Balance of safety and tension in strategy workshops
Balance of safety and tension in strategy workshops
Coaching needs safety, but not too much. And it needs tension, but not too much. This last few weeks I have been consciously applying this in facilitating strategy conversation with three Boards.
Context – the tension in Coaching
To make coaching effective, the counterpart (used to be called ‘client’ or ‘coachee’, but that’s a separate article) must feel safe. They’re going to be working hard discovering the barriers that hinder their potential and developing strategies to overcome them. This is tough stuff – it’s only when we feel safe that we can ask why am I so scared of this? or why can’t I work productively with my colleague?
But the risk is that you have a cosy chat, like friends empathising with each other. Feels lovely but leads to zero actual improvement. It is tension that pushes us to confront barriers fully, and formulate actions that achieve our goals.
Balance of safety and tension in coaching
The coaching mindset, the process and the behaviours all contribute to achieving this. But the skills comes in sensing the counterpart’s needs – more safety? Or more tension? Relax into exploration and imagination, or push into tough decisions and action? I’m looking forward to completing my certification and getting better at this over time.
To deliver this balance, coaching is very clear that the coach is an expert in process and holds accountability for that process, while the counterpart holds all the content. The coach listens closely to formulate a question – which might just be say more… - but doesn’t seek to deeply understand. The coach’s understanding doesn’t really help the counterpart.
Applying this to strategy development
I’ve run three Board strategy workshops in the last three weeks, and while there’s lots to say about the creative and explorative elements of workshopping strategy, I’m focused here on facilitating convergent thinking and action orientation.
I applied the logic from coaching that I would focus solely on process, and enable the participants to focus on content.
How can I create safety through process? By being extremely directive. How can I create tension through content? I don’t need to do anything more than surface the content: Board strategy for NFPs always has tension, because NFPs are hard.
To direct process, I said all of these:
You have one minute of solo thinking time about [this question], and then I will come to you each in turn. Do not confer.
You, you and you, discuss what success would look like for you in 2030. Write it in the future perfect tense in the formulation ‘By 2030, we will have put a dog on the moon’
You, you and you, discuss together, then give me two immediate actions for the CEO that will advance the organisation towards [this goal]. They must be specific, and under 25 words. You have 15 minutes. Go.
If you had to pick one of these [strategic priorities] to defer for three years, which would it be and why? Justify your decision to your colleagues.
Thank you for that answer. Now summarise what you want me to write on the board, in 12 words or fewer.
All of you come and look at what’s up on the wall. Underline the most important thing from your point of view. Do not confer.
Now, as I write these, they look astoundingly bossy; they border on rude. My polite English soul quakes. Of course, I haven’t written down all the work on trust-building at the opening of the day, the agreement on shared objectives for the session. Nor have I written when and why I asked these questions in exactly this way. But my reflection here is about how this directive approach was helpful.
The Directors in all three workshops followed the instructions to the letter. The outputs that came from these were excellent, we kept to time and they all reported how pleased they were with the day and the progress in strategy. But why? Because I owned the process 100%, and made no claim at all on the content. This meant:
I reduced their cognitive burden: They did not need to think about anything but the question. They didn’t even need to pick their working partners.
The question was specific to a single issue: I directed their attention to just one thing at a time, reducing complexity
Because the questions were fully or partly closed the group could not dissipate their attention into every interconnected issue, reducing stress
I forced them out of their usual role: Board members are accustomed to designing and inhabiting their own group conversations, and considering the dynamics and opinions of others. I removed this hard work.
In all workshops we developed a full suite of ‘90% done’ strategy ingredients: operating context, key challenges and risks, vision, success measures, immediate actions, governance of priorities and progress. More importantly, everyone left happy with the day. And no-one called me ‘rude’!
Conclusion
External facilitation creates valuable tension because it comes from outside. When I step in as a facilitator, I bring no agenda about content but complete control over process. This balance creates the productive tension that seems to work.
It’s been interesting to me to notice that what feels uncomfortable for me might actually be giving the best service to my clients – which is similar to the coach needing to ‘hold back’ from solving the counterpart’s problem. There’s also something around experience and confidence – knowing when to emphasise safety or tension is largely a ‘felt’ thing, it isn’t something I could analyse or explain.
It also informs how I might talk about what I offer – for three Board workshops, I have only had positive feedback from all Directors, and so that tells me the Directors welcome strong process facilitation, even when it initially feels confronting.
And in Convergent and divergent thinking?
This is a divergence from my main thread, but I did think about how the safety-tension scale plays out in cycles of divergent and convergent thinking. And it looked like this, which I share without much more blurb because I’m on a deadline!
Safety and tension in different thinking modes
Fin
So I missed a week – it’s actually been a tri-week. I very much doubt anyone noticed, but the LinkedInfluencers say the algorithm will, so please drop a like or a comment to let me know what you'
re thinking and appease the algods. Promise, no neologisms next time.
P
