The Keys to Step 7


The Keys to Step #7

Reflect on Shared Hopes as the Basis for Your Selection

Leaders and teams need to remain focused on their ultimate objectives: fulfilling the hopes they share for the opportunity. Without a set of common themes, participants will only be solo performers—they'll never become a great symphony.

A group's shared hopes need reinforcement. Otherwise, participants tend to drift back to their own agendas. When you work with diverse team members, it's a good idea to keep their shared hopes before them in written form. If they haven't reviewed them in a while, ask each participant to read out one hope in order from the list when you meet next.

People also need time to let their shared hopes sink in and for desirable choices to bubble up. Knee-jerk reactions often arise from peoples' fears or personal agendas. Many groups produce poor results because they rush to a decision without even a minute of quiet reflection. Not surprisingly, they end up with worn-out ideas because of their shortsighted thinking.

In contrast, connecting with what's important to fulfill your long-term success together may take a few moments of reflection. Give yourselves this time. You've spent a substantial amount of time identifying the negatives and positives of each of the options you've generated. Reserving a few minutes for each person to reflect on the group's shared hopes and how the options fit with them is another sound investment.

Some people are quick draws and want to shoot immediately. Others need time to get up to speed. It takes only a relatively short amount of time to enable everyone to move forward together.

Commit Preferred Choices to Writing

The simple act of writing down the choices each person believes will best fulfill the shared hopes of the group solves many problems. First, it prompts participants to clarify the choices. In about half of the groups I've facilitated, people have had questions about one or more of the various options, even at this late stage in the overall process. They've wanted to be certain about the details before writing down what they think would be best for the group. Because some people process information more effectively in writing than through speaking or hearing, writing provides a way for them to clarify their thoughts. The combination of verbal discussion and writing also improves participants' memory retention of the choices considered.

Second, writing down the options ensures that no one's thinking gets left out. Participants in typical group efforts commonly lament that they feel pressured to go along with the rest of group. They complain that they don't have a chance to express their own points of view before the group rushes to a decision. In contrast, when each person writes down preferred options, participants discover exactly what everyone thinks.

Finally, writing choices on slips of paper encourages commitment to the results. Participants are far less likely to renege on the conclusion.

Even when dealing with small issues, it's important for each person to write down his or her choice. Doing so lets everyone express a preference in a respectful and efficient manner—and the results stick.

Specify Multiple Choices to Broaden Solutions

In addition to acknowledging each person's first choice, it's important to find out what other choices would be acceptable, albeit less desirable, ways to fulfill the group's shared hopes. Few decisions, especially on tough issues, are cut and dried, with clear yes-or-no or a-or-b choices. With the successful completion of Steps #6 and #7, a team will have multiple choices to consider, as well as an appreciation of the nuances of each choice. They will also perceive that there can be several paths to successful problem-solving results. When participants specify both a best choice and all acceptable other choices, the group gains information about the entire solution spectrum.

Some people, however, fear that advocates of a particular course of action will refrain from listing alternate choices in order to boost their own partisan point of view. This is analogous to walking the high wire without a net: If something happens, there is no backup. Steps #1 through #6 have established a strong, shared foundation for problem solving, which should discourage group members from advocating only their first choice. If someone does try to skew the process, it will be evident when everyone sees the results in Step #8.

With multiple choices come strength and resilience. Everyone benefits from listing as many options as are acceptable and supportive of their objectives. As you'll see in Step #9, acceptable alternatives prepare groups to adapt to changing circumstances and to pursue superior solutions as they proceed.

Use Secret Ballots for Candid Insights

Confidentiality allows each person to assess the options without being subject to groupthink or coercion. It honors each person as an instrument of discernment, no matter how timid or vocal that person may be. Secret ballots provide a critical opportunity for participants to transform their thinking and come to breakthrough results.

In the example of the school overcrowding issue described in Step #5, use of secret ballots allowed participants to change their previously staked positions and find a common solution. The volunteer committee included advocates and opponents of the two school bond measures that had failed. Both groups had spent thousands of dollars to influence the elections and had supporters in the community who wanted their representatives to deliver their predetermined positions.

Before committee members wrote down their recommended choices for resolving the issue, they read their shared hopes aloud. This reiterated the group's commitment to a solution that responded to the core themes of quality education, cost-effectiveness, and neutral growth. After writing down their choices, they submitted their secret ballots.

The results from the secret ballots demonstrated overwhelming support for a new site and a less costly construction plan. Afterward, an ardent supporter of the prior school bond proposal approached a friend on the committee and asked, "Why wasn't the original school site we worked so hard on together your first choice?" The committee member replied, "Because it wasn't the choice that would best fulfill our shared hopes for the community. I needed to let go of our old position in order to find a solution that would work." The focus on shared hopes and the buffer supplied by secret balloting kept committee members from reverting to their old, unproductive agendas.

Secret balloting works even in large legislative bodies. Although many states require all final decisions to take place in public, with a record of each member's vote, secret balloting offers an effective straw poll that can highlight areas of agreement. Elected officials can express what they think is best for their constituents and learn what their colleagues think without staking a final position. It offers them the opportunity to explore possibilities without fear of being left to twist alone in the wind.

Secret balloting also provides an efficient way to assess where participants stand. Without it, group members waste time trying to convince each other about their line of thinking. Participants don't need to agree on the same reasons in order to agree on the same result.

The reality is that people don't think about issues in the same way. Most businesses and organizations, even tightly knit ones, have an array of interests and perspectives, analogous to an elephant, which looks different, depending on whether you are viewing it from the front, back, side, or top. People at each perspective tend to argue that their view is correct, but when they step back from their personal vantage points, they can all agree that what they're looking at is an elephant. Similarly, secret ballots enable groups to cut through differences in perspective and uncover common ground.

Despite its benefits, some people resist secret balloting because they fear the intrusion of power politics and the possibility of a majority overriding the legitimate concerns of a minority. This is not, however, an inherent problem of secret balloting; rather, it is an issue of how you use the balloting results. Step #8 provides a constructive way to discuss these results.

Secret balloting is cheap, fast, and effective; it stimulates thinking, exploring, and writing; and it provides an action-oriented way to draw the ten-step process toward a conclusion. Unfortunately, very few organizations take advantage of this powerful tool. More than 40 percent of the dozens of organizations surveyed had never used an approach like this (see Appendix A)—they simply guess about where their stakeholders actually stand on a given issue. But with some paper, pens, and a few minutes' time, they can take the guesswork out of their decision making and thereby enable their teams to be more productive and successful.




How Great Decisions Get Made. 10 Easy Steps for Reaching Agreement on Even the Toughest Issues
How Great Decisions Get Made: 10 Easy Steps for Reaching Agreement on Even the Toughest Issues
ISBN: 0814407935
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 112
Authors: Don Maruska

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