Episode transcript (Episode 18)
This is the show transcript for Episode 18 of the First Time Facilitator podcast.
Leanne: Hi everyone and THANK YOU for choosing to listen to Episode 18 of the First Time Facilitator podcast.
It’s really hard to believe that for the last 18 weeks, I’ve delivered an episode to you every Monday at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, Brisbane time.
The last time I was dedicated to anything like this was probably back in 2015 when I ran the Gold Coast Marathon. I really enjoyed having that daily discipline of waking up, lacing up the shoes and heading out the door. I liked it as I’m not typically a very disciplined type of person.
Through this, I discovered a few things that help me honour my commitments. It’s really about using the motivation to then build a habit. It’s also about having a really important vision of your end goal - so in the case of a marathon, if I didn’t get out of bed and run, then I wouldn’t make it to the 42km Finish Line. Most important is that
I also had a coach who I’d email every week with my times, and he’d respond with feedback and set my plan for the week.
Accountability for me, is key. And I guess for this podcast, I feel accountable to all of you who are listening in, sharing this podcast with colleagues and friends, tweeting me and emailing… thank you so much for helping me stay consistent and honour this weekly commitment.
Today’s episode is my second solo one and again I’m responding in to a listener question. I’ll do these listener Q&A’s from time to time, to give you some practical insight into how I facilitate and approach situations.
If you have a question you’d like to send through, either tweet it to me @leannehughes or send me an email – hello@firsttimefacilitator.com.
I’d like to thank my friend Joanne Alilovic from 3D HR Legal in Western Australia for her question. Jo and I met at a conference called ‘We Are Podcast’ in Brisbane last November.
Neither of us had a podcast back then, and we both launched our podcasts in March this year. Jo’s podcast is called The Juggle and is all about how you can balance your career and work commitments. For anyone out there who thinks their constantly juggling their priorities, I recommend listening in to her show. I’ll link to it in the show notes for this episode at firsttimefacilitator.com/episode17.
Anyway, like me, Jo likes to do things a little bit differently. She’s a lawyer. In her business she takes her legal knowledge, combines that with her HR skills to help create tailored polices and procedures for individual businesses.
Jo wrote in with the following question:
‘I have a client who wants to throw out their existing human resources manual and start fresh.
We are thinking of creating documents such as a Code of Conduct, a performance management policy, complaints procedure etc.
In order to create something that is truly reflective of the workplace and the people who work in it, we decided it would be good to get the staff involved.
So we have scheduled a 2 hour facilitation session to discuss the types of policies and procedures they need, and the content for them.
Do you have any suggestions on how to run this session?
Okay first thing first. I’m impressed that the company is getting their employees involved in the process. I know it seems obvious but sometimes organisations don’t recognise this and take the critical step of engaging with their people.
So, a big high five to your client, and a big high five to you too, Jo.
I do have some suggestions I can share with you. Let’s start with preparation.
Way back in Episode 7, my guest Sue Johnstone and I spoke about preparation and how it’s critical. One of the things she drives the most is being very clear on your workshop outcomes.
As part of your prep work, I would suggest working with your client to agree on what those outcomes are. They could include things like, ‘‘Agreeing on the 5 most urgent and important HR policies to deliver’, or ‘Creating sub-groups to tackle each policy’ or ‘Generating enthusiasm for agreed actions and next steps’.
Notice that each of these outcome starts with a verb. An action word. This gives you clarity on what the outcome looks like. Avoid starting the outcome with a word like ‘Understanding’. That’s something I learnt in my first job out of university, working as an Instructional Designer.
Now for the purposes of this podcast. I’m going to assume that the outcomes I just listed are the outcomes the client wants too (I really have no idea, but to keep this going, let’s lock those ones in).
Oh and let’s pause this for a second. If you’re listening in and also have tips for Jo on your approach, please sing out and get in touch!
Let’s talk about your participants. I I like to find out as much as I can about the people in the room. Who are they? Do they all get along? What’s their motivation for being involved (or have they been nominated)? Has anyone developed policies before? Etc.
I believe there are facilitators out there who would prefer not to know this information and arrive without pre-conceived bias, but I guess at this stage of my career in facilitation, I like to know as much as I can. If I can anticipate that there will be tension with some people in the room, that’s helpful.
When considering your participants, try to put yourself in their shoes. They can barely keep up with the hundreds of emails in their inbox and now, on top of all of their other regular meetings, they’ve been asked to attend this two hour policy session.
Jo you’re going to be working with people that are busy, some may not even know why they’re in the room and you need to extract some information from their heads PLUS get them excited about this project… oh and then leave them with action items afterwards. I mean, this isn’t Mission Impossible… but it’s not far from it!
You’ve been given two hours to work with, which isn’t a lot of time. Your outcome is to find out what HR policies and procedures they require, and what information they want in those policies, and you also want to leave with enthusiasm and action items too.
So, prior to the workshop I would create a quick definitions sheet of key HR policies and procedures that are common in most organistions. The definitions sheet would have things like:
‘A performance management policy is dot dot dot…companies use it to…dot dot dot.
Now the reason I’m suggesting this is that it’s easier for you to look at a comprehensive list of policies and procedures and eliminate the ones you don’t need; rather than looking at a blank page and starting from scratch. You’ve also set the definitions so you won’t be getting arguments over policy definitions.
Ideally, you could email this information through to the participants prior to your workshop.
Now, let’s talk about delivery
I suggest you share the following information with your group upfront. Stealing a phrase from my favourite thought leader, Simon Sinek, start with why.
Share the context: And share it by stating problem and solutions. For example,
Yes it is painful working on these policies from scratch in the short-term but in future it will save more time because you won’t have managers tapping on your door every day, asking how what the process is to onboard a new employee.
Share WHY you’ve been asked to facilitate this workshop. Jo, you can rely on your credibility and experience here… you’re in the business of overhauling HR policies…you are the guru.
Share the outcomes you want to drive in the two hour workshop and why it’s critical.
- not only in that two hour session; Check in - do they agree?
I suggest you also include engagement activities early in the piece. This helps setup expectations that you’re not there to tell them what to do…
My guess is that the people in the room know each other already, so you won’t need to do any formal type of introductions.
If I was going to run some type of opener, I’d suggest keeping it simple, to get them in small groups of about 3 or 4 people and ask them to discuss in their groups a simple question like ‘Why do we have policies?’ or for more interesting answers (and laughs), you can reverse that question and ask ‘What would a company look like without policies?’
Debrief as a group. Instead of asking one group to share all their ideas, ask for one idea per group and continue to rotate around the group.
That way, when the last group is called onto speak, they have something to contribute and won’t just say ‘Oh yeah we agree with what the other groups have said’.
Okay, so now we’ve established why policies and procedures are important.
On an aside, given your time-frame, I think a Parking Lot is a good idea. Simply write Parking Lot on a piece of flip-chart paper and pop it to the side of the room. Explain that if they start talking about a subject that is off topic, or they can’t solve quickly that we park that conversation and explore it later on (if time) or outside of the workshop.
Now, remember that policy definition sheet I asked Jo to prepare? If it was given as pre-work, great, if not, then as part of the workshop I’d hand this out and ask them to individually review the policies listed.
I would then, ask them individually to circle the 5-6 (you can change the numbers, this is an example) Policy titles they believe are ‘non-negotiable’.
Following this, I’d ask them to place draw an asterisk against two policies that would be nice to have.
Meanwhile, you’ve written the name of each policy on individual post-it notes and put them up on the wall.
Ask them to walk up and vote on the policies they believe are most important. You can use stickers and allocate 7 per person, these stickers are their voting cards.
By doing this, you’ll notice trends. Either some policies receive the most votes and are clear majorities; or they could be scattered across various policies. Whatever the outcome of the voting, you have some good discussion points here.
Because we’re talking about priorities, you could even draw something like Stephen Covey’s priority quadrant matrix (important vs urgent) and then as a group, see if you can categorise each policy within the matrix - what’s most important and most urgent; what’s important but not urgent, etc.
This is when you enter the mode of facilitator and use your arsenal of open-ended questions to encourage discussion within the group.
You’ll notice those who aren’t contributing and entice them into the conversation. If there is someone who is contributing an awful lot and may be overbearing, you can say things like, ‘‘Hey John, I appreciate your input but I’d like to hear from some others in the room’.
Once you’ve categorised each policy, the next step would then be allocating 3-4 people to each policy or the policies with the most ‘votes’.
In these small groups, you can ask them to brainstorm:
What topics do we need to cover under the policy?
Does this policy link in with another policy?
Do we have all the information we have right now to develop the policy? Yes/No (If no, what other information do we need to find out?
Who else do we need to consult with?
I would encourage this sub-group to chat for about 30mins, and then each group to share their findings as a group; for feedback.
I would then reserve the last 20-30mins for action planning.
Again, come in with a project template which will create consistency across the groups. In this template, ask them to allocate roles within the team, action items and time-frames.
To wrap up, thank the group, emphasise the importance of the feedback, what you learnt, and how you will communicate with the team to ensure those policies are ready.
Okay that’s a really quick snippet but some ideas and activities to get you started, Jo.
What I also want to mention is that I love using design thinking to brainstorm and for innovation. I though about bringing in some design thinking concepts here, like reversing assumptions and question-storming, however I believe that’s more important in the next step - the step where the group then really starts questioning what each policy should have, and what it shouldn’t have. If you’ve never heard of these design thinking concepts, I’ll explain them in a future episode - they’re gold.