Don’t just do something, stand there!

…groups, large and small, searching for future states they want to evolve to.

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You want to change the world one meeting at a time. Reaching shared goals in an effective and efficient way leads to the right decisions and make people energized and happy and makes a ‘yes’ really mean something.

No wonder people everywhere are so cynical about another meeting, having attended so many they considered poorly led, counter-productive, and time-wasting. The purpose of Don't Just Do Something, Stand There! is to outline the ten principles for structuring and managing meetings. Whether it is a meeting in your community, in a board rooms, with work teams, in offices, schools, factories, or hospitals, Don't Just Do Something, Stand There! shows you how to start leading meetings the right way.

Don't Just Do Something, Stand There!:

• is organized into two major sections:
  1. how to successfully structure and manage meetings; and
  2. shows the keys to managing yourself—illustrating techniques to deal with anxiety, getting used to projections, establishing dependability, and learning to say no in order to make your yes mean anything.
• shows groups how to achieve shared goals in a timely way, manage differences without flying apart, solve problems and make tough decisions, all without inefficiently re-delegating the tasks addressed
• delves into the details of how to structure meetings to greatly increase the probability that people will accept responsibility for their own actions;
• discusses the importance of philosophical perspectives, the benefits of anxiety, and techniques for saying no to unrealistic requests;
• shows how, instead of deferring action until all defects are remedied, one can make structural changes in real time that keep groups whole, open, and task-focused; by learning to help people put forward their best selves in ambiguous situations, one can make a positive ripple in the stream of life; and
• explains and demonstrates when to act and when to just stand there, and in doing so, shows how to change the world one meeting at a time.

Therefore:

Prepare and structure gatherings thoroughly and carefully. Invite the right people. Manage yourself.

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Principles

All principles strengthen, help each other. They are a fabric for meetings that matter. If you want to explore the whole elephant, you must have the whole system in the room. people take responsibility for their own perceptions and agreements if they want to find common ground. open space is an excellent example where people take responsibility.

The larger the group, the more complete the picture everyone gets.

Leading Meetings

1. Get the whole system in the room to understand everyone’s stakes, faster decision-making, and greater personal responsibility, as it:
   • guides you to identify the whole system that matters, matching people and tasks, and managing the agenda while at the same time giving people enough time to express themselves; and
   • provides ideas on what to do if you can’t get the whole system, e.g. 3 × 3 rule.
2. relax to control what you can and let go what you cannot, as it:
   • helps you to stay away from micro-managing meetings
   • allows you to still exercise control where it is important; and
   • lets people self-manage when it is better for them to do so.
3. Explore the whole elephant to lay the groundwork for people to open up to each other, as it:
   • advocates using our ancient wisdom and systems thinking
   • refers to the poem Six Blind Men and the Elephant; and
   • urges you to use a variety of techniques to explore the ‘whole’ during meetings.
4. Let people take responsibility to encourage participants to own their own meetings, outcomes, and future, as it:
   • provides ideas on how to get people who are participating to adopt small group self-management roles to have a group take responsibility for themselves.
   • urges you to be patient, let people hold on to their hidden agendas, and help them to self-manage and encourage dialogue.
5. Find common ground to increase cooperation and fast action on matters of shared concern, as it:
   • relates to principles that were expounded in the earlier book Discovering Common Ground edited by Marvin Weisbord, to hold off problem solving and conflict resolution and start a dialogue to find common ground.
6. Master allies experience differences to set up conditions under which every person can be independent of group pressure, as it:
   • provides ideas to take advantage of alliances that form naturally during meetings to help them become functional subgroups and to experience their differences.

Managing Yourself

1. Make friends with anxiety to seize emerging learning opportunities that improve your leadership capabilities, as it:
   • provides tips on how best to make use of and manage anxiety that often arises in meetings;
   • touches on another tool from Weisbord’s book on productive workplaces—the four rooms of change;
   • enables the four rooms of change to know where you are and what to do next.
2. projection alert to become aware of your own likes and dislikes and turn them into nutricients for personal growth, as it:
   • advises you to be aware of your projections to avoid getting upset or agitated with things that can happen in gatherings;
   • can lead you to even more profound insights with the four questions to stop suffering and enjoy utter freedom.
3. Be a dependable authority to be consistent, congruent, and coherent despite a salvo of projections onto you and onto others, as it:
   • explains the importance of learning the authority dynamics that are played out in meetings;
   • discusses experiencing authority projections, dependency and counter-dependency.
4. just say no to make your ‘yes’ mean something, as it:
   • urges assertiveness while not promising more than one can deliver.

Meetings that Matter

Purposeful, interactive face-to-face meetings that matter, that count (resonates with Agile Manifesto).

To help people themselves to:

• cooperate regardless—or because of—their differences by discovering capabilities they did not know they had;
• manage differences without flying apart—differentiate to integrate to ease the process of discovering common ground and decision-making;
• achieve shared goals in a timely way;
• solve hard problems;
• make tough decisions;
• structure meetings to greatly increase the probability that people will share responsibility.

Participants need to:

• take self-discipline to learn;

As a facilitator:

• lift the yoke of worries about peoples attitudes, motives, hidden agendas, status, and styles.

In meetings that matter, you:

• expect to participate;
• expect to be heard;
• make a difference.

Leading gatherings where diverse people:

• solve problems;
• make decisions;
• implement plans.

Meetings that matter stop:

• wasting people's time;
• cynicism;
• apathy.

Meetings that matter:

• tolerate multiple realities;
• stay focused on goals;
• keeps the groups as a whole, open and task-focused;
• are guided by safety, hope, and friendship;
• allow people to get more done with greater satisfaction in less time
• educe people to take action and responsibility—the less the facilitators do, the more the participants take over.

Change the conditions under which people meet, and you will educe constructive, integrative, future-oriented action. Change the meeting's structure is the short-cut for people wanting to change their own behavior. Pay attention more and act less. Be quiet on the outside and active on the inside. Become visibly active at times when people want to fight or flee (or freeze) the goals, the task, the problem, or decision. In these times, you can be at your best when you can contain your own anxiety and quiet yourself inside.

Work with people as they are, not as you wish them to be. Take people as they are, there are no others.

When facilitating meetings that matter, you:

• manage structure, not behavior;
• match participants to goals;
• invite people to share responsibility;
• pay attention to time and space.

If you manage a meeting's structure, the participants will take care of the rest.

• See people doing their best with what they have rather than using labels like “restistance” and “defensiveness”.
• Build towards a comprehensive of the whole and a picture of the preferred future rather than list problems.
• Ask “What are the possibilities here, and who cares? ” rather than “What went wrong here, and how can we fix it?”

Behavior

• Do you bring few useful skills and relevant experience to the gathering?
• Are you always unprepared for gatherings?
• Do you grasp the firm’s central idea and business strategy?
• Are your questions focused and appropriate?
• Do you bring many ideas or leads on business development?
• Does gathering have established norms on what is expected of its participators?
• Has the line between leading and staying out of the way been made clear by the lead or chief?
• Have you been asked for confidential feedback on dysfunctional peers in the gathering?
• Has the lead privately coached someone into appropriate, constrictive behavior?

Notes

Pearls for Meetings that Matter

Meetings that Matter	Goal:	Therefore:
3 × 3 rule	gain a better resolution much faster while optimizing the whole	Get any three levels and any three functions into the same conversation on any issue of mutual concern.
Allies experience differences	set up conditions under which every person can be independent of group pressure	Identify differences, make them heard, involve everyone, create subgroups exploring and integrating the differences.
Are in	co-create and integral solution or decision with everyone who holds a stake in the initative	Include the right mix of authority, resources, expertise, information and those affected.
Clarifying go-around	find out what to do next	Nearly always start with a go-around, giving everyone a chance to suggest a next step.
Common ground	increase cooperation and fast action on matters of shared concern
Dependable authority	be consistent, congruent, and coherent despite a salvo of projections onto you and onto others
Differentiate to integrate	ease the process of discovering common ground and decision-making	Be ‘differish’ to integrate.
Four rooms of change	know where you are and what to do next
Generative images	allure people to create openings for new, productive conversations about issues they care about	Attract people with an, often ambiguous and paradoxical, slogan that evokes an attractive, generative image to new, productive conversations, allowing many facets so people can leap into it into it in ways no one ever thought about before.
Images of potential	innovatively, creatively and energetically improve the whole system	Ask questions like “What is the possibility here? So what? Who cares? Who is exited about the possibilities?”
Integrating statement leaps forward	move on after a near complete spectrum of views is on the table
Just say no	make your ‘yes’ mean something	Listen to the other's request and provide an understanding “No”, along with its motivation. Find a solution and track progress.
Match people to the task	fit the capability of the group to the size of the issue	Include all key actors in the dialogue.
Mirror, mirror on the wall	find out how you see yourself in others and adopt a couple of group practices to pair	Read out loud the three qualities of someone you find totally attractive and someone you find totally irritating.
People take responsibility	encourage participants to own their own meetings, outcomes, and future
Projection alert	become aware of your own likes and dislikes and turn them into nutricients for personal growth
Relax	control what you can and let go what you cannot
Spectrum of views	develop a more grounded sense of what initial opposing consider relevant and uncover a continuum of opinions	Form subgroups that listen to each other’s conversations to discover differences that can be integrated.
Whole elephant	lay the groundwork for people to open up to each other	Get out all the issues, find out what matters most, and only then explore any solutions and directions to resolve one or more issues.
Whole system in the room	understand everyone’s stakes, faster decision-making, and greater personal responsibility	In each meeting, include all the relevant people who “ARE IN” .
Wind through a tree	control your response to a situation and contain your “hot buttons”	Control your response to a situation and contain your “hot buttons”.

Sources

• Don’t just do something, stand there!—Ten Principles for Leading Meetings That Matter by Marvin Weisbord, Sandra Janoff
• Agile Retrospectives by Esther Derby and Diana Larson
• IAF » Marvin Weisbord,Sandra Janoff » Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There: Ten Principles for Leading Meetings That Matter
• HBR » Amy Gallo » The Seven Imperatives to Keeping Meetings on Track
• HBR » Ram Charan, Dennis Carey, Michael Useem » Root Out Dysfunction in the Boardroom
• Seth’s Blog » Seth Godin » Conference call hygiene