Over the years I have had the pleasure of partnering with (and learning from) some wonderful facilitators. And, amongst them all, a few particular moments remain in the memory.
One such was in Amsterdam. I was working with my colleague
Emma Luten, helping one of the top ad agencies there, JWT, to create a new
vision and strategy.
From quite early on, it was clear that the local management
team was unhappy. Overwhelmingly Dutch, they clearly did not like each other,
scoring points off one other at will, and resentful of working in the meeting in the
international language, English.
So, after about twenty minutes, one of them told Emma to put
away the marker pen, to sit down and be quiet.
“We need to talk to each other,” he said. “In Dutch.”
They went at it, hammer and tongs, many speaking at once,
voices raised in anger and frustration, nobody listening to anyone else. Emma
and I sat silently.
After half an hour or so, they paused to draw breath. Emma
said: “Do you mind if I say something?”
“What?”
“Well, it seems to me that there are three main issues
here.”
“And they would be...?”
Emma calmly laid them out before them. The team was stunned
and reluctantly agreed.
“My suggestion would be that we use these issues as task
headlines and work together on each of them in the remainder of this meeting,”
said Emma.
So that’s what we did.
Posts
