Have you ever asked for input in a meeting and only gotten the sound of crickets as a response? We’ve all been there, and 1-2-4-All can quickly turn this silence into rapid insights.

Engage everyone without putting anyone on the spot

1-2-4-All is one of 34 Liberating Structures developed to add structure and meaning to everyday conversations. It’s a great way to sift and sort ideas to allow the best — and most novel  — concept to bubble up to the surface. It triggers spontaneous conversations at a time when many meeting attendees typically zip their lips and avoid eye contact. 

The activity is great for groups that are “stuck” having endless conversations without making discernible headway or decisions. It’s also really handy to combat the phenomenon of “follow the leader,” where everyone just nods and goes along with what the leader is saying and writing down. 1-2-4-All prevents a vocal minority from dictating how an organization operates. It seeks to solicit input from everyone involved, no matter how contrary or left-field their ideas are because it’s those ideas that contribute to the diversity of thought so many companies lack.

So how does 1-2-4-All work? It’s pretty simple, actually. Ask each participant to quietly reflect on the opportunity or challenge the group is seeking to explore. For example, “What ideas or actions would you recommend to move forward?” Give them one minute to think about the ideas or actions they’d recommend.

Next, pair two individuals together and allocate a couple of minutes to review their individual ideas. Where are they aligned? Are there a few ideas that both people feel strongly about? 

After the groups of two have had enough time to discuss and align on ideas or solutions, typically about two or so minutes, merge the pairs of two into foursomes and task them to spend four minutes noticing the similarities and differences in their respective ideas. Instruct them to identify the best of the best.

Finally, over a five-minute period, invite everyone into the dialog or simply ask each foursome to present the one idea they feel stood out most in their discussions. In roughly 12 minutes, you’ll get a variety of thinking and lots of lively conversations instead of a bunch of blank stares.

Shifting to virtual

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, conducting a 1-2-4-All exercise was as easy as asking participants to push chairs together and talk. In this new era of video conferencing, facilitating 1-2-4-All is a little trickier, but it’s not impossible.

The idea for the Concentric Consensus templates stemmed from a need we identified when we designed and facilitated an annual kick-off for the Global Partner Solutions group in Australia. 

One of the first activities of the day was called “Empowering You,” an event-wide conversation around the principles by which they wanted to all hold each other accountable. The objective was to define a “team code” that was co-created with all 105 attendees, giving everyone a voice regardless of hierarchy. 

The 1-2-4-All model was an excellent method for arriving at consensus, but with such a large (virtual) group we needed to tweak the interaction model. We designed the 48-node Concentric Conversations template to host a 1-2-4-8-All conversation which utilized MURAL’s voting feature to facilitate our “all” step of the process and select the five top principles. It was a huge success, so we decided to release it to the world for all facilitators to use! 

Because the number of participants ranges per meeting, we also developed templates for smaller groups so you can use them no matter the group size:

8-node Concentric Consensus template

12-node Concentric Consensus template

16-node Concentric Consensus template

24-node Concentric Consensus template

48-node Concentric Consensus template

96-node Concentric Consensus template

5 Tips to ensure you see success using these templates in virtual meetings

1. Utilize breakout rooms

Using Zoom or some other service, create smaller workgroups vs. having everyone in the same chat room throughout the entire exercise. Once everybody has had the chance to think independently, create rooms for pairs, then foursomes and finally the group at large. Randomly assign participants to respected groups.  

2. Mute/unmute participants

To provide emphasis — and reduce distracting background noise — we recommend muting everyone but the person sharing his or her ideas.

3. Turn video on/off

Similarly, we suggest you only allow the individuals/teams who are speaking to appear on camera. This will keep the focus where it needs to be.

4. Set up a chat channel

This can be a good way to facilitate conversation and avoid people from talking over each other when others are presenting. 

5. Capture feedback in a shared workspace

We’re partial to MURAL, so much so we created the Concentric Consensus templates exclusively for the platform. 

FREE DOWNLOAD

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Use this template when a large group needs to create key points for a topic or question and write down those key points to a consensus. This is an adaptation of the Liberating Structures 1-2-4-All for 48 people.

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From too quiet to total consensus

You’ll find using these templates will get everyone generating ideas without it devolving into a free-for-all. The shy in your group will also appreciate an opportunity to express their thoughts without having to do so in the spotlight. In short, our Concentric Consensus templates can create unified virtual teams by allowing them to get a sense of what the collective group thinks. Another advantage of the templates is anyone can go back later and trace through the steps to see how the ideas evolved (just zoom in on the Microsoft graphic to see what we’re talking about). 

The next time you need your team to quickly arrive at a shared understanding, try the Concentric Consensus template to make your meetings more effective. But why stop there? If you’re looking for additional ways to boost productivity in your meetings, you can browse our resource library for advice on how to improve remote collaboration and even download additional MURAL templates.

Want to learn how to ask meeting attendees better questions?

Thoughtful questions are the secret to an engaged audience. For a pocket guide to the questions you should always ask, download the free Facilitator’s Guide To Questions from our resource library.

The post Don’t just ask anyone for ideas. Ask everyone for them. appeared first on Voltage Control.

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Have you ever found yourself in a disagreement or argument where the other person was solely advocating for their opposing position with little regard for your point of view? Not feeling heard is not only frustrating but also makes it nearly impossible to arrive at a solution or consensus. This concept is at the core of what makes for great facilitation. It is more inviting and leads to more effective outcomes to ask questions to better understand individuals’ perspectives than to advocate for a single perspective.

The goal of facilitation is to help the group arrive at a common understanding, develop ideas, and make decisions in support of reaching objectives. If the group does not understand one another, it is not likely that they will arrive anywhere desirable. A facilitator is responsible for leading with questions to guide the group to collective understanding.

Let’s take a look at how to identify and combat positions of advocacy.

Abolish Advocacy

When someone makes a statement about what they want they are advocating for what they want. When someone does this to you, it feels like they want to “win” rather than cooperate. There is little to no opportunity for them to hear let alone accept another point of view. A facilitator can begin to break down this wall by introducing a position of inquiry. Asking questions automatically changes the perspective from describing a solution to seeking shared understanding around needs and possible options. Instead of maintaining a defensive posture, asking questions opens up an inviting space to hear other peoples’ perspectives. In this space, there is no “right” or “wrong”, just discussion. An inquiry approach leads to an amicable solution. You must first understand the person’s position in order to conceive solutions that will support everyone. The only way to do this is to ask questions.

There are 3 factors that contribute to a groups’ defaulting to an advocacy approach instead of an inquiry approach even though it is less effective and less fun. Let’s explore all three.

Siloed Information

Disagreements among a group can come about due to several factors. One is misunderstandings/misinformation. If the group doesn’t have shared information, it’s easy to misunderstand one another or varying perspectives. Lack of information can lead to disagreement because context is simply missing.

For example: Imagine there is a company meeting about whether they should remain remote permanently or return to in-person. Someone pitches the idea of transitioning to a hybrid workplace as a beneficial solution. They say it will increase team members’ productivity and ultimately lead to increased profits. Several others in the group strongly disagree. They advocate for their opposing view, saying that a hybrid workplace is just too complicated to implement. There’s no way it could work, they argue. This meeting has no facilitator to mediate and intervene with questions to shift the dynamic. So the two opposing sides continue to strongly advocate for their stance. Both sides push and push and struggle to make any headway until finally it’s clear there is no hope of reaching a consensual decision. Then the most senior or the most assertive person in the room announces which solution wins. People support the decision begrudgingly, everyone leaves disgruntled, and the project doesn’t go well. 

Now imagine if the same meeting had a facilitator that helped the group understand one another and navigate the decision-making process. The same opposing viewpoints are presented and people are taking a defensive stance to defend their position. The facilitator intervenes and begins to ask questions to both sides, working to better understand each perspective. Using MURAL,  the facilitator creates two sections on a template for the group: one for hybridizing and one for returning to the office. The facilitator asks both sides questions to extract more details about their viewpoints, such as, “Tell me more about that,” and “How would this work?” “Now how is this different?” They document the breakdown in the MURAL sections and the group can see the breakdown of each side, which gives them a clearer understanding.

Through inquiry, the group learns that those with a fear of hybrid oppose the idea because they lack the knowledge of how to successfully transition to a hybrid workplace. Because they don’t know how to do it, they opposed it. Instead of asking more questions about how to transition to hybrid, they just advocated for their idea. Asking questions revealed the missing information that both sides needed to better understand each other, and ultimately reach a solution that was best for the company. The more you know, the more you are able to find common ground.

Opposing Values

A difference in values can also lead to misunderstanding. When people have the same information, but fundamentally disagree due to their values, it can lead to disagreement. You can come to a solution by isolating the key values – understanding the different values for what they are – and then combining the values to create a compromise.

The notion of compromised values is inauthentic and people can’t uphold the accommodation for long before they collapse under the weight. When there is a values clash, all hope is not lost, but it is essential to name it and have a focused conversation to explore those values and why the group is stuck on them. Explore if you’re able to adapt the option to come to a decision or solution that the entire group can support. Or perhaps you realize that the conflict is around a value of someone that doesn’t have to directly support the outcome and maybe they are ok with it after understanding the trade-offs. You can only come to these conclusions when you address them through conversation.

Personal Issues

An unrelated or outside factor can also affect disagreements. This could be someone’s personal experience that affects their decision or perspective on the matter at hand. A disagreement could also be as simple as the people involved not liking each other. To solve these types of disagreements, you have to rise above the problem and solve it from a higher vantage point. The more you can understand the individuals involved, the better prepared you are to gain consensus. People who advocate for their viewpoint due to matters unrelated to the topic being discussed often don’t have a definitive reason for their stance. A common type of response is “It just won’t work.” Asking these people questions like, “Can you help me understand your thinking here? “ and “How might we improve this?” will help you dig deeper and uncover the core issue. Everyone may not agree with each other’s opinions, but a better understanding of where each person is coming from can lead to a space of compromise and agreement about the matter at hand. The more inquisitive you are about the point of view of the audience, the better you are able to help them arrive at solutions.

Facilitator Questions

It’s one thing to know the importance of asking questions, it’s an entirely different matter to know the right questions to ask. When you frame them correctly, questions are an immensely powerful tool to dissolve tension and problems and create impactful solutions. 

That’s why we created the Facilitators Guide to Questions to help facilitators effectively navigate meetings/conversations. It includes questions to facilitate engagement, understanding, alignment, positivity, and more. It’s an excellent resource to refer to and use to spark ideas of ways to lead groups with inquiry, especially in times of disagreement. 

Here are a few examples: 

For when participants are disagreeing

• “What is your understanding of what ___ is saying?”
• “What evidence and reasons are there for…”

For extracting understanding

• “Is that the real issue or are you upset/worried about something else?”
• “It seems as though you had a reaction to that. Can you help me understand why?”

One of the greatest powers a facilitator has is that of posing questions. Simply asking can open minds and lead groups to think differently about one another and the world at large. The more questions you can ask of a group, the more understanding the group will gain. Remember, if you find yourself advocating for a cause, stop, breathe, listen, and ask a good question. You will take yourself out of attack mode and into a space of understanding. That is where creative solutions are born.

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The post Inquiry vs. Advocacy in Facilitation appeared first on Voltage Control.