#11 Managing "difficult" collaborators – part 1
We all share a fear of the "difficult" collaborator. In this mini-series of three issues we'll cover the top three reasons a collaborator might not play ball.
Welcome back to the Facilitation Studio. I know it’s been a while since I last released an issue; I’m sorry for that. A mixture of life, a wonderful holiday and a busy work schedule conspired against me, but I’m back and committed to continuing the series. I get so much out of writing it and I hear some lovely feedback from readers and listeners, making it very much worthwhile.
Over the following three issues, we will tackle a topic that comes up whenever I ask about people’s biggest facilitation fears - how to manage “disruptive” collaborators in your workshops.
The first and most important thing to remember is that, by the whole, most people aren’t ars*holes.
They have good intentions and want to contribute to the workshop’s success. Very few people turn up to your workshop, determined to make the experience unpleasant for everyone.
That being said, some people will be difficult. But I will challenge you to work on the assumption of good intent when this happens (and, though rare, it will happen!). With that in mind, there are three key reasons that people might be “disruptive”.
For each reason, I will give you some tips and techniques to mitigate them and handle them when they do.
Without further ado, let’s get stuck into the first reason:
Your collaborator doesn’t believe in the purpose of the session. They don’t think it’s valuable.
Prevention is better than a cure.
The value question can be a really challenging problem for facilitators to address because it can be difficult to change someone’s perception of the value of a workshop once they have formed an opinion. So, as any good doctor will tell you, prevention is better than a cure. How can we get ahead of this?
Reinforce the Intent (It’s always intent)
During the session, make sure you reinforce the intent. Your intent is what you’ll be able to do after the workshop that you can’t do before. Your intent is not to create a service map or generate ideas. The outputs are not the intent. The intent is what you will take away from it and do afterwards. If you can articulate your intent to your collaborators, they’re far more likely to come on that journey.
One of the biggest mistakes facilitators make is focusing too much on the process and not enough on the outcome. It’s not about creating a beautiful service map or generating hundreds of ideas. It’s about achieving the intended outcome of the workshop. To do this, you need to reinforce the intent throughout the session. This means reminding participants of the session’s goals, expectations, and outcomes. Doing this keeps everyone focused, motivated, and on track.
Interview Your Project Sponsors
Before you start planning your workshop:
Take the time to interview your project sponsors.
Find out what they want from the session and why it’s happening.
The project sponsors are critical to the success of the workshop. They are the ones who bring the resources, support, and influence to make the session a success. By engaging with them before the session, you establish trust, understand their expectations, and get a sense of their vision. This information will help you tailor the session, set realistic goals, and ensure everyone is on the same page.
Utilise the zeal of the convert.
Another key stakeholder is your intelligent sceptic. This is the person your sponsor team is most unsure of the need and value of the session. Set up an interview with that person too, and bring them to your side by working with them to shape the session. I also always like to ask the intelligent sceptic what they want to get out of the session. Can I secure added value for them since I already have everyone in the room?
Understand Why Everyone Is There
Before you walk into that room, understand why everyone in that room is coming. You should be able to look to an individual and say, “You are here because I value your unique view on X.” If, in the preparation phase, you can’t articulate why someone is there, potentially they shouldn’t be.
Let’s talk about in-the-moment.
Preparation is all well and good, but let's talk about in-the-moment because no plan survives first contact with the enemy.
Are you facing a terrorist or a sniper?
If someone is being difficult, the first thing to assern is if they're a terrorist or a sniper. The sniper is someone who's looking to pick off a specific target. It's highly unlikely that it's you personally; it's much more likely to be a participant or a particular idea or a policy, but you're the facilitator, you're in the firing line and you either have to take that bullet or deflect it.
The terrorist is a trickier beast. They're here to take down everything and don't mind if they go down too. Their goal is to make the event fail.
The Sniper
If you’ve decided you have a sniper on your hands, it’s time to try to integrate them into the session overtly.
Use their challenges to drive the flow of your session.
Allow them to voice their thoughts or concerns, capture them and return to them at the right point in the session. (make sure you do return to them!) Reassure them that they are heard. They could be right. You could use a de Bono red hat moment to allow everyone to voice their emotive response at this point, then follow up with a question.
If they ask a provocative question directly to you (which is often the case - you’re their proxy in this situation), you can redirect it to the audience with a “How might we” question, including it in the narrative and turning an accusation into a positive path forward.
Put your cards on the table.
As with starting questions, don’t disguise the reason for running a session. Be open with why your session or exercise is happening and what we will have at the end that we didn’t have at the beginning. (I’ve said the intent is fractal, and you should have an intent for every exercise, presentation and conversation - this is one of the key reasons why!)
The terrorist
Where you integrate a sniper, you isolate a terrorist. The two steps above still stand true, but do them privately rather than publicly.
Take them to one side.
Preferably, with the help of a sponsor, take the person to one side and ask them about their concerns, what they’d like to see instead, or what you can do to give them confidence in the approach.
After that conversation, there are three potential outcomes:
They'll feel reassured, and they'll re-engage with the event.
You can politely move them onto a side task that doesn't impact the wider group but will show some value.
You can give them permission to leave with your sponsor’s blessing. They don't want to be here. If they don't want to be here, they won't add value if they're not going to add value, it doesn't work for anyone else.
But that's a nuclear option. You've got to go through all these other steps to get there. Hopefully, that preparation you did beforehand will stop that person from ever being in the session.
No matter what you do, believe in yourself.
You have designed and planned this session. You know why it’s happening, and you have the right to make it happen.
The most important thing you can do to prepare and manage others who doubt the value of your collaboration is to understand and believe in it yourself.
I hope that some of these strategies can help you deal with this type of disruptive collaborator when they occur in your sessions.
Facilitation is an art; becoming a great facilitator takes time, effort, and practice. Most of all, it takes practice. You won't get better if you're getting it right every time.
On that note.
I want to take a second to tell you about two of the services my company, Sunart Works, offers through the Facilitation Studio alongside my freelance consultant work:
I offer event-based coaching for people faced with running specific collaborations. Anything from a project kickoff to a board of directors meeting to a strategic away day with your team. Over several sessions, I'll work with you to define your intent and shape the agenda. I'll then coach you through the activities in the agenda and give you the tools and confidence to deliver a more professional session if you'd like to learn more.
Secondly, I'm in the process of recording a facilitation training course. The first module to be released will be about planning your collaboration. It will cover intent, scope, building the story, choosing collaborators and creating an agenda. It will be a paid-for course of video and template content, and it'll include a coaching call in the price.
Subscribes to the Facilitation Studio will, of course, be amongst the first to hear about it. But I'd like to give you a little bit more, so if you go ahead and indicate your interest by hitting this button and putting in your email address before the end of October. I'll ensure you get the opportunity to receive a discount on the module when it launches.
Stay tuned for the next issue, where we’ll discuss the second reason collaborators might be disruptive - they don’t understand what you want from them.
Until then, happy facilitating!
Thanks! Love the distinction between sniper and terrorist. I shall play sniff the sniper next session.