In 2004 I had to get eight thousand overworked middle managers to schedule a training day they hadn’t asked for, show up for that training 2-3 months later, and not cancel, reschedule, or mysteriously “get the flu” when the day arrived. If even a small percentage of them no-showed or rescheduled, it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Either my company would wind up running make-up sessions for free to fulfill our contract, or the client would have to pay extra because the original sessions hadn’t covered everybody.

My buddy Jason Gore and I locked ourselves in a room all day with two of our clients to figure out how to make this work. For hours on end we talked ourselves into and out of various options.  We tried mandated attendance dates – seemingly high control but also high risk of no-shows.  What about letting everyone pick their own date?  Not practical, e.g. if all eight thousand wanted to attend on the same day. It was one of those meetings where after the first few hours your brain starts to feel like mush and the whiteboards are covered with increasingly meaningless sentence fragments (“initiative vs. yield!!”). Outside we could see the parking lot emptying, and the options for buoying our dwindling blood sugar were vending machine potato chips and Oreo three-packs. We called it quits for the night, convinced we’d tried every possible approach and that they all had some fatal flaw.

Around this time I’d been reading about complexity theory and self-organizing systems like markets. In a distracted, rambling tone I wondered aloud to my boss Phil whether there was some connection between complex systems and our training scheduling problem. We were driving through Virginia at night and I think I literally said to him “I know this is too crazy to actually work but…what if we established some kind of ‘market’ for the seats in the training? Like if we gave everybody some kind of token or something, maybe with provisional training dates, and if they didn’t like it, they could just find someone else to trade with. That way we don’t have to figure it all out, we just set up a little ecosystem of sorts and let them figure it out.” In his typically wise and laid back way, Phil neither dismissed the idea nor insisted that I immediately resolve every detail of it. We continued our drive and leisurely conversation until we got to our hotel that night.

The next day, something like a market was exactly what we settled on to solve the scheduling problem.  Of course there were more hair-raising turns to actually get all the players to buy into that idea and make it work.  We needed a big chunk of time in the company’s upcoming Departmental VP meeting to hash out the schedule.  But we found out that meeting was scheduled for the next day.  And the VP’s knew nothing about the training yet.  We had a matter of hours to “sell” the VP’s on the training, get onto their packed meeting agenda, and find out when would be a good time for a few thousand of their staff to take a day away from work.  No problem! The company had gone from 2,000 employees to 20,000 in a few years and, yeah, ‘time for training’ was a laugh-in-your-face kind of concept at that point.

As we sprinted through our power-schmoozing of the executives and their all-important assistants, I thought ahead to the VP meeting the next day.  I remembered the advice of the facilitation gurus who’d mentored me at Interaction Associates.  They’d taught me that for any complex group problem-solving, you had to focus everyone on one shiny visual at the front of the room, and not let people space out flipping through printed handouts.

I realized that if we had each VP staring down at their own copy of the training schedule, the meeting would likely fall apart.  I could imagine the scene, heavy with the pregnant silence of unvoiced skepticism (“What the hell’s this training for anyway?” “You mean every single salaried employee‘s gonna do it?” “The whole company in the next three months??”) I pictured them quietly turning pages until the first one finally said “Yeah…I don’t think these dates are gonna work for my department.”  I knew if those words were spoken, we’d be sunk. One objection would be followed by another and another until we were kicked out and told to “think it all through again from the beginning.” The VP’s could sit back, content in the knowledge that their hard-nosed realism had prevented what had obviously been a train-wreck in the making.  If they were lucky the whole idea might just go away without further disruption to the real work of managing their phenomenal growth.

Fast forward to 1 am that night, the scene of the final hunch. To prevent “training date organ rejection” I had roped my client Julie into helping execute another of my “I know this might seem weird, but….” ideas.  I wanted the visual training schedule at the front of the VP meeting to be big.  Like, airplane-hangar-wallpaper big.  We were at the local Kinko’s getting them made up and laminated, so punchy that I’m sure the copy crew thought we’d been out partying.  I think we had to put the back seats of the car down to cart them out of there.  But the underlying message we hoped the huge graphics would convey was “Getting everyone through this quickly and cheaply is a shared task. If you don’t like your dates, the solution to that problem is to trade amongst yourselves.”

In the end, all these hunches paid off and it worked. I’m sure you guessed that, given that I’m using this story to illustrate my point.  But don’t just take my word for it, listen to Ev talking about how Twitter started off as a hunch:

Now it’s your turn.  What are you most passionate about right now, and what’s your hunch that’s “so crazy it would probably never work?” How would you start to act on it? Who can support you, and how?

Chris Brogan who I follow on Twitter just published what I think is the best of several recent pieces on social media. (If you haven’t heard the term social media before it just means all the online conversations about life, business, politics, products, parenting etc. that new-ish tools have enabled in the past couple of years. And the interesting consequences of those conversations.)

I have seen other recent pieces in the NYT and even in the Financial Times while I was in London, but I didn’t think they added a lot to the discussion. But in my role as social media trailblazer in my consulting community, I wanted to pass Chris’s piece along right away.

I came to a crossroads, however, trying to compose a nice “business-y” email from the comfort of my bed in the wee hours. Feeling a bit lazy and groggy, but also wanting to move my colleagues to actually read the link I was sending, I felt stuck between writing in a ‘business’ voice and just finishing the email quickly and without too much effort. I finally just said “this is hot, read it.”

I’m not a particular user of the word ‘hot’ in general, let alone in a business context. And granted my audience of consulting colleagues are also good friends, so sounding like a vapid Angelino for a moment wasn’t going to harm my reputation or brand. But I realized in that my momemtary writing dilemma felt like a microcosm of how business communication is changing. We are bombarded by so much casual conversation now, and social media are breaking down older more formal tones. And, quite frankly, I think it’s hot.

Have you noticed changes in how you communicate in a business setting? Or how others communicate with you? What’s being gained, and what if anything is being lost?

On the other hand, some of us are by training and inclination problem-spotters. We believe that if we can find and fix what’s wrong, everything will be fine. As with the positive thinkers, this of course is useful to an extent. The problem comes when we find ourselves continually worrying or complaining no matter how well things are going. And again, in a group setting you might find that your legitimate concerns are easily dismissed if you have a reputation for being too pessimistic. 

Here’s something that gives you the best of both worlds. I learned while I worked at the amazing Interaction Associates (they rock, check them out). Instead of focusing exclusively on problems or just being positive, we would teach clients to ask two evaluation questions after every meeting:

1. What went well? (Let’s call those the “pluses”)

2. What would have made it Even Better If? (Call them EBI’s)

Taken together, I call it +/EBI. Giving this a quick handy name is key to making it a regular practice for your teams.

Recently I had a group of talented bankers from around the world in Brazil with me for a week. One of the tools we used every day after interviewing local organic farmers was +/EBI. These were long, hot days spent traveling around remote farms and community centers, and by 11pm you can bet the group was bushed. But in a very simple, quick way, we captured the learnings of the day. People who felt that something important needed to be fixed called out their EBI’s. But we also celebrated all the good work.

When you do this every night, or at each team or project meeting, people get in the habit. It also legitimizes some of the difficult things people may want to say, because you’re asking for EBI’s. It’s a great structure for individual feedback too. When people expect EBI’s it’s that much easier for the giver and receiver. And if they tend only to focus on EBI’s, I make them give themselves a bunch of Pluses to balance out their assessment.

One last bonus from this: it saves time. If you ask a group “what worked, what didn’t work” you then spend time developing fixes for the second list. If you go straight to “what would make it Even Better If” you already get solutions. They may not be the best, the group may have to modify them, but you’re closer to a more effective iteration next time. And you’re more motivated than if you had filled a whole flip chart with Things That Didn’t Work.

My primary motivations have been curiosity and fun. I’m experimenting with giving those two forces a more important place at my decision-making table.  As a result of my online explorations and conversations, I have now offered to lead two processes that I don’t know very much about.

I expect to learn a lot and meet some great people. And probably make some mistakes along the way. Stepping up to lead amidst ambiguity felt like a chance to take some of the advice I’m always giving my clients. And a chance to embody the coaching of my best mentor, Richard Strozzi Heckler, who advises his clients to make bold offers.

Offer #1 – Leading a session at BILConference. I’ve always wanted to go to an Open Space or “unconference” event. The attendees are the presenters, and anyone can propose a session on anything. After that people vote on the sessions or just go to the ones that sound interesting.

Most of the other presentations are about interesting technologies to improve human sustainability on our little planet (handy idea, right?), or about the future of technology itself. Into this heady mix I have profered the following:

Oh yeah, it’s the People – The Key Ingredient to Making Stuff Happen

Have you ever seen an awesome idea die because the people working on it couldn’t get along? Or maybe they couldn’t influence those who were supposed to benefit from using their idea, so nothing changed and the status quo just dragged on and on?

Or maybe you work somewhere that frustrates the daylights out of you because it COULD be so fantastic, but people go all knuckle-headed when they get into a group meeting or a personal disagreement. It’s like the normally sane, cool people we know outside of work transform into some mentally/emotionally amputated version of themselves at work.

This fascinates me. And frustrates me. And motivates me. I think one of the biggest bottlenecks to making a better world happen is the way we relate to each other 1-1 and in small groups. Whether you want to fix the organization you work in, be more effective in swaying people to get behind your great idea, or just laugh at how preposterously insane we can be when we have to deal with Those Damned Other People Who Are Doin It Wrong, I hope you’ll join me and others for this session.

[Newsflash: Somebody signed up to participate in the session! Please join me in a short round of gleeful jumping up and down.]

Offer #2

Some fantastic people have dreamt up “Twestivals,” a worldwide series of events on the same day to bring Twitter users together and raise money for a charity. I am not sure exactly what happens at a Twestival. But it sounds fun. So I signed up to lead preparation for the one in the small town where I live, Los Angeles. I am not really sure what that will entail. I don’t know what happens at these events, how long they last, or, really, anything more about them than the introductory sentence in this paragraph.

Most of my career I have been a coach and consultant. On the rare occasions where I am leading a team, the results have been better in recent years but I’m still haunted by the embarassing controlling tendencies that I had when I lead teams of volunteers in college.

I’m not really sure what “leadership” will look like for a Twestival. Do the kind of people who create and attend a Twestival want leaders, or will I be a lightening rod for everyone’s authority issues? How can I strike the balance between enough initiative and direction to be helpful combined with enough openness and humility to let leadership emerge from many according to what makes sense? (Ugh, even that way I put that sounds so horribly pretentious :/ The grandiose part of me is already measuring the drapes in the Twestival L.A. Palace, I can’t hide it!)

Anyway, we shall see. As I say, I’m forever advising my clients to take risks and be willing to fail in the pursuit of something worthy. And if there is anything worthy that I have discovered from spending way too much time on Twitter over the holidays, it is that a new movement of authenticity and “doing stuff for ourselves” is a-rising. I figured it might be fun to muck in.

As the project progresses I won’t be chronicling it blow-by-blow out of respect for client confidentiality. But I will continue to post lessons gleaned from past projects or tips on how to get the most out of your team or your external consultants.

Tell me if the following conversation rings a bell for you, whether you’re on the client or the consultant side.

Client: “We have an executive retreat coming up and we’re looking for a facilitator. You come highly recommended. Would be you interested? Are you available?”

Consultant: “When is it?”

Client: “Next week.”

or

Client: “We need a one-day team-building workshop for twenty people. What would you charge and when could you run it?”

One of my favorite versions of this was at a prestigious international investment bank in London. This was years ago when I was just starting out, and most of the people I worked with were support staff: IT, Marketing, Legal, HR, etc. My business partner was proficient at getting us meetings with prospects who might want some training for these groups, and I would be wheeled in to uncover the real need behind the training request.

After the opening pleasantries in a room high overlooking London, we encouraged our contact and the executive sponsor to describe what they wanted. Flush with enthusiasm, they described a day-long session for about 200 support staff, using words like “stimulating,” “motivational,” and “thought provoking.” Good food and a nice venue were also important. As the description was winding down, our contact remembered an important final thought. “Oh, and it has to be fun, that’s really important.” “Yes,” chimed in the executive sponsor. “Fun. Very important.”

I asked whether anything like this had been done before. “Oh, yes” we were told. They had had trainings in prior years from representatives of the best-selling business authors of the time. I won’t name names, but these were the people whose books I was reading to get ideas. I was impressed and a little daunted at the shoes we might be asked to fill.

“And what results or changes did you notice after those events?” I asked. There was a pause for thought. The two of them exchanged inquiring glances. “Well, nothing specific really,” said the executive sponsor, “but the seminars were very popular. Everyone really enjoyed them.”

As I say, this was still early in my career. I winced internally at what I knew I was about to say. “What if I suggested giving us a small team to start with, instead of going straight to doing an event for these 200 people? After all, we really don’t know much about their work or their challenges, and I’ve seen trainings miss the mark on that basis before.”

Encouraged to elaborate, I warmed to the task of turning a potential sale of several tens of thousands of pounds into something that would net us far less. But I knew it would be better work.

“Rather than having us give a generic message to a large group who we don’t know well,” I said, “what if you gave us a team or a business result that you wanted improved, and we used that as a way of getting to know you better. You’d come out with a problem solved or a more effective team, and then anything we did for the group of two hundred would be more relevant, more realistic and practical.”

Another pause.

“Well, now that you mention it, there is one team that could do with a team-building session.”

Now we’re talking, I thought to myself. An actual business need, something they want to improve. Even so, we were still inside a paradigm where an ‘event’ seemed like the answer.

The conversation went into a creative mode from there where we talked about the team in question, their challenges, and how it would help the business if they had a breakthrough. I’ll spare you the verbatim replay, but we left with an agreement to interview everyone on the team, including some of their internal customers, and to then reconvene and decide if a team-building event or some other action would have the biggest impact.

Note – This was the last time I left a contracting meeting without asking the following question:

“Often when we interview a team there is feedback for their leadership, in this case the two of you. Are you open to hearing that information if it comes up?” This is of course one of the most important points of leverage and I now always ask this.

In the end, the team interviews themselves were 80% of the needed intervention. It turned out that members whose performance was undermining the group work product almost unanimously wanted to be in different roles. The two leaders also needed to align on the feedback they were giving team members, and to give that feedback more regularly. One member needed to be put on a performance plan.

So we wound up solving their problem with no need to ever have a team-building event.

Bottom Line: Don’t think in terms of holding events to get outcomes. Focus on the outcomes you want, and then interview some key players before you decide whether an event will deliver your ROI.