Motto

It’s about the subtleties. You know – it’s about the little things. It’s about the stuff that’s not so obvious – the subtleties… the things that others hear in what you say whether you were aware of it or not…

Repetitors are usually articulate. They are able to express themselves. In the positive way, without the unneeded repetitions, a Repetitor would be an Articulate. By repeating themselves, without checking to see whether the listener is understanding, the Repetitor turns a Pattern into an Antipattern.

Dealing with a Repetitor is as simple as a variant on the Facilitation Four-Step: Interrupt, Ask, Redirect, Commit.

Interrupt

“Excuse me, Frank.”

Ask

“Do you mind…”

Redirect

“…if I check in with the others for a moment?”

Commit

“We’ll get right back to what you were saying.”

Action (yes, a 5th step )

“Sue, just so we’re clear, can you tell us what Frank’s point was?”

In this way, I validate that others have heard Frank, check to make sure that they’ve understood Frank, and break the pattern of repetition.

Her challenge is this: some software has been developed, and the users are extremely unhappy. I know this was done by an agile team, so I wondered how they’d gotten to this point.

I asked what seemed the most obvious question: “Was there a product owner representing the users?” While the answer was yes, it seems that this “product owner” hadn’t spoken with the users, and therefore the team hadn’t engaged with them. No user experience or interaction design, as far as I could find out. No input from the users on what they need from the software, how they’ll use it, or what it means to them day to day.

My colleague’s question was “I’ve been asked to facilitate a meeting that includes the users, the product owner, the Director, a user experience expert, and one or two others. How do we make this work so it’s not just a bitch session?”

Good question.  Before I get to what I suggested, let me share another incident that also came up today.

A different colleague called me to ask about a similar situation. Well, similar in that there’s a group of people who are being negative. And similar in that my colleague wants to figure out how to bring these people together and generate some positive action and attitude.

He wanted my suggestions.

The short answer to both of them has three parts: figure out where we are, look forward, and give them a sense of ownership.

Sound too easy?  Too trite?  Too mushytouchyfeely?

Maybe it does, but it’s not.

In the book Agile Retrospectives, Diana Larsen and Esther Derby have organized the activities that they offer for agile team retrospectives according to type of goal. One of the types of goals is data gathering. From my perspective, data gathering is the backward-looking activity that allows a team to look forward. While I’m a forward-looking kind of guy, I firmly believe that sometimes you have to know where you are to know how to go from here.

Yes, I said “know where you are,” not “know where you’ve been.”

Where I am may be unhappy, dissatisfied, frustrated, elated, anxious, anticipatory, angry, concerned, confused,… Whatever it is, I like to get it out on the table, give it a name, and stare it straight in the eye.

After all, if my goal is for things to get better, I have to know better than what.

Now that I know where we are, I can ask the BIG question: how do we make it better? It doesn’t matter if it’s software, teamwork, family, ergonomics, or pretty much anything else. What does matter is the “we!” How do WE make it better?

That little word is so important. My approach in these situations is to figure out where we are (issues, challenges, frustrations, whatever), look at what might be done to improve the situation, and then share the ownership.

I find too many people who believe that they have to take ownership of making things better for others – their staff, their team, their family. Unfortunately, starting from the best of intentions, they end up disempowering the people they’re trying to help.

Whereas if I ask “How are you/we going to make this better?” I put the opportunity, commitment, passion, and responsibility where it belongs – with the people who have the largest investment in seeing the situation change.

And, at the same time, make it a challenge. Not “tell me what to do to fix it” but “tell me what you’re going to do to fix it, and where you need my help.”

Look around, look forward, and give them the opportunity.

Simple, right?

Consider Curious George. Curious George, asking questions and exploring possibilities, helps to stimulate conversation and bring out useful information.

Curious George taken to extremes,  however, becomes an obstacle. His persistent and insistent questioning can become a new antipattern, the Inquisitor. The Inquisitor doesn’t ask questions for the purpose of moving the group’s goals forward. The Inquisitor nails her victim, drilling down, and tenaciously, even insistenlty, digging and digging until the victim gives up in sheer exhaustion. The Inquisitor takes the “five whys” to the point of absurdity, like a four-year-old who – when told that the sky is blue – asks “why” until you want to run screaming.

Even neutrality can be taken too far. While I’ve made it clear that I believe that one of the key attributes of a facilitator is neutrality, nonetheless, there are times when a facilitator must take a position and a stand, when it comes to the good of the group and the process. Failure to take a stand and take action at those times becomes a new antipattern, Wishy-Washy.

I’m convinced that most positive patterns, taken to extremes, can become antipatterns.

Is it possible to go the other way? Are the attributes that define antipattern behaviors capable of being beneficial patterns, when applied in more limited doses?

Motto

“Why aren’t you listening to me?” followed by attention-grabbing, self-destructive behavior. The equivalent of rolling around on the floor, screaming and kicking.

We’ve all met an Infantile. Somehow, no matter what the topic, if you don’t listen to them – and, of course, agree with them – somehow things turn personal and emotional. They make it clear that your failure to listen (the way they want you to listen), and your failure to understand (that is, agree), expresses your disrespect for, and even hostility toward them.

Infantiles have never learned proper socialization. They don’t share well, and they’re not usually interested in dialogue. Their focus is on what they want when they want it, or else.  The “or else” is not usually targeted at a single individual. Rather it’s aimed at getting everyone to pay attention to them, and then to give in to their demands because dealing with their behavior is too annoying/painful.

Of course, once they get their way, Infantiles can be most charming and pleasant.

Yup, IAAM- and IAAM+ are the two higher order patterns that I’m talking about.

Isn’t it interesting that these apply in our personal relationships and conversations, and in the world of meetings and facilitation?

Not surprising, though, because we’re always people, and always bring our blessings and our baggage with us, wherever we go and whatever we do.

Also not surprising, I expect, is that I believe that recognizing and taking action to change my beliefs and my behavior in one context will carry over into all others. Regardless of whether it’s how I relate to friends and family, how I participate in meetings, how I behave as a manager, or how I behave as an employee, they’re all tied together at one point: me!

Here’s my challenge to you: look at your own behavior, and ask yourself whether it is IAAM- or IAAM+. Are you focusing on the relationship or are you focusing on your own needs and desires? Are you behaving in a way that benefits others, as well as yourself, or just yourself?

This is difficult. I won’t pretend otherwise. Examining my own behavior, questioning my own motives, and exploring the impact on others is hard.

And worthwhile.

No pain, no gain.

While it’s starting to feel like these antipatterns are all similar, each has some distinguishing characteristics.  The Prima Donna, for instance, might be the most arrogant of them. He feels that he is special, as a virtue of being smarter or more knowledgeable or just because.

The Prima Donna, like a number of the others, dominates the discussion based on what’s most interesting to him. Unlike the Evil Genius, the Prima Donna is not conscious or deliberate about it. He believes that this is what is due him – admiration, freedom to dominate the conversation, and freedom to be petulant if he doesn’t get his way.

The Prima Donna is also unlike the Orator, who actually takes pride in what he believes is his eloquence.

There are certainly more than just two faces to the concept, and yet these are the two extremes, in my mind.

Ego-Driven, Self-Centered “It’s all about me!” (IAAM-)

As I write about facilitation antipatterns, it’s clear that I’m focusing on the self-centered, ego-need-driven side of “It’s all about me!” Look at Professor Moriarty or the Orator or the Dominator. For each of them, they want – perhaps need – the focus and attention of the group.

IAAM- (the negative IAAM) clearly is driven by the needs and desires of the speaker/actor, rather than a focus on improving communications or teamwork or anything else. While the person exhibiting IAAM- may convince themselves that they’re doing it “for your good” or “for the good of the group”, I believe that their reality is quite different – that they’re doing it because they need it to feel better about themselves. They may start from a position of low self-esteem or insecurity, as surprising as that sounds.

There are many common behaviors, for those who don’t feel good about themselves. Two that come to mind here are “pay attention to me” and “make you feel bad so you’ll recognize my power”.  Both of these are instances of IAAM-.

I did it a lot, in the earlier days of my marriage. Having to be right, as opposed to having a dialogue with my wife. Explaining how she didn’t understand, instead of finding common ground. Taking the center stage, rather than participating and allowing others to participate. These are examples of IAAM-.

Taking Responsibility, Connection-Focused “It’s all about me.” (IAAM+)

In my writing (and talking and talking and… ) about communication, I tend to focus on a movement away from IAAM- and toward IAAM+ as an understanding of human behavior and interactions.

In IAAM+, it’s two-sided: understanding that my behavior expresses who I am, what I believe, how I feel; and understanding that your behavior expresses the same things about you. As I embrace and internalize that understanding, my behavior changes, because my focus changes. And sometimes, by changing my behavior towards what I would like it to be, I change my feelings and understanding.

Communication and Facilitation and Participation

It all comes together in many places and times. Including in meetings. When I find myself thinking “he always…” or “she’s doing that because…” and I assign motivations and assume what’s going on inside someone else’s head, I push myself back from IAAM- toward IAAM+.  At least, I try.

Motto

The Orator’s self-focus is not malicious. She isn’t trying to dominate or manipulate. She just has a lot to say, and frequently will use ten words where one will do.

The Orator is very pleased with what she has to say and the sound of her own voice, seems to be able to talk endlessly without taking a breath, and rarely leaves an opening for someone else to speak until she’s good and ready.

The damage to the team is similar to many of the other antipatterns, regardless of whether the Orator is the facilitator or a member of the meeting. Her dominance of the proceedings through relentless takeover of the floor causes others to resign their passion, and become reluctant to even try to say something.

Exercises that force a democratic process, like the Circle of Questions or Starfish, are best for dealing with an Orator in the meeting.

If you are the facilitator and you are an Orator, well,…

Motto

What’s not so obvious is that Dominators are not always egocentric or glory loving or outgoing. Frequently, Dominators have learned that the only way that they can get people to hear what they have to say, and to make their points, is by steamrolling everyone else. Outside of meetings/discussions, they may be timid or quiet. but get them into a meeting, and they will just take over.

Okay – there are also Dominators who do it because they do love to be the center of everyone’s attention. For these Dominators – the ones you probably thought of first – it’s not so much which point they make as that they make a point by overwhelming everyone else’s defenses. Their joy comes from the act and experience of being dominant.

Dominators have found that if they speak more loudly than everyone else, everyone else will be quiet and listen to them.

Dominators have found that by the force of their presence (similar to the Gladiator) they can achieve their goals.  But distinct from the Gladiator, the Dominator doesn’t want us to fight back. The Dominator achieves victory by shutting everyone else down.

The Dominator is happy when we say “Okay – whatever you say” as a sign of capitulation.  They’re happiest when we say “Oh, you’re SO right!” as a sign of recognition of their rightness, along with capitulation.

To deal with a Dominator, you have to break their pattern. This is hard, because they’re relentless.

Techniques that either involve the group without discussion (Starfish, Timeline) or that enforce a structure that gives everyone equal time and attention (Circle of Questions, The Margolis Wheel).

Note that Robert Chambers, in Participatory Workshops: A Sourcebook of 21 Sets of Ideas and Activities, has an exercise he calls Dominator (pages 168-9), which he describes thus: “A lively activity to heighten awareness of verbal and non-verbal dominant and submissive behaviour and of the effects of physical position on relationships.”

Quoted from the book:

An intense and good experience to come near the end**. This enables participants to share and receive advice on real problems and opportunities. It reinforces solidarity and mutual support. It can also surprise people with their own ability to counsel others.

You need four-six pairs of chairs, facing each other, arranged in a circle. As many circles of pairs of chairs as fit the number taking part. Allow ten minutes for briefing and reflection, plus:

4 pairs of chairs – 25-30 minutes
5 paris of chairs – 30-35 minutes
6 pairs of chairs – 35-40 minutes

1. Ask participants to reflect and choose a problem or opportunity they face or will face. This can be in their work and/or when they return to their institutions, or be any personal problem on which they would like advice. Stress that everything that passes is in confidence between friends.
2. Ask everyone to sit in a chair, any chair. Those on the inner ring are counsellors, and those on the outer ring their clients. There are three minutes only for each round of advice, roughly one minute for posing the problem, and two minutes for the advice.
3. After two minutes warn that only one minute is left. After three minutes, all the outer ring (clients) move one seat in the same direction. The inner ring (counsellors) stays put. Repeat the procedure.
4. When the outer ring has gone round, counsellors and clients swap seats. The process is repeated with the roles changed.

Tips and Options

• Encourage note-taking, otherwise much will be forgotten. Notes can be taken on the run, or two minutes or so can be set aside at the end of each full circuit for making a personal record.
• It may be wise to place people from the same organization or department into different clusters of chairs.
• If numbers do not fit, facilitators can take part, or volunteers can sit out and observe, or an extra pair of chairs can be added to one or more circles (in which case stop the bigger circles when the smaller circles have finished their round).
• Write down the times when change-overs must take place. (Otherwise it is easy to mess up the timing).

Source: Participatory Learning and Action: A Trainer’s Guide citing Alan Margolis, personal communication.

** While Chambers suggests this for the end, I think that this can effectively be used as part of a progressive approach to larger meetings. For instance, start with Open Space, then integrate activities like The World Café and the Margolis Wheel to refine communication and understanding.

In this activity, the group sits in a circle, and going around the circle, each person takes a turn asking a question to the person on their immediate left. The question can be about anything they like (barring anything offensive or attacking), but it’s helpful to focus on something relevant to this group and its history/activities. The person to the left answers the question to the best of their ability, and then they ask the person to their left any other question (or the same question if they feel they’d like a better answer). This continues until the allotted time is up, or until you have gone around the entire circle twice, whichever comes last. Make sure you go around the complete circle: if some people in the group get more turns to ask or answer a question than others, it can send the wrong message.

[This write-up courtesy of John Wilger]

Variations:

• After the first time around, reverse direction
• After the first time around, have every second person get up and change places
• Go around more than twice

You give your hand to me
Then you say hello
I can hardly speak
My heart is beating so
And anyone can tell
You think you know me well
But you don’t know me

Relevance? Ah – well – I’ve mentioned that we all live in our own heads. Our understanding of the world, including the people in it, is all internal. So when I say “I know…” what I really mean is “I believe…”

There is no knowing, especially when it comes to others. The only things we can “know” are others’ behavior, because it’s the only thing we can see/experience directly. Even so, our experience/vision is colored and filtered by our own brains and our past experience, our current emotions, and so forth. There are times when my “reality” is entirely generated within my own head.

What does that mean? It means, first of all, that I must question all my assumptions about other people. Especially when I say things like “you were angry” or ” I know what you meant”. After all, I can’t really know these things, now can I?

Rather I can say “I think you were angry” or “I wonder if you were angry” or “Did you mean…?”

I’m back, once again, to the work of Patterson et al in Crucial Conversations. Because what I think I know is really my story – what I tell myself as a result of experiencing your behavior.

Lest you think I’m only talking about personal relationships, let me assure you once again that this applies to all relationships. It applies when I’m in meetings with people I hardly know (“What a jerk!”), when I’m having a conversation with a co-worker (“Why is she always…?”), or having coffee with a close friend (“He must be angry with me.”). All we know of each other is behavior – the observable stuff.

And what we think we know is really our perception of what happened.

I know that there have been many times when my wife and I have been in the same place at the same time, and remembered things differently. Everything from our first meeting (I say her outfit was mustard colored, she says it was greenish) to a conversation we had yesterday.

In police work, it’s ironic that so much weight is placed on eye witnesses, given the evidence that eye witnesses are incredibly unreliable. Consider the implications: all of us are unreliable when it comes to what we believe we saw or heard, and yet we generally remain convinced that we are right – that what we remember is reality, truth.

I’m with Descartes – the only thing I know for sure is that there is some entity doing the thinking (cogito ergo sum – I think, therefore I am). Everything else is subject to reasonable, rational doubt.

The next time you find yourself saying “Oh, I know her, and what she meant was…”, stop, think, and perhaps phrase it as a question or as a guess.

“I wonder if…”

“Do you think…”

“If it were me, I would mean…”

And then, ASK.

Motto

This is not to say that Hoarders are actually powerful. Their power – such as it is – is illusory and mostly perceived only by the Hoarder. Others frequently see the Hoarder as obstructionist, frustrating, and self-serving.

Since Hoarders are naturally insecure and suffering from self-image issues, dealing with them requires putting aside your emotional reactions and biases toward this kind of behavior, and encouraging them through recognition and appreciation.

As with most of the antipatterns, the people who exhibit Hoarder tendencies can be either moderate or pathological.  That is, some do it out of habit, rather than a psychological need to be in control. These folks will probably respond readily when either encouraged or when having it privately explained to them. Note that I said “explained to them” not “confronted”. Confrontation implies attack and hostility, at least to some degree, and those are rarely useful.

The pathological, however, as with most of the antipatterns, are outside the scope of your ability or responsibility as a facilitator or coworker or friend to deal with. Please be careful in these circumstances. It’s not your job to deal with pathologies – issues that are deep and tightly held.

Motto

What I like about the Co-Worker is that they are very much like a facilitator. They believe in teamwork, collaboration, cooperation, dialogue… There’s nothing quite so good as having a Co-Worker or two in a meeting to make the facilitator’s life that much easier.

You’ll recognize the Co-Worker as the person who seems to always step in and say “I can see both of your points of view. How can we bring this to some kind of compromise or conclusion?”

Co-Workers rarely seek their own aggrandizement – they work for the group, and will put in as much effort as it takes to see the group succeed. They will frequently take on action items at the end of the meeting, and will seek others to work with in most cases.

It comes up all the time, especially for those of us who have strong opinions, tend to be competitive, and focus on what we think is important to us: being right.

I’ll start with the simplest question: how important is it to be right?

I hear it all the time: “We had a fight because he/she wouldn’t accept that I was right!” Or “the meeting dragged on and on because they couldn’t see that I was right!”  Or “I’d rather be right and have my integrity!”

Sigh.

Why is “right” so important?

I say this as someone who was a pro at knowing that I was “right”.  And all of those years of fighting with people to try to get them to admit that I was right makes me very sad.

What’s the value of being “right”? Does it make the world better? Does it make a relationship better?  Does it make a conversation better? In what way does it make anything better?

Talking to my wife, which I do every day , I realized that every time I insisted on being right I drove a wedge between us. Why? Because if I was right, then she must have been wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong,… Needless to say, that didn’t make her feel good.

“You always have to be right! You’re always trying to make me feel stupid!” And I’m sure that she wasn’t the only one who felt that way. After all, I always had to be right with everyone else, too.

And you know what? I have to admit that she wasn’t altogether wrong.

More recently, I began to realize what was really important: our relationship. Treating her with respect, listening to her, actually thinking about what she said (as opposed to “how can I prove that what she just said is wrong?”), and allowing for the possibility that there’s more than one “right.”

While I’m using my relationship and communications with my wife as the example for this, it’s really about all relationships. And I think you know that I believe that any time you have a conversation, that’s part of a relationship, no matter how brief it might be. This applies to personal relationships and professional relationships. It applies in business meetings and conversations over lunch.

Showing respect is more important than being right.

Maintaining a relationship is more important than being right.

Sharing and collaborating is more important than being right.

Allowing for multiple valid views of right is more important than having the one right.

In fact, I think that being right is pretty far down the list of important things.

Motto

They are willing to argue, fight, persuade, convince, and argue some more to win you over to their point of view. This means that they have the tendency to dominate a discussion, in their passion for what they know to be true/right.

This has the effect of taking over a meeting so that it is entirely focused on the Zealot’s issue. Which suits the Zealot just fine, but does not contribute to the group’s overall success.

It is important to realize that the Zealot is thoroughly well-intentioned, believing that they are serving you/the group by convincing anyone and everyone of the rightness of their view. They have nothing but good intentions, in fact. You might find yourself having the opportunity to ask “the question” (see I feel sad) from Crucial Conversations.

Dealing with this requires the strength to choose when to cut off a conversation (The Facilitation Four-Step), offer to either park it or consider it done, and keep the group moving forward. Challenging, but relatively straightforward.  This also requires the support of the other participants, which is usually forthcoming.