Managing upward: shadow facilitation tactical series 2.1)

Part 2 of the series: Preparing for power and politics in group dynamics

2.1.A MANAGE UPWARDS as part of facilitation

Photo by Marlis Trio Akbar (UNSPLASH)

Introduction

In our last posts in this series, we named nine shadow pressures from client systems that facilitators face. This blog tackles the two that relate directly to power and hierarchy:  the pressures to agree with the boss (pressure 1) and exempt senior figures (pressure 3).  Topics: 

• How to use a private briefing loop to align senior figures and get them on track.

• A real-case example of pivoting a derailed session.

• Tactics for giving confidential difficult feedback to senior leaders.

• Some insight into when to intervene with power dynamics and when to let them go.   

This part of the playbook breaks down eight key tactics for managing upwards.

Pressure:  agree with the boss (in 2.1A)

Tactic 1:  Use private briefing and feedback loops.

Tactic 2:  Trust a group to manage its own practical needs and achieve results.

Tactic 3:  Manage private interventions with senior people

Pressure:  exempt senior figures from norms (in 2.1B, a separate post)

Tactic 4:  Stay the course with process norms. 

Tactic 5:  Be ready to pivot quickly and use a tool kit of methods.

Tactic 6:  Map the travel grid for senior people and participants. 

Tactic 7:  Manage the speaker’s list, don’t just write down names.

Tactic 8:  Do an informal power dynamics audit on first contact: use it to adjust.

Process challenge: when people agree with the boss no matter what

The agenda is strong.  The plans are solid.  The group is engaged and ready.  Then a senior leader or resource person speaks off script, derails the energy and puts everyone on edge. 

How do you navigate this without undermining the person or the group process?  The art of managing upward!   

The client system pressure applies when organizers and participants defer to senior people even when their input weakens the design, distracts the group or contradicts norms. 

Tactic 1:  Use private briefing and feedback loops

Some senior people expect conformity and agreement.  They may experience open sharing of other opinions by participants as disloyalty or criticism. 

As a pre-emptive tactic, establish clear communication lines that encompass all the key stakeholders, even if you do not engage with them all directly.  For example, the most senior lead organizer of an event or process may be the best one to engage with senior people.  Distil key messages and assess risks and coping strategies with that person.   

Designate the most appropriate member of a facilitation team to be primary contact.  They may not be the most senior.   The two may work together directly, share a common interest, or have intersecting responsibilities. 

Involve senior people in at least one briefing meeting and preferably several meetings with the rest of the team.  This key step aligns their inputs with broader design.  It can help focus internal support in the moment.  Being included early can minimize off-script diversions later. 

Sometimes your most critical shadow role is to say what the internal team cannot.  A lead organizer may use you, an external person, to articulate difficult truths without exposing staff to risk.  Staff may self-censor because the price of speaking up is too high. 

Take on such a role cautiously.  Limit it to the bounds of your mandate and confidence, and always in the service of a dialogue necessary for the process.   

Things that directly affect the quality of the process and its progress to results are at least partly your responsibility.  But much in shadow facilitation is an extension of office dynamics, organizational politics and personality conflicts.  Knowing the limits of your role is as crucial as having shadow facilitation on your radar. And sometimes the people creating challenges may be members of your facilitation team. Speak to them privately.

When your role includes opening a difficult dialogue to meaningfully address pain points, it calls for heightened sensitivity and flexibility with time.  It takes as long as it takes, but without dragging on. 

Case example:  When an expert misses the mark

In a global retreat of 40 people, lead organizers consulted staff and identified wellbeing and mental health as a priority.  The agenda gave a generous half-day to it.   

A new senior person on the Human Resources team was expert in wellness and psychosocial support.  The organizers invited him to lead the session. 

He followed good preparation practice, joined several sessions to get a sense of the group.   I kept a running list of related points participants raised in the two days before his session.  We went over them in a briefing so he could tailor design.  As a senior internal expert, we did not ask for details of his approach. 

He joined for the day opening, a lively recap of the previous day’s results.  Energy was good, participants engaged.  The wall graphics were testimony to productive work.  Within five minutes of handing him the floor, the energy spiralled and the temperature dropped. 

What went wrong? 

People were ready for a practical, problem-solving exchange.  They wanted to raise issues or get attention to issues already raised, secure decisions on specifics negatively affecting their work and their wellness. 

The topics identified before the session were big internal ones.  For example: 

1. Post-COVID-19, a new “return to the workplace” policy had been approved.  It required staff used to working at home to be physically in office.  For some, transit time was significant and the added value questionable. 

2. New administrator-heavy procedures narrowed autonomy for staff.  Many felt that creative results as well as autonomy were going to suffer.   

3. Workloads had been heavy before the pandemic, and with people ill, they had expanded. Yet management had taken no measures to manage or prioritize the growing workload.

   
   

The resource person did not focus on the practice specifics and voiced needs.  He brought a generic methodology to a specific situation. 

Starting with a theoretical framework of factors that affect wellness put people off. 

He invited participants to reflect on what motivated them to join the organization and the team.  With some slow take-up, people started, tried, stared at the floor.  Then hands began to go up.  Participants were blunt. 

“Many of us chose to work in this area because we experienced trauma and violence ourselves.  It has taken us many years and a lot of work to get where we are now.  Personally, I decline to reflect back on what motivated me or brought me here.  I want to move on.”

"This model is interesting, but it’s not what I need.”

“This isn’t what I meant when I said wellness is a big issue for me.  I am not happy with the organization’s decisions.  I want management to hear me and tell me to my face what they think about these policies, because they’re not working for me.” (A muted chorus of: Or me. Or me!)

Here’s how we executed a quick pivot and a 20 minute rescue

Photo by Anakin Hoffman (UNSPLASH)

Immediate eye contact between myself and the lead organizer.  The slash “cut it” gesture, confirmation.  She smoothly rose and said, “I suggest we take a break.  The core team will discuss with the resource person.”  15 minute break. 

After participants left the room, the lead organizer and I met with the resource person.  We tag-teamed to explain:  the process needed a different direction.  People wanted solutions on the issues raised.  We would facilitate it ourselves.  Gracious in his forced withdrawal, we had 10 minutes left to reconfigure the session. 

We took the post-it notes of wellness and workplace related points and roughly grouped them into 3 categories, posted them in 3 corners of the room and set up work stations.  When the group reconvened, we recapped the points collected through the first days of the retreat, validated and adjusted them. Then we invited people to self-select a set to work.  Objective:  recommend specific solutions and benefits, for a solutions-driven dialogue with managers.

The result was clear measures recommended to management, endorsed by the full group, with a timeline for response and volunteers to continue to work on implementation.  Managers responded to those they could, and committed to following up on the rest, updates transferred to regular work streams.  

“There is nothing so practical as a good theory.”  This quotation is attributed to Kurt Lewin, the psychologist who developed the force-field analysis.  Often it can be true. Yet there is nothing less practical than the right theory in the wrong place at the wrong time. The group in the example was fully ready to engage in collective problem-solving on real issues, and rejected a theoretical mapping. 

Tactic  2:  Trust the group to manage its own practical needs and achieve results.  Support it.

Especially for retreats, minimize inclusion of external experts.  People are expert on their own needs, and with strong design and methods, they can be collective leaders in meeting them.   

Managing upward with senior leaders and resource people

Sometimes influencing senior leaders and resource people is best done directly, privately, as in the example.  Other times, better to work indirectly, through a trusted ally.   

Where appropriate, your job may include finding the words to ask for and get something specific:  different behaviour, clarified position, a decision from a senior person.  Many senior people may not be used to or open to being held to account by an outsider in an open work forum. 

Tactic 3:  Manage private interventions with senior people. 

 

Core principles include:

• Be clear, direct and respectful.

• Get to the point fast, putting it in the context of meeting success.

• Be ready with suggestions and recommendations, not just concerns or cautions.

• Approach the communication as between equals.  Whatever the person’s seniority, you’re the process expert. 

• Minimize the part that happens in public, including other staff on the facilitation team.

• Secure private time to go over feedback confidentially.  Keep lead organizers in the loop.

• Focus on what the process needs from the person, not what you think about aspects.   

• Don’t let hierarchy obscure the person and human needs:  be consistently supportive.

Feedback received in day evaluations may include points about a senior manager or resource person. Handle them differently if they are technical questions or a critique of points made. 

Technical questions

For technical questions, get answers.  Even if the senior person has to leave.  Who else can speak with authority?  To whom does she delegate the representative role? 

Report back to the group on the answers.  If that has to happen after the event, try to get lead organizers to commit to making it happen. 

Critique of points made or positions taken is more challenging.  Holding senior people accountable to process requirements is delicate.  

How to deliver difficult feedback upwards

No set of tips, guidelines or suggestions will match each unique situation.  Proven tactics are  usefully adapted.   For example: 

• Summarize clustered feedback received in the daily debrief but don’t go into detail. 

• Agree in the daily debrief on the person most likely to be heard and task them to engage with the senior person.  For purposes of this blog, assume that person is you.  

• Arrange a separate informal private meeting with the senior manager or resource person at a time that works for them.  Usually their time is tight.  It may make your day longer or you’ll have to start earlier.

• Use your notes and the recording / communications team notes as reference – i.e. use the person’s own wording as much as possible.

• Summarize the participant feedback and facilitation team feedback as a combination of requests and opportunities.   Note:  where the facilitation team analysis matches participant input, find a way to say so with minimum offense or hurt.  Be specific. 

• Propose a way forward.  Identify 2-3 key points that need to be addressed.  Advise how much time is protected the next day opening for the person to respond to the specifics.    

• Don’t wait.  Give feedback the day a situation rises.  The most meaningful responses are timely ones. 

• Support the senior person to address negative or provocative feedback, without making it public.  This underscores the importance of capacity development for all.  Everyone can improve, no matter how senior.  Help every contributor make substantive, meaningful contributions as an integral part of process facilitation. 

• Similar tactics work as well with participants who have good contributions to make but flounder in making them so they will be heard.  They can use direct guiding support. 

Sometimes shadow facilitation is best left in the shadows

In some cases, the best action a facilitator can take is to keep the process moving without addressing “keeping the boss happy”. 

Only intervene for a purpose relating to your role that is likely to yield positive benefit to the process.