Coach and strategic thinker Dale Williams blogs about all manner of matters related to business and to life, using examples from his work and experiences. This week, he considers how difficult it can be to start (or worse, restart) a project, the value of an outsider perspective when it comes to strategic planning for companies, some tricks to make meetings more productive, quick, and efficient, and the many ways that we communicate things about ourselves without saying a word. Dale’s blogs are a pleasure to read because he has mastered the greatest writing skill of all: brevity. Enjoy! – FD
 By Dale Williams*
Think of it as a big blue bubble. It travels with us wherever we go and it is filled with the things we say and do. The contents however tend to linger well beyond our words and actions. It is like our history travelling around with us.
If we are genuinely a well meaning person who has mostly valuable interactions with others then one fallout is not likely to have a big effect. Similarly, if we mostly fight with the world, it makes it harder for us to get on with anyone.
Our bubble is there for anyone to see. It is surprising how accurately people can describe us just from experiencing our bubble. Before we open our mouths people have a sense if who and how we are. Blink.
Likewise there are bubbles around families, companies, churches, cities and countries. The French bubble looks and feels different to the British bubble. The Catholic bubble is different to the Jewish bubble.
Our own bubbles interact with each others and with those of the organisations we inhabit.
When somebody says something like ‘trust me’ while their bubble is telling you to run a mile, we feel uncomfortable.
The question we need to ask ourselves is how are we influencing our bubbles with what we say and do?
Do our bubbles represent who we would like to be? And if not, what can we do about it?
This is an interactive presentation
People who say their presentation is interactive seldom give interactive presentations.
Asking for interaction in presentations is normally a quiet plea for acceptance.
“Please like my presentation by interacting with me.”
What presenter wouldn’t like their audience engaging with them and appreciating what they are saying?
To get engagement however, we need to create the possibility for interaction.
Asking open questions, 
looking at people expecting a response, 
asking people to discuss an issue and summarising their outcomes.
These are some ways to get interaction. “What questions do you have?”, followed by a pause encourages questions, “Please interrupt me if you have any questions” , doesn’t.
And our body language often says far more about whether we really want interaction or not.
When presenting we are not just saying words and showing pictures. There are many other subtle messages that our audience is receiving from us. If we don’t think about them, then we can cause confusion or even work against the message we are trying to convey.
The shortest meeting
When not managed properly, meetings compete rigorously with email for the title of greatest time wasters.
There are hundreds of books written on how to better manage a meeting. Unfortunately all of them make the faulty assumption that sitting around a table discussing and deciding is a requirement for a meeting.
One of the most effective game changers I have seen in the meeting space is what my Dutch boss did when I was working in the Netherlands. We would start a Monday morning with a cup of coffee while the ten of us would update each other on what we were doing, make decisions for the week ahead and ask for support from each other.
This sounds pretty normal behaviour until I point out that we did that while standing up. It’s amazing how focused everyone gets when they are not comfortably lounging in a seat around a cozy table. In fact it turns out that sitting around a table is one of the worst ways to stimulate creative thought, something most meetings could do with a lot more of.
The best thing is that you don’t need to read a book to try this out. Do everything you normally do in a meeting except do it standing up. Standing creates a shift in the energy of your meeting. It is also guaranteed to be shorter.
A sobering thought for those who organise meetings is the observation from Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister (Peopleware, 1999) that most meetings are a ceremony to reassure the organisers’ ego rather than an opportunity for people to get together and collaborate. True collaboration most often happens in an ad hoc manner rather than a scheduled meeting.
Insiders and outsiders
So right up front I need to declare my bias. Some of my work entails working with executive teams to figure out better strategies for their future. I have a vested interest in, and believe it makes sense to involve outsiders when wanting to think about the future in a different way.
On Friday Clem Sunter and I were chatting after his annual guest lecture to our Strategic Thinking students. We exchanged stories about how so often our clients work backwards from their expected outcome. Limiting themselves to what they believe is possible, they then describe their future. While tweaks are often considered, it takes great courage to turn hours of interesting talk into an implemented strategy that changes course for the better.
Scenario planning provides a rich vantage point from which to look at the future, especially when change is required. This is what is exciting about the work Clem and I do. The real power of scenarios is however when they cause a stirring of emotions that compel people to think and act in a better way. We agreed that a rational argument alone is not good enough to cause change to happen.
While many of us consider ourselves to be rational, a quick glance through the hundreds of biases that are affecting us all the time, should raise some doubt as to how rational we really are. Our emotions play a much bigger role in our decision making than we would like to think.
This is why a group of business people on a particular mission benefit from having an outsider in their midst. The outsider can do many things they cannot. One of these is to question the very assumptions on which their business future is built. We are often emotionally attached to our existing ideas and only an outsider can cause us to feel uncomfortable enough to think differently.
This is hard for insiders to do themselves. Here are three reasons why.
- Often it is the leaders vision that is being followed. As Daniel Kahneman describes in his interview with Charlie Rose (follow this link), leaders like the idea of rationality but resist implementing it. None of us like our views scrutinised and this is even more so if we have climbed to the highest levels in an organisation.
- Insiders are also vested in the activities that have built their business thus far. ‘That’s not the way we do it around here’, is cliched but we hear it often in various guises when asking about alternative futures that haven’t as yet been considered.
- The third reason is that there is an element of risk in doing things differently. Sometimes to keep going with what we know, even though we are aware of the flaws, is easier than venturing out into a new area. Comfort zone or sunk cost bias perhaps?
Outsiders can help identify a new direction and new ways of implementing. Even though the really hard work of moving in that direction is left to the insiders, without identifying what is possible, we are more likely to remain with the known.
To break out of the tried and tested we need to ask outsiders into our inner circles.
Starting again
It is hard to start a project. Sometimes it is even harder starting again. Picking things up when they have gone astray can be difficult.
The principal underpinning this phenomena is momentum. Just as more effort is required to move a stationery object, so too more effort is required to get momentum when a project is in its /early stages.
Sadly a stopped project has this momentum issue plus a whole lot of doubts about whether momentum can be gained again. Having known movement and then experiencing the stall can raise all sorts of doubts in the people driving the project.
The one upside of a stalled project is that the time away from it gives a space to reflect and refocus.
If used beneficially this reflection can compensate for the doubts and sense of failure.
Ironically if we overcome the challenge of being stalled, we immediately start feeling like we are making progress, just like before the break.
The trick is to not let the burden of being in a slump prevent you from lifting yourself out.
* Dale Williams blogs weekly in the connectedblog exploring examples that arise from the work he does helping clients create better strategies for themselves and their business. More about Dale at www.connecteddale.com. If you would like to receive his regular updates, click here.Â
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