Facilitation
We can ask questions you can't ask.
Your team won't tell you, but the truth is they don't want you to facilitate the management retreat. Why? Because when you facilitate it's really hard to listen to their feedback in a neutral way. And, even if you could, it's unlikely your team will tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
We know this is counter-intuitive and we're sorry to spill the beans. We used to train executives to facilitate meetings themselves until we realized success didn't correlate directly with skills alone.
We're talking about human nature. People (your people, too) are wired for self-preservation. At work that sometimes means sugar-coating the truth when the boss asks for it. Yes, that's inefficient and in the long run it doesn't help anyone. Unfortunately in our experience there's only one way around it.
You've got to engage a third-party facilitator.
- We get the tough questions out in the open.
- We help really prioritize strategic initiatives and action items because we're neutral.
- We've got no history with the team so politics don't matter.
- We know how to stimulate knowledge sharing.
- We do this for a living.