Facilitating a brainstorm - managing participants

Do you ever get the feeling that managing meetings would be easy - if it wasn't for the people involved?

I think we've all been there. But handling people - even problem participants - is easy when you know how. You need to think about the problem in advance, learn a few engagement techniques - and then implement them as the meeting or brainstorm progresses.

There are certain types of "problem participants" who occur all too often:

• The motormouth, who wants to dominate every conversation
• The wallflower, who doesn't want to talk at all
• The person who seems only to see the negative in everything
• The aggressive person, who delights in personal criticism and attacks (but only on others)
• The person who is always late and perpetually distracted

In the first instance, agree groundrules in advance - and keep them on display. These should include the rule  that the times of the brainstorm will be honoured, that all attendees are expected to participate, and that only one person should talk at one time (the "one singer, one song" rule). 

In addition, almost all "problem" behaviours can be handled by facilitation techniques. 

In order of escalation they are: 

1. Mention their name (most people respond and attend when they hear their own name)
2. Move towards them
3. Put a hand on their shoulder (but be aware of cultural issues which discourage touching) and
4. Call a coffee or natural break, and have a word with the person causing the problem.

In the last instance, if their behaviour is truly breaking up the brainstorm, explain the problem and ask them to leave the meeting if they cannot behave in a way that will contribute to achieving what the meeting needs to. 

In addition, be aware that people have different ways of engaging at work. Their personalities differ, and the way they work and communicate with other people can differ dramatically. There are several ways of understanding different personality styles -  from Belbin and Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), to NLP Representational Styles (Auditory, Visual, Kinaesthetic etc) and the Insights Colour system.

The sense behind each of them is that if you understand your own "type", and can flex to communicate in the way others prefer, you'll have much more success in communicating with them.

The system I use is Social Styles, with the primary types of Driver, Analytical, Amiable and Expressive. I find it simple to understand and translate into action, and I use it to understand any type of communication issue and any type of audience.

It's worth trying to work with these communication systems - check them out online, or talk to your HR colleagues.

Communication Tip - engage them with your opening.

I'm in Oxford as I write this, preparing to speak to an audience of Head Teachers tomorrow.

It's one of my favourite cities, and the location of a large part of one of my favourite novels - Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh.

It's a vast, sprawling story of the relationship between Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte, and Sebastian's family. It was made gloriously famous by a Granada Television dramatisation in the early 80's (and less so by a film version a couple of years ago).

Thinking of the novel as I walked around the Oxford Colleges today, one thing kept coming to mind with regard to my speech tomorrow. The opening line of Brideshead Revisited.

The opening line of Chapter One (although there is a prologue) is "I have been here before".

It is spoken by Charles Ryder, on realising that the army platoon he captains (in the Second World War) is to be camped at Brideshead, home of Sebastian's family. "I have been here before".

The line sets up the whole drama of the novel, setting Charles on a journey through his memory of the preceding twenty or thirty years, from his first days at Oxford, to meeting Lord Sebastian Flyte and friends, Sebastian's dissolution through drink, Charles' marriage and development as an artist, and his relationship with Sebastian's sister Julia.

But it all starts with that one line - "I have been here before".

With the opening line, Waugh sets the stage for his story - and with an opening line, every presentation you make, every email you send, every report you produce will set the stage for how your audience will take it and understand it.

Work hard on that opening line. Is it strong, engaging, involving? If it is, you'll be some way to achieving your objective. (And you do have an objective, don't you?).

If it is weak, unengaging, banal - then you are off to the worst of all possible starts. And don't expect that your audience will come with you on the rest of the journey.

I'll be working hard on my opening for tomorrow's speech. But then again, I have been here before.