunity for a reset. Next time you facilitate an executive meeting, make it a satisfying experience: effective, focused, respectful, and even fun.

1. Do your research. Nothing takes the wind out of your sails like the participants realizing you don’t know enough to run the meeting. Don’t make them stop and educate you. Make sure you’re rock-solid on the facts, figures, and history you need.

That starts with the Why. After you think you’re clear on the goals of the session, ask the participants. Send each one a personal invitation and ask them to answer one question:

“Why do you think we need this meeting?”

This will surface misunderstandings so you can resolve them before everyone shows up. It also gives each attendee some buy in – it’s a trick of psychology; you’re getting them on the record saying it’s important.

2. Focus. We all know “Begin with the end in mind,” and that’s right. Start the session by confirming the goal. Here are a few more tips:

Limit attendees. In The Surprising Science of Meetings, Steven Rogelberg says the ideal size is seven participants. AND that decision-making effectiveness decreases 10% with each additional attendee! Balance your need to have all the right decision-makers in the room with the value of your outcomes.

Limit devices. I once sat in an exec meeting next to a new team member who kept his laptop open. I was the only one who could see that he wasn’t taking notes; he was reading the news, checking stock performance, and watching hockey highlights on mute. (I swear.) He didn’t last long in the company. Either the meeting is important or it’s not. If it’s not, then cancel it. If it is, then silence phones and close the laptops. If someone gets a call and has to take it, stop the meeting for a break. This has the double-whammy of respecting the call-taker (because you can’t continue without her) and pressuring her to get off the phone fast.

Use a “parking lot.” When someone goes off topic, stop, reset, and document that point on a flipchart page, whiteboard, or notes window. Promise not to lose that thread and follow up after the meeting.

3. Limit session time. “I don’t need time. I need a deadline.” ~ Edward Kennedy Ellington. Duke was right— time limits work. Rogelberg and others recommend scheduling hour-long meetings for 50 minutes. If you truly need more time, break it into 50-minute sessions with specific milestone goals for each. And chunking up your process lets you use another technique…
4. Delay decisions. Why do we say “I want to sleep on it?” Because it works. Time for reflection and synthesis yields better ideas. We’ve all sent that follow-up email saying, “Hey, I just had another idea” or “We didn’t have time to cover this, but…”

So design that into your session. Up front, explain that you will make no firm decisions at the end of any one meeting. Everyone will go away, let their “back burner” brilliance work, and come back together to confirm. This works well if you have broken your process into multiple short sessions. Assign a milestone goal for Session One, then use the first ten minutes of Session Two to play back tentative decisions, bring in new info, and make a final call.

5. One up, one down. This concept comes from the military, but I know it as a best practice in my kids’ Montessori preschool. Each class had two teachers managing 25 kids working independently or in small groups. Rather than the goat rodeo you might expect, the classroom worked beautifully. “One up, one down” meant that when one teacher was focused on teaching students (in a chair or on the floor) the other should be standing, with a view of the whole group.

In an exec session, there should be at least one person focused on documenting, fixing, or providing support; the other should have eyes on the room, to manage the discussion and progress.

6. Document, document, document. Executives have zero time for your shenanigans. They don’t want to repeat themselves, argue about what was said last time, or struggle to understand what’s going on. So make sure you collect and replay all essential information.

Record faithfully. If it’s ok with participants, record the audio and/or video of your meeting. That’s the only fool-proof way to make sure you know what happened. If you can’t do that, take copious notes. And commit to being the historian, calling up meeting minutes, inputs, and outputs in real time when asked. Use these to produce executive summaries at milestones and at the end of the process.

Dampen the politics. Sometimes it matters who’s talking. Junior participants might not hold the floor as long, or might get a quick rebuttal. But when you record and play back what happened, you can give all good content equal weight, removing any hierarchical barriers to a good idea.

7. All brains matter. People process and retain information differently, so provide as many channels as you can. We default to bullet points and flow charts, with a voice-over from the facilitator. But that’s not the only way. Consider these:

Silent reading. Give the group information to read as an input to your discussion. Some people think better when eyes aren’t on them and people aren’t speaking.

Listening. The growth of podcasts and video books has revealed a segment of people who love to learn with their ears, minus other distractions. Use audio content in the session or as pre-work.

Video. Moving pictures really work for some people, especially with retention. Video has it all: sound, images, and verbal content.

Graphic documentation. This is a powerful way to capture ideas and decisions. Use a graphic artist to illustrate content in real time; you’ll end up with a graphic that conveys more than a list of bullet points ever could. Graphic documentation is a great touchstone to use after the meeting—post your graphic in a space where people can revisit it and use it to communicate to a wider audience.

8. Be tenacious. Even the best outputs can evaporate after you all leave the room. People ignore emails, crises emerge, and enthusiasm fades over time. Don’t let go. Set milestones for feedback, new meetings, and other next steps. Get commitment before you leave the room. If necessary, unblock the logjams with one-on-one conversations over time.
9. Lighten up. Why so serious? We can accomplish real work and have fun at the same time. We recently asked an exec team to come up with their own theme songs. Each member chose their own song, then they composed a song to represent themselves as a team, real-time. We captured and produced their work of art after the session. It was a good time, but it wasn’t just a good time—it surfaced and confirmed their strengths and cohesion. Think about how to brighten up your session. Use stunning graphics, gamify your process, or use a new environment for the meeting. Fun doesn’t have to get in the way—bake it into the work.

Meetings have such a bad reputation, especially among busy executives. But if you do it right, they’ll accept your next invite with a smile.