Turning a Challenge into an Agenda — The Conversation Factory

How do you turn a question, a problem, or just a list of needs, into an agenda?

At the close of a recent cohort of the facilitation masterclass, the participants were still sitting with some big questions. Which is good, because that's what the closing session is for! But I felt that some of these questions were too big for one conversation. So, I invited four alums of the facilitation masterclass to come together and share some thoughts on a fundamental challenge: turning a question into a conversation, an agenda and an arc.

I’m joined by

Erica O’Donnell, a hybrid professional working at the intersection of design thinking, strategy, facilitation, and innovation,

Kyle Pearce, a leader in collaborative change with an extensive background in the health and social services sector.

Frankie Iturbe, a Program Manager at Newsela, a K12 EdTech company

And Kate Farnady, Director, Chief of Staff, Strategic Technologies at Autodesk, and also the community coordinator for the Conversation Factory Insiders’s Group!

We only scratched the surface, but there's lots of goodness in here.

Just a few of the things we discussed:

How stated goals may not always have the whole group aligned with them, and what to do about it.
Sharing responsibility for the agenda and outcome with stakeholders and session attendees
How good insights can sometimes arise even in spite of (or perhaps because of) chaos
Different approaches to facilitating agendas around messy goals and questions

If you want to dive deeper, check out my course on the 9Ps of meeting planning. I'd also recommend signing up for the conversation factory insiders group...we ran another deep dive on this question, reflecting on the question "why do I need an agenda?" and sharing our responses together. You can join here and check out that session as a subscriber here.

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Links, Quotes, Notes and Resources

Frankie on LinkedIn

Erica on LinkedIn

Good Seed Digital

Think: Act Consulting

Minute 11

Erica O'Donnell:

I think this really leads into one of the things that I wanted to talk about which is, I think a lot of times particularly maybe internally, I don't know. I don't have as much experience but we assume that we know that the clients or the people that we're engaging with know what the problem is, or the goal. They've defined something and we assume everyone's aligned.

I think that's actually before we even start talking about process or designing an arc, we really need to make sure or that we spend time making sure that everyone is aligned. And one of the ways we might do that is actually having some pre sessions to the session where we encourage divergent thinking before we try to align and converge. And so, we can with those key stakeholders who are maybe responsible or for defining a goal, helping them get to what the true goal is.

Minute 14

Kyle Pearce:

Well, I think what happened is exactly what Erica was saying is, the group had never had the courage to walk into that conversation because it's a deep and difficult conversation. These are the conversations that many people avoid. And so, I think what had happened was there is critical mass of people on the board who had assumed that it is like you say, I love the way you framed it which is, "We want to recruit indigenous people to the board." That is true. But the pathway to that is not simply finding people who will come and sit on the board.

My point to them, and the next stage of this work with the group is the pathway to having people on the board successfully who bring diverse perspectives, is creating a sense of belonging among the people who are already there. If you can't create that sense of belonging then those people, the people you want to be on the board are not going to last and it's not going to be successful.

Minute 19:

Daniel Stillman:

But I think that's one of the powerful things a facilitator does is to push back to say, "Well, this is your goal and this is what you say you want. And your current plan will get you there, which is why we need this other way of doing things." I think that to me, that purpose and product were those first two Ps that made so much sense to me. It's like well, this is what we want. And this is what we want to have in hand by whatever. Next week, next month, next year, whatever it is. That is concretizing, not just this lofty purpose but the real changed reality.

Minute 36

Frankie Iturbe:

But I think very simply it was all about once I had these topics, taking time to gather the input from those stakeholders to have them shape the agenda. I think yes, I had a set of topics but digging in with them to understand what they wanted to achieve was really important.

I think the other point I want to make on this portion is we'll often get told, we need this product, we need this deliverable done. Sometimes it has a tendency to overlook the real problem or what they really want. I think that's why that one-on-one either again pre-workshop, or during the workshop to unpack what we're really trying to solve for, what's the real challenge is important.

Minute 38

Frankie Iturbe:

It was my first time in front of this group of VPs and sales directors, so I was a little nervous and I was again, adding a lot of pressure on myself. In working with Daniel, I was thinking through well, how can I change that? How can I not feel so anxious or nervous and excited about this? I realized it was about sharing the responsibility with my workshop attendees, with my meeting attendants.

I realized I was seeking liberation. I didn't want to feel so like a massive weight on my shoulders over needing to crush it for this group. And so, I think I was able to open that workshop with saying, "Hey, I'm really excited what we can accomplish today. I put a lot of work into helping us get here, but I can only do so much."

It's your responsibility as well if something's not working for you to raise your hand and share a suggestion as to "Hey, how might we tweak this agenda so that we achieve the objective that you wanted?" I just, I wanted to share that piece because I've really been taking that into my work lately that, look if not, I don't need to put it all on my shoulders. Shaping this agenda, shaping this workshop is about sharing with others and letting others help shape it as well.

More About the Guests

Kate Farnady

I'm a generalist experienced working with senior executives and leadership as well as management and individual contributors to identify priorities and cross-functional process, provide clear and effective communication, remove obstacles, and make things happen.

I specialize in identifying and bridging communication gaps to help understand the big picture, facilitating prioritization and alignment, getting the best ideas on the table, and driving execution. I identify the audience, articulate the mission, clarify objectives, determine goals and metrics, draw up strategy and process, and oversee implementation. I've worked closely with finance partners and budget analysts to ensure financial alignment towards execution targets.

I've managed a wide variety of projects, working with diverse subject-area experts. I consider myself a strategic problem solver and I thrive in rapidly changing environments. I am resourceful and flexible, comfortable with ambiguity and easily adapt to new challenges.

People are my passion. I'm a thoughtful listener and facilitator with high EQ. I have worked closely with HR and people ops departments on many people-focused initiatives. I am deeply invested in empowering people through effective communication and feedback, collaboration and including diverse perspectives.

Frankie Iturbe is a Program Manager at Newsela, a K12 EdTech company. He considers his role part strategist, part designer, anchored on delivering a world-class sales experience for customers and sellers. This work keeps him entrenched in the exciting worlds of sales and facilitation. Outside of his 9-5, he publishes content on LinkedIn for job-seekers pivoting their career to more purposeful work. Reach out to him on LinkedIn to connect further. https://www.linkedin.com/in/francisco-iturbe

Erica O'Donnell (she/her) is a hybrid professional working at the intersection of design thinking, strategy, facilitation, and innovation. Her practice focuses on guiding collaborative teams to co-create products, services, and experiences that drive business and social impact. This human-centred approach helps to drive alignment across multi-faceted teams, break down silos, and encourages team ownership of the outcomes. Erica is a firm believer in leveraging a team's collective wisdom layered in with real user data to drive design decisions, whether designing employee experiences, customer experiences, or digital products. Her superpower is guiding teams to translate various inputs into actionable insights and strategic roadmaps. Erica created Good Seed Digital and hopes to make a difference in her community, one good seed at a time.

Kyle Pearce (he/him) is a leader in collaborative change with an extensive background in the health and social services sector. Kyle has worked in the field for over twenty-five years, as a program lead, community developer, social entrepreneur, executive director and funder. He is the principal of think: act consulting.

think: act consulting inc. is an incorporated strategic consulting firm based on the traditional, unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil Waututh First Nations. Think: act’s focus is improving services and access to services for vulnerable populations, working with service providers and citizens, managers, leaders and executives to take stock of a situation, assess how to move an ambitious agenda forward, and implement a path of action that will achieve their vision.

think: act consulting. We bring expertise in community action, health and social services, business planning, project management, funding and organizational systems, as well as skills in facilitation, communication, community engagement, research and analysis, and executive coaching. Our goal is to improve the world for the benefit of future generations.

Full Transcript

Daniel Stillman:

What I'm going to do is, I'm going to record on this computer and... Oh, I'm so nervous. I'm excited. I'm going to officially welcome you all to the Conversation Factory. Yay. We are here to potentially unpack deeply this question of how to turn a purpose and goals of a stakeholder into a powerful agenda, and an experience arc? Did I get that? Kyle, what was the question that you... Because we were discussing before we started the different ways of framing this question.

Kyle Pearce:

Well, I can work with that. I think the original question that I was coming with, which isn't too far off from what you said was. How do you turn a question or a purpose, a client's question or problem into an agenda?

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah.

Kyle Pearce:

The reason we get involved with clients is because they have problems and questions.

Daniel Stillman:

Yes.

Kyle Pearce:

So I'm not going to answer or whatever else you're throwing at me.

Daniel Stillman:

Another reason why I've gathered you all here today is we said before we started recording, is some of us work internally inside of organizations where the client is a key stakeholder or multiple stakeholders. Some of us do this externally as a consultant. And some of us have done both. And so, I thought it would be interesting to have you all come here.

Daniel Stillman:

This was sort of a big question that even after 12 weeks of the last facilitation master class people were like, "Well, how do you really do it?" How do you really take a big, hairy, messy question and turn it into as Rudyard Kipling said "The unforgiving minute into 60 seconds worth of distance run." I think what my hypothesis was is if we could just say hello and who we are, and then we can all share a story. And then just have a deeper dive on anything that's come up. And so, I will say ladies first. Erica, would you like to say hello and tell a little bit about who you are?

Erica O'Donnell:

Yeah, absolutely. Hi Daniel. Nice to be here with you. I'm Erica O'Donnell. I work as a consultant, one of those external people that you were just talking about. I really work at the intersection of strategy, facilitation, design thinking and innovation. I help organizations, really guiding their cross-function teams to design innovative products and experiences using collaborative methods.

Daniel Stillman:

And so, you have solved this question many times, which is why you-

Erica O'Donnell:

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I have.

Daniel Stillman:

Kate, I'm so glad you came. Welcome on board. Tell the folks a little bit about you.

Kate Farnady:

Thank you. I as always, I'm so glad to be here. I am a chief of staff and I have been a chief of staff in various different engineering orgs for much of my career. And that lands me in squarely at the intersection of organizational strategy operations, and complicated diplomatic cat herding.

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah. And you've done this internally and externally?

Kate Farnady:

Yeah. Mostly I've done it internally. But I have done some pretty hefty consulting projects with engineering, and really different kinds of engineering operations around strategic planning especially. But also executive coaching.

Daniel Stillman:

Frankie. I just noticed that you have a believe sign behind you. Now that I've been watching Ted Lasso, I know what it means.

Frankie Iturbe:

That I do Daniel. I know you just recently became a big Ted Lasso fan. I'm with you there.

Daniel Stillman:

Well, the challenges my wife, God love her, has a hard time with media that has a lot of characters. Somehow Ted Lasso was inspirational enough that even though there are indeed a lot of characters in Ted Lasso, she was able to strap in and get involved. I'm really excited because it's a great show.

Frankie Iturbe:

I'm happy she's able enjoy the beauty of Ted Lasso that it is.

Daniel Stillman:

Hey, thanks for coming. I'm glad you're here too. Tell the people a little bit about you because some of these people are new to you as well.

Frankie Iturbe:

Daniel, let me start by saying it's an honor to be on the Conversation Factory. I thought many years back when I met you, "It'd be cool to be on his podcast one day." And here we are with a great group of facilitators. It really is an honor. I'm super excited for this conversation today. Let's see about me and my background. I spent about seven years in consulting almost, just wrapped that up earlier this year of doing technology and management consulting. While they're, worked a lot with helping clients apply design thinking within their sales organizations. How do you take photo market strategy, make it real across systems process, all that good stuff.

Frankie Iturbe:

Then I recently transitioned to a company named Newsela, where Newsela is a K-12 education technology company. And still within the sales org, similar to the work I was doing before. But again, helping us, how do we take our go to market strategy and really use it to again, design the systems and process that are going to help us achieve our sales targets.

Daniel Stillman:

Thank you Frankie. Thanks for being here again. Kyle, what is up? I'm so glad you're here. Tell the people.

Kyle Pearce:

Me too. And glad to see Kate and Erica. Glad to see you too again. Nice to meet you Frankie. Looking forward to this conversation.

Daniel Stillman:

Also, nice winter beard. Can I say? I don't feel like I've seen you with this before.

Kyle Pearce:

You know what? I actually started growing this on the hottest a time of the summer. And I've discovered that the magic of trimmers male hygiene apparently is a thing. And-

Daniel Stillman:

It is. We can have a whole other conversation about that.

Kyle Pearce:

Yeah. Thank you very much for that.

Daniel Stillman:

Well. That means we haven't seen each other in way too long if this is my first introduction to your beard.

Kyle Pearce:

Yeah. Well that's okay. We're getting to know each other all over again today. A really brief introduction Kyle. I use he and him pronouns. I'm in Vancouver, BC or the traditional territory of Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations. I have a consulting firm called Think:Act Consulting. And the focus of my company is on improving services or access to services for marginalized populations.

Kyle Pearce:

I love this conversation because I'm also straddling two other new areas, one of which is environmental sustainability. I've been moving into doing more and more mindful work in the field of anti-racism, specifically with people who have privilege. So this is a great opportunity to share a story that's right at the intersection of almost all those things.

Daniel Stillman:

That is awesome. Well, Kyle, since you're currently holding the mic. Do you want to tell a story about how you had this challenge and maybe succeeded at this challenge, or as Kate set up struggled mightily with this challenge and achieved a lesson?

Kyle Pearce:

Well, I think the challenge that I can talk about or the situation I can talk about is more about how we catalyze something from a problem that a client has. I'm still in the middle of figuring out how do we make a complete agenda, but maybe I'll just situate it. I do a bunch of work, mostly with healthcare organizations but I also work with community agencies. I've been work working with a community center here in Vancouver doing a strategic plan, pretty straightforward.

Kyle Pearce:

I've my bells and whistles and my process for doing this kind of work, a beautiful group. A group who like many community agencies has really been touched and inspired by Black Lives Matter movement. And also by this push that's happening up here in Canada around, this terrible problem of anti indigenous racism.

Kyle Pearce:

And so, as part of the strategic plan from the very first meeting, the group was really clear. Or at least most of them were really clear that they wanted to do anti-racism work and they wanted to do decolonizing work. We call it reconciliation as well. This movement went straight through first, second, third, fourth and we're in our fifth meeting, we're kind of looking at our draft strategic plan.

Kyle Pearce:

When the small groups are breaking out, I overhear that in one group there's one of the board members is really having an adverse reaction to anti-racism, the term anti-racism and decolonizing. And framing it is, this is so negative. This word anti, it sounds like so aggressive and negative. When that group came up to share what they had talked about, in fact they had watered down this very, very significant initiative and presented it to the board. I could feel in the room, there was a great tension and anxiety as this group was talking.

Kyle Pearce:

I guess one of the participants in that group said, "You know there's this term here, decolonizing. What does that even mean?" I paused and I asked the group to pause and just take a deep breath because we were at a pretty crucial spot in the conversation. I asked them to close their eyes and to think about everything that they had ever learned about indigenous people as a child, and to reflect on what they'd been taught.

Kyle Pearce:

Then I asked them if anybody was taught positive things about an indigenous people, please share that now. And there was nothing that could be shared in the room. And so, we talked, we launched into this conversation about what decolonizing means. It's just a word but at the end of the day, it's about touching us at a very deep interior level. And going back to our own history and how we shape the world through the opinions and ideas that we get as children.

Kyle Pearce:

We're at the point now where I'm talking with the board chair about how, if you want to, if this organization wants to recruit indigenous people to the board, they have a toxic board by virtue of the fact that they're not really ready to have these conversations. I don't know how the agenda's going to shape up but it shapes up with a question like that with a challenge, with a big problem that is a challenge that that board is sharing. The only way I can think of doing it is going deep.

Daniel Stillman:

When you think about... Oh sorry, was there some else-

Erica O'Donnell:

Oh, sorry. I was just going to say, I think that's so interesting Kyle. I think this really leads into one of the things that I wanted to talk about which is, I think a lot of times particularly maybe internally, I don't know. I don't have as much experience but we assume that we know that the clients or the people that we're engaging with know what the problem is, or the goal. They've defined something and we assume everyone's aligned.

Erica O'Donnell:

They wanted to do some work in this area, but in fact one of their goals is to recruit indigenous board members. How do those ladder up? How do we align to those? Then we can start to talk about designing arcs of sessions or multiple sessions, convenings. I think sometimes that's about problem framing, sometimes if it's a larger system like you're talking about maybe there are ways to get to more clear and powerful, shared intent. Where you're really digging deep into what the intention is of the session or of the group, and not just taking that face value goal.

Daniel Stillman:

I think that's a really interesting lesson to take Erica. I'm curious Kyle, clarifying and aligning to purpose it's a really good point. We assume in the founding question is we've got there. Was that the lesson you took from that?

Kyle Pearce:

Daniel Stillman:

It's bound to happen at some point. I was typing and therefore I did not want to click it clack into the microphone. Just to unpack this one more level as Erica was saying, pushing back against somebody's purpose and making sure that the purpose is clarified and saying that they're not going to get there with the current pathway, is actually a really powerful thing to say to a stakeholder. Then I think that's profound.

Kyle Pearce:

It is-

Erica O'Donnell:

Yeah.

Kyle Pearce:

Sorry. Go ahead Erica.

Erica O'Donnell:

Yeah. I was going to say, I think it's really interesting because obviously you're talking about a very highly emotional topic. But actually we see this even if we're just talking about designing products. Because the engineering stakeholder, the head of product has a different desire for what they're looking for to get out of potentially the head of design.

Erica O'Donnell:

My point is it's not even really necessarily always about the topic and being fraught with emotion. It can just be a matter of misalignment and making sure that we understand what those key blockers or barriers that the group might be seeing to feeling accountable to achieving this collective work, and working through those before we ever start designing an agenda.

Daniel Stillman:

I'll [crosstalk 00:16:40]. Oh, sorry. Go ahead Kate. Yeah, jump away.

Kate Farnady:

I'm going to jump in and just make trouble. Which is that one of the things I've experienced is that, sometimes you can't even have visibility into the lack of alignment or the depth or extent of the lack of alignment until you get into conversation. And so, I think there is also a case for the diving in and revealing, and exploring. I think it really depends on what your topic is. And there's like for sure, sensitivity and around topics. Sometimes the diving in is what gives you the real story that you need to be productive, and you might not see it, might not even be able to access it to dive in.

Daniel Stillman:

Frankie, you had your hand up.

Frankie Iturbe:

Yeah. Something I want to jump here and mention, it's gotten mentioned a bit and Kate brought it up here in referencing alignment. And then Erica briefly mentions problem framing. I want to double stitch that here for a sec so. I think you can approach this problem framing either in co-planning, which Erica alluded to leading up to the workshop or your meeting.

Frankie Iturbe:

There's time to go one on one with your stakeholders and start to understand what their view of their problem statement is. Or I think you can work that into your agenda. Where you can use something like the abstraction ladder to look at the why and the how of your problem statement and do it in your workshop. You're driving that alignment in the workshop. I think I've approached it both ways. Both forms where you're doing it ahead of the workshop or meeting with co-planning or during the workshop. But ultimately what you're doing is you're reframing the problem and you're driving that alignment.

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah. I think either way, there's always a risk that as you say Kate, people may not actually know that they disagree until they get into the room and getting into the conversation. When I think about the nine Ps of planning, this purpose, we started with purpose and the pushback which maybe is another P hilariously is, do we in fact, are we truly aligned to purpose? And do we do that in a pre-conversation or not?

Daniel Stillman:

But something else I heard from Kyle, I think is interesting. And then I think we should shift to someone else, sharing another story is. I always find that clarifying the product, and Erica your sense that the product is a product. But in your sense, Kyle the product is a different reality, a different changed experience. And if somebody says, "This is our result, we'd like blank." Then you can say, "Well, we're not going to get that with our current approach. Therefore I have this other approach it's called realizing that anti-racism exists."

Daniel Stillman:

But I think that's one of the powerful things a facilitator does is to push back to say, "Well, this is your goal and this is what you say you want. And your current plan won't get you there, which is why we need this other way of doing things." I think that to me, that purpose and product were those first two Ps that made so much sense to me. It's like well, this is what we want. And this is what we want to have in hand by whatever. Next week, next month, next year, whatever it is. That is concretizing, not just this lofty purpose but the real changed reality.

Daniel Stillman:

We're going to know this is working when our board is blank percent. And if they can align on that like, well, yeah. Okay. That's how we'll know who's successful. Then we can go back and say, "Okay, well, how do we get us there?" Sorry, Kyle, is there one more thing you wanted to say to [crosstalk 00:20:35]-

Kyle Pearce:

No, I just love that. And this is why I like this group. We all come from different... My work is mostly in fuzzy areas, but the bottom line is there is no direct path to the outcome. There's a whole E circuit of conversation, there's external conversation, there's internal dialogue, there's transformative work that has to be done. Sometimes there's simply change on the board of the organization. It surfaces on things that really need to be worked through at a deeper level so.

Daniel Stillman:

Well, it's really funny Kyle because in a way in the implied in the question that the group was asking, is the assumption that there is a perfect arc that will guaranteed get me to the thing I want. And what you're saying again is questioning that it's, if it's in complexity it will be wrong in ways you can't even imagine until you get started.

Kate Farnady:

Well, actually Daniel I would add to that if it involves human beings [inaudible 00:21:34].

Daniel Stillman:

Or technology, which is made by human beings.

Kate Farnady:

Yeah. It is true. I reflect on the notion of a board that wants more diversity, but doesn't believe in the concept of anti-racism or can't talk about it is not a safe board for anyone who-

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah.

Kate Farnady:

So there you go.

Daniel Stillman:

But they're working on it.

Kate Farnady:

Yeah. Totally. And good luck with that. I mean that genuinely.

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kate Farnady:

It's important work. We got to do it even though it's really painful and hard.

Kyle Pearce:

They're clearly not the only board that has this issue.

Daniel Stillman:

No. Who else has a story of an amazing winner or a terrible failure, or as Kyle did the middle, the messy middle? Kate is not only raising her hand, she's wiggling her fingers.

Kate Farnady:

I know. I'm just feeling it. And this conversation is going in such a beautiful direction to fit my messy story. Which is in engineering organizations, it's a perennial challenge as budgets, urban flow, and as people come and go, there's always this question of overworked teams and prioritization. Like how do we build capacity? Or what is the problem we're trying to solve here? How are we getting in our way?

Kate Farnady:

I've had the experience with engineering leadership teams of like okay, let's solve this. And the experience where we like, okay. We have our problem statement, we build a mural, we've got four stages. We're going to do a discovery stage, we're going to surface all the ideas, and then we're going to cluster them and figure out what the big themes are. Then we're going to vote on them, and then we'll come up with our number one big theme. Then we'll go and-

Daniel Stillman:

Very rational design thinking-driven approach.

Kate Farnady:

And it was like, it made so much sense and it became clear to me. We took it, and actually I wasn't even driving the mural, I was kind of co-facilitating. I had someone else who was kind of driving this concept of these stages in the mural, and this is how we'd come to the answer and I let them run their course. But actually it was within the first like 10 minutes of the, we hadn't even gotten to the clustering. We were doing the thinking of all the issues, and coming up with the kind of wild brainstorm.

Kate Farnady:

It just became so clear that we had opened Pandora's box. In a way that even in the time we had, I think we had a 90 minutes. That I could already see as the box was opening, and the things were starting to fly out that the idea of actually like going through this process and voting on one, that was going to be the one we'd focus on was just absurd, completely absurd. And so, we had some chaos and then we had a chaotic experience of clustering.

Kate Farnady:

Then we had this mural that was poorly clustered because there's so many arguments for how you could categorize things. And people were kind of disagreeing and saying like, "Oh, I need to add one more thing. Or actually I think we need a different category." Then our process person, bless their hearts, was pushing to a vote. And so, we were kind of before it. We were in chaos about the ideas, the clustering was off and this person was really pushing a vote.

Kate Farnady:

And so, we did this vote and then we ended the session because we didn't have time. It was just amazing. And I had decided to go ahead with it because I thought, we could just wait, we could try to make it perfect. We could try to think it through more, we could try to get buy-in ahead of time. I just said, "What the heck? Let's just see what happens. What's the worst thing that could happen?"

Kate Farnady:

And so, one of the other things that happens is two people got in a fight. And they got a fight and they couldn't figure it out, they couldn't see each other's perspectives. We ended the meeting and I felt like a facilitation failure. I just sat on that for a while and was like "Oh, this is hard." Then I went back to the mural and I took it and I wrote it into bulleted points and I looked at it and looked at it, and all of a sudden I saw a bunch of themes. It turns out that everybody else went away from the meeting and were thinking and thinking.

Kate Farnady:

The two people who got in a fight came back together and unpacked the fight separately. And was like, "I think I misunderstood you and I want to make sure we under... So that piece happened on the side. That was interesting. Another person came back and said, "You know what? In that conversation I got a new understanding of what was going on with my team, and I wouldn't have had that. I'm coming up with an idea of something I want to tackle because of it."

Kate Farnady:

Then I went back to my boss and I gave my boss the downloaded words of the mural. They started looking at it and we started to identify a really big theme. And so, what happened was this unleashing of the chaos was something that actually allowed us to get visibility into the lay of the land in a way we really didn't have before. And we're like, the next step was really to pull out a few threads. Look at the themes, pull out a few threads and decide as an organization where we could really make some impact. And it came in different places.

Kate Farnady:

It came in this like relationship that evolved because of a fight and coming back and oh, there's a good word for it but my old brain is forgetting it. It was just like this reconciliation process was a big learning experience for them. The one person who came out of it with a pilot project and then coming back at a meta level on the leadership team and having a picture of how our team operates, how they think [crosstalk 00:28:03]-

Daniel Stillman:

So Kate can-

Kate Farnady:

... to do as leaders to get traction.

Daniel Stillman:

Sorry to... Well-

Kate Farnady:

No-

Daniel Stillman:

I'm jumping in because of time. But also I'm wondering, I think this is a really great story of... And also Eric, I see you have your hand up too. I'll loop you in just a second. This sounds to me like a story of creating success out of complexity. But in terms of the question that we're posing, when you think about, I wasn't actually clear from the story, whether you or the process person was the person who designed this flow. And where you feel like if we were going back to the beginning, what you would've done differently in terms of designing the arc. Or if we're just accepting that oh, messiness and complexity is the way that this will always happen. I mean, the way Kyle is sort of proposing.

Kate Farnady:

I would say there's a million other ways to do it, for sure. And in this case I was happy that we dove in. And it was the ownership of the plan was unclear, we didn't really know. I think there was a way in which going into it with chaos really helped us identify what problem we needed to solve. And so, I think that's-

Daniel Stillman:

It's interesting. Because when we look at the question, how do you turn a question into a process and an agenda? It sounds like you loosely did that.

Kate Farnady:

We turned a process into a question I think. Now we're applying a process to it.

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah. It's interesting. Erica, what's this sparking for you?

Erica O'Donnell:

Well, I love it. I love how Kate just embraces that messiness. I so much more, want everything buttoned up and know exactly what I'm going into you as anyone of you that have worked with me know, I do sort of more linear thinking. And so, one of the things that sparked for me was this idea of the maybe unintended consequences, which were about connection between her team members for example.

Erica O'Donnell:

I really like this framework that was developed by a group called CoCreative out of Washington DC. And they have what they call Four Agendas in Collaborative Innovation. And one of them just really spoke to me with what Kate was talking about, which is their connecting agenda. So they use the heart as an example for that. And really, that's focused on developing relationships within a network or a team.

Erica O'Donnell:

It's interesting, a lot of these aligned to some of the meeting OS that we looked at in the last facilitation, or two facilitation Fridays a go with Trisha Conners too with types of meetings. They have a connecting one. They have one called aligning which is really, they use the spirit as the icon for that. That's really about defining intent and best worst case scenarios, that kind of thing.

Erica O'Donnell:

They have a learning agenda, symbolized by the head and they have a making agenda. This is the space that I usually play in is in the making, when we're talking about products and experiences. And so, I'm really comfortable there. And this is prototyping and testing and all of the stuff that any of us who have worked in digital or in product are really familiar with.

Erica O'Donnell:

But some of the other agendas, those frameworks I think are really important to dive into and understand. Even if you're in a making process, there are always the edges of all of those other things that are happening. People are learning, they're connecting, they're aligning.

Erica O'Donnell:

And so, how you create an agenda and include or an arc of a session or multiple sessions needs to have the core primary purpose. But you always need to also be thinking about those edges of the secondary or tertiary ways that people are working together, and what they're producing. Isn't always just a prototype might be a better relationship between two people that need to work together, right?

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah. That's so interesting. I love the idea that there are these multiple agendas. We always know that people have multiple agendas in group work, but the idea that a facilitator needs to be aware of these multiple layers. And that it's not simply about, what are we going to do when during this time we have together? It's these other layers, which is really awesome. How has that changed how you work? Sorry. Frankie. Was there something you wanted to "yes and" on that?

Frankie Iturbe:

All I was going to add there to Erica's point was I'm a huge fan of, after you align on that objective, that outcome, finding those recipes. Those agendas you mentioned from CoCreative that are there. I think I'm a big fan of it's a proven recipe or a combination for a reason, big fan of LUMA Workplace as well obviously. Yes. It's important to take those and break them where it makes sense, but those recipes often are tried and tested. And that very often will start my planning process working around those because I know those work. Those have been used for years and years.

Erica O'Donnell:

Yeah. I would agree Frankie. I go to those and then the double diamond, like divergence convergence is always right at the core. And whether that's to define, the space that we're working in. Are we working in the problem space or the solution space? At a macro level but also in the more micro level in each session, you're probably going through that arc of problem solution, problem solution across either one or multiple sessions. So using those models that we have and those recipes, I like that language like pulling the recipe. We can tweak a recipe but there's a reason, the basic ingredients work and it's been tested so I like that language a lot.

Frankie Iturbe:

I think Daniel encourages us to be... I think you've written about this somewhere Daniel for us to use recipes, but to also be chefs and make our own, correct? Something like that. I've heard you mention.

Daniel Stillman:

Sure. Well, it's funny my friend Patty who's an amazing chef, there's this idea of like you're tasting it as you go. That's where sensing and responding and deciding like oh, this is going horribly wrong but continuing to work with it. And trusting that something interesting can come out of it is I think in a way what... I think Kate, what I'm taking from your story is yeah, things might be messy in the middle but something good might be on the other side.

Daniel Stillman:

And Erica's point that unless we address these three other agendas intelligently or thoughtfully, they're going to manifest themselves regardless. We have like about 15 minutes left, which means I'd like to make sure that we hear a story from Erica and Frankie as well as some unpacking together. Who wants to go next? Who's got a story to share?

Frankie Iturbe:

I can jump in Daniel.

Daniel Stillman:

Sweet.

Frankie Iturbe:

All right. Well, let's see. So I'm take us back to a recent experience in my new job. Well, I've been here about six months and not so new now, facilitating a workshop on the inside internal. Quick bit of context. I think actually going back to the prompt Daniel you said, how do you take a question turn that into a process or an agenda? Something I realized as you said that was well in this scenario that I'm going to walk through, is I wasn't given a question. I was given a set of topics.

Frankie Iturbe:

Hey, Frankie. We need to put together a sales territory map, a org structure, and a set of guidelines for a working relationship between our employees. And so, I think that's where it's a little different. You're not given a question, you're given a set of topics. How did I approach that? I think something I'll see, hopefully you'll you throughout the story is leaning on my stakeholders. What, for example in a workshop, I think Daniel, we call that lazy facilitation. We'll elaborate more on that in a second. But you can also apply that leading up to.

Frankie Iturbe:

I think it's easy, at least for myself in the midst of this workshop. I put a lot of pressure and self-induced stress on myself in getting ready for it. But I think very simply it was all about once I had these topics, taking time to gather the input from those stakeholders to have them shape the agenda. I think yes, I had a set of topics but digging in with them to understand what they wanted to achieve was really important.

Frankie Iturbe:

Then the last part I want to jump through. Two more quick points I'll hit on the story is. So after I spent a lot of time with my stakeholders and whatnot, it was group of five that I was working with to develop these sales assets. I had a ton of notes, a lot of complexity. And I realized actually, through working with you Daniel through one of our sessions together, I had to just simplify it.

Frankie Iturbe:

I had all this information and I really needed to just take it to a clean agenda. I have two days that means I have two halves in each day, the morning and afternoon. And I probably got two segments in each of those halves. From there, I was able to take it down to a really simple agenda where I then started taking that around to my stakeholders, and sharing it with them to gather the feedback on that. So really simplifying it I think, was really key in my process there and just listing out a simple agenda.

Frankie Iturbe:

The last I want to close on with this story is I mentioned earlier, I went into this workshop. It was my first time in front of this group of VPs and sales directors, so I was a little nervous and I was again, adding a lot of pressure on myself. In working with Daniel, I was thinking through well, how can I change that? How can I not feel so anxious or nervous and excited about this? I realized it was about sharing the responsibility with my workshop attendees, with my meeting attendants.

Frankie Iturbe:

Kyle Pearce:

I love that Frankie. You're speaking to the core piece, which is something that I learned from Daniel, and with Kate, and Erica. Which is that we often as facilitators believe that the problem is ours, question is ours. Our responsible is to answer it and to come up like when we're having these great discussions about when it falls apart. But at the end of the day our job is really to help our participants both identify the problem and the solution.

Erica O'Donnell:

Yeah. I love that. I use Daniel's words a lot, which is to create the conditions for transformative conversation rather than forcing the transformative conversation is very different, or being responsible for the outcome of that conversation. It's about creating those conditions. That's what we're accountable as facilitators. It's a bit of a mind shift and I really think it aligns with what you're talking about Frankie.

Kate Farnady:

That all really resonates for me in thinking about what my experience of the chaos was, was that the path really emerged from the chaos in a really productive of way. But it needed that space for people to be able to contribute and expose the ideas and participate in that way.

Kyle Pearce:

Can I reframe that, Kate? I love it because the question that your group ultimately had was, how can we work through these complex problems? Instead of providing a process for them, you actually engaged them in an experiential learning process of how they did it. Then they use their own resources. This is the other thing is, we often take these responsibilities on because we underestimate the resources of the people in the room. I love the fact that that messy, messy processing ended up helping those people emerge, emerge their own strengths.

Kate Farnady:

I'll add one thing. I think that's a great reframing. It was a group that was really in the forming, in the forming storming norming phases. And so, and it was an internal group. And so, there's a way in which that really was part of the formative storming phase and it helped move the team forward in that respect as well. It's kind of back to Erica's point.

Daniel Stillman:

Speaking of Erica, we need to get to you. There's just one thing I want to make sure I say, so I don't forget it myself is. One thing that Frankie said that I think is really powerful is you just think about the time you have. And I'm working with a company where I didn't realize how many time zones they were across. The only time synchronously they have is totally absurd time slot, it's like eight to 10:00 AM Eastern time, which is crappy for Singapore and awful for the West Coast people but tolerable for everyone.

Daniel Stillman:

It's hard because I don't know if we can get the best work out of everybody synchronously in those two hours, given everybody's condition. Frankie was in person, so he was able to do a different thing. The question of how many questions we can actually address in these more collaborative, complexity minded ways is... This is not a 30 minute standup where you're like, "Okay, here are these five things, bang, bang, bang, how are you doing with that Kate? How are you doing with that Kyle? Okay. Good, great. Next, next, next."

Daniel Stillman:

In 90 minutes Kate, you got to the beginning. I think a lot of times this is where I think the law of subtraction is always a helpful thing with your agendas to say, like take something out. Because while we underestimate people's capacity to deal with complexity, I think we overestimate sometimes our ability to get them through an extraordinary amount of stuff in a very short period of time.

Kate Farnady:

Totally. I will say that meeting was across four GOS.

Erica O'Donnell:

Yeah. I think that's a huge consideration is the amount of time you have and then number of people. And I think this is something I really learned in the masterclass with all of you was, the more attendees the less time each person gets to speak. And so, there's this, we're talking about the arc but also we're talking about how many people, how much time? Those constraints are very real and they really impact what you can do with that middle part of the agenda.

Erica O'Donnell:

Sometimes you have infinite time, if you're talking about large systems thinking, network type level stuff, and other times you really have big constraints and those can make a big difference. I don't have a great anecdote for you guys that's easy to jump into, mine's a little complex. I was just going to get super tactical as is my want and talk about how for me, when I'm designing an agenda, it's really easy to start from the beginning and go to the end. Like what are we going to do first? What are we going to do second? I really try to not do that.

Erica O'Donnell:

I often start at the end, I think about what is it that we're trying to achieve? I ask self questions like, what decisions are we going to make next? How is the product of this going to be used? What questions do we need to answer? Then I can kind of work back. Maybe it's not even the back but it's that messy middle is where I start, and then I layer in a close talking about that. How are we moving this into the next thing? What ever that's another session or something else.

Erica O'Donnell:

Then I think about a warmup or an activator, or an eye opener which a lot of times we might start there. But why I do that is because then I can say, what part of my everyone's brain are we trying to activate? What types of collaborative conversations are we having? If it's a connecting agenda where we're really trying to establish relationships, maybe we start with some appreciative inquiry, where two people are talking to each other about a positive experience and they're creating that dynamic.

Erica O'Donnell:

If it's a creating agenda, maybe it will do a quick draw me a picture just to get people in this idea of like a sketch doesn't have to be perfect, and you have 10 seconds to draw a picture. That's super tactical but just a way to bookend to say, we spent a lot of time talking about that middle, but there's always those really important open that set the stage and the close of moving this conversation forward.

Daniel Stillman:

Well, just to like really, really double stitch for you the close isn't just, what do we want to end? What's the product we want to have in our hand? It's how the close becomes a springboard for the open,-

Erica O'Donnell:

Yes.

Daniel Stillman:

... right?

Erica O'Donnell:

Yes.

Daniel Stillman:

How will that get me momentum on this much bigger arc that I'm holding in my mind? And this is where the big arc, little arc method for me. It's not this open and close, it's like the next open and close and it's part of a much bigger, you're in service of a much bigger vision for them. Also I want acknowledge, it's the limit of the time we said we... I obviously have no place else to go but hang out with you guys. But I will ask people to check out. If you can stay a little longer, we'll wrap up whatever threads. Erica, I appreciate you going super tactical. And-

Kyle Pearce:

Yes.

Daniel Stillman:

... as far as secret sauce, years later when people have come to a facilitation workshop of mine, open exploring close, it's like the only thing they remember. Because it's everything, it's the whole thing. And I love this idea of what the close really means. Like you have a very, very deep understanding of why the close is important. And I love that. That's my checkout.

Erica O'Donnell:

Thank you-

Daniel Stillman:

I will pass them out. Erica, if there's anything extra you wanted to say. Also Kate, I know you had to go on time as well. But thank you. Thank you everyone for this conversation.

Erica O'Donnell:

Yeah. Thank you Daniel. I, I think I definitely took a few things away from the conversation. I love Frankie's idea of leaning on other collaborators to own the outcome and own even in the process. That's a great takeaway. And for me, embracing messiness is always a struggle, a difficult thing for me so Kate's story gave me anxiety. But in a good way to remember that these things are messy. That humans are not linear and perfectly structured. So appreciate the conversation as always.

Daniel Stillman:

Erica, I'll just say humans are the definition of nonlinear. When I try to explain nonlinearity to people in complexity. If you tell someone to calm down and they get more angry, that is the definition of nonlinear.

Erica O'Donnell:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Daniel Stillman:

Like, "Hey, calm down." And they become 20 times more angry. That is a non-linear response to stimulus.

Erica O'Donnell:

Oh yes. I have a six-year-old. I'm very familiar with that reaction.

Daniel Stillman:

Amazing. Who else has something they're checking out with?

Kyle Pearce:

I'll go. There's so much to, to grasp on to here. But one of the things I'm going away with is a little drawing in my notebook where we had talked about these different types of meetings, the different levels of benefit that a meeting can bring. And I was just reflecting on how my meetings, I'm usually bouncing up and down from the spiritual to the learning too et cetera, et cetera. This has made me think in a much more zen-like way about really there's four lines or five lines that are going through. And what we really need to do is touch on all of them, and give an opportunity for all of them to be expressed. So gratitude to all of you for this conversation. Thank you.

Daniel Stillman:

Thank you Kyle. Frankie, Kate.

Frankie Iturbe:

Yeah. [crosstalk 00:49:56]. Did you want [crosstalk 00:49:57] to go Kate? Go ahead.

Kate Farnady:

Yeah. I'll just be quick because I do have to go and I'm cheating on my other meeting for you guys [inaudible 00:50:06] fight about. One of the things I love about these sessions with you Daniel is it always, always illustrates the wild diversity of the facilitation program and the different approaches. I loved hearing Erica's approach. I learned from everybody. And it just reminds me about what a challenge it is to do this work and how we bring such different approaches. I don't know. It fills me up to see and hear about other people's approaches. I love it. So thank you.

Daniel Stillman:

Thank you Kate. I really appreciate you bringing in the norming, storming performing. It's like I'm these three layers of the four types of agendas, opening, exploring and closing. And then where they are in their evolution as a team are three things that I'm holding in as a really interesting takeaways.

Kate Farnady:

I have to say like one last little a bit is that this actually the chaos approach was really right on. I had a gut instinct about it when I went into it, but it was right on for where this team was in its formation. I think it helped progress that in its open endedness. That was not really by design for the start.

Daniel Stillman:

But it can be next time. Kate, don't cheat on your meeting for too much longer. And Frankie, let's give the mic over to you. Then obviously I know people have other places to be. I'm so grateful for this conversation. Frankie, what are you taking away from this conversation?

Frankie Iturbe:

The item I want to check out with Daniel, Kate, Erica, and Kyle here is an expansion of a mental model I use for my workshop. Often I try to think about my workshops or meetings and outcomes, inputs and outputs. I think Erica helped me build on that as what she was sharing. I think outputs, we typically think, especially in the product world, you think of that as a working prototype or a product.

Frankie Iturbe:

But I like that Erica mentioned you could end at, what questions will we have at the end of this meeting or this workshop, or this sprint, whatever we're doing, right? I think it's just really important, I'm taking that away to be at peace and be okay with hey, my output again doesn't need to be a working prototype. It can be a set of questions that we're then going to go tackle next time we meet, next time we gather.

Daniel Stillman:

That's awesome. The inputs and outputs is like such a powerful question but then the question is like and then what are the outputs for, right? But that is the outcomes. Tell me more about this insight. How does this evolve your model for you?

Frankie Iturbe:

I just feel like one growth that for me was realizing so again, working in a space where it's not within sales org, it's not always so product driven. We're not delivering a specific product. It took me a while to adopt like, okay. An output can be a useful value, output can be this new org structure. It doesn't need to be something tangible in our systems yet. But the way that it evolved for me with Erica's comments was, what did I write down exactly in my notes?

Frankie Iturbe:

I also wrote, what decisions are we going to make next? Like we finished this work and then what decisions will we be able to make with this? It kind of goes back, actually, it's getting very meta here Daniel. It becomes an input to your point. I think that might have been what you were saying when you asked me the questions. Sorry if I misunderstood. But those set of questions, those decisions you can now go make become your inputs for the next iterations that you're going through.

Daniel Stillman:

Yeah. That's awesome and really powerful. Thanks for that Frankie. And thanks to everyone for being so open and generous with your process and your wisdom. Kate had to hop and it's time for everyone to hop. But I appreciate you making time for this conversation. This is great.

Erica O'Donnell:

Well, thanks so much for including me down and Frankie, Kyle, Kate. It was a real pleasure to chat with you and to meet you Frankie for the first time. So I'll, hopefully will see you again at another Conversation Factory, conversation.

Daniel Stillman:

Frankie doesn't know this, but I want to rope him into a facilitation Friday. He did an amazing session during the last master class where he facilitated something boring and on purpose. It's something that, we're talking about powerful agendas and deep transformation and he was trying to answer the question. How do I motivate a group of people to just get through some boring shit that we got to talk about?

Erica O'Donnell:

To go through a spreadsheet? How do you get through that? How do you power people through that? That was a fun one. [crosstalk 00:55:12]-

Daniel Stillman:

It is. It was a great prompt. I think it was a really fun exercise too. And so, no spoilers. But I think it's an inverse and maybe a more common challenge of like okay, everyone gathering tasks and assigning tasks.

Erica O'Donnell:

Yeah. Like building product backlogs or something collaboratively, it's just painful writing collaboratively writing user stories and everyone just wants to not be there. I hear you. These are challenges that are... I love it. I want to come to that session and Frankie.

Daniel Stillman:

Well, maybe afterwards.

Kyle Pearce:

I'm up for Daniel. I'm up for it.

Daniel Stillman:

Maybe after the session Erica, you and Frankie and I can debrief what wisdom you derived from it. Because I think there's a lot to be said about how to take the everyday stuff we do, and somehow still make it deeply engaging.

Frankie Iturbe:

Indeed, indeed. I just want to echo back Erica's comments back to her as well, and to Kyle and to Kate pleasure, meeting you all as well. Learned so much in an hour probably saw me taking, I'm an avid, taking copious notes and just learned a lot from you all. Definitely look forward to learning more from you all in the future.

Daniel Stillman:

Awesome. Thank you. Kyle, you had one more thing on the tip of your tongue.

Kyle Pearce:

It just all bounces around. Beautiful. Nice to meet you Frank. Daniel, thanks for looping me in on this one. Glad to participate. And Erica, great to see you again.

Daniel Stillman:

Frankie I want your notes. They may make it into my show notes.

Frankie Iturbe:

They're not as cool as like, I'm sure the sketches that you have Daniel but-

Daniel Stillman:

They'll make it into OneNote and then they'll be much, much better. All right, I'm going to call scene and stop recording and release you all from...