Meeting Facilitation: When Less is More
One of the great lessons I have learned as a facilitator is that the less I do in the room, the better a meeting goes. Seems odd, right? But when my partner, Tom Kornbluh, and I teach our seminar “Standing in the Eye of the Storm,” we ask our participants what their greatest fear is [...]
Conversation Management Techniques
As a meeting manager one of your key jobs is to keep the group on track. If you have been tracking the conversation, including the topics and where the group is in the PowerfulWork conversation model (see my earlier blog post), you can use any of the following tools to reorient a group that appears [...]
Changing How We See Things Changes the World
A client of mine called me recently asking me about how to fire someone. I asked him to tell me why he felt this person was not doing her job. He went on at length about all the things she had done wrong. After a time, I asked, “What does she do well?’ His answer [...]
Strategic Planning or Strategic Choking?
Scene One: I am called in to meet with a board of directors. They would like me to facilitate a strategic planning process for them. This will be my fourth strategic planning engagement with this organization, spanning almost 20 years. The board members are peppering me with the usual questions: How much will it cost? [...]