You’ve likely heard of differentiated learning in the classroom – the idea that individuals have different ways of learning (visual, aural, verbal, etc.) and therefore require diverse avenues of learning; one size does not fit all. This people-centered approach is also applicable to the workplace. Individuals have different working styles and needs. Therefore, they work best in certain environments and not as well in others.

Differentiation in the workplace requires you to first understand the individual needs and learning styles of your team members. To understand this is to truly understand how to work effectively with people. When you acknowledge your team members’ individual work styles, you are able to meet them where they are and provide them with what they need to thrive. 

Let’s explore what differentiated working looks like in day-to-day work, meetings, and workshops. 

Differentiation in the Workplace

Everyone on your team has their own version of working best. There are many factors that contribute to this including personality (introverted or extroverted), workstyle (optimal time of day to work, preference to work alone or collaborating with others, etc.), and learning style (learning by observing, doing, hearing, etc.). As a result, employees can suffer if they are confined to fit a certain work model that does not coincide with their needs and preferences.

For example, say you are holding an employee training for a new process being implemented. The training is a presentation-style meeting where the leader takes the team through the new process with a visual flowchart. Those who are visual learners will likely follow along well and retain the information. However, a psychical or hands-on learner may need to practice the process themselves in order to understand. If you do not account for the different learning styles in your team, you risk some employees misunderstanding or falling behind. 

No Team Member Left Behind

A team is only as strong as each individual in it. Get to know your team members learning and work styles so you can best support them. Maybe that’s sending out a questionnaire with questions and prompts to get to know each person’s learning style. Or hold one-on-ones to ask each person if they are getting what they need and if not how they can feel supported. You can use this information to categorize how team members work best and provide them with what they need when they need it. Once you have a good understanding of what everyone needs, you can adjust meetings accordingly to keep everyone on the same page.

For example, (using the previous new process team training scenario) you could offer hands-on training to identified physical learners and an informative video to visual learners. This way, each person not only receives what they need, but they also avoid wasting time engaging in a less effective method of training. 

Differentiated Meetings

Differentiated learning styles can cause some people to show up differently than their co-workers in meetings and workshops. If they are out of sync with the rest of the group, the entire group will end up suffering. For example, picture a group work session where an individual is not quite grasping the concept being discussed. If a facilitator fails to notice this disconnect and continues with the meeting anyway, the person will fall behind and become further disengaged. You then lose the crucial brain power and contribution of that person–and you need it! 

Supporting team members in meetings starts with the setup. Make sure that everyone is versed in the tools you’re using and is briefed on the topic before the meeting beings so there are no misunderstandings or gaps of knowledge. What this looks like: send an agenda beforehand that outlines the tools everyone will need to participate and the topics that will be discussed. Include a “how-to” video or written instructions to educate people on how to use the tool(s). If people need additional support, offer training. Also, assign any prep work necessary for everyone to be primed to participate. You want everyone on the same page once the meeting begins so you can get the most out of your time together. 

Once the meeting has begun, read the room and take note of where team members are at in the meeting. Does someone appear to be lost or disengaged? How can you adjust to bring them up to speed? Sometimes this looks like taking the person aside to answer questions or provide necessary context. Other times it requires adjusting for learning styles: some people may need time to process their thoughts internally before contributing their ideas to the group, while others thrive when spitballing their ideas out loud. Get to know your team and give them what they need to succeed, or find the best facilitator in your team.

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Continuous Learning

Differentiation in the workplace is fluctuating, so stay open to change and making adjustments as needed. People and connection are at the center of any great business. Keep them a priority by maintaining an open dialogue with your team about what they need. Some team members may grow in and out of certain work styles (think: remote vs. in-person work), or you could hire someone who has a different work style than you’re accustomed to. Adapt accordingly. 

You must also consider offering different versions of trainings and team work sessions as needed in order to really cater to individuals’ needs. Again, forcing people to conform to one certain style or way of doing things can stifle their performance. When we consider differentiated learning with our teams, we can maximize individual growth and performance. The stronger the individual the more effective the team is as a whole.

To learn how to facilitate the room with grace & ease check out our Professional Facilitation Workshop on July 13 + 14 here.

The post Differentiated Working appeared first on Voltage Control.

How many work meetings do we fondly remember?

This was a thought I had after attending yet another meeting that felt pointless. An hour went by, some people were there in person but not really there (they were on their phones), we weren’t sure who was facilitating the meeting, and the agenda was loose. We didn’t get any work done.

These memes do a great job of explaining how I felt:

I think it is safe to say that most work meetings are like this. If you are lucky, your meeting has a clear agenda and involves a small group of participants who aren’t distracted. If you are really fortunate, the meeting has an excellent facilitator who keeps everyone in the room enthusiastic, and you all focus on getting work done in the meeting.

But let’s be real here, a lot of the meetings we attend are pointless. How common is this problem? Ready to have your mind blown?

Pointless meetings will cost companies $541B in 2019.

$541B…What!? When I first looked at these numbers, I just about spit out my coffee. I read into the report put together by Doodle, and it was clear that the magnitude of the problem was real. I haven’t been looking at meetings the same.

I have been pondering on how the cost of terrible meetings could accumulate to such an enormous amount. On a recent walk, I thought through some basic math on how the cost of a useless 1-hour meeting can add up so quickly.

We might think of a 1-hour meeting as a 1-hour cost to our company, but that isn’t true unless there is only 1 person there, which doesn’t make it a meeting.

If it is an 8-person meeting, it is really an 8-hour meeting because it is using up an hour of each person’s quality attention. If it is a pointless meeting without a facilitator helping everyone get work done, that is 8-hours of quality work taken from the organization. One pointless meeting can add up to an entire workday wasted.

Considering the cost of just a single 8 person, 1-hour meeting, it is no longer a shock to me that ~24 billion hours will be lost to pointless meetings in the next year. We all have felt the pain of a meeting where no quality work was accomplished. I was intrigued that the Doodle report discovered that 100% of the report’s participants (a combination of 6,528 professionals and analysis of over 19 million meeting responses) described poorly organized meetings as a waste of time or money.

So what is the solution to a poorly organized meeting that ends up feeling pointless?

A facilitator who knows how to conduct room intelligence.

The business meetings that I still feel fond of involved a facilitator who helped us all get work done in the meeting. We didn’t feel like we had our time stolen from us, but that we had jumped ahead on our progress. A facilitator who has the skills to control a room is essential for a meeting to be progressive rather than painful.

I feel one of the few good reasons to hold a meeting is that the collective intelligence in a room is stronger than one participant. No single person is smarter or more creative than the whole room, and this is why we have meetings. We want to gather to harness that collective intelligence and get work done. But another gathering without a facilitator will likely end up feeling pointless.

A great meeting facilitator conducts a room of specialists just like a conductor holds a symphony together. They both control the room. A meeting without a facilitator is like a symphony without a conductor.

A facilitator who conducts a room well is competent at:

• Protecting the room from distractions
• Guiding everyone through a clear and timely set of discussions and activities
• Controlling the room by conducting everyone around the same focal point
• Creating an even playing field so that they can extract the wisdom from all participants, regardless of personality type
• Holding space for people to feel psychologically safe as participants
• Using an array of exercises that keep everyone engaged and entertained
• Ensures the meeting ends with accomplishment and limited ambiguity

To help rid us of shitty meetings that waste our time, we need better facilitators.

A meeting without a facilitator is like a symphony without a conductor.

Our ability to facilitate meetings, both virtual and in-person, is a vital skill for the dynamic, decentralized, autonomous work we all participate in today. Can we imagine if we start doing quality work in the meetings? Can we imagine looking forward to a meeting because we feel assured there is a facilitator who will help foster room intelligence to get alignment, direction, and progress on the project our team is enthusiastic about?

Paul Axtell, author of Meetings Matter shares that,

“Any collective that masters the art of leading (and participating in) effective meetings will see an array of tangible benefits in completing projects to time and budget, achieving their specific strategic aims, and doing all of this with less human resource — which are all directly related to successful communication..”

The companies and people who become facilitators of effective meetings will thrive and preserve positive work cultures.

As a facilitator myself, I have been successful in using several methods and principles to control a room and run more effective meetings.

• I use the “Note and Vote” from Design Sprints to prevent groupthink.
• I deploy Liberating Structures for helping a team make entertaining, collaborative decisions. They enable tiny shifts in the way we meet, plan, decide and relate to one another.
• I lead with a “Do the work in the meeting, not after” viewpoint
• I follow the “No Prototype No Meeting” philosophy from Dennis Boyle.
• On calendar invites, I replace the word “meeting” with titles like “prototype review”, “make [something you need to make] session”, or “pivot or persevere decision”. The reason is to prevent us from just having a meeting where we semi-update each other and instead come to the meeting with something to review, make, or decide on — which in theory should lead to less “meetings.

I am constantly learning and trying out new methods for running effective meetings because I want to be a great facilitator. A great facilitator helps prevent a meeting from procreating — one meeting leading to another meeting leading to yet another meeting. A great facilitator extracts room intelligence and makes the most of the group in the room.

A great facilitator helps prevent a meeting from procreating.

There isn’t one way to control a room and run an effective meeting. In fact, there are hundreds of proven methods and frameworks that any leader can benefit from.

I realized that I am not alone in wanting to save us from yet another pointless meeting. It is why we started Control The Room. Control The Room is a Facilitator Summit with the goal of bringing together facilitators of all kinds to build rapport, learn, and grow together. An intimate gathering for people to actively upgrade their facilitation skills so they can get quality work done in their meetings.

I will be there sharing facilitation skills and learning from other facilitators so that we can all help reduce the enormous cost associated with ineffective meetings. I hope you will attend and take your learnings back to your meetings.

The post Conducting Room Intelligence appeared first on Voltage Control.

I was with my dad and my cousins at a shopping mall in Odessa, Texas when we walked past a man dressed in all black with black painted fingernails, black lipstick and black eyeshadow. He had chains dangling from his pants and spikes fastened around his neck and stuck through his ears.

He looked intently at the space directly in front of him and manipulated his hands around a floating cigarette. He’d twitch his fingers slightly and it would move back and forth. Finally, he willed it to float toward his mouth where he then lit it, produced a quarter from thin air and stuck the burning cigarette through the middle of the coin, let it be examined, then removed the cigarette and repaired the hole in the coin.

After a quiet moment, my father grabbed my shoulders and said, “I don’t feel right about this — let’s go,” and he ushered me and my cousins away from the evil man saying something under his breath about the devil.

Years after saving me and my cousins from the angel of death, my father returned from a business trip in Las Vegas where he had seen the same trick performed. He went to a magic shop to buy the apparatus for me — relieved witchcraft, at least in west Texas, was merely an illusion.

After understanding how the trick was done, I was embarrassed I wasn’t able to figure out the gimmick before. Then something very sad happened. The second I understood how to create the same effect I saw in the shopping mall years earlier, I became less interested in magic. I almost felt foolish for being so enamored in the first place.

Of course there’s an explanation for that trick, my adolescent brain told me — there’s an explanation for everything.

I was in the beginning stages of realizing adults find more identity in doubt than in believing.

This is what happens to us when we get older. When we experience a moment of awe or wonder, the cruel world increasingly points out how foolish we are to believe in the magic of a moment. Of course there’s an explanation!

We get burned, so we condition ourselves to expect moments in which we might look foolish and avoid them at all costs. Better to never have played the game, bought into the vision, or widened our eyes at something beautiful or mysterious — because adults don’t let their guard down.

To be smart means to be cautions. To be effective means to be efficient — and magic, beauty, awe and wonder are not efficient.

This isn’t just about magic tricks, it’s about how we live our lives and do our work. Think about it — we once trusted more easily. We once danced more readily. We once experienced joy without caution. We once believed in the magic of interactions, belonging and trust in ways we’ve conditioned ourselves to now repress.

This has broader context for the way we run businesses. Think about it. Any moment people are gathered together in a room presents an opportunity for magic to occur – but most leaders and organizations blow this opportunity on a daily basis.

But even though we’re grown up and wounded now, we still want to believe in magic.

We still long for the feeling we felt when we were completely present, excited with anticipation, and a part of some larger awe-inspiring experience.

Don’t the feelings listed above sound like a healthy, award-winning organizational culture? Don’t you want to belong to a team where individuals are present and invested in the potential of each moment, excited for the possibilities in front of them, and totally bought-in to a grander vision?

Yes, that’s what we all want. And don’t be shy about calling it magical.

And here’s the beautiful and most important thing about magic — it has no effect in isolation.

Magic happens most powerfully when experienced with others; the gift of magic is the bond of experiencing awe together.

If my fledgling career as a teenage illusionist taught me anything, it’s this: Magic exists beyond the belief that something is real or not, and past the understanding of how something works.

Magic is about surrender to the moment — a willingness to be fully present and participate without the fear your belief in a grander vision will be undermined.

When we believe in magic, we risk looking like fools for having hope, but we’re OK with the consequences.

When people experience magic on teams it looks like this:

• A willingness to suspend disbelief in a process and jump in the ring and play
• Excitement about the idea of uncovering things yet unseen together
• Bravery — the ability to smile and laugh and risk looking foolish
• Trust that their team members have their best interest at heart

If we want to create magical moments in our organizations it begins with developing a sense of safety, trust and belonging.

So how does one begin to infuse more meaning and magic into meetings and interactions? Return to the wonder and awe we once danced with, but have since written off because it’s too childish.

Try this:

• Start meetings with gratitude — ask people what’s going well in their lives
• Put toys on the table for people to play with during meetings
• Ask someone to start each meeting with a joke or a story
• Speaking of more stories — have a storytelling hour each week where a team member tells everyone a story about themselves no one would have ever known
• Bring in an actual magician — seriously
• Do improv exercises to loosen up your team
• Cook together as a team once a week

What else has worked for your team?

Believing in magic as adults is simply a return to a place of innocence where we believe anything might be possible, and we’re not afraid of our imaginations.

We’re not talking about disappearing the Statue of Liberty — we’re talking forging human connection. If we can learn to believe in the magic hidden in the real moments of office conversations, our teams can accomplish something truly magical together.

Looking for a partner in Facilitation?

Voltage Control facilitates design thinking workshops, innovation sessions, and Design Sprints. Please reach out at info@voltagecontrol.com for a consultation.

The post We Still Want to Believe in Magic appeared first on Voltage Control.

I am working with a team of executives who have gotten themselves into a bad spot. Each has become entrenched in the notion that their teammates aren’t trustworthy.

Their feelings about each other have already spread to the layers below and the CEO has now heard multiple examples of uncooperative behavior across teams.

I’ve been brought in to help them get to the other side of the conflict before it does any more damage.

My first meeting was only a couple of hours — not much time to get to the heart of dysfunction they said had existed for at least three or four years. But I had exactly the right exercise. It worked so well that I wanted to share it with you.

Here’s how to use this exercise to maximum effect:

Team Members: If you are a member of a dysfunctional team, read ONLY to the end of step 2 and then complete the exercise to that point before reading any further.

Team Leaders: As with team members, read ONLY to the end of step 2. Complete the exercise yourself and then continue reading. Only after you’ve done the exercise yourself should you try it with your team.

Coaches and OD Consultants: There will be so many opportunities for you to use this exercise with your clients…have at it!

The Exercise

This is a great exercise because it requires no special equipment, just a pen and paper. (Although, as I learned at a session in Silicon Valley recently, that a pen and paper might be special equipment in your organization. If so, bring supplies!). It’s also great because it takes only about ten minutes. Here are the instructions.

1. “On your sheet of paper, please describe the events that have led to the current problem. What has gone wrong to get you into the predicament you’re in today?”

Give them five minutes to capture their ideas. Flex on the time if at five minutes, everyone is still feverishly writing.

2. “Write down what it would take to fix the problem. What would have to change for things to get noticeably better?”

Again, don’t be too rigid in the timing. If they’re still pouring their hearts out, let them go. When they’re finished writing, you can reveal the next step.

[Spoiler Alert: don’t read on until you’ve completed steps 1 and 2!]

3. “Now, review what you wrote. Look for one thing in particular: In your first paragraph, circle anytime you used the word ‘you,’ or ‘they,’ or specifically called out someone’s name other than your own. Does your name show up? If so, in what way? Are you explaining to yourself how your actions got you into the present situation or are you describing what other people did to you? On balance would you say this is a story about how they created the problem or about how you did?”

I don’t have people read their statements out loud, mostly because they are so rife with blame that they could send the whole delicate situation off a cliff for good. The message hits home without them having to share.

4. “What about your second paragraphs; who did you talk about there? Are you focused on what you have to do differently to get a different outcome or does the second paragraph focus on how other people’s behavior needs to change to rectify the situation?”

By this point, folks are usually feeling a little warm under the collar. The majority will have filled both paragraphs with all the things their colleagues did to create the problem and all the ways everyone else needs to change before anything will improve.

From those two pieces of information, you, and more importantly, they, can identify what role they are playing in the story they are telling themselves about the dysfunction. That matters — a lot! Humans are storytellers and if the team members in front of you each have themselves as the victim of the story, the plot line will be a tragedy.

It seems incumbent on me to now cram the complexity of these perspectives into the mandatory 2×2 grid. Oh well, why not!?!

(It’s up to you whether or not you share this assessment with the team. I don’t. I simply use it to describe the different options we have for how we approach team dysfunction.)

The Victims

By far, the most common result of this exercise will be that you find yourself in front of a room full of people who are the victims in their own stories. I write frequently about victims because I find them the most tragic people on dysfunctional teams. Once someone has convinced themselves that the whole ugly mess is being done to them, rather than by them, it can be incredibly difficult to get them back contributing. If you stay in a victim role for too long, you become more of a burden to the team than any other character. It is the people who play victim who often need to leave a team to restore it to health.

The Villains

There’s not much chance that you’re going to find someone who is willing to admit that they created the problem, but that they are helpless to fix it. If you do, they are likely struggling with self-esteem issues and will need you to follow-up on the team session with a one-on-one conversation in a safer, more private space. Don’t worry, in all the times I’ve done this exercise, I’ve never seen anyone willing to admit that they contributed to the problem but have no way of contributing to a solution. (Remember, we’re talking about behavioral issues here. There are plenty of times people really have created technical messes that they can’t solve.)

The Scapegoats

You might get a few self-proclaimed heroes in the room who see no way in which they contributed to the problem but are more than happy to swoop in to try to fix it. Although that seems ok at first, it’s a recipe for growing resentment, so even the scapegoats will need to see some way in which they contributed to the situation.

The Leads

I hope for you that you find someone in the room that took the leading role in their own story of the dysfunction. These are rare and valuable people who, when prompted, can see and admit that they played a role in getting into the unhealthy situation and that they need to play a role in getting out of it. In my session last week, I had one, and his willingness to start most of his sentences with “I” really changed the tenor of the room for the better.

Ok, so by now you see that we’re trying to get people up to that top right box (aah, the blessed promised land of the top right box). That’s where the exercise goes next.

You have choices here. If you have another 10 minutes, you can have them write their new paragraphs right then and there. If not, you can assign them as homework or convene another meeting where you’ll move to part 2. Here are the instructions for the second section.

5. “Let’s start again. This time rewrite the story of what got you here with the majority of the sentences containing “I” or at the very least, “we.” Reflect on how your behavior contributed to the current situation, even if it was only by witnessing dysfunction and not intervening.”

Some might still struggle with this. If they do, take a look at their first version and see where they might have played a part that they aren’t aware of. Ask questions to draw out the storyline. “What did you do when she said this,” is a favorite of mine because so often, the person contributed to the problem by building up hostility and resentment without saying anything. The most common answer I get to, “What did you do when she said this,” is “nothing.” If they say “nothing,” prompt with, “How did saying nothing contribute to the situation you’re in now?”

Finally, you can move toward action.

6. “The last and most important part of the exercise. Rewrite your second paragraph focused on what you can do to improve the dynamics of the team and to resolve the present issues.”

To their credit, most people get this one. Many of the actions are related to their mindset, such as, “I can give Lou the benefit of the doubt.” Interestingly, sometimes that’s all it takes. So much of the conflict has been manufactured within people’s heads that simply shifting the narrative ends the conflict.

In other cases, you’ll need to prompt them to take action. With the team last week, there were examples of how the animosity among the leaders was affecting how their teams interacted, so they each committed to speaking with their teams to reset on the expectations about collaboration.

Ok, that was a bit of a long one, but this is such as simple exercise with such profound results. I am keen to hear what insights you get from using it. Share your responses in the comments.

My new book, The Good Fight is full of management exercises like this one that will help you get out of an unhealthy conflict cycle and start using productive conflict to make your team better. You can download a couple of sample chapters here. If you have read it, the most helpful thing you can do is to post a review. Would you do a girl a favor and write one? Thanks so much.

Further Reading

How to recover when you feel wronged

Everybody Hurts

From HBR: On a terrible team? Maybe you’re making it worse

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