Design with the decision-maker

Facilitation is 60 per cent design.

The more effort you put into the design of a workshop, the less effort you need to expend in the actual workshop.

I know. You’ve heard me say this before but stay with me.

What you might not have heard me say is that spending time on design is almost pointless if your decision-maker isn’t involved.

Cartoon by: Jacinta Cubis

Who that is depends on if you are an internal facilitator for an organisation or if you are an independent facilitator who helps many organisations.

And what sort of organisation it is. It could be:

🔸 A CEO, a Board Chair or a General Manager.

🔸 A Deputy Vice Chancellor, a Head of School or an Executive Director.

🔸 A Committee Chair, Program Director or Operations Manager.

🔸 An Artistic Director, General Manager or Development Director.

🔸 A Finance Manager, the Chief Operations Officer or the CEO.

🔸 A Principal, Head of Department or Business Manager.

🔸 A Director, Deputy Secretary or Branch Head.

🔸 The Chief Medical Officer, Quality Improvement Manager or Director of Nursing.

But the first person who asks for your help with a workshop is not always the decision-maker. They might be a project officer, a manager or a coordinator who has been told to ‘find a facilitator’.

While they are vital to the design process, one of the most important questions I ask them is, ‘who will be making the decisions about this workshop?’

And then, ‘When can I meet them?’

It’s vital to involve your decision-makers from the start of the design process. It helps to align expectations and saves surprises.

And saves everyone from late afternoon phone calls from them the day before a workshop, like one I had a few months ago. It went a bit like this.

CEO: Have you got time for a quick chat before tomorrow’s workshop?

Me: Sure, what would you like to talk about?

CEO: I just saw the run sheet for tomorrow….

Me: Yes?

CEO: I don’t think we need to explore project x…

Me: Ok. Why do you say that?

CEO: It’s old ground and it’s been sorted. I want to focus on the bigger picture.

Me: That’s interesting. Your colleagues thought it was a priority

CEO: Really? I’m not sure why.

I’ll spare you the details of the explanation, but I didn’t re-write the plan.

What I did change was the connection exercise at the start.

I asked people to reflect on the purpose and priorities of the session, on their own and then in pairs. That’s a process I’ll share another time.

It easy to say the decision-maker needs to be involved. But it’s not always so easy for them to find the time.

We had tried to involve this CEO in the design. I could not even get her on the phone to ask a few of my ‘why this workshop’ questions.

The best I could do was ask my fellow designers what the CEO might say or how they might react to our ideas.

It’s nobody’s fault. But it can have consequences.

When I was a fledgling facilitator, a late phone call like that would have resulted in a late night of re-design. And probably not much sleep.

I’d love to hear how you handle these inevitable late interventions from decision-makers in your world.

Thanks for reading this far.

Stay (fl)awesome!