There are a few easy things you can put in place that will enable your senior management team to work smoothly and efficiently. Doing these things increase the likelihood of getting true commitment not compliance. Not getting “buy in” results in the likelihood of your strategies not being delivered the way you want them to be. Below are five suggestions:
1. Define the purpose of the meeting and what you want to achieve at the end of it – make sure that all participants know this in advance. Knowing it will help them stay on topic and work towards the goals.
2. Publish the agenda in the form of questions – identify the exact questions you want answered before the meeting and make sure you stick to them unless you agree to deviate
3. At any point in time during the meeting, identify a specific question and keep it in focus (eg. On a flipchart) – you can view any conversation that you have in the group as answering a question. Often, the question is NOT consciously identified and so people are answering different questions by implication. People interpret questions differently. For example you are exploring what your team can do to increase performance in the marketplace. You are specifically looking for solutions. Some team members start talking about why it’s hard to get a competitive edge. You get frustrated because they are going off topic and perhaps label them as negative. They pick up on these signals. They switch off and you no longer have commitment. If you keep the question precise and in view, they are much less likely to explore a different frame. Write up on a flipchart, “What suggestions can we generate for improving market performance?” When someone deviates ask them to justify their deviation. Answer only one question at a time. Groups are not very good at answering several questions at the same time. The result is non clarity.
4. Let everyone know what communication model you are adopting for the particular meeting - We've witnessed so many management teams adopt a debate model in early stages of problem solving or adopting innovations. The debate model is embedded in our education system. It works on the premise that whoever has the better argument will win. This way of thinking results in people locking into positions and also invites power games – none of which are good for collaborative working. A much better model is the exploratory model where team members are asked to suspend all assumptions and opinions with the intention of understanding and mapping. The debate model has its uses and is at its most powerful, when testing suggestions.
5. Have a team member act as facilitator and give them the power for the meeting – if you don’t have someone regulating the flow of the meeting you risk the meeting going off track and running out of time. Whoever is facilitating should have the basic skills to regular sum up conversation flows and be the active driver to get to the desired results. Rotate the facilitator role from time to time. If you as leader always adopt the role as chair, your team subconsciously know you are framing and driving the meeting and this could result in them not buying in.