IN THIS ISSUE:

Current View of Facilitation

Limitations of Traditional Facilitation Models

What Then To Do?

Five Ways To Maximize Facilitation of Any Topic

Dr. Fleming: In the News

The root of the word "facilitation" is facile, which means easy. For many executives committed to promoting innovative thought leadership amongst their team members, wrapping a room of egos around the next steps of challenging steps toward transforming an organization is anything but easy. Appeasing head nods, the flat-affect-smile, sighs, arms being crossed, or even the classic stonewall can all become stereotypical reactions in the Board Room when it is time to step leadership up and build accountability. Making this worse, you have consultants running around telling CEOs what the expert solution is to the organizational issues. As Stolovitch says so well, telling ain’t training, and training ain’t performance. Any OD recommendation needs facilitation for not only minimizing sabotages or gaps in the organizational chains, but to ensure commitment across the board

To learn more about non-traditional facilitation click here

Though organizations are aware that “things need to change around here,” there seems to be only improvements on becoming less ineffective and not maximally effective. It is like taking pride in the fact that you are working out everyday now before stopping at Burger King at lunch. Can we afford to break even in this new age of increased investment in cultural capital? I think not. Current models of facilitation have the following characteristics: bureaucratic agenda, low creativity, appearance of freedom of speech, high structure and staying on track, and underlying politics not addressed. Solutions in this vein are simply better disguised versions of misguided ways.

Tired of meetings where nothing changes? Click here

In a recent dialogue with one of my clients about trying to put forth a whole break from the mold approach of executive facilitation, he knew that better processing of the issues under the radar screen was needed to really transform their leadership to another level. At the end of the conversation I sensed some fear, to which I was appropriately perceptive. For he then said tongue and cheek: Can I outsource my process?

Funny comment. But don't we all try to outsource what we all know we need to do? We must take courage in our hands, throw away the Powerpoints and manuals, and be a-political for the sake of truth. Your people will appreciate you for it.

Check out Dr. Fleming's innovative consulting ideas and strategies

Here are 5 strategies that will make your executive conversations more facile and therefore more driven towards change and not the appearance of such:

1. Radically Change Meetings. This is done by changing conversations, not by reducing meeting time. If I am ineffective in solutions in a one hour meeting, shortening them to 15 minutes if the style of the meeting conversation hasn’t changed format-driven discussions to a more natural expression of human dialogue, I will not get human transformation.

2. Get a culture assessment. In my practice I always start with a culture assessment that gives me a temperature read of how the employees really think of the company. Facilitation amongst executives satisfies some other goals and not true alignment with the pulse of their organization if discussions of where to go are not grounded first by where we are.

3. Seek disconfirmatory evidence. Discussions are naturally flowing towards some external rule-oriented process that set up how we speak. This is necessary in much of communication but not in effective facilitation. From this innate structure of language positioning, we get comfortable as we simultaneously become unaware of unchecked assumptions along the way. Purposely turnover all your findings in facilitation to find the missed surprises and the unknowns.

4. Get 360 Assessments. This one is plain and simple. All it takes is one person ignorant to how they are really coming across to people to throw a huge kink in any facilitation process. 360 Assessments aid in closing the gap between one’s self-perception and others’ perceptions of them. Facilitation needs full-presence, engagement, and awareness of all its people.

5. The External Chair. In my Ph.D. defense at the University of Notre Dame, as well as in many universities, it is common practice to bring in an “external chair” to represent an outside voice, bring in a completely unrelated subject matter into the room, and to make a topic truly interdisciplinary while testing this linking-like knowledge of the candidate. Organizations are systems. Facilitation is freed up and we get outside our own ontological lenses when are discussions are centered around what works---for the common good.

Click herre for more about Dr. Fleming's facilitation services and assessments

Dr. Fleming launches new Blog with great feedback
Check out
http://effectiveexecutivecoaching.blogspot.com/

Dr. Fleming's first article in Executive Decision now out and available! Check out the article at:
http://www.execdecision.com/ArticleDetail/tabid/86/articleId/408/Default.aspx

Dr. Fleming cited as an expert in current issue of Prevention Magazine, on newstands this month!
Check out pages 188-195

Click here for full story.