Introduction to Employing Differences

[00:00:03] Karen: Welcome to Employing Differences, a conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals.

[00:00:09] Paul: I'm Paul Tevis.

[00:00:10] Karen: And I'm Karen Gimnig. 

[00:00:12] Paul: Each episode we start with a question and see where it takes us. 

The Question: Can I Help?

[00:00:16] Paul: This week's question is: can I help?

Context: Skillful Meeting Participation

[00:00:18] Karen: So this episode is in the context of this series that we're doing on how to be a really skillful, useful meeting participant. So when you're not the facilitator and you're in a meeting and you think, oh, the facilitator needs help, there's a thing that if I were the facilitator I would be doing and they're not doing it, can I help them?

[00:00:43] Karen: Can I share my idea? Can I do the thing for them? Can I help? 

Facilitator's Perspective on Help

[00:00:56] Karen: And as facilitators, I think when I first brought this up with Paul, we both kind of went, don't. Like, no, I don't want help. But I think that when I really look at my client base and even myself, like there are definitely things that I don't see in a room when I'm facilitating because I'm thinking about so many things.

[00:01:09] Karen: There's so many things I am seeing that I run a risk of missing things that others in the room might be saying, or that aren't being said. So I don't know that those needs exist, things like that. So even with a really skillful facilitator, which I think Paul and I both are. There are things that absolutely can sometimes help us, but even more so when I think about the people that are attending my facilitation classes, for example, and I am telling them how to facilitate, but they're just getting going.

[00:01:37] Karen: They're not super skilled yet. They're likely to make mistakes. They're not likely to see everything that I would see in a room when I'm facilitating, for example, or they're not likely to. Like it's easier for a beginning facilitator to forget to have a break or something, you know, like there are things like that.

[00:01:53] Karen: What helps them be more successful. 

Balancing Skill Levels in Meetings

[00:01:59] Karen: And I have said for years that the greater the skillset of the participants, the less skill the facilitator needs and the greater the skill of the facilitator. The more you can tolerate unskilled participants, I mean that if you can have either one, you can probably have a successful meeting.

[00:02:14] Karen: But that brought us to this question of what is it that makes a less skilled facilitator successful in a room of really skillful meeting participants? 

Preparation and Self-Regulation

[00:02:24] Karen: And we've talked already in the last two episodes, two episodes ago, we talked about doing your preparation before the meeting, so you're prepared to be a really good participant in a contributor.

[00:02:34] Karen: Last week we talked about sort of self-regulating, when I should speak and when I shouldn't speak, and what's useful for me to say and what's not as meeting participant. Those things already help the facilitator, but in terms of things you might do in a meeting beyond that, really actively looking at, oh, there's something amiss about this meeting. 

Exploring the Question: Can I Help?

[00:02:51] Karen: Can I help? That's what we really wanna explore today.

[00:02:55] Paul: Unsurprisingly, Karen and I have feelings about this topic, which is something that we had to unpack a little bit as we were preparing and figuring out what we were gonna say. Because both of us have had the experience of trying to facilitate a meeting that's full of facilitators who won't let you facilitate.

[00:03:14] Paul: And for both of us we'd want to try not to do that. So the whole, as you've said, Karen, they're like, Hmm, they're doing a thing that I wouldn't be doing. That's not a good enough reason to bring it up. To try to help, but it's a very natural. And the other thing that, you know, I've certainly experienced this as well, so I'm not, you know, I'm guilty of this as well.

[00:03:36] Paul: Is that, you know, there are times when I live in that structure and process space so much, I kind of forget how to be a participant. What it is like to show up with a point of view and to interact with other people and to care about the outcome, as opposed to kind of being in that abstracted role.

[00:03:52] Paul: And I think that often happens. And so what we kind of struck on as we were thinking about this is that one of the most useful things that you can do, when you are wanting to help out the facilitator in some way, right? When you're wanting to provide some sort of structure or process, you know, assistance, one of the things that you can do is to keep your role as a participant primary, right?

[00:04:15] Paul: That that's the primary way you're engaging with it. So, for example, one of the things you can do that is helpful even for a very skilled facilitator, is to comment on what it is like to be a meeting participant, right in this moment. It can be things like, you know, it's been 90 minutes since our last break and I'm noticing that I would like to use the bathroom, right?

[00:04:38] Paul: Or that I'm having difficulty concentrating. And to speak to that, like kind of from this is what it's like to be me as a participant right now. I will very often do this when I'm noticing, for example, the decision procedure that is being used is unclear. Now I know in the back of my head three better ways of doing it.

[00:04:56] Paul: That's not the first thing that comes out of my mouth. What comes out of my mouth is I'm not clear what we're being asked to vote on right now. Right? What I'm doing is I'm providing feedback to the facilitator about something that's relevant to structure and process, but through the lens of what it is like for me as a participant.

[00:05:14] Paul: And that is helpful to them. And then if they've got an idea of how to clarify that or of how to work with whatever thing you've brought up. It keeps the focus on them and they get to use their skillset and to do it. It may be that they don't have an idea of how to do it, in which case they might say to you, do you have any ideas of how we might do that?

[00:05:34] Paul: And now you've been asked for help, which is even better.

Maintaining Facilitator Authority

[00:05:38] Karen: Yeah, and I think the really key underpinning of everything, what that you're just saying is that we have to make really sure that we don't unseat the authority of the facilitator. Or even worse, get them feeling like they're being unseated because the natural reaction to that is to go defensive and we hope they won't.

[00:05:57] Karen: But that's what happens. And it's certainly what happens to me is if I start feeling like, okay, it's my job to manage this meeting and I've got people pelting me with ideas and judgements. It feels like they're saying my plan wasn't a good plan to start with, right? Like I get defensive and now I'm putting a good bit of my energy into tamping down my own defensiveness to stay present with the group.

[00:06:19] Karen: And you know, you do it a few times, you get better at that. But this is not a position that we wanna put the facilitator in. We don't want power struggle. And I'm gonna say that power struggle is, it's not a question of whether I intend power struggle. It's a question of whether the facilitator or frankly anyone else in the room perceives power struggle.

[00:06:40] Karen: So if the facilitator, the minute that the facilitator is showing any sign of thinking that I am trying to take over the meeting, I gotta back off hard. And that's especially true if you're another facilitator or like if you're, if you're Paul or I where we're known, this is what we do, this is our expertise, we gotta be really careful that if we are throwing out an idea or naming a need, things like that, that we're doing it very much from a way that like the examples we were giving Paul, I think were infused within them with a respect for the position of the facilitator and this is their problem to solve. Right.

[00:07:18] Karen: I'm giving you information you didn't have about my need for a break or my confusion about the process or you know, wait, before you vote on that, there's a thing that I'd like more information about. Could we get that, that kind of thing that, because it's framed from my need as a participant, it doesn't challenge the facilitator's role. It gives them information about what's needed so that they can respond to it.

[00:07:44] Karen: But we wanna make sure that we're not saying anything of, well, I think it would work better if or, you know, this is a better idea or you know, that kind of thing. Unless they ask and as soon as they're asking, that pivots it a good bit because the fact that they asked and were responding protects that role.

[00:08:01] Karen: But in order for the facilitator to be successful, they have to have the authority of the position of the facilitator. And I'm teaching facilitators, we talk a lot about how to maintain that and where it comes from. 'Cause it does come from the group. But if it disappears because somebody else in the group threatens it, which is what I can do when I'm trying to help, then the whole meeting is sort of a mess because nobody holds it anymore that you get chaos.

[00:08:25] Karen: So really important that however you go about any of these things that we're talking about as examples of how you might help, it's always with the respect for the position of the facilitator and that there's not a question of the authority of facilitation transferring to somebody a different.

Temporary Facilitation Roles

[00:08:41] Paul: And I think that points to something that we've been alluding to in these examples, which is it can be okay to step into that sort of pseudo facilitation role for a moment. Right? But it should not be for the rest of the meeting, right?

[00:08:56] Paul: It's like I might do a thing where, you know, and it makes sense for me to do as a participant, right? But it maybe is a little bit more group process oriented. So, I'll do this a bunch where my facilitator brain is going, this person is saying a thing and nobody else is getting what they're saying.

[00:09:12] Paul: And I think I know what it is, right? And so I may as a participant go into a rephrase, you know, paraphrase mirror mode kind of briefly and be like, I just wanna, you know, I've noticed Mary, that you've said this thing a couple of times like, are what you're going for here, this, this, and this.

[00:09:31] Paul: Right? That's the sort of thing that I would probably do as a facilitator, but it's also well within my ability, right, within my scope as a participant to do. But if I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna do that, and then I'm out, right? I'm gonna only stay in that sort of facilitative mode for a moment because that also keeps the authority back in the facilitator's hands.

[00:09:52] Paul: And as you kind of point out, I also need to be really aware of are they seeing this as a challenge to their authority? 'cause if so, then that moment needs to be even shorter, you know? But that is the thing, I think that where things go sideways, and I've certainly experienced this before, is that like someone steps in to help and the thing that they do is actually helpful in the moment.

[00:10:12] Paul: Or it's like, I'm actually really grateful for that as a facilitator, but then they've now promoted themselves to facilitator and now they stay in that role and I need them to go back into being a participant. And so I think it's temporary and it lasts, you know, ideally no longer than it needs to.

[00:10:27] Paul: And then you're back in that, in your seat.

[00:10:30] Karen: Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. And I really like that example of particularly someone who is used to tracking a group and used to sort of watching the energy and the participants and what's going on. You got pretty good odds actually of seeing something that even a skilled facilitator isn't seeing indefinitely, something that less skilled facilitator may not be saying or may just not know what to do with. 

Emotional and Group Dynamics

[00:10:51] Karen: So when there's, for example, a lot of emotion in something that somebody says, so you talked about if maybe people don't seem to be hearing it. 

[00:10:58] Karen: I use a similar strategy when it's just like there's something heavy about it. There's something passionate about it. And I think as a facilitator, very often I'm afraid to highlight anything one person says. 'Cause I feel like I need to be unbiased. Right? So you're doing a round and then somebody says this like incredibly heartfelt thing.

[00:11:18] Karen: Facilitator feels like they just need to go to the next person because I'm being fair and unbiased and everybody's getting their turn and I'm going around. But if as a meeting participant, I say, can I just interrupt because I feel like that was really important and I wanna make sure I'm really hearing it.

[00:11:33] Karen: Would it be okay if I mirrored and I do often get permission both from the person I'm gonna mirror and from the facilitator. Like there's a, a sort of an assumed, like I'm throwing it out to the room, but it rarely gets denied. I will say. And that I'm just being present with that person for a moment, and I'm not advocating for their perspective or judging their perspective or adding my own 2 cents.

[00:11:54] Karen: I'm just feeding back to them the words that they said, that just holds the moment that feels intense. In a way that sometimes a facilitator feels like they can't, or sometimes they don't know, maybe they don't even see the emotion because they're so busy tracking whose turn it is to speak and where are we on the time and do you know what's going on with the agenda items and all of that.

[00:12:15] Karen: Like there's a lot of sort of cognitive going on for the facilitator. So if I'm seeing a need to pause and be in the emotional space, or maybe I don't have to be unbiased because I'm not the facilitator. If I ask for a little extra moment for someone based on just the emotional intensity, I can do that from my participant chair.

[00:12:37] Karen: And as you're saying, Paul, really important that I do it from my participant chair. And I usually do it from a frame of, it seems important to me to take a moment. Would it be okay if I did that? So I'm not saying, okay, the whole group needs to stop. Right? I'm not declaring the good of the group.

[00:12:53] Karen: I'm naming what feels good to me. And asking to do it for that reason when, part of why it feels good to me is because I'm pretty accustomed to tracking group needs and noticing these things. So, I think that's a really powerful thing. And I will say there have been plenty of times, partly 'cause of the spaces that I work that. I did facilitate a thing for a bunch of Imago professionals, so these are people who teach mirroring and do mirroring all the time. And in that group, it was very likely that I was not the one who noticed the need for a mirror. And a participant would say, can we mirror that? And whether they did or somebody else did, it didn't matter because they had that skillset.

[00:13:33] Karen: I very often didn't, wasn't the one that would do it. But it made the meeting so much better because their ability came into the room. So I really like that example. And if you're a group that's worked with me, you know, I'm a big fan of practicing the mirroring things so that everybody in the room or many people in the room have the ability to do that.

[00:13:52] Karen: And it really makes a difference for the emotional integrity of a meeting, I think.

[00:13:57] Paul: And in that sort of emotional space, the other thing that I think it's really important when we're trying to help, that we actually come to it with an energy of helping, right. It's like I've got this person's back. I really am trying to help them out, not the energy of I know how to do this better than they do.

[00:14:15] Paul: As we've talked about before, that kind of stuff is leaky. Like, it'll come through. Right. And I mean it may be a hundred percent true that you are actually a better facilitator than this person and then they're not doing a very good job. But you need to come to it with the energy of, I wanna help here.

[00:14:30] Paul: Right. I am actually trying to be helpful. And helping, as we've talked about before, you know, has all sorts of status dynamics with it. As we've kind of touched into a little bit, Edgar Schein talks a lot about this in his book titled appropriately enough, Helping. You really wanna moderate that tendency to put yourself one up and the other person one down.

[00:14:48] Paul: When you're offering help, you wanna approach them as close to equal as you can, right? To be peer to them. And one of the things that I will often do is, if I end up doing one of these moves during a meeting, I will follow up with the facilitator afterwards and be like, Hey, I wanted to check in, you know, at that point where we got to that decision and it was unclear.

[00:15:08] Paul: I know I kind of, I stepped in there and I wanted to check like, was that okay with you? Like, was it actually helpful? And you know, 90% of the time they're like, oh, thank you so much. Like, I was really hoping I, you know, and sometimes they're like, well, I don't know how it felt. Right. But we now get to have the conversation about it because I've had that happen to me. Right.

[00:15:29] Paul: As a facilitator, where I will also do the other side of that, which is if someone offers a thing that, where they kind of step temporarily into the facilitator role, you know, if they offer help in the way that we've talked about in this episode, and then they step back into being a participant, I'll follow up with them and be like, thank you for doing that.

[00:15:46] Paul: Because it can be really unclear like, did we stay in our role or not? Was stepping out of it like an overstep? Was it useful? Closing the loop on that can be really useful for both parties just to reduce a lot of that uncertainty and fear of like, oh no, I've gone too far. Right. Or how dare they step in?

[00:16:06] Paul: And they're like, if there are things that have been stepped on, you want an opportunity to clear that right? And to work through it and to repair. And sometimes you really want to be able to say thank you so much. That was so helpful.

[00:16:19] Karen: Yeah, and I think you're moving into a thing. 

Building Rapport with Facilitators

[00:16:22] Karen: What we talked about as we were getting ready for this episode, which is the relationship and rapport that I as a participant have with a facilitator, is also gonna impact how I can be helpful and how helpful I can be, and whether I can step in and help without challenging authority, that kind of thing.

[00:16:40] Karen: I imagine if I was in a meeting and Paul was facilitating and I saw a need for something like this, like he and I have a lot of rapport, and so the odds that I can support him, that's great. On the other hand, if I'm in community with somebody that we just clash every time we talk to each other, we always land on the wrong side of everything and they're facilitating.

[00:16:57] Karen: I'm probably not gonna try to help because if we're already in power struggle as a pattern in our relationship. It's gonna feel like power struggle if I step into their role at all. So I think there is a, like what is the relationship between me and the facilitator that comes into play in terms of what help can be given?

[00:17:15] Paul: And it comes down to the same thing we were kind of talking about in the last episode, is like, what's gonna be useful to the group? You still want to speak from your own perspective, right? You're sort of channeling it through your own experience.

[00:17:26] Paul: You're staying in sort of your role there, but it's like you're not doing it just because you know it could be better, or you think it should be better, right? And all of that, as we usually say right on the show, when you're detecting, moralizing, self-righteousness judgment, you know, that's probably a sign that your attempt to help is probably not gonna come across as all that helpful.

Conclusion and Key Takeaways

[00:17:48] Karen: So to kind of wrap us up, we're talking about how we can, from the chair of a meeting participant, help a facilitator or help the group through a kind of facilitator ish kind of lens. And really our main themes are you gotta stay in your participant chair and to the extent that you sort of lean into a group structure support moment, you gotta do it for a moment and then get back in your chair.

[00:18:12] Karen: You gotta make sure it doesn't turn into a power struggle or that it doesn't challenge the authority of the role of that facilitator. You wanna really keep the facilitator in their role in the authority, and some themes about how to do that, speak from a need. Especially if you can own it as your own.

[00:18:28] Karen: So I could really use a break right now. Any chance we could pause that kind of thing as opposed to, you know, it's been 90 minutes and a good meeting facilitator would stop after 90 minutes, which just doesn't land. So that is a general thing and some examples of the kinds of things that we think are likely to be helpful.

[00:18:46] Karen: Things like that. Tracking of a need for a break, whether because it's the energy or the intensity of the conversation or really like, I need to pee. Like any of those things are really good. Or time tracking in general. Hey, I thought we were gonna have a lunch break. Maybe you didn't notice five after 12 are, how are we doing with that?

[00:19:03] Karen: Something like that can be useful, if it's done really respectfully. Also, energy or emotional tracking. So noting if somebody said something really emotional that needs to be heard, that can be helpful. Or if the group needs a moment to pause and do a little mirroring, that can be helpful. And then the last thing is the clarity thing of if it seems like the group isn't understanding a thing that's being said, to say, I wanna see if I'm getting you.

[00:19:32] Karen: I think you're saying this, and maybe I'm not giving it to them in their same words. I'm saying it in a different way. Is that the thing that you mean? Or, I'm not clear about what our process is. I'm not clear what we're deciding right now, or I'm not clear what it would mean if I said yes to this. That kind of thing.

[00:19:47] Karen: So clarifying kinds of questions I think can be really useful. And if you're in any of those spaces and you can do it with respect and without challenging the role or creating kind of a chaotic lack of facilitation authority in the moment, and you have enough rapport with the facilitator and ideally that you also follow up with them later, so you're sort of building that rapport with them, we think it can really make a difference to make a meeting better, without disrupting things.

[00:20:15] Karen: So there are ways to help the facilitator with caution.

[00:20:19] Paul: That's gonna do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Paul Tevis.

[00:20:23] Karen: And I'm Karen Gimnig, and this has been Employing Differences.