Get Group Agreement Fast
Collective intelligence has been called the process of enhancing the group IQ and, as such, it is an extremely attractive proposition for managers and leaders. But how do you mine this intelligence? In principle we know that we can achieve more when we work together with others - but in practice how can we make it happen?
…the process of how something is done can often get in the way of the task itself…
The answer to this conundrum lies in facilitation - and, more specifically, in the way that facilitators can help people reach consensus. Let me explain.
Facilitation has become necessary in today’s business world because it is understood that the process of how something gets done can often get in the way of the task itself. Looked at in another way, while the individuals within a group or team may be extremely talented and motivated this doesn’t mean that they know how to work together effectively.
Facilitators are trained to work with this dynamic - ensuring that issues such as relationships, beliefs and values are included as an essential part of the team’s ability to perform.
As a simple example of the need for such facilitation we only need to look at the scenario of a conflict within a team. We’ve all surely been in situations where simmering resentment or frustration has undermined a team’s efforts - but how many managers know how to address such a situation constructively? Conflicts don’t just go away. Indeed when they are left unresolved tensions often fester and impact negatively on people and projects. The facilitator who is aware of these dynamics can bring them to the surface and resolve them.
…you have to be able to respond to whatever is going on, in the moment, with the people in the room…
RapidConsensus™
So what exactly do you do as a facilitator?
Facilitation depends on the context. There is no set script. You have to be able to respond to whatever is going on, in the moment, with the people in the room. However, if you are a manager and you want to get the best out of your team so that everyone is contributing, then you will need to develop the following range of essential skills:
1. You will need to develop great listening skills … listening for everything that is said and not said; listening for intent, for commitment, for purpose.
2. You will need to learn how to speak powerfully, timing your remarks so that they encourage, support, challenge or inspire people.
3. You will need to know how to ask penetrative questions that open up discussions or shine a light on issues where people are stuck.
4. You will need to be able to challenge people either directly or through feedback.
5. You will need to be able to value people so that they feel acknowledged and encouraged to speak out.
6. You will need to be a great observer, watching everything that is happening and bringing what is important to the attention of the group.
7. You will need to be able to contain people. This means holding the boundaries for the group and keeping the team on track.
By using such skills as these you can facilitate teams and groups to deal with the invisible factors that
often bedevil projects. But facilitation can be much more specific than this and a new approach for facilitators has been developed that focuses on how to get people to collaborate and reach consensus fast.
This is especially relevant because decision-making can often be a slow process and, sometimes, the decisions made don’t make much sense to those who have to implement them. This is very frustrating for everyone concerned. So RapidConsensus™ was developed to help people in teams make good decisions, own those decisions and take action based on those decisions in order to accelerate projects.
…identify the future that they want to create…
The key principles behind the model are straightforward. It helps people to understand exactly where they are now and where they want to be. Following that, it gets the whole team to consider what their options are and to identify what actions they need to take to get there. But its real strength lies in getting people to actually work through each of the stages together. When a team does this, instead of hurrying through the decision making process, they get everyone involved and mine their intelligence.
As for the end result - the outcome is people who own what they have helped to create. And this is completely different from traditional styles of management where decisions are typically imposed or communication is one way.
So how does RapidConsensus™ ensure people’s engagement? One method used derives from the facilitator helping the group or team to identify the future that they want to create. What this means in practice is getting people to articulate as powerfully as possible where they want to be. This is important because there are many more creative possibilities in the future than there are in the present. To paraphrase Einstein: ‘You cannot solve problems with the same level of thinking that got you here.’
…you cannot solve problems with the same level of thinking that got you here…
And another technique used is to split the team up into sub-groups and have them all consider the same issue concurrently. Simple methods like this ensure that everyone has the opportunity to contribute.
The approach doesn’t take long but it does require exceptional facilitation.
During this process the facilitator must listen to everything and defend nothing. They must remain neutral and feedback what everyone has said to the whole group. People come into the room from many different viewing platforms, for example production, marketing, sales, maintenance, administration … all see the world and the problems within it through their own lens. However, it is the combination of all these perspectives which can provide the foundation for agreement.
…the first intuitive response is, most times, much better than a long drawn out analytic thinking process…
Speed and quality
I also suggest that the speed of this process contributes directly to the quality of the team’s decisions.
People have different speeds of thinking and interacting; yet we all have a rapid cognition capability that works best under time pressure. The first intuitive response is, most times, much better than a long drawn out analytical thinking process. As the room becomes a safe place to explore ideas the ability of people to process complex information and make decisions also speeds up. Well-facilitated groups surprise themselves with the speed with which they can collectively process information and make decisions. And experience has shown us that the quality of these decisions is high as continued progress and breakthroughs are made after the workshop.
In essence the promise of RapidConsensus™ is that it helps address one of those seemingly intractable business issues - namely how to make good, fast decisions which the whole team can get behind. And it does this by getting everyone to start together and talk together in the same room. As economic guru John Kay said: “Despite the internationalisation of markets, despite air travel, despite information technology, there are still things done best by people who find themselves in the same room”.
Tags: Facilitation Skills, Group Working Challenges, RapidConsensus™ (Training)