The Flipchart in the Corner of the Room

A Flipchart (all rights reserved)

Suzie Christensen, the CEO at Anglicare Rockhampton (and formerly the CEO at Fitzroy Basin Association), has a great technique for addressing potentially distracting questions or comments.

When someone has a question or comment that does not need to be dealt with immediately, Suzie asks if it can be dealt with later, or suggests that it be dealt with later.  Then she moves to a flipchart placed strategically at the edge of the front of the room.  She writes 'Later' (or 'parking lot') at the top, and then writes some words as a reminder of the point that has been made.  Then she walks away from the flipchart, and continues where she left off.  She may do this a few times during the session.

At the end of the session or at the end of the day, Suzie goes to the flipchart and checks through the listed items (out loud).  Usually most of the items have been covered off (by Suzie or others).  Any that are outstanding are dealt with in one of four ways:

• It is dropped (with the agreement of the person who raised it).
• It is answered if this is possible quickly.
• It is assigned to someone else.
• Suzie makes a commitment to follow it up with a response.

Suzie is able to communicate that she values the person's contribution; without being distracted from what she is doing for more than a few moments.


...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Ask a Question, Then Let Them Answer It

Asking a Question (all rights reserved)

When you ask a question, please wait for it to be answered.

I was listening to a podcast from the ABC' (Australian Broadcasting Commission) Big Ideas series yesterday. Bret Easton Ellis was being interviewed by Simon Marnie at the Byron Bay Writers Festival in 2010.  It was a great interview in which Ellis said a lot about how and why he writes.  The interviewer saved a question for last.  It was a question from his 17 year old son, who had been studying Ellis's American Psycho at high school.  We waited with bated breath for the question to be asked.  The interviewer took questions from other people first, and then posed his son's question.  Ellis said it was the best question of the session, people laughed and applauded, and then the interviewer closed the interview.  He did not let Ellis answer the question, even after it had been identified as the best question of the interview.

I appreciate that the interviewer may have been following the maxim, 'always leave them wanting' (attributed to both Walt Disney and PT Barnum).  But I saw it as a lost opportunity to learn more about this fascinating and complex writer.

You really need to know a bit about Ellis's work to appreciate the question.  The question was, 'Why are you such a sick f--k?'

Some people will think a while before responding.  This may be uncomfortable for you, but assuming your question was valid and useful it is probably not uncomfortable for them.  So be prepared to wait, and then listen with all of your being to the response.

I think this also applies to the sometimes overused technique of asking 'rhetorical questions'.  As a facilitator, I'd rather ask a genuine question and listen to the answer, than pose a question without giving that opportunity.

(The podcast is available here.)

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Finishing, Concluding, Ending, Stopping (3)

In finishing, different types of sessions call for different approaches, such as:

• If you are wrapping up a training session, don't just list the topics that were covered.  Take advantage of the opportunity to reinforce key aspects of what has been learnt.
• If it was a session in which people provided input, let them know what will be done with what you have collected, and about any ongoing involvement they can have.
• If you presented information, give people an opportunity to ask questions.  (Don't scrimp here - a pet hate of my friend and colleague Claire Rodgers at Fitzroy Basin Association is leaving insufficient time for questions that do justice to your topic.)
• If you set homework during the session, remind participants of the homework.
• If people volunteered to do something, remind them of their commitment.
• If there is one really important message in what you have communicated, finish by restating the message.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Finishing, Concluding, Ending, Stopping (2)

Depending on the circumstances, you may tell the participants that the session is finished.  In other cases, it might be appropriate to ask the people in attendance whether it has finished.  The more unstructured the session, the more likely that you could use the latter approach.

Don't be afraid to say that it is finished if people appear to not be willing to let go.  You can do this by stating that anyone who wants to continue discussing the topic of the session is welcome to stick around.  That lets other people know that they can go.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Finishing, Concluding, Ending, Stopping (1)

Concluding a session can be tricky.  Sometimes it is just a matter of recognising that the session is finished.

Ted Scott, a business leader in my community, has been heard to say, "I think that we actually finished a while ago, we just haven't stopped yet." Don't go on and on and on.  Draw discussion to a close.  If people want to keep talking, give them the opportunity to do that while letting others go.

In other cases, you need to draw the session to a logical conclusion.  Don't expect this to just happen.  As the facilitator, you need to bring it to a close.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Do Your Homework

Before a session, have a think about what you need to know.  There are some generic aspects, but mostly what you need to know will be driven by the situation in which you are facilitating.

Some of these questions should be asked during the session.  Others will need to be answered before the session.  Lots of these questions could be asked both before and during the session.

You may not be able to ask some of these questions outright - for example, in some circumstances you should not ask, "How tolerant are the key decision makers of dissenting views?"  This means you need to read between the lines to find out the answer.  The answer will generally be available, but you may need to be creative in your questioning, or simply listen hard to find the answer.

GENERIC ASPECTS

• Why is this session being held?
• How could 'success' be recognised?
• Who is going to attend?
• Why are these people attending?
• What do they want to get out of the session?
• Who are the key decision makers?
• How tolerant are the key decision makers of dissenting views?
• When is the session being held?  Why?
• Will the session start on time?
• Is finishing early or late OK?
• What is the venue?
• What equipment will be available/needed?
• What do I need to bring?
• Is butcher's paper OK?  (This may seem to be a strange question, but I've been caught out on this before.  Some people just seem to have something against butcher's paper.)

Example 1. STRATEGIC PLANNING
All the generic aspects, plus:

• Is this the right time to be doing strategic planning?
• Are the right people able to participate?
• How does the organisation see it's purpose?
• What is the organisation's history?
• Is there a past strategic plan?  Has performance been evaluated?
• Is there a documented Vision, Mission & Values?
• Do these need to be revisited?
• Who are the organisation's key partners and other stakeholders?
• What are the relationships like with key partners and key stakeholders?
• Who are the 'competitors'?
• What pressures are there on the organisation?
• What does the organisation want to achieve?
• How is the organisation funded?

Example 2. TRAINING
All the generic aspects, plus:

• Why training and not some other approach?
• What are the skill and knowledge gaps?
• What are the learning objectives?
• What organisational policies/procedures/practices/systems should be covered?
• What are people's preferred learning styles?
• What is this history of learning approaches?  (What will people expect or reject?)
• Is collated feedback from prior training events with this audience available?
• Is evaluation required?  How strict should it be?

These lists are not exhaustive, but I hope that they provide you some ideas to work with.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

A Series of Questions

Prepared Questions in Facilitator Notes (all rights reserved)

In many cases the work of a facilitator is simply to raise questions.

You may do this so that you can collect, collate and report the responses.  I am currently asking people questions about their organisation's current and future strategy.  I am enjoying this process, as it is about engaging people across the organisation in creating the new strategy.  Many organisations restrict involvement in strategic planning to people in the most senior positions in the organisation.  They do not ask people across the organisation about strategy.

Collecting, collating and reporting responses is a legitimate reason to ask questions, but not the only one. This post includes some more.

You might use questions during an activity to broaden or deepen the perspective that people are taking.  In this case you are 'prompting' people to think in a particular way, or to try something.  It is good to use a question here, as people have greater choice than they do if you give an instruction.  They may choose to reject what you are suggesting, which is not necessarily a bad thing. (Unless of course you have all the answers, in which case, what you are doing may not really be 'facilitation'.)
When an organisation is going through change, questions may be used not so much to get answers, but to encourage people to see the world differently.  I have worked with a number of organisations undergoing substantial change.  Typically these changes involve changing beliefs and attitudes, rather than changing premises or lines of supervision (although these tangible manifestations of change may also be undertaken).

Some More Prepared Questions in Facilitator Notes (all rights reserved)

In communication training much is said about open and closed questions.  However, I am more interested in the various forms that open questions take.  Truly open questions should allow people to give simple and honest answers.  Leading questions encourage people to answer in particular ways.  There are many types of leading questions.  Emotionally laden questions can use levers like guilt to encourage people to answer in particular ways.  These may use family ties, organisational ties or other ties (like patriotism), to manipulate people's thinking and their answers.  When questions point out conflict between 'word and deed', they can cause consternation.

Sometimes many similar questions are used to find out whether people can answer them consistently.  This is used in interrogation as well as facilitation.

You may need to be careful when you use some of the techniques described here.  It is easy to be patronising or to communicate your own prejudices.

Sometimes there is a question that you believe needs to be asked, but you do not know how to ask it without betraying your bias, or just seeming biased.  Maybe it cannot be asked.  Or maybe you should save it until you can see how to ask it without upsetting people.

It is good to prepare some questions (as illustrated by the extracts from my facilitator notes from a couple of actual projects).  However, it is also important to be flexible.  It may be useful to 'depart from the script' to pursue a new line of questioning, or to have a discussion which you had not planned.  It is useful to allow extra time for this, so you do not feel pressured to 'get back on topic', possibly abandoning the new tack and missing out on unexpected insights.

There is a lot of 'gut feel' (intuition) in knowing what to ask.  When you are preparing questions, be open minded and come back to your list a few times before you settle on a particular approach.  And during the session, again be open minded.  Don't be afraid to pursue an only partially related topic, as new insights can come that way.

Yet More Prepared Questions in Facilitator Notes (all rights reserved)

When asking questions, you may choose to name a specific person. You may do this to draw them into the discussion, or to encourage them to share an idea or a perspective that they have previously shared with you.  Use this sparingly, as it seems most useful that way.

Although you might be reluctant to allow it to happen, some people may be quite happy and comfortable observing and listening, but not obviously participating.  I prefer to let this happen, unless I have a very good reason for drawing them into the discussion.  (One important tip here is that you should not assume that silence means hostility.  It can mean many other things, many of which are neutral to your process.)

The order in which you ask questions can be important.  If you are trying to get people to make a commitment, it might be worth finding out their attitudes first; or if you are writing an action plan, you might discuss risks and constraints before you discuss the actual tasks, which helps to ensure the action plan is feasible and achievable.

I love to have a goal.  Alongside the goal of achieving whatever outcome the session is primarily about, one of my facilitation goals is to ask sound and practical questions which elicit responses that the participants did not know they were going to share with me.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au