Canadian Government Executive - Volume 22 - Issue 10

27 / 32

December 2016 // Canadian Government Executive / 27
ing priority or for exploring positive and negative judgments.
For developing priority give everyone a certain number of ad-
hesive dots that office supply stores carry – between five to seven
-- and have them put those beside their preferences. The dot land-
scape will send a message of the group’s feelings. Discuss which
items received most and least dots; what surprised people about
the distribution; and what relationship people see between items
that got many (or few) dots.
For exploring feelings, give people red and green dots – as many
of each as there are ideas or option on the table (or, more accu-
rately, on the flipchart or whiteboard). Ask people to place a green
dot beside an item if it’s a good idea and has their support. Alter-
natively, they should place a red dot if they have reservations or
objections. They must place a dot beside each. You then want to
consider which items received only green dots; ask if you can set
aside for now those with a number of red dots; and for those with
lots of green dots but a few red ask for people to speak about the
concerns and then discuss how that might be handled. You might
conclude by moving ahead on the solidly green choices while
keeping the others under consideration.
His book includes many other techniques that can help you im-
prove your meetings. We attend so many meetings each day it’s
easy to assume expertise. That could be wrong. His ideas might
help you and your team be more effective.
mental. They can live with the proposed course of action.
• Compromise: This is weak, simply developing an acceptable,
middle-of-the-road outcome. But it may be the best you can
manage for the situation. Sometimes a compromise may seem
out of reach. It can be helpful to take a break, maybe a few min-
utes while everyone considers possibilities or even a few days
while a small group you appoint develops a proposal.
• Count: Ask everyone to vote and the majority rules. This leaves
winners and losers, which in some cases can be damaging.
• Consult: The leader indicates he is asking for everyone’s input
to help shape the decision he will take. Even here, he stresses
you must be clear about the process and how much influence
the group’s comments are likely to have in the final decision.
Future focus is a technique for shifting from focusing on (or be-
moaning) past problems to working on the desired future.
“Discussions about some necessary improvement or ‘fix’ to a
problem often get stuck in an analysis of what went wrong in
the past. The discussion is difficult as people try to discuss why
something happened and who was responsible. This can create
conflict and defensiveness, and limit development of better op-
tions,” he writes.
“When you focus the discussion on the future, you can iden-
tify how things could be rather than how they were. This helps
to maintain a more creative, energizing environment for discus-
sion.”
The first approach he suggests is to frame the discussion by ask-
ing: “How could this situation be handled better in the future?”
Keep the discussion fixated on what could be rather than what
went wrong. Sure, you need to learn from past experiences but
the real opportunity is on the improvements you can develop for
the future.
In the second approach you revert to the past but to recall how
things were when they were at their best. So you would say:
“Think of a time when we handled this very well. You felt pride
in how this was managed. Tell the story of this time – what hap-
pened, who was involved, and what were you proud of achieving
and how did this make you feel at the time?” After that discussion,
ask the group to share what stands out from those stories of past
success. Conclude with: “How can this performance be true again
in the future?’
Multi-voting is increasingly common but perhaps not used
enough. It allows you to get a quick idea of where people stand on
options by revealing patterns of thinking. It can be used for show-
web
We curse meetings, but they are essential
to today’s collaborative leadership
approach. We may long to eliminate
them – and no doubt some could be
trimmed – but the bigger issue is to
make the ones we have more effective.
The Leader’s Bookshelf