Archive for January, 2010

Frequently, my work involves large group workshops and teams of willing volunteers acting as support facilitators.  They may be drawn from the client team or from the wider consultant team.  They are often technical specialists or traditional communications specialists, and sometimes – but not always – they have facilitation experience.

In a recent workshop, I was faced with quite a challenge:

• Up to 50 participants who we’d invited to help with the larger project;
• A complex set of questions which the team wanted them to address;
• A desire from the project team to start with a blank sheet of paper, rather than building on existing thinking, which is possibly flawed or at least too narrow.
• A desire for people to be challenged by the diversity of perspectives in the group – which I responded to by building in a carousel process;
• Plus the need to spend some time establishing the group formally and informally, as it is intended to have a life of three more meetings over the next year;
• A facilitation team which included technical specialists with unknown facilitation experience.

Now I’m a slightly risk-averse person who manages my anxiety by making lists.  And (as anyone who has worked with me will tell you) my ‘detailed meeting plans’ can run to 20+ pages.

So my approach was to think through the break-out group processes in a lot of detail, and to provide as much pre-prepared support materials as I could for my trusty support facilitators.  As well as the overall meeting plan, they got a very detailed briefing document, a briefing meeting and a stack of pre-written flip chart sheets with task instructions and blank templates to be filled in.  We also had worksheets to be filled in during conversations around tables.

This reduced my anxiety.

I’m not sure what it did to their blood pressure when they received the briefing documents!

So, I felt 100% prepared for the things I could control in advance.

Once you’ve asked the question, it belongs to the group

With such detailed preparation and planning, it can be tempting to think that the design job is over once the workshop begins.

Of course, that’s not the case.  In a brief conversation with one of facilitators during a switch-over between sessions, we agreed that “people interpret questions in such different ways” and “once you’ve asked the question, it belongs to the group.”

Responding to the emergent conversation

During this workshop, we discovered that the timings I’d anticipated for the carousel tasks were just too short.  A scheduled 30 minute morning break meant that the first carousel session could be extended by up to 10 minutes, without throwing the rest of the programme.  But the second and third sessions required co-ordinated timing among the groups.

As the second session was running, I visited each group briefly to see how they were getting on.  Rich conversations, but taking much longer than I planned for!

Initially I responded by slipping each facilitator a note giving them an extra five minutes.  But it was clear that some more radical process redesign was needed.  Could I really do this to my inexperienced facilitators – ask them to throw away the carefully planned and prepped process and substitute something else, on the fly?

Having considered this for a few minutes (it really helps to have a quiet space and a trusted colleague to talk things through with) I decided that not only could I do this, it was absolutely the best option.  So we rapidly wrote out four sets of staccato briefing notes on sticky notes, and four new ‘instructional’ flip chart sheets.  We delivered these substitute materials each to carousel facilitator, and the workshop was back on track.  We had facilitators who knew what was happening, and we had responded effectively (if not very gracefully) to the emerging and unfolding conversations in the carousel groups.

Some practical things which made this possible:

• A quiet space out of the way of the break-out groups
• Facilitators working in pairs in the carousel groups
• Spare flip chart paper, pens and post-its which weren’t being used in the break-out spaces
• A 60 minute scheduled lunch break, which we could steal 10 minutes from without it being too uncomfortable
• An experienced facilitator as well as the lead facilitator not allocated to a break-out group, to notice what was happening in all of the groups, talk about what we could see, make a decision and implement it fast.

And of course, it wouldn’t have been possible without the positive attitude of the facilitation team who didn’t grumble or complain but stepped up to the challenge brilliantly.

In the debrief at the end of the day, it was generally agreed that changing the process at that point was a good call, and no-one raised the change or how it was done under our traditional ‘what went less well’ heading.  So I’m satisfied that, on that occasion at least, my dance between preparation and responsiveness worked well enough.

…at the AMED Sustainable Development Network Cafe Conversation on 26th January.  Details here.

What do we make of Copenhagen?

Here are some contrasting views, first a commentary on what went wrong, from the BBC’s Richard Black with – as Bruce Nixon says -

“some interesting news of tectonic shifts in the international relations between countries which need time to digest.”

Richard’s analysis?

1. Key Governments do not want a global deal.
2. The US political system.
3. Bad timing.
4. The host Government.
5. The weather.
6. 24-hour news culture.
7. EU politics.
8. Campaigners got their strategies wrong.

Next, something to cheers us up.  Forwarded to me by Dave Sharman, this quote comes from the blog of  Roger Harmer.

“For three days, the mayors and leaders of a hundred major cities discussed the challenges of climate change, their ideas, plans, projects and responses and their shared focus on action and delivery.

At no point did anyone question the need for urgent action or question their own individual – and shared – responsibility and there was a quite remarkable lack of competing, showboating or criticism.

There was no carping about the levels of adopted targets or about who was at what stage – even though Copenhagen plans to be carbon zero by 2025 and Los Angeles daren’t mention what their carbon emissions are likely to be 25 years later!…

This looked and felt like a team!”

Who’s coming?

As well as the people who have RSVPd on the AMED site, we are expecting people who:

• cycled part of the way there raising funds for adaptation projects and delivered pledges from a 350 event in his home town;
• helped set up a sustainable tourism and education project in Nicaragua;
• wrote a book on sustainable business and is currently writing another;
• set up a consulting practice around sustainable development, and whose teenaged daughter went to Copenhagen;

Perhaps you’ll be there too?

What’ll we talk about?

The purpose is to share reflections and perspectives on what the outcomes of Copenhagen were, and what they mean for us and our practice as consultants, facilitators, organisational developers and the various other hats we wear.

I’ll blog about what happened.

If you’d like to be part of this conversation, see here for details.

We have three dates in the diary for this one-day workshop, which I’ve been running since 2005.

The day is very interactive, with everyone sharing a specific sustainability challenge which they are working on, and using various frameworks and exercises to explore and understand the challenge better.

During the workshop, people

• Hear about some theory on organisational change and approaches to change, including a scale of strategic engagement, visioning, identifying key players, choosing a change strategy, identifying barriers to change and planning first steps.
• Apply this to their own organisational sustainability challenge.
• Hear from others in a similar situation, discuss common challenges and discovering sources of further information and support.

As you’d expect, the contents have evolved since I ran the first one.  But the approach is still one of making selected bits of change theory as accessible as possible to people, and giving them time to work on their own particular situation during the workshop. And everyone still gets a free copy of the workbook, so they can carry on making their own notes and using plenty more exercises and frameworks at their own pace.

If you’d like to come along, you can book through IEMA’s website.

London: 28th April 2010

Leeds: 20th July 2010

Newcastle upon Tyne: 12th October 2010

I’ve been mulling over the meaning of  ‘resolution’ as the New Year crept up on me.

Plot resolution

Sometimes, a resolution can be the end of something – like when Poirot gathers everyone together to explain who the murderer is.  The threads are drawn together, the loose ends are tied up.  The plot is resolved and that chapter of the characters’ lives closed.

Perhaps, as Auld Lang Syne is sung, some New Year’s resolutions are to do with leaving family feuds behind as people close the old year neatly.

Resolving dilemmas

In the field of stakeholder engagement – particularly the part of the spectrum I’m happiest in, where the aim is co-enquiry and co-creation, and the approach is closer to dialogue – resolution is often about understanding dilemmas and choices, and finding the win-win.

I’m not sure how this might apply to New Year Resolutions.  I guess there would need to be a lot of exploration and reflection in the autumn and winter months in order for a resolution of this kind to emerge bang on schedule on 31st December.  This kind of self-imposed yet public deadline can help coordinate the efforts of the various people involved – although it doesn’t seem to have been useful at Copenhagen.

Making your mind up

Related to resolving a dilemma is the idea of coming to a conclusion about a choice or decision.  When you resolve to do something, you are consciously committing to a particular course of action.   When Lady Macbeth urges her wavering husband to “screw your courage to the sticking-place” she’s encouraging him to strengthen his resolve and take an action which is irreversible.   The scene ends with Macbeth reassuring her “I am settled”.

This kind of resolution must surely lead to significant and rapid action – delay might ‘unsettle’ the resolution.

Conference, I move

Many years ago, I had the dubious honour of being part of a team organising the formal annual conference of a UK NGO.  Its particular semi-democratic structure meant that every year we had ‘motions to conference’ which, if passed, became ‘resolutions’.  Some people took the standing orders of the conference very seriously, and were helpful in making sure that we stuck to our rules.  Others found the debating and voting process old-fashioned and restrictive, frustrated by the way it turned interesting choices and genuine puzzles into win/lose combats.

These sorts of resolutions bind an organisation – they settle arguments and commit people to action.  Some organisations are very good at wriggling out of the commitments quietly at a later date.  Perhaps the resolution was worded loosely, and is open to interpretation.  Perhaps the process was flawed allowing the resolution to be set aside.  Perhaps the people charged with actioning the resolution have new information which wasn’t available at the time, and feel justified in ignoring it.

These are excuses – if the people implementing the resolution really agreed with it, they wouldn’t find ways of wriggling out of it.  They’d find ways of pushing it through.

This is beginning to sound a bit more like most people’s experiences of New Year’s resolutions : commitments which aren’t really commitments, where even weak excuses are seized on as explanations and justifications for broken promises.

New Year’s resolutions as explicit commitments to change behaviour

I’m working with two different clients on behaviour change at the moment, so I’m particularly interested in the parallels between New Year’s resolutions and other ways of encouraging or supporting changed behaviour.

There’s an important point to notice here:  New Year’s resolutions are, in theory, voluntary.  They are related to a change in behaviour of the person making the commitment.  For both my clients, the behaviour they want to change is other people’s behaviour (staff, contractors, consumers).  This seems to me to be a crucial difference, and one which I’m keen to explore more with them and in my wider practice.

Having acknowledged that, what are the parallels between New Year’s resolutions and behaviour change programmes?

One striking parallel is the relatively low chances of success combined with a kind of complacent optimism!

I notice over and over how people go into behaviour change work as if they believe that making a commitment and announcing it means that it will happen.  Too often, very little effort is put into preparation, planning and prior engagement. The supporting activities, positive feedback and physical resources are missing.  (See here for a posting about the six sources of influence which help catalyse and reinforce new behaviours.)

Fortunately for us all, the appropriately named Prof. Richard Wiseman, psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire, reveals the secrets of keeping your New Year’s resolutions.

Prof. Wiseman’s four top tips are:

1. Break your goal into a series of steps, focusing on creating sub-goals that are concrete, measurable, and time-based.
2. Tell your friends and family about your goals, thus increasing the fear of failure and eliciting support.
3. Regularly remind yourself of the benefits associated with achieving your goals by creating a checklist of how life would be better once you obtain your aim.
4. Expect to revert to your old habits from time to time. Treat any failure as a temporary set-back rather than a reason to give up altogether.

There are six more tips on his blog.

Incidentally, it’s worth noting the two categories of resolution: acheiving a goal (in our case, let’s use the 10:10 campaign goal of  ‘cutting carbon emissions by 10% in 2010′) and changing a behaviour (for example, not eating meat on Mondays).  Paul Maisey’s blog on New Year’s resolutions concentrates on setting well-formed, congruent and authentic goals.

One of the comments on the Prof.’s blog astutely observes:

You have to really want the new behaviour, not just the ultimate outcome.

So it’s crucial to find behaviours which you enjoy (or could come to enjoy) which contribute to meeting the goal.

My resolution

So I’m off to do my dull old exercises which will, in time, allow my knee to recover sufficiently that I can get back on my bike and feel the wind in my hair as I travel fast and carbon-neutral to meetings.

1. SMART – do them five times a week.
2. Tell people – well I’m telling you now.
3. Remind myself of the benefits – hang my cycle helmet on the back of the office door.
4. Treat lapses as temporary set-backs not as a ‘broken’ resolution – I resolve to do this.

And the bonus – how can I want to do the exercises for themselves, as well as wanting the ultimate outcome?  Listen to the radio, award myself a star each day.

And I further resolve to share the Prof.’s research with my clients, when we come to develop approaches to behaviour change.

Happy New Year!

Update

25th Jan – and I’m keeping up with the exercises.  The stars I put in my diary each time I do the stretches are proving motivating.  So far I’m slightly ahead of my goal, which was to do the routine five days out of seven.  And the outcome?  I cycled up to the farmers market on Saturday!