First Time Facilitator podcast transcript (Episode 29)
This is a transcript of the First Time Facilitator episode 29: Adventurous agendas and other tools you can use in your next meetingHey everyone, thanks for tuning into Episode 29. Welcome to another solo episode. I’ve had some hectic weeks, which have been full of facilitation and face to face delivery, so I thought I’d share a recent experience with you all, while it was fresh in my mind.If you prefer the interview format of the show, don’t worry - as I have loads of exciting guests queued up for future episodes. I’m simply mixing up the format, as we know all good facilitators should!Last week, I was invited to Sydney for a few days to facilitate an annual planning session. This is a little different ot the work I’ve been exposed to before, in that it was facilitation in it’s truest sense. It wasn’t about teaching a new skill, or delivering a team activity. I was there, as a facilitator to ensure the conversation was on track (and that discussions weren’t going around in circles), the group were sticking to the task, and we kept to time.It was for my day job - and if you’re new to the show, I work for a global mining services provider. The details of the agenda are all commercial in confidence, so I can’t go into detail on that side of things. But what I can share with you all, are some of the fantastic tools I discovered while planning for this, as well as some advice I received from others, that I think you, as listeners of this podcast could really benefit from. On that note, I was thinking of creating some kind of peer-support group for First Time Facilitators, maybe a closed Facebook group, where we can start sharing these tools & getting support from each other. If that’s something you’d be interested in, let me know - you can email me - hello@firsttimefacilitator.com; shoot me a tweet @leannehughes, or add me on LinkedIn. I think it would be really great to start leveraging the activities we’re doing around the world, and supporting each other. At this stage, I don’t know really know if there is a need for it, so like I said, if you’re interested, reach out and we’ll go from there.On this episode, I’ll be talking about some tools which are quite visual. You can find a link to all of these on the Adventurous agendas and other tools you can use in your next meeting (Episode 29) show notes page. So let’s jump in. Part of your role as a facilitator at the beginning of these types of sessions is to to go through the agenda and set expectations. This was a three day planning meeting. Each person attending, already had been briefed on the agenda prior and had access to it. Therefore, I didn’t want to get up the front and tell them what we are doing that day and at what time because:
They already had access to that information and
That’s pretty standard and boring.
I found a cool way of presenting the agenda through a website called Gamestorming. It’s called the ‘Hero’s Journey’ agenda. The ‘Hero’s Journey’ was a concept created by a guy called Joseph Campbell in a book called ‘The Hero of a Thousand Faces’. In that book, he maps out and explains that every great adventure, or hero’s journey’ journey goes through a sequence of steps. On the Gamestorming site, Dave Grey, shares how he’s also mapped that hero journey to a normal meeting agenda. You can relate this to Luke Skywalker in Star Ward, Bilbo Baggins in the Hobbit, Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. I’ll give a quick run down of that but also share the video explanation in the show notes. The hero’s journey starts in ordinary life, and that’s where we are at the moment. There are two sections to this, the known world (top half of the circle) which is life as we know it, our regular working day, and the unknown world (which is the bottom half), which for us is 2019 and beyond. We start at the top of the circle in ordinary life and we’re going to take a heroes journey. It starts off with that call to adventure. For Harry Potter, the call comes from Hagrid, and that’s where you start finding meaning on why you’re there. In the case of a meeting, this is a good time to explore the purpose, objectives and outcomes for the meeting, the why. Or, if your first presenter is going to do that, you can mention that here. You’ve had the call to adventure.As you work around the circle, you draw and mention those things on the heroes journey and relate them back to that meeting.For example, a hero always has the assistance of helpers and mentors that assist on the journey, you can link to these external people that are coming in to share their information or advice.When you cross the threshold to the unknown world - that’s probably a good time to have a coffeeTrials and tribulations, problems and pitfalls - in the adventure novels, this is the time when you climb the mountain, or fight the trolls, you can relate this back to brainstorming, About the six o’clock mark of the circle is what you call the pit.. The belly of the whale, where you’ve opened up all of these problems, and think to yourself, ‘Are we ever going to get home?’. This is a moment of great pain..but also great reflection and opportunity. It’s where Bilbo Baggins finds the ring. At that point in the meeting, let’s call it out and reflect on how we feel and how we can make progress.After the pit, you start developing new powers, new ways of doing things. You learn how to use the force. This is where you start creating solutions and actions on how to tackle the unknown. However, the Hero’s Journey doesn’t end there. You still have to cross the threshold back into the known world. These new gifts that you have, you need to figure out how to share those ideas with your teams back home. In the meeting agenda, this is where you start talking about how to communicate the actions from the meeting and the next steps.It’s really cool. Now I only saw this Hero’s Journey agenda a few days before flying down to Sydney but I thought ‘jackpot’ and decided I just had to use it! So I downloaded the explanation video from the Gamestorming site, onto my iPhone, and every opportunity I had, I popped i those headphones and listened to David’s explanation. My next step was to write out the explanation in my own words, linking it back to the upcoming agenda. I then recorded myself explaining it, and then started listening to that over and over again. My final step was to explain the concept to my husband and a couple of friend’s..and once I could do that, I knew I was ready to use it for the main event. You may be thinking this is a cheesy concept, and maybe it is for the audience you may be pitching it. Always consider your audience and their needs before selecting an appropriate analogy or tool. My audience were a team of Executives that are super busy in-demand people, who were brought up on Star Wars… so an opportunity to talk to them like and relate what they were about to embark on as being heroic, well it worked for them. And I could tell, as they continued to refer back to that heroes journey, using phrases like ‘the pit’ in conversation, to keep track of where they felt they were along the journey, how they were feeling, and how they were going to bring it home.Have you ever been in a meeting where you’re talking about a three year plan, but the conversation keeps getting brought back to detail and the problems of today? Or, the conversation is too abstract when operational detail is exactly what’s needed. I think we’ve all been there, right?When this happens, you can use this next tool, Altitude ( which, I again discovered from the Gamestorming site), to agree on expectations and keep people focused at the right level to serve the goals of the meeting.For prep work, draw up a flipchart divided into three horizontal sections. Again, I’ll link to this tool in the Show Notes. On the flipchart you have the title ‘Satellite’ written up the top, ‘Airplane’ in the middle, and ‘Ground’ on the bottom rung of the third section. When you’re ready to explain the concept, give everyone a sheet of paper and ask them to make a paper airplane. If you have enough time, you can give them the chance to test how well they fly.Then, reveal your Altitude flipchart and and ask the group to define what they mean by the satellite level, or the airplane level, and the ground level in the context of their meeting. For example, if they say that the satellite level is too high but the ground level is too detailed, ask them for examples of the kinds of things they would consider at the right altitude. Then ask them for examples of things that would be too low or too high.When you have reached some consensus on the right altitude level, put a mark on the page to represent the “right” altitude.Now tell them that whenever they notice the conversation going too high (abstract, vague, strategic) or too low (down in the weeds, tactical, operational) they can float their airplane and that will be a signal to the group.I think this tool is fantastic for a few reasons. It stops you, as a facilitator, to be like that teacher coming in to remind people that they’re rushing to detail too quickly. The accountability is on the people in the room to self-moderate - they have agreed on the right level of discussion up front, and they each have their plane to float when they realise the conversation is steered at the wrong altitude.So far, I’ve covered a neat way to talk through your agenda using the Heroes Journey agenda, and set expectations on the level of detail in the meeting using the Altitude flipchart. For the remainder of this episode, I’d like to share the useful advice that I received from three people that helped me hone in and focus on what was important as part of preparing for this workshop. I’m sure all of us receive useful advice from time to time, what’s special about having a podcast is that I can share and scale the advice relevant to you by reading it - and hope it helps positively shape your experience in facilitation, too. I emailed an old boss, Julie Kean. And to be frank, Julie is probably one of the best leaders I’ve ever worked under. She’s currently working in Timor as a Skills Development and Employment Specialist, and has held Executive and Director roles in Education across the pacific region.I haven’t included all the advice she wrote, but here’s a snapshot: My main advice to you is to trust your intuition. You are not there to be centre of attention. You are there to allow others to put together their collective intelligences. As in the old aphorism - you need to be the guide on the side, not the sage on the stage. So the best facilitators don't seem to be facilitating, but provide the space for others to produce the outcomes. Depending on the group, this can be tricky but you should expect an executive group to put in big time. Which brings me to the question - are they doing any prep? One thing you can do as the facilitator is to put some questions to them in advance with an expectation that they will bring answers with them to the sessions. The more confronting the questions the better - even if you don't get to address them during the planned sessions. You can also think about questions that you can send them home with at the end of each day. Make sure they are hard questions - make them work for their money, so to speak. I'm sure you know the concept of wicked problems - throw a few at them during the day and let them develop solutions. Scenario planning is another strategy that can work well with the right group. You can develop a range of scenarios in advance and have them work through and document solutions. This can provide the basis for risk management planning, but can also develop some blue sky thinking. If you planning on parking ideas, make sure you come back to these and really play them up. Sometimes the parking lot can provide the best thinking and the best outcomes. If you park a lot of ideas over three days you can go through a selection process with the group to identify those that merit further thinking and those than can be discarded. And finally, remember that the process of planning is often more important than the outputs. This may be a one-off opportunity for every voice to be heard, and that should be valued in its own right - irrespective of any collective outputs from the group. I liked the guide on the side analogy. It relates to refereeing a game of sport.. With a referee, you know you’ve done an amazing job if at the end of the game, no one is talking about you. I think the same thing applies to this type of facilitation. The other section that really stood out for me was to not focus on the outcomes too much, and let them focus on the process of planning. I also connected with Sue Johnstone, you may have heard her in Episode 7 of the podcast. She gave me some of her ideas if you find that teams go in details and around in circles. She said to call it by saying ‘It seems like you’re getting into some detail that may not be necessary right now’ and ask them to park the issues. Following this, introduce a third party perspective into the room; one that is asking for a result and requires them to take action, for example, ‘What are our customers expecting to see?” Or “Imagine the board chairperson has asked you to provide a broad brush of the options at the end of the day. What would you say?” This is really useful as getting that third party perspective helps them to figure out the impact they’re having. Michael Port also talks about not using absolute words when public speaking, I think it also applies in facilitation. Start looking at ways you can incorporate phrases like ‘It seems like…’ or, ‘What I’m hearing is… is that correct?’. So, those are few tools and tips I discovered last week that may be useful for you, if you’re being asked to facilitate and chair some big meetings.