Beyond the Agenda
A GUIDE TO FACILITATING STRATEGIC DECISION-MAKING
Business boils down to decisions: big ones and small ones, some made routinely and others episodically, by everyone from senior executives to the front line, about what to do and what not to do. Many of those decisions are made by individuals: trained, entrusted, and empowered to decide on behalf of the organizations they represent. Others are made by groups, requiring extensive expertise, dispersed accountability, and widespread buy-in.
On the plus side, group decisions benefit from a multitude of perspectives, a broader experience base and the accompanying likelihood of extended debate and consideration. Cooperative groups tend to make smarter, more creative and more effective decisions. The price to be paid for those benefits is in pace and degree of difficulty. Group decision-making can be cumbersome and unwieldy. Group dynamics can easily veer into unhealthy; competitive groups, for example, make measurably worse decisions. Achieving the full benefits of group decision-making while controlling the costs is what facilitation is all about.
Strategic decisions are frequently group-owned ones, and they are particularly challenging to do well. First, strategic questions are those that we not only don’t know the answers to, we can’t know the answers. Strategy is a set of hard-to-reverse decisions made in the face of uncertainty. We are gazing into the inherently unknown and making choices that we think will position us well as the future unfolds. There are no right answers, only better and worse ones. Secondly, most of us aren’t great strategists, even among the cadre of senior executives most often tasked with strategic decisions. It has nothing to do with our training or intelligence; rather, strategic thinking happens under conditions that are poorly suited to human learning. For the most part, humans learn through trial-and-error: do something, see the results and adjust. The more we repeat, the better we get. Strategy doesn’t play well with that formula. Strategic decisions are infrequent, so we don’t get to practice very often. And, the results of strategic decisions emerge slowly and are frequently confounded by many variables. Our general lack of practice and the uncertainty of strategic decision-making makes facilitation more challenging, but also more critical.
So, the output of great facilitation is easier, more impactful, more effective group decision-making. But, what’s the input?
Meeting Hygiene is Not Facilitation
Running a good meeting is a necessary, but insufficient, input into facilitation. The hallmarks of a good meeting include clear objectives, a logical and focused sequence of topics, a published agenda providing transparency to participants and an authoritative timekeeper to keep everyone on track. Facilitation requires each of these elements, too, but they are not nearly enough. Sometimes, you may even have to break one of them to get where you want to go. Meeting hygiene gets you to a good meeting, but getting to good decisions demands more.
Facilitation Goes Beyond the Agenda
Facilitation requires more because it aims to achieve more. Specifically, a facilitator is:
Figure 1. Facilitation requires strong meeting hygiene and much more.
Managing the energy of the participants. Group decision-making, especially the strategic kind, often requires long sessions, even multi-day ones. This means endurance. Noone can sit in a single chair around a table in a windowless room for eight straight hours and stay on their game. Facilitation acknowledges and works with this.
Avoiding individual and collective biases. One of the biggest flaws of group decision-making is groupthink. We’ve all seen and been a part of groups that get carried away into foolishness. Teenagers aren’t the only ones prone to this; adult groups, especially those lacking in diversity, might be just as susceptible. On top of that, we all bring individual biases along with us that further impede great decisions. Facilitation helps us combat the natural biases that all humans have.
Ensuring healthy interaction dynamics. It can be downright shocking how a collection of smart, well-intentioned people can turn truly dysfunctional when put in a room together. In subtle and overt ways, a facilitator tends to and corrects for interpersonal dynamics.
Balancing the cycle of explore-and-synthesize. If an answer is straightforward, it probably doesn’t require group input. In the muddy, complex, uncertain decisions typically tasked to groups, we must explore widely, turn over a bunch of rocks, even some that might at first blush seem foolish. To reach a decision, we also must coalesce, narrow and filter. A facilitator helps a group navigate this tension.
Building alignment. If the group’s decision was the end of the line, building alignment wouldn’t be important. But decisions, especially strategic ones, are just the beginning. To have impact, those decisions require people, starting with the ones in the room, to go do something. So, facilitation isn’t just about deciding, but building the widespread belief, the buy-in, the conviction that generates action.
Guidelines for Aspiring Facilitators
Facilitation has lofty goals. How do we get it done? There isn’t a single recipe or how-to manual. It’s a skill born of practice and experience. Here are some tips I can offer after nearly two decades of facilitating group discussions.
Figure 2. Tips for honing your facilitation skills
Let go of the notion that you can participate and facilitate. As we’ve seen, facilitators are trying to accomplish a lot. It is not reasonable that you will also be able to function as an equal, active participant. Additionally, some of what a facilitator is trying to achieve, particularly in managing interaction dynamics, requires a perception of neutrality. Note: this doesn’t mean facilitators must be completely blank slates (more on that later).
Add variety. Work as a full group, in breakouts, as pairs. Mix sitting and standing activities. Get up and draw, use your hands (facilitators love legos and building blocks for a reason). Variety is critical in managing energy through a long discussion, but that is not its only relevance. Variety helps us steer interaction dynamics by creating different groupings, wisely choosing pairings. It challenges our biases by making us think differently because we’re behaving differently.
Plan, but flex. Here is where facilitation sometimes needs to break the rules of good meeting hygiene. You’ve defined your objectives, designed the session, published an agenda, but it’s just not working. Throw it out the window. Listen to the group, make the adjustments. Spend more time where you need it. Tackle the topics that are preventing progress, even if it means stepping backwards before you can move forward.
Prioritize discussion over presentation. We’re used to meetings happening with slides and speakers. Avoid that. Shun screens altogether; use handouts instead. Distribute prereads and set the expectation that they are consumed in advance. Protect the space for interaction, engagement and debate. Facts and analysis have a role; they are for reference and keeping us grounded in reality. But, the point of facilitation is discussion, not absorption of information.
Break down conversations into small steps. This can be a critical component of avoiding biases and creating healthy interactions. It’s about agreeing to concepts, to logic, to decision criteria before we apply them. For example, you’ve probably been part of sessions where ground rules are defined up front. It can seem a little goofy or childish, but it often helps us anticipate where challenges might arise, make mutual commitments, and hold ourselves and each other accountable as we proceed. The same concept – of defining how we will behave or how we will decide before we do it – works well for difficult decisions, too. Agree on what a good M&A target looks like before discussing specific candidates. Align on the measurable objectives of product launch before debating alternative approaches. It keeps us honest.
Employ debiasing techniques. In addition to the benefits of variety and setting decision criteria, there are a range of techniques that specifically target our biases. For example, use devil’s advocate or red vs. blue team to deliberately challenge an emerging decision. Premortems help us find hidden risks by imagining ourselves into a future where our decision has failed. Voting can be used to take a group’s temperature before people are swayed by the early and loudest voices.
Control the pen. I mentioned earlier that not participating doesn’t mean you can’t put your thumb on the scale. There is tremendous power in holding the pen. Choose what you write down and what you subtly omit. Restate what is said to add your own twist to it. Use your instincts, your expertise, and your pattern recognition to help steer teams to what they need to be debating.
Facilitation: An Underrated Skill
As I have shaped my independent consulting practice, I have come to believe that facilitating exceptional group decision-making is the highest, most concentrated source of value I can provide my clients. It’s a critical competency demanded by all organizations – of all sizes, in all industries and geographies, from top teams to the frontline. Wherever there is a group making a decision, the skill of facilitation is relevant, whether it sits with a third-party or in-house. Quality facilitation means better decisions, more buy-in and an engaged team. Develop your facilitation skills and watch the benefits accrue.
