LLL US Western Division Presents
TEAM 2004: Essential Pieces

Barbara Emanuel

In Flawless Consulting, Peter Block talks about when we go to meetings we expect something to happen to us. We are programmed for entertainment and wonder how good a meeting they are going to run. The evaluation forms we traditionally use ask questions about the planners: Were they prepared? Were their objectives clear and well met? What was the quality of the visual aids? etc. Block asks, "how many evaluation forms have you filled out that asked you about your contribution to the meeting?" We have often said that what we get out of the meeting is up to all of us but I'm not sure we mean it, attendees believe it and I'm guessing very few act on it.

After the opening, we included four questions that Block suggests the attendees answer. The questions are meant to ask people about their participation in the meeting and hold the belief that the participants will create the experience they are about to have.

Below are the questions he suggests and added thoughts:
***
Question #1
How valuable an experience do you plan to have at this gathering -- not what kind of experience you want, but what kind do you plan to have?

People are responsible for their own experience. Therefore they have the capacity to determine, up front, the quality of their experience at each moment. In answering this question we are faced with deciding the success of our own future. It does not matter how people answer the question; once they answer it, they have taken a step in making the effort their own.

Question #2
How engaged and active do you plan to be?

This is an investment question. We know that the success of implementation depends on widespread ownership and care. The question carries within it a demand for activism. If we say no, we do not plan to participate, we have at least defined that stance for ourselves and surrendered, a little, our instinct to watch and blame others' participation. Plus, if people approach a process with cynicism and reluctance, naming the reluctance is the first step in shifting it.

For those who say they plan to be somewhat or very active, stating it early creates the situation to be true to the intent.

Question #3
How much risk are you willing to take?

This is a question about learning. All learning, change, and transformation come from stepping toward tension. The important moments of our work have been ones of risk, stress, and anxiety. Our usual instinct is to stay calm, move according to plan, be in control and certainly not be surprised. Much of our reluctance to commit is grounded in our wish for safety. Which in and of itself not a bad thing unless we become complacent about our participation.

This question is also a measure of our commitment and, as for the other questions, even the answer "no risk" is a starting point for accountability. When we are willing to be accountable for our own position, we have begun to be accountable for something larger.

Question #4
How invested are you in the quality of the experience of those around you? What is your level of concern about the well-being of the larger group.

This is a Samaritan question. It is a question of accountability: To be accountable is to care first about the larger whole, then to ask what's in it for me. This question confronts the belief that people will consistently choose in favor of themselves over the larger group. It is the most difficult question for people to answer and therefore the most useful. It really speaks to the heart of implementation and change.
***
Block suggests having people share with each other in small groups (whoever will fit around a kitchen table) their responses and to be curious with each other. He says to stress there aren't any right answers. The process of simply answering the questions and then having to say the answers out loud changes the culture in the room. It communicates to each participant that something more is required than just to sit in the audience. Even if a someone doesn't want to engage and prefers to be quiet and listen, at least it becomes a choice and not a constraint of the setting.

Block shares from his experience when beginning a meeting this way, "there is more life in the room, people ask more questions, some people get irritated, some would rather keep talking, etc. All signs of participation and life."

We certainly found this to be true! TEAM 2004 participants did create their own experience and took away what was important to them. I think of this much like a mom at a Group meeting. We know the power of sharing our stories and information. As Leaders we share that those attending will hear lots of ideas and thoughts during the meeting and we trust they will take away what is best for them, their baby and family as a whole. Extending that trust to Leaders at this meeting captured that same sense of power we each have within us.