010 - Design and Facilitate Successful Strategy Workshops with Dirk Verburg

In this episode, I talk to Dirk Verburg, a management consultant and executive coach who has the mission to help leaders and management teams to implement their business strategies, business plans and strategic initiatives (such as important projects). We talk about how facilitators can structure workshops that enable participants to execute what they have committed to. We discuss how management teams can keep momentum when being back in their daily routines. In the show, Dirk shares interventions that will help the management team to follow through decided strategies and the role of leaders in that process. 

Don’t miss the part when Dirk explains how he handles the double role of being a consultant and a facilitator of strategic projects. This conversation will inspire you to design strategy workshops which participants will feel motivated to carry on. 

 Questions and Answers

[2:05] What is your story?

[3:20] What makes strategies and business plans fail? 

[3:49] Do participants in your workshops usually have a clear idea already how the strategy looks like?

[5:47] How would you approach such a discussion? Would it be a guided discussion with all team members around a table?

[6:34] How often does it happen that the team hears the same words but understands something different?

[7:12] If there is disagreement, how do you deal with the tension?

[8:03] How do you secure the buy-in?

[10:00] After you clarified disagreement and achieved buy-in, what is the next step to assure the follow-up after the workshop?

[11:52] What are the next steps toward execution?

[13:06] How do you collect the participants’ ideas regarding the specific translations of the strategy? And how do you make sure that everyone is contributing?

[15:08] When participants work in pairs: how do you build these and will they remain the same over the duration of the workshop?

[15:45] How do you get introverts to voice their opinions?

[16:45] How do you deal with the bunch of action items?

[19:28] How do you get the team to prioritize action items?

[21:04] How do you then divide the tasks for execution?

[22:16] Would that mean that the person who has an idea is in charge of the realization?

[27:06] How do you get the team members to follow through with their responsibilities?

[28:42] This sounds so easy in theory but the reality is that many managers have competing commitments. How do you coach the leader to assure progress? 

[34:22] How can you as a facilitator help the team to follow through and to make it fun to stick to the commitments?

[37:06] How do you walk the line between being a facilitator and being a consultant?

[38:49] How do you assure that the CEO doesn’t lose face in such situations?

[39:33] I like to ask my podcast guests for a DIY exercise that always works, no matter what. What would be your contribution?

[40:40] How do you finish the sentence: “Workshops fail if…”? 

[41:13] So what is a “sound facilitator”?

[42:37] If a listener fell asleep after a few minutes, how would you summarize our conversation?   

Related links you may want to check out:

• Dirk's business page: www.dirkverburg.com 
• Our sponsor Session Lab (affiliate link) 

Episodes mentioned in the conversation:

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_06 0:02

What if your next team workshop delivered the results you hoped for? And what if everyone believed that the working session was a valuable use of their time and felt inspired to take action? My name is Miriam Hapness, and it is my mission to help you to deliver workshops that work. Today with me on the show is Dirk Werberg. He had a career in HR and started his own business as a management consultant. Today he helps the leadership teams to go from strategy to action. So we're gonna discuss today how to keep things running and keep momentum after the workshop. Stay tuned. Hello Dirk.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Hello Miriam.

SPEAKER_06 0:42

Good to have you here.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Thank you. Love to be on your show.

SPEAKER_06 0:45

Yes, and um we're here meeting at We Manity today, who were kind enough to host us. So we are sitting in an agile working space. So um you came all the way from Switzerland to spend your Easter holidays with your family.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Yeah, that's correct. I'm a management uh consultant and executive coach, uh, and I'm based in Switzerland, but I also do a lot of work in uh in the Netherlands. So I'm uh regularly here. Um also half my family lives in Switzerland right now, and my two oldest children are studying in the Netherlands. So, in that sense, I'm uh hopping um quite regularly between those two uh countries.

SPEAKER_06 1:23

Beautiful. And I'm super excited to talk to you today about how to actually implement strategies because of the over the last episodes we spoke a lot about connection, about how to get started, how to create safe space in the room. And I hear very often from people that they struggle with keeping momentum after decisions have been made in the workshop or after all these strategies have been developed. So I would love to talk to you what comes after vision and mission, and how can we keep that? So, how did you actually come up with this general topic? What's your story?

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Now, my my story is as follows. Um I worked as uh as a project manager, a management consultant, and also as an HR leader, and and throughout my career I noticed more and more occasions where you know businesses defined a strategy or they defined a business plan or uh they defined a project or project goals. And more often than not, um businesses uh don't deliver. So either a business plan doesn't get executed, a strategy doesn't get executed, um, or let's say a project is kind of terminated halfway. Um and given the fact that my Bellbin profile is a typical finisher-completer, uh, that always let's say, yeah, didn't uh give me a very satisfactory feeling. Um, and that made me think well, what kind of intervention techniques can I develop in order to make sure that strategies and business plans and projects are actually you know executed and um you know brought to fruition and also deliver the required uh results.

SPEAKER_06 3:08

And this implies that um the lack of delivery is not due to budget or to strategies, but for me I hear that there are people problems in the way.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

I would have to think very, very hard to um to remember one occasion where there were basically practical problems. More often than not, it's a lack of alignment uh between the people who are responsible for um you know delivering the strategy or executing the business plan.

SPEAKER_06 3:38

How do you actually go through from you have this leadership, and usually I guess that they have very clear ideas already on how the strategy looks like?

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Now that there's usually uh a leader, um, and and the leader at a certain moment um is either impatient or frustrated that he or she uh isn't able to implement uh his or her strategy. That's that's usually the starting point.

SPEAKER_06 4:03

Otherwise, they wouldn't call your correct.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

So that there needs to be a certain degree of um yeah, let's say uh people need to feel a certain need, and um that's that's where it usually starts with. Um and then it's a matter of yeah, asking questions. So when I sit together with leaders, then the first thing I'm asking them, well, you know, can you explain your strategy or your business plan? Can you explain it to me? Um, and that's usually the first hurdle because if I can I can't understand it, uh then that's usually an issue, then then I can safely assume that there might be other people who cannot understand it either. Um so the first thing is clarifying uh the strategy or the strategic objectives or the goals or the business plan. Um because what I quite often hear from from senior leaders is is they don't get it. And then my yeah, that's that's also my question is then always who is they? And what is it that they don't get? And the day is then often uh you know their their own leadership team or the people reporting to their own leadership team, and the day is then usually the strategy. And then so the first thing is um is the strategy clear enough, is it specific enough? What needs to be done? Uh, because if if organizations come with the idea of you know, we want to be more customer oriented, or um uh we need to meet more X or need to be Y, that's that's not very specific. So you you need to to say, okay, what is your strategy? What do you hope to achieve, and uh what benefits will it bring? Um so I I push to let's say to make this as clear and explicit as as possible.

SPEAKER_06 5:40

And you would do this through a guided discussion with everyone of the leadership team around the table?

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Yeah, yeah, what I usually ask is uh is for the business leaders to explain it to me uh as clearly as they can, and then um I facilitate a session between the leader and his or her leadership team, and sometimes I have meetings with individual participants but bring everyone together. And my first step is always um, you know, asking the leader to present the business strategy or the business plan uh and give everyone an opportunity for clarifying questions. So it needs to be clear, you know, what is the goal that that we are trying to achieve. Yeah, and that's the first step. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 6:26

How often does it happen to you that the leadership realizes that they hear the same words but they understand something different?

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Now it is usually let's say it's it's either a situation that it's um and that's also what I what I witness that people are simply not aware that there's a strategy, or they're simply not aware of the goal, so that's the first stage. And the second stage is you know that they don't understand what it means, and that that's quite helpful because that's just a matter of explaining, you know, what's the topic, what's the issue, uh that we're trying to convey. But more often than not, you know, there's there's a disagreement, and that's of course a much more um you know uh interesting situation, yes.

SPEAKER_06 7:07

Especially for a facilitator. How do you deal with the tension in the room?

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Now it for for me there's there's always two things. It's important. Um, it's important that they become clear, and it's important uh that the team can continue after my intervention. So what what that means is that I always channel, let's say, that energy and try to deal with it in a you know quite a neutral way, in a sense of well, you know, it I think you know some people in the room you know don't agree with that and others don't agree with this. Um so make clear what the differences are and then um you know organize discussions around that theme. And uh then because it's a matter of you can hardly ask people to execute something uh that they vehemently disagree with. So if I would jump straight away from okay, now everyone understands it, now we're going to do it without securing the buy-in, um, then uh you skip an essential step in the process.

SPEAKER_05 7:59

So, how do you secure the buy-in?

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Now, how I secure the buy-in is um ensuring, let's say, that let's say if one or two people you know severely disagree with the leader, then you know, first have a plenary discussion uh and perhaps uh you know organize an offline discussion with the people disagreeing with the strategy plus the leader in order to you know talk it through in more uh in more detail. Yeah, because the minimum position you need to get people in is from let's say against a certain strategy or a certain strategic objective, uh to get them into a note neutral mode where they at least uh cooperate with what the idea is. Um so yeah, that's that's and that's relatively easy because at a certain moment it's also uh quite important for senior leaders um to explain, let's say, why it's important, um and you know, and if push comes to show, they also need to say, Look, you know, this is just incredibly important. Um, I'm ultimately responsible for this unit or for this organization. Um, you know, this is a strategy. So in case you disagree with the strategy, um, you know, we may have a problem. And and that's of course a discussion people feel very, very uncomfortable to have. But at the end of the day, it's quite often uh you need to force a certain level of clarity um before you can, you know, implement uh complex strategies or business plans.

SPEAKER_06 9:22

Absolutely. And it's funny that you're mentioning it because yesterday I recorded an episode for next week with um Meg, and we talked about conflict and how to make conflict your ally. Yeah. Um so the benefits actually of having this tension because it clarifies. Um, so today we're not going down this path. Yeah, because we're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

I'd be very I'd be very interested to hear it.

SPEAKER_06 9:45

You tell me what you think about it and whether you have different strategies. Yeah. So once you got over this discomfort and you could align the group, what would come next to then really assure not only the buy-in but also the follow-up?

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Well, the first thing I do with group is to have them formulate a joint uh mission statement, um, and that that usually helps. So I ask people, I usually break up the group to have them in uh pairs of two or groups of three to discuss okay, what is let's say, uh the mission of this organization or of this team or of this project or whatever it is, um, you know, what what purpose does it serve? You know, that's usually a broader purpose, it's either for society or for business or for a group of customers, but it's usually something lofty. And that that is the first step. And then I compare, let's say, those different uh mission statements and then see you know what are the common elements, what are the differences, and usually come up with let's say something with a group where everyone can you know get behind. So that's the most important thing that people see the context.

SPEAKER_06 10:55

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SPEAKER_01 11:52

Well then the next step is uh we're going to translate our lofty mission in a very concrete uh vision. And that vision needs then to be very concrete in terms of um, you know, what is the strategic uh objectives of sorry, what is the strategic objective or what are the strategic objectives uh that we are trying to to achieve and then um make that uh very very concrete. So, in a sense, if it's a commercial organization, then it could be uh this year we will uh increase our turnover by 15%, or we want to increase our profitability by 20%, or we want to launch at least new three product lines, or we want to require whatever it is, but it needs to be very concrete, and I love numbers in there.

SPEAKER_06 12:39

So, would you use the concept of uh smart goals?

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Um yeah, I'll I'll definitely check if the if the vision statement is smart, yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 12:49

And how do you collect these um these very specific translations of the strategy? Are you doing a brainstorm or is it just a guided discussion? How do you make sure that everyone is contributing to the discussion and not only the CEO?

SPEAKER_01 13:06

Um now because I also usually let people uh break out again in in small groups of two or three to uh to work and to uh to brainstorm on that and then bring it back to the room. Because what is for me incredibly important during workshops is that um everyone has an opportunity to um voice his or her uh opinion because um there kind of let's say two two objectives that need to be met during um workshops in this format. One of them is um as again I'm a very let's say output-oriented person, so there needs to be a concrete plan with dates, deadlines, responsibilities, uh numbers, what have you. But um that plan also needs to be um you know carried uh by the group. So for me, securing buy-in and a platform for change is incredibly important, and in order to do that, I'm always looking for means to have everyone actively participate. Because especially if you have bigger teams, then you have an opportunity or then you have a chance that it's only a very small uh part of the participants, you know, maybe half of them actively participate. Yeah, if you're lucky, and the other ones, um you know, they either um you know don't feel comfortable, um or they don't think their opinion counts. So my strategy to deal with that is to to have people during the workshop do a lot of work in in pairs and give them an opportunity to voice, let's say, their uh ideas, their considerations, um, their hopes, their aspirations, what have you. So it's getting as much voices, active voices in the room as possible.

SPEAKER_06 14:57

And with these I have two questions regarding the pairs. Um how do you form the pairs and do they remain the same pairs over the workshop?

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Well, let's say for me the most important objective is to make sure that everyone's voice is heard. So I will try to compose the groups to to make sure that it happens, and uh therefore I quite often mix and match uh the groups so that you don't get a built-in pattern that two or three people uh speak on behalf of you know their pair of their group. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:29

Yeah. Interesting.

SPEAKER_06 15:31

And how would you then make sure that the introverts also speak up in the group, or would it be enough that they voice their opinion in these breakout sessions in the pairs?

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Now that's a very good question. Uh for me I often encourage them to uh to present. Uh so I will try to say to the different subgroups um what I will encourage them to do is say, look, you know, we we haven't seen you, or would you mind presenting the opinion of your uh of your team? And what I will also do in plenary discussions, I will explicitly um you know ask people to contribute as well. So for instance, I would say, um, you know, Mary, um, you know, I I I see um you know you look a little bit puzzled on the statement that so and so made. Um, you know, would you care to elaborate? So I deliberately try to uh involve people in in the conversation and in discussion.

SPEAKER_06 16:31

Yeah. Nice. Okay, so then um everyone went into a breakout and they discussed the action items of the strategy.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 16:40

How do you deal with the bunch of action items?

SPEAKER_01 16:45

Yeah, now what I then do, then there is let's say um a vision uh statement which is quite concrete, and it's got uh percentages and numbers and concrete goals and timelines and and what have you. Um, and then I usually let's say, and it depends a little bit on where the organization is, but then it's a matter of identifying you know what are the strategic initiatives necessary to to get there. So if you uh take for instance the idea of uh a company that I once helped that needed to deliver new services, right? Um then it's a matter of okay, uh one of the pillars we have is you know, some people need to go away and they need to, you know, gather ideas in the organization what new services could be launched. Um and then it's a matter of you know identifying who's going to do that. Um you know, are they do they need any tools, do they need any support, do they need any communication, and when will they bring the results back into the team? So that's if you have a kind of greenfield situation where um let's say the vision statement is brand new and there are no existing initiatives. I I often come also in a situation where you have let's say some attempts have been done. So there are a couple of building blocks in terms of strategic initiatives, and then it's a matter of revisiting them and say, look, you know, in the past uh you know some initiatives have been uh formulated and then revisit them in a sense of do we still think that these are the initiatives that we need to undertake, um, or do we need to uh review them, uh create different ones, um terminate ones that we don't believe in anymore, etcetera etcetera. So it's revisiting the building blocks, but again it's about identifying uh concrete actions, uh owners and timelines.

SPEAKER_06 18:38

Yeah, this feeling of overwhelm just overcame me. Yeah, because when I thought okay, of a either a green field or a field with different building blocks already, this screams like change management. Oh my goodness, we have to include and involve the entire organization. Um maybe this uh would leave us um lead us in a different direction today. So we'll talk about change management another time. Yeah, okay. So let's assume that um there's a very specific um set of action items that have been defined. Um and again, when the um in the workshop in the leadership team, um ignoring the change management process in the background. How do you get them to prioritize and to structure and to say okay this um this action is important, more important than another one?

SPEAKER_04 19:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Yeah, that that's a good uh that's a good question. Um well there they're different, let's say, techniques about that. You know, there's uh there's a multivoting uh type of techniques where everyone gets a set of points that he or she can divide across different uh yeah that that's possible. Um and it's also making clear uh what are the criteria, uh what gets us there. So what I usually do is is try to make it as focused as possible. So in a sense of okay, if we do this, do we honestly think it's gonna help? What will it deliver? When is it expected to deliver something? Um, how can we make this successful? So you try to make it as concrete as possible that you also through that discussion, um, you know, certain ideas um you know uh may make it to the final list, and other let's say ideas are are dismissed. So you try because at the end of the day you want to wind up with an action plan where the team that you facilitate uh the session for believes in. You know, they need to believe that okay, if we start to do this, yeah, we'll basically be able to execute a strategy, implement a business plan or whatever, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 20:40

And also save the team from overcommitting. So if I hear you correctly, you said it's also telling them, okay, if you want to do this, it might imply that you cannot do something else. Correct. So also discussing the opportunity costs of one action um over another. Yeah. Okay. And then someone has to divide the tasks. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Or yeah, that's very no, that's very important. Yeah, yeah, that's for me very important. Uh, once you identify the different strategic uh initiatives, uh they need to have uh owners. So people in the room need to say that they're responsible for um, you know, taking this initiative uh further, and they um you know need to commit to uh a date when they have the first deliverable, and the first deliverable might be you know a concrete plan uh how we're going to do that uh in terms of you know uh resources, timelines, people we want to include or whatever, but it needs to be a concrete uh deliverable uh and also specific in uh in time. Let's say I don't believe in making people responsible that are outside of the room because that's the easiest way. Uh so uh I want uh I I basically I want every I don't believe in orphan projects, I only believe let's say in uh in in projects which have let's say um the fingerprints of One or two leadership team members on the gun. That's for me important.

SPEAKER_06 22:06

So this means that the person who had the idea would also be in charge of the implementation?

SPEAKER_01 22:14

No, not necessarily. Because that uh is not uh usually not the best way to encourage people to uh come up with ideas. No, no, no. No, for me it's perfectly fine if people have an idea and it could also be an idea completely outside this area. I mean the IT person uh could come up with an idea which would be you know fantastic uh fantastic idea, but would more fit, let's say, um with the responsibility of one of his colleagues responsible for instance for marketing or sales. So I'm I'm perfectly fine if there's a different, let's say, owner than the one uh developing the idea, but at the end of the day, each uh strategic initiative needs to be uh owned. And yeah.

SPEAKER_06 22:54

Is there one owner and one implementer, or would you also work in teams?

SPEAKER_01 23:00

No, I think teams are perfect. I mean, if if two or three people say that they're responsible for a certain initiative, that is uh that is fine as well. I can um I can I can live with uh I can live with that.

SPEAKER_06 23:12

Okay, you can live with that.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Yeah, I mean sounds as if it's not the rule, but rather that's now let's let's say the the difficulty is actually I think what what we've discussed and described so far is uh at best let's say half of the story.

SPEAKER_05 23:26

Tell me the other half. Finally we're gonna master it.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

It's let's say that's the half the story because what you usually wind up with is uh if you wind up with uh a series of uh powerpoints or a series of uh flip charts, uh and that contains uh a list of strategic initiatives. Um they should contain uh dates, owners, um ideally also KPIs and metrics associated with them, and then people leave the room and uh more often than not um you know nothing happens. Yes, yeah, that's good. That's quite often the formula.

SPEAKER_06 23:59

That's why we're sitting here and I'm asking all these questions.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Correct, correct. So quite often nothing happens, right? Uh everyone leaves the room and it's business as usual. Um so what I usually do is um is offering my uh my services um to explain to business leaders and often to facilitate them how they can take things further, and how they can take things uh further, um is they should make it a standing item on their management team meetings and and and not item nine uh but preferably item two or three. Yeah. And that needs to be spent in the sense of okay, you know, we had this wonderful uh workshop about uh you know two weeks ago or a month ago or whatever ago, and we all uh took it upon us um yeah to uh start working on strategic initiatives. Um these were all accompanied by dates, so we're now going to review where we are. And yeah, then it's either a situation which um you know which which is brilliant that everyone took up their responsibility, started to work on it, um you know, and is on schedule and yeah, also quite often uh some elements of the plan have not been addressed or only partially addressed, and that is the most crucial thing, what happens because you know how is the leader and how is the team going to deal with that? And if the team or the leader um, you know, somehow um create the impression that it's okay to have missed these deadlines and that it's okay given other priorities and initiatives to not having paid attention, then there's there's usually let's say uh a downhill direction in terms of the uh of the effectiveness because the signal then to the rest of the organization and the rest of the leadership team is for now, okay, um it was apparently okay uh to miss, let's say, uh a deadline. Uh what we thought was a crucial um piece of work is apparently less crucial than we thought it was. So the next meeting uh you usually see even more uh people who have not paid attention to their um, you know, the initiatives that they were responsible for, the parts of the projects that they were responsible for.

SPEAKER_06 26:23

So and the meeting after that it's even less and less and less. Yeah, yeah. So um I one um picture pops up in my mind. Um I was in um in Africa on a research project on self-enforcing contracts and how to avoid that um poor business people um are cheated in a context where there are no written contracts. And I heard the anecdote of one person who um didn't pay his bills. So um at one evening the entire village was covered by pictures of this person on every tree with a picture. Don't sell him anything because he doesn't pay his bills. And I wonder whether you have similar strategies.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

Now let's say I what was for me always important is um is I like I like a healthy debate, I like a healthy discussion. Um but uh naming and shaming uh the effectiveness of that is um I I think that usually doesn't have um a positive long-term effect. I agree. So what I usually do if I facilitate teams is just making shorter people and say, look, you know, you need to present in a week's time where you are. Um you know, um you know, can you tell me about the status? Is there any help that I could give you? Um, you know, whatever way do you need to have um any input from my side, a clarification, whatever. So so usually let's say it is clear before that management team meeting or leadership team happens what is there and what isn't there. And then I also had a discussion with uh the leader of the team, um, you know, what what he or she uh uh wants to do and how she he or she wants to deal with the fact that you know certain people um you know have not lived up to their uh commitments.

SPEAKER_06 28:15

Yes, it um in theory it sounds so easy. Yeah. And then I just imagine the situation where these managers just say, I have so much to do. Um I'm already working 50 or 60 hours per day. I simply don't have time. So if the CEO wants me to do this strategic thing, what can't I what can I drop? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

How would you how would you coach maybe also the leader in such a situation to now it but what I usually do is um during the workshop is try to get um those discussions uh already going. So in a sense of if they pop up, for instance, this initiative, you take this responsibility, do you think you can execute it? Um you know, do you have the time, do you have the availability, do you have the resources, etc. etc. So try to have that discussion on uh on beforehand. And yeah, then it's a matter ultimately, um let's say, of the of the leader uh of the group, how to how to handle that. Um quite often I I don't like let's say confrontational sessions in leadership teams, etc. I mean, I I haven't seen a lot of good coming out of it to be quite honest. Not at all, not at all.

SPEAKER_06 29:30

And you you poison the atmosphere.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

And it's and it's difficult and it's unpredictable, and you don't know, let's say, uh what the long-term damage for the relationship is. But um I quite often say to the CEO or um the leader of the management team in a sense of you know, you you have to think about it because if basically people uh do not live up to these commitments, you have two problems. First of all, um it's gonna be very difficult uh or impossible to implement the strategy or the business plan that you want to um you know uh implement or develop. Um so that quite frankly, that means that you miss your goals or part of your goals, so that that's one problem you have. And secondly, if you let the behavior faster, um you know it's very difficult um if you tolerate the behavior of some members in your team, um, you know, to not tolerate it of other members in your team. So you you really need to think about it. And what I usually encourage them to do is to have a very serious discussion with a person offline.

SPEAKER_05 30:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

And then take also that person through the discussion and say, Look, if you were in my position, we agree something as a team, uh, part of the deliverables needs to be realized by you. Um you have not delivered, or you're not on track, or you're not on schedule, or whatever. Um, that means first of all, that a lot of colleagues are you know going to look at you in a sense of you know what's your contribution to the team, to the planet, etc. etc. Secondly, we miss our goal. So, what should we what should we do in order to to make this happen? And you know, you can have different scenarios. You can have a scenario like, well, you know, if you don't feel that you're in a position to deliver, um, you know, should we ask one of your colleagues to deliver? Or if I give you a bit more time, do you think you can live up, or you know, do you need additional resources or whatever? But that is a crucial that's a crucial decision, and that is let's say um the essence of leadership.

SPEAKER_05 31:25

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

That it can sometimes be a very lonely uh and and difficult role because if everyone, let's say, is is fully aligned and full of energy and everyone is doing exactly what he or she is uh you know expected to do, then it's of course, you know, easier to be the leader than if you have to deal with those type of situations. But I always say to them, look, this is this is what I call um or that's what's called in in TQM terms, uh, a critical incident, right?

SPEAKER_06 31:53

Now is TQM?

SPEAKER_01 31:55

Uh total quality management, right? So this is a critical incident. So now something happens that shouldn't happen. Um there are either two ways. Either you tolerate it, but it has consequences, or you don't tolerate it, and that also has consequences. But whatever it is, you need to make a decision.

SPEAKER_06 32:13

Yes, and follow through and I imagine that each decision you're taking shapes the culture in the future. Yeah. So also you talked about the costs of accepting this behavior. Yeah I see a third cost which is a reputational.

SPEAKER_04 32:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 32:28

So if you if the leadership team or even the middle management learns that the leadership will come up with visions and strategies that are then never implemented, why would they participate or even believe it the next time?

SPEAKER_01 32:43

No, and that's correct. And and I think it is very, very, very sad. Um but but it happens an awful lot. Um I mean I I once wrote an article called Less Is More. I'll I'll send you the link. Yeah. And that was uh just written out of let's say the same observation as as you made, that quite often leadership teams come up with you know lofty plans, ideas, uh strategy, uh mission, vision statements, etc. And more often than not, uh they're not implemented, there's no follow-up, no follow-through. Um, yeah, and the difficulty of course you create a lot of cynicism in the organization. And the problem is that if you want to do something that really, really, really, really needs to happen, um, it's very difficult to get the momentum going because people have an idea, oh, this looks like um you know, initiative ABC that was launched, let's say, the past uh couple of years and nothing happened. So I I think you're making a very, very strong connection between the decisions that leadership uh teams are taking in this context and the credibility uh they have with the rest of the organization.

SPEAKER_06 33:53

And I wonder what can you as a facilitator do to really prevent the leadership team from overcommitting or even the CEO of dreaming too big and then also to follow through to make it fun to follow up. Because I guess that at the end of the day we're all humans and we prefer doing work that is fun, rewarded, that makes us feel good. So, how can you impact that as a facilitator?

SPEAKER_01 34:22

Now, the the way that I do that, and that is usually my my added value, um, is because um what I bring is is two different elements. On the one hand, uh I'm a sociologist, uh, and I'm in that sense I'm very skilled at um you know groups, group processes, um and interventions in that area, and on the other hand, um I also have an MBA, and I also can read balance sheet profit and loss statements, uh, so I'm also quite good with numbers. So, my added value is that I also deliver value from a content point of view, and quite often from a content point of view, um, I mean, I can never take the place of uh you know the business leader or people in the management team, but but just looking at things through let's say uh a business lens usually helps like the good questions, like the one that you're pointing, yeah, but also the ones that you're pointing at, like you know, what are the other initiatives that are going on? Um, I see the name of John is uh popping up uh with all the seven uh initiatives that we have uh defined, uh but I assume John also has a day job. Um, so it's it's part of let's say uh those exercises, and it's also yeah, a discussion that I have with the leader uh if he or she has a plan and to see you know how realistic is that. So, for instance, if he says about let's let's take the assumptions we need to grow our business with 20%, then I usually ask the questions, well, you know, what is the growth on the market, right? No, and if the market growth is 20%, then it's perfect. Uh but if the average growth on the market is five percent, it basically means that that basically means that you're uh you know you're going to you know to to take market share away from your competitors, yeah, and that is fine. Um but it will usually lead to certain reactions from your competitors as well. Um so it's a matter of you know talking them through um you know because I need to believe in it, I need to understand it in order to to help the team further. So for instance, um yeah, I I also make choices. I mean, if there would be a completely unrealistic uh plan or completely unrealistic initiatives, yeah, then I would find it let's say almost unethical to try to facilitate the decision or discussion to to get a group to commit to something um which would be very, very um hard to uh or almost impossible to implement.

SPEAKER_06 36:48

And I if I understand you correctly, you would um also consult the leadership team or prevent them from taking maybe f uh to follow false assumptions or overconfident moves. Um so how would you distinguish or how would you walk the line between being a facilitator and being a consultant?

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Yeah, that that that's a good question. And and that is indeed a very fine line. What I do is is trying to have most of those discussions that I have from a content perspective with what organizations are going to do on beforehand. That is that is for me very important. And I s because the last thing I want to do is to start second guessing things uh in workshops because then it's very confusing. Then you have a leader, you have different participants, and you have also a facilitator who suddenly starts to ask all kinds of you know very complicated content questions. So I I I try to deliberately withhold that uh as much as possible, and it's only in situations where where I think, well, yeah, let me take an example. For instance, um, if there would be a highly unrealistic uh idea, you know, and and and the group would form a consensus around it, and I would say, look, you know, from from my perspective, um, you know, are are you guys all convinced that this is the would be the right methodology or whatever, or um do you all think this is a realistic scenario? But do it more by questioning rather than say um you know, with my other hat on, as you know, knowing the content of what you might be working on a little bit. I doubt if it's not gonna work because then it's very confusing.

SPEAKER_06 38:24

It is very confusing for the group, and I can also imagine that it would put the CEO and yourself in a very complicated and um conflicting situation where the CEO might lose face or fear of losing face, and then you have ego coming in, yeah, yeah. And all these bad friends that we don't want in our workshop rooms.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

No, correct. So uh I would do it mostly, let's say, from a content perspective, I would have serious concern, I would I would formulate it in the form of questions. Um but yeah, that would be it because it you you cannot jump from one role to another. That that that's that's very you have to at a certain moment either you're there as an expert delivering content uh knowledge or you're there as a as a facilitator. Yeah, uh, and if you uh you know switch these roles then it then it's at a certain moment very difficult because is Dirk now talking to us uh from a content perspective or is he now facilitating a process? Yeah, that's gonna be very confusing.

SPEAKER_06 39:22

I always like to ask my podcast guest for a do-it-yourself exercise. Um so maybe an exercise or something they do in a in a workshop intervention that usually works no matter what.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

One of the things, but I I assume that all your guests are already applying that, otherwise it would be very difficult or your your audience is already doing that, but but look for ways to deliberately make sure that everyone's voice is heard. And you can do that by explicitly asking people to contribute, not in a kind of confronting way, in a sense of you know, we haven't heard you and now state your opinion, but more um, you know, encouraging people to to speak up and also uh looking for opportunities for people to speak up, that's important. The other thing, but but you already brought that forward to the table, is it's a wonderful thing, of course. Um, you know, forcing people to come up with with smart goals in the sense of you know, is this really specific? Is it measurable? Um, you know, is this uh time bound? Um so whenever you're facilitating a workshop, I think that would be a very good asset test. Um you know how real people are in terms of you know the targets that is set, the objectives that is set, and the aspirations that they have. How would you continue the sentence workshops fail if there is no clearly defined output and where that output uh should lead through? And workshops work if there are clear objectives, if they're well facilitated, and if there is a desire certainly on the part of um of the leader to ensure that the workshop delivers the result that he or she wants to get out of it.

SPEAKER_05 41:06

Nice.

SPEAKER_06 41:06

So, what is for you a um a sound facilitator?

SPEAKER_01 41:11

Find that's a good question. Now for me a facilitator is um a couple of things, but but you you're let's say more an expert in that area than I am. But for me a good facilitator is someone who ensures that um all voices are heard, uh all opinions are uh are being stated, um and also uh someone who provides um let's say a safe environment for people to state their opinions. Um so for me the key is you have to draw out let's say everything that's necessary to draw out, also in terms of you know what you could call uh you know resistance uh or disagreement or lack of harmony or whatever that that needs to somehow come clear, but come clear in a non-threatening way, in such a way that the team can continue to work. So ideally the teams come come out of a workshop stronger than they have entered the workshop. That that's always let's say uh a high point in my career if I can achieve that.

SPEAKER_06 42:15

Yes, I like that. Definitely great. Um we're running out of time, so I would love to wrap up. In case um someone in the audience fell asleep after the first minute and just woke up and like what shall I remember? How would you summarize that?

SPEAKER_01 42:38

No, I I think they should always remember that there are two important dimensions of a workshop. Uh, one of the dimensions is uh content, and it's a responsibility of a good facilitator that that content is uh paid uh proper attention to and that the result or the desired output that was the reason to organize the workshop in the first place uh gets delivered. The second thing a good facilitator needs to do is uh monitor the process a couple of important parameters that make sure that all voices are heard so everyone has a chance to uh to contribute and to participate and does participate, that all opinions in the room are uh expressed and and dealt with and as I said uh ideally that the team um leaves the workshop um as a better team than they entered the workshop.

SPEAKER_06 43:36

Thank you very much. Enjoy your time in the Netherlands and have a safe land.

SPEAKER_01 43:44

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_06 43:49

Thank you for staying tuned and listening to the show. I appreciate your attention as I know how busy you are. If you enjoyed it, please subscribe and engage by sharing your comments and thoughts and visit workshops.org to download the one-page summary. I'm looking forward to seeing you back in the next episode. And I wish you a wonderful day.