Facilitation

The art of un-interjecting

How do you know who the most powerful and influential person is in a discussion? I would love to know what people's instinctual answer is to this. What are the key factors? What are the signals? What are the indications?

A common myth is the person talking the most. And, in many cases this is true. But, does it spur engagement or commitment or devotion to a topic at hand? Does it help a group of two or more people come up with quality solutions, agreements, and decisions? When it comes to the workplace I argue the opposite is true.

I believe a key technical skill of leadership is facilitation which sits under the bracket of Leadership Execution (ie. what leaders need to execute on a daily basis) in the Rhythm Effect framework. Facilitation is the act of creating a platform for solutions. In my world we use human design principles of all sorts meaning lots of post-it notes, butchers paper, and exercises. But, facilitation does not always need to look like this. In fact, it can take place in any everyday conversation. The skills and methodology can be applied to teaching, training, directing, instructing, coaching, and even entertaining (all things leaders and sales people do in most interactions). 

How do we know we are doing this well? If everyone in the conversation (including yourself) are completely present and stimulated by the conversation we're in a good place. These are signals of what we call 'engagement'. Lots of eye contact, open body language, people mirroring each other and using each other's language... but more importantly you all feel together and 'in the moment' with each other.

After leading hundreds of facilitation sessions I have come to understand when I am facilitating well and not so well. I used to think I had to tell wonderful stories, dominate the room with my presence, and give give give. I thought I had to have all the answers and squeeze as much content into a session as possible (a trap I still fall into from time to time). It makes sense that more content equals more value. But the opposite is true.

In fact, I now understand the less I am talking the better I am doing. This is the same for a leader. When a manager leads a meeting with their team do you think the meeting would be better if they talk 100% of the time or if they talk 50% of the time and the team talks for the other half? Lets face it, who wants to be talked at for an hour? Instead leading as a facilitator means controlling the platform of the conversation rather than the content of the conversation. You are guiding the conversation towards a distinct and purposeful outcome. And to do so well, we need to fight our instinct to interject and give answers at every possible moment.

Full disclosure - I find this tremendously difficult. But after years of deliberate practice I am improving, getting better outcomes for my clients (and team), and therefore providing more value. I am also seeing this in my leadership clients and their work. Facilitating collaboration and problem solving is such an important part of leadership execution (and most of our professional roles!) A good starting point to improving on this front is to consciously halt oneself from interjecting, and instead do what I like to call un-interjecting!

The space this creates for others to step into is priceless.