by Lenny Lind

[Second edition, 2004. Originally printed in the Career Resource Guide, published by the (SF) Bay Area Organization Development Network, 1998]

 
In recent years, large group meetings have become increasingly popular with Organization Development consultants. “Getting the whole system into the room,” has proven to be an effective strategy in many large-scale change efforts. And, in the process, dozens of facilitation methodologies have been invented to meet the challenge which large groups pose to the goal of highly productive meetings.

Coincident with the rise in popularity of these interventions has been the development of powerful software tools for facilitators. Often called groupware or electronic meeting systems (EMS), these tools enable people to work together more effectively – especially in large face-to-face meetings, though they can also add value to meetings of smaller groups. This essay explores the emerging field of EMS support for facilitators of large meetings, how EMS tools enable powerful facilitation, and some of the strong misconceptions which continue to slow their use.

 
EMS Tools for Facilitators – What Are They?

EMS tools for “same time, same place” meetings fall into two categories: keypad and keyboard tools. Keypad tools, in use for over 30 years, allow multiple-choice polling from small handheld units resembling VCR remote controls. Each participant has his/her own unit which sends poll choices to a central computer in the room, which in turn calculates group results and projects them onto a big video screen. While restricting input to multiple choice options only, the keypad systems do allow interesting demographic analysis of group scores.

Keyboard tools, in use for 20 years, allow both polling and text gathering. In smaller meetings (e.g. executive teams), each person has his/her own laptop computer. In large meetings, each group of 3–10 participants shares one computer which is networked with all others in the room. When anyone types a comment and submits it, it can be viewed on all the other laptops and, at appropriate times, on the large video projection screens.

EMS tools are facilitator’s tools, i.e. they are most useful when augmenting a facilitator’s already significant group process skills. Unfortunately, facilitators are often wary of them, generally due to misconceptions about their role and use. Indeed, the most common misconception assumes EMS tools may even interfere with good facilitation (sadly, in the hands of unskilled practitioners, they can). To be sure, good facilitation can be practiced without any EMS tools at all. But when a good facilitator is supported effectively with EMS tools, the facilitator’s skills and strengths are magnified. So the key to using EMS tools successfully is to understand them from the perspective of a facilitator: Why? When? How?

 
Why Use EMS Tools?

First things first: A good group process facilitator focuses on four primary functions – encouraging full participation, promoting mutual understanding, fostering inclusive solutions, and teaching a group new thinking skills(1) – all in pursuit of a client group’s stated goals and desired outcomes. In each of these functions, EMS tools extend a facilitator’s ability to add his/her value to groups.

Most EMS tools have evolved as enhancements of processes already familiar to facilitators: brainstorming, theming, chartwriting, polling, reporting-out, and fostering well-informed, inclusive decisions. So there is a natural fit with real-world facilitation situations. But particularly in large groups, a number of group dynamics issues make facilitating more challenging – members’ fears of speaking to a large group, powerful norms against speaking anything controversial, limited “air-time,” and the normal one-way nature of the communications, to name a few of the most prominent.

The effectiveness of any facilitator, no matter the level of experience, is ultimately limited by the fact that only one person can speak at a time. In large groups, most individuals’ voices are not heard – there is not enough time. In addition, some members’ voices are invariably judged by other members as wasting precious time. But there’s no way of knowing if only one member is thinking “waste of time,” or if half the members are, or if a large minority is secretly agreeing with the speaker. Facilitators are frequently pressured to “keep things moving along.” Yet “getting the system into the room” is seen as important for purposes of alignment and buy-in in our fragmented and fast-moving world. So there’s a bind: the need to get whole groups together, and the perception that it’s often a waste of time. Meetings in general have a bad reputation because of this problem. Sound familiar?

When keyboard-style EMS tools are present in meetings, the capability exists at any moment to ask the whole group to take five minutes and answer a question like, “What response do you have to what [CEO] has just presented? Highlights? Concerns?” After instructing the group to spend another 5–10 minutes reading each other’s comments and searching for themes, the facilitator can either refocus and restart the presenter, or transition into a period of discussion by saying, “I saw a number of themes coming through your comments ? who sees others?” The broad perspectives of the whole group are thus quickly available for discussion. This is what is meant by powerful facilitation. EMS-supported facilitation can have a huge impact on group processes, large scale change efforts, and the success of organizations as a whole.

The fundamental reason for using EMS tools is to quickly move groups (both large and small) into their “essential” discussions. The tools allow for a burst of participation and a quick listing of all points of view – extraordinarily truthful points of view – thereby saving significant amounts of time in getting groups to a deep level of understanding. Then, in the simple facilitation process of developing themes out of lists of anonymous comments, the essential discussions emerge. Essential discussions unblock people – allowing them to apply their best efforts while becoming aligned within a shared framework of understanding. As a result, groups seemingly “jump” forward in pursuit of their stated goals and objectives. Understanding is built more quickly; obstacles are removed more easily; alignment is achieved more thoroughly; and implementation is more sure-footed due to the stronger shared framework of understanding.

It is facilitation that makes the tools work, never the reverse. The tools empower facilitators and are useless without the facilitator’s keen sense of the right question, asked at the right time. To be sure, any such question can be asked without EMS tools. But with the tools, facilitators and participants can achieve the impossible – they can quickly grasp the group’s collective mind.

 
When To Use EMS Tools?

The experiences of six years and over 1,000 EMS-supported meetings have revealed three “gates” in the decision process regarding whether to use EMS tools in a particular meeting. The issue at the first gate is the overall importance of the meeting – the stakes; the size; the impact of the outcomes of the meeting. When these dimensions are all high, the services of a skilled facilitator are indicated. When these dimensions are very high, then it’s worth considering the benefits and expenses of tools like EMS to support the facilitator and the group.

At the second gate, the value of full participation in the meeting is judged. A meeting may be “important,” and yet not require full participation – like a manager’s conference in a top-down, hierarchical organization. On the other hand, many meetings traditionally designed as one-way communication events (such as merger integration meetings, “cascade” meetings, or national sales meetings) can gain significant productivity through the live, truthful reactions of all members. EMS tools allow the fullest participation.

At the third gate, the value of opening up a deeper dialogue within the group is assessed. The meeting may be important, and full participation may bring significant benefits, but might “going deep” be advisable? Or not? In some situations – after a traumatic round of lay-offs or a natural disaster – people are ineffective at work until they can talk through their feelings, listen to others, and come to a new understanding about what has occurred. This is no time for eyeing the clock, yet in large organizations time is always of the essence. The EMS tools can enable participants’ quickest access to those deeper discussions. By keying on the group’s themes as revealed through the EMS processes, a facilitator can gently coax these most delicate of issues into discussion with confidence and with maximum participation.

 
How To Use EMS Tools – Powerfully

Initially, most people imagine use of EMS tools will lead to meetings in which groups of people sit with their heads buried in computers, not talking! In reality, participants use the laptops in short bursts of 5-10 minutes each. As a rule, time spent using the computers should be less than 20% of the total. Any more and you’re probably not spending enough time in discussion.

When first beginning to use EMS tools, it is always advisable for a facilitator to work closely with the most experienced tool provider (we call them guides) that s/he can find. The roles of facilitator and guide differ primarily in focus: the facilitator is a process expert and must be focused on the group; the guide is a tools application expert and must be focused on the facilitator. Thus, the guide’s skills and tools provide a “plug-in competency” to a facilitator. Working together in this way enables an altogether new possibility in group process – the whole group in communication with the whole group!

As a facilitator moves up his/her learning curve with the tools, the guide can bring experiences from scores of other meetings to the situation at hand. Integrating EMS tools into agendas is an art, but is easily learned once seen. As the facilitator becomes familiar with EMS-supported processes, s/he can begin to design integrated process moves on the fly, enabling the most powerful process interventions possible.

Within a few meetings, facilitators become comfortable using the fundamental process of keyboard EMS tools: frame, write, read, discuss. The facilitator frames a thinking process for a period of time; asks the group to think and write some thoughts; asks everyone to read each other’s comments, looking for themes; and finally transitions into the discussion where the fruits of the exercise are discovered.

Some basic agenda patterns have emerged and proven effective over time. One, called “Jump-Start,” involves use of an EMS tool to gather the starting ideas of all members. The discussion that follows is based upon the collective thinking of all, and quickly “jumps” to the heart of their issues. Another pattern is called “Harvest.” It is used to collect the results of a facilitated discussion: what was learned? what key points? what take-aways? Perhaps the most popular pattern is the “Interactive Presentation.” In this one, a presenter offers his/her key points to a group in half of the allotted time. Participants then have 6-8 minutes to respond, using EMS tools, with questions or concerns. The presenter scans the group’s comments for themes and then concludes the presentation with restated key points and additional comments, now focused on the needs and queries of the group. It is not a stretch to claim this type of presentation is doubly productive. These and other basic agenda patterns have become “building blocks” which are easily learned and integrated into real-world agenda planning.

 
Anonymity – A Tool Within EMS Tools

Implicit in all the preceding claims about the value of using EMS tools is the strong valuation of anonymity. However, it is common to hear fears that EMS tools will allow people to “hide-out,” or take “pot-shots” at other members or managers without “owning” their statements. Here again, experience is the teacher and lays bare another misconception. Maybe once a year, or once in ten thousand participants, someone will take a pot-shot. One reason it’s so rare is that facilitators make a strong case for “constructive criticism” – truthful, fact-based criticism, worded in such a way as to be constructive. Another reason is that people love to participate – why mess it up?! why hurt someone?

When anonymity is used at the beginning of an important and difficult meeting, it becomes an “on-ramp” to fully responsible participation later in the meeting. In the early stages of a meeting, the “cover of anonymity” allows participants to test the water, observe the facilitation, gauge their readiness to go public, and speak when the time is right. Experience has proven this, time and time again. Without the unusally safe space which EMS tools can create, most participants’ difficult communications in critical situations will never be heard. These are opportunities lost for organizations. So the issue is not “if” anonymity is valuable, but rather “when” and “for how long?“. Like any tool, it requires proper handling.

With EMS tools available in important meetings, facilitators and their client design teams have significant new-found intervention capabilities. This powerful facilitation allows groups to “own their truths” more quickly and safely than is possible with any other approach. Good results accrue rapidly.

The apparent “leap” a facilitator must make – from knowing nothing about EMS tools to actually facilitating with them – can appear huge and fearsome. But in practice, the leap is much smaller than it looks. With a good orientation and experienced support it is possible, even easy, for facilitators to apply meeting software tools to the most difficult of interventions – powerfully.

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(1) Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making by Sam Kaner with Lenny Lind, Catherine Toldi, Sarah Fisk and Duane Berger, New Society Publishers, Vancouver B.C., 1996.

Lenny Lind has been involved with corporate communications media and processes since 1975. He founded CoVision in 1985, and in 1993 created the field of portable groupware services support to consultants and facilitators. Today, he is one of a handful of experts whose work integrates group process and group dynamics perspectives with the capabilities of electronic meeting software. Lenny is co-author of the internationally-acclaimed Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making. (New Society Publishers, 1996)