Journal

Please make it OK!

2012-05-16T13:09:03Z

Not every team is high performing. Some are chugging along fine, others need some help. Often managers and team leaders don't know what to do to reduce the defensiveness, stop the irrelevant infighting and competition, increase the trust, clarify the roles etc. Sometimes there is a history of not discussing tough issues, running from tough decisions, and not confronting problems when they are small enough to be dealt with fast. Often they reach for an easy fix - an off-site team building / bonding experience. Let's cook together, let's raft together, let's have a scavenger hunt. While these are fun and they attempt to press the "make everything OK button," these interventions don't have a lasting effect, and they even may cause more harm than good.

We offer solutions that really do make a difference. While working together, teams can do some great research on their work processes and self awareness that can lead to significant break throughs in trust, role clariifcation, decision making and implementation. We call this work Action Research. We have two solutions that can make a big difference in how your team works together. They take time and skilled facilitation, but the results reward the work. We use the Drexler Sibbet Team Peformance System and combine it with Element B. It's a powerful combination that directs team members and team leaders to look inside and outside simulaneously. We create new norms of honest communication and forthright speaking that reduce defensiveness and "positon rigidity" and help team members focus on real results.

Sure you can read Forbes or Fast Company tips and tricks on the "five ways to improve your team performance," or you can push the "make everything OK" button for now. When you get serious about rebooting your team. Give us a ring. Our mission is getting your team to experience high performance.

The Human Element!

2012-05-04T18:13:35Z

Imagine if you could reduce or eliminate unproductive workplace behaviors…

Derailed meetings
Sloppy decision making
Irrelevevant competition
Passive agressiveness
Blaming and finger-pointing
Malicious compliance
Caution, mistrust and facade
Resistance and dependence

The Human Element is a comprehensive approach for increasing personal awareness and creating an open atmospher where people can solve problems.

Unlike many approaches that address individual, team, and organizational performance from the outside in, The Human Element addresses these issues from the inside out, combining experiential methodology with an integated set of phychometrics. By using effective tools for working through and resolving these issues, people are more apt to enthusiastically implement organizational initiatives and contrribute their full energies and talents. (adapted from Ethan Shutz)

I am happy to announce that McNeil Consulting can bring THE HUMAN ELEMENT to your organization. Contact us for details. In the future we will also be running open public THE sessions!

The HivePad Meeting IBYOD

2012-04-25T19:35:31Z

IBYOD - Stands for: Interactive, Bring Your Own Device. These are meeting where everyone has a voice and a vote. We are raising the bar on audience response. Not only can your participants comment live, they can also rank ideas, vote on priorities, brainstorm in break out groups, contribute by electronic flip charts, and create a team or organization wiki - all at your next meeting.

The meetings are fun, informative, energizing, and creative. And the results from the meeting can be instantly downloaded or shared with those who were not able to attend. Remote participants can also attend. Just be aware of the time differences.

We can also work the data collected at the meeting in real time - bringing a here and now relevance to any discussion. iPads, tablets, android devices, kindle fire, laptops all work. Participants can also participate before, during, and after your meeting.

We design and facilitate. You lead. We can also train your people to do a HivePad meeting. Take a test drive when you are ready. Just leave a comment. We will get right back to you.

Introducing Priority Builder

2012-04-19T17:26:08Z

Setting priorities on a team is often challenging. Let’s say we have ten mission critical initiatives. Most times the team cannot do everything, and certainly not at once. So how do we set the priorities on a team?

We make use of a methodology, process and technology we call Priority Builder. Here is how it works. We identify the initiatives from all of the team members, every single one. Once we have these we do what we call a quick ranking using the Hive. Our goal is to narrow the ten initiatives down to seven. The forced ranking via the hive takes about 10 minutes. We ask the leaders of the Three initiatives who didn’t make the cut to explain to the team the reasons why their cut initiative should be part of the seven. Afterwards we see if there is a group consensus to change out any of the initiatives. In our experience this rarely happens.

Next we take the seven remaining initiatives and put through a “Win Tunnel” exercise to determine value, causation, sequencing, and disruption. Here is how it works.

The concept of a BCL - A BCL is a Business Case Lite. Each executive takes the time to prepare a business case for their particular initiative. They place their answers in The Hive. The business case must identify:

What - What is AIM of this initiative?
Rationale - Why must we ACT on it?
The presenter must also rate the initiative along three scales using the Multi-Scale tool in the Hive.
   •   Assess VALUE in terms of Mission Critical Returns / Cost
   •   What COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE can we expect?
   •   How DIFFICULT Is this to do?

The HIVE's Discussion Tool is used and attached to each initiative. All team members have access to the Discussion Tool. We set the discussion to be a signed discussion and allow team members to comment on each others comments. Team members are told that this discussion will be open for three days prior to the face to face Priority Setting Meeting.

At the meeting we open up the BCLs, the Multi-Scales and the Discussion. Priorities can easily set after a short discussion. These can become a road map for achieving the initiatives. In our experience we often find ways to change, fund and sequence those initiatives not initially accepted.

Using Priority Builder saves tremendous time by sharpening the debate, and disciplining the team to make decisions based on real information.

What Is a Process Intervention and How can I make One?

2012-04-18T14:28:05Z

Look at Yesterday's post on the GSA, suppose you were at the table when someone suggested (perhaps even the leader), "We should take the entire organization to Las Vegas this year and really have a blow out. I mean this is going to be the mother of all team building events!" We could party, celebrate, build bicycles for charity and I even know a mind reader."

Suddenly you get an icky feeling in your gut. You are bothered by what has just been said. As you sit you become aware of another feeling, weaker than the first feeling and more subtle. You recognize this as fear. The fear is about speaking up and telling the others what you are feeling. At the same time enthusiastic team mates are talking and saying that going to Vegas would be just about the coolest thing imaginable. You go back and forth listening to your feelings of discomfort and fear and listening to the building excitement of at least half of the group for the Vegas idea.

Bless yourself and your internal barometer. You have created a choice point for yourself. You can make a process intervention; you can state how you are feeling to the others in the group. This process intervention will surely stop the group process going on about choosing to go to Vegas, particularly if you share all of your feelings (discomfort, disgust, and fear). The other choice you have is to remain silent and go along to get along.

Choosing to state your real feelings means playing the "loyal dissenter", although your enthusiastic team members and even the leader might not see you that way. You could be identified by others as playing "Debbie Downer," or even worse, "not a real team player." You must further assert your position by asking if anyone else feels the same as you. In my experience in small groups I have almost always have one other or some others say they feel the same as I do when I make a process intervention. Once others agree you have succeeded in stopping the process and putting the issue on the table along with your position. The ensuing conversation becomes "here and now" and real. Nothing could be better for this team than what you have just done.

One of Yogi Berra's quotes was, "We made too many bad mistakes." Every team makes mistakes. Not every team makes really bad mistakes. Your process intervention can help the team avoid making a really bad mistake. However, if no one speaks up don't worry, CNN will pick up the story and the team will learn the hard way. It's your choice.

This is one example of a process intervention - the loyal dissenter. There are many other types of interventions which we will discuss in upcoming posts.

What can we learn from the GSA "Teambuilding" Event?

2012-04-17T14:37:43Z

My field is under assault again from the pseudo teambuilders with yet another bogus Vegas team building experience. How do mind readers, bicyle building, and parties build teams? Let me count the ways. They don't. They sound like great fun and they certainly cost a lot. But in terms of building real teams, they don't add up to any real value.

Real people build real teams by doing real work in real time. That's it. Everyone who has ever been part of a high performing team knows how hard it is to build a real team. Issues like orienting the team to it's vision, building trust among diverse members over time and distance, negotiating role clarification while allowing for individual creativity and goal achievement, deliberating and deciding on priorities all require hard work. All of this happens while the team is actually implementing monitoring and making course corrections. It happens by working, talking, disclosing, and giving feedback.

Celebrations, and rewards are important components to any team but they need to be sequenced properly. They come after real work and real achievements. These can help cement the bonds created from working together. They should not be confused with the process of building a real team.

Bonding experineces and simulations belong in the category of team training. They can be helpful when people want to have a taste of working together, appreciating differences, or taking a light approach to topics like innovation.

Real innovation like building real teams requires significant focus, risky trial and error, high trust, and a safety net provided by opening up feedback and disclosure among team members. Simple to say but hard to do.

It's important to admit that we, being human can make egregious mistakes. The GSA's mistake is a terrible embarassment for sure. Sometimes a boondoggle is only a boondoggle. My plea is to get serious about building real teams. The world could be a better place a lot faster if we did.

Q. How to Reignite Passion on Your Team? A. Talk About It!

2012-04-05T13:18:58Z

Gary Hamel's new book makes a cogent argument for "communities of passion." We have known how important this is for some time, and it's so good to re-learn and revisit.

To get to the root of Passion and High Performance look at The Model. Notice that there is an arrow that leads back from High Performance to Trust! Passion on teams takes trust. Trust opens up mutual regard, forthright speaking, and reliability. Without it teams suffer from undiscussibles.

The important thing to remember is that group issues don't go away until they are worked. This is a simple fact. You can do all the usual team building events you want, the fact is that if real issues are not addressed openly, the team will not advance. True passion comes from passion lived. The best part is that passion is infectious. Teams that learn how to create an open, honest, and supportive atmosphere where their members feel fine about confronting each othe for improved performance become passionate.

You can evevate the passion and the performance of your team by focusing on Trust. Go for it.

The BYOD Meeting

2012-04-03T12:35:55Z

Your next meeting could be very cool! What if everyone showed-up and participated. Yes, everyone engaged and involved. We call them BYOD meetings - "bring your own device."

You lead, we facilitate, and together with you, we design an exciting experience that transforms the usual "PowerPoint and Tell" meeting into an interactive exchange tapping into all that reserve brain power of your attendees.

Your next guest speaker can be the best they ever heard - EVERYONE!

Your attendees can: brainstorm, prioritize, define actions, write on electronic flip charts, exchange ideas, vote on critical issues all instantaneously. The Hive supports it all. We can even have attendees from different time zones attend you meeting remotely and add their contribution to the mix. Our professionally trained facilitators and designers work with you to give you a great experience that your people will long remember.

One other big benefit. We can guarantee that we can cut your meeting time significantly. What's the price for all this? About the same as a round of golf for your participants. In fact, given the time you save and the real productivity gains, you might even consider rewarding your attendees that round of golf!

Partner with Us and Sponsor a Critical Conversation

2011-11-14T16:20:29Z

Does your community need to come together to find common ground? Do you have a real need to have a meeting of the minds, where everyone can participate equally and all voices count?

We have the means to hold these conversations. Whether you want to:

Conduct a Future Search Conference for regional planning,
Prioritize capital expenditures while keeping taxes down,
Brainstorm new ways to raise revenue for your township
Hold an electronic town hall
Plan a series of focus groups to research planning options

We can facilitate all of the above and much more. We are looking for companies and organizations that want to sponsor an experience in participative democracy. Our soon to be launched Website: Citizens Summit.com will blog about our experiences.

We want to change the tone of our large conversations and put people to work discussing the things that matter to them locally. We are not interested in furthering personal agendas, and we are not willing to help those who seek to divide us. We desire to bring about more light with less heat.

We will design the experiences with you and the meeting owners to create the means for maximum diversity and inclusion, and follow-up. Our tools are state of the art, and our process has been time tested for over 20 years in large and medium size businesses. Now we want to offer our unique set of skills and tools for the greater good.

Sponsoring is easy. We have several funding options for you. It will be similar to funding a golf tournament. You will choose your level of sponsorship. You will be helping your community to come to common ground, explore options, and make better decisions with more community involvement.

If this sounds interesting to you, please contact using the form below. If you’d like to volunteer to be a table facilitator at one of our meetings please contact us. In the future will also be training facilitators how to conduct their own participative processes in the future.

Join us.

McNeil Consultants Inc.

The GroupMind and Thought Capture

2011-11-06T12:52:58Z

Ipads and Smart Phones can lead to some very creative ways to up the participation at your next meeting.

Have everyone attending link their device to The Hive. In The Hive, set up a simple thought capture page. A one-liner for thoughts that are triggered by the speaker. Thoughts from everyone accumulate as the speaker progresses.

As the facilitator - set the Hive Page to Anonymous and private, so only you can see the GroupMind. As people enter their thoughts help the team create a good norm by censoring out any blatantly ridiculous ideas that appear. You will only have to do this once as folks will get the message. And the senders, anonymous as they are will thank you later.

Click to try.

At the end of the presentation, with the OK of the presenter (you have contracted with him or her beforehand), display the thoughts from GroupMind

Often their will be a few questions that the presenter can answer right away, that didn’t get asked during the presentation. Often there will be some amazing insights about the topic, or nuances, not presented that give the presetner and the team pause.

This is a different way of attending meetings. It gives an eerie meditative quality to a presentation. Like in meditation, just let the thoughts flow by. Afterwards you have a chance at additional insights. Give it a try. My clients love it, and we have had several significant breakthroughs through the use of this technique.