Achieved Strategies

2 Responses to “Change Play 4: Communicate Sooner Than You Think”

1. 

   cherry woodburn
   

   21. Jan, 2010

   Thanks Shawn. I’ve found communication is the key to all change efforts (even non-change efforts). When you mentioned town hall meetings that involves a lot of listening even with accepting a degree of complaining. What tactics do you recommend to keep a meeting from deteriorating into just a gripe session.

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     Shawn Murphy
     

     21. Jan, 2010

     Hi Cherry,
     Indeed communication is at the heart of any interaction in any context. And you are right that it is a bit tricky to ensure town hall meetings don’t descend into griping. Here are a few tactics we’ve used to navigate the meeting to a positive outcome:

     1. Set the tone of the town hall meeting before people actually show up. Let me give an example. We had designed a town hall meeting using World Cafe principles. We sent invitations to all attending and included the menu (aka agenda) for the session, rules of engagement, and designed the meeting around questions that inquire into what’s possible on several topics relevant to the group. We set the tone that the meeting is exploring what’s possible and not what’s an obstacle. When people arrived music was playing and positive quotes relevant to the meeting were posted in the room. We welcomed each person as they arrived. We allowed people to network to establish a comfortable environment. We didn’t have opening words from management. We created a little whimsy for the meetings and people responded in like. In short, set the tone that the meeting is fun, upbeat, and designed to get solutions. Sure issues surfaced but they were addressed by the group, not me or my team. I can’t say enough how critical setting a tone is for town hall meetings.

     2. Another tactic we’ve used with groups when gripping attempts to hijack the meeting, is to call out the behavior and the impact it’s having. It’s tricky waters, but we’ve found that by asking a question like, “How are these comments helping us achieve our goal today.” This approach won’t work when taking on a person in the meeting. This is stating the obvious, but we’ve seen it backfire when the question isn’t posed in a safe, non-threatening manner. What’s also crucial is to not make the persons wrong for hijacking the meeting. In the end, the griping is about a deeper problem that is surfacing as complaints. Recognizing this helps lead a conversation that can right the ship, so to speak.

     Great question.

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