Getting The Right People in the Room

Inclusive Innovation’s bread and butter is running global, highly collaborative workshops for sustainable development. Workshops that tend to include a colossal range of stakeholders and that are focussed on seeking out and actioning concrete solutions to our world’s increasingly complex and wicked challenges. However, as facilitators, we know (more than most) how crucial it is to get the right people in the room for these exchanges. We also know how hard this is to accomplish.

There is an alchemy of elements that must combine to create a successful workshop. From a casual setting that creates an open climate and a thoughtful agenda design, to facilitators who can build a rapport with the participants and, of course, the presence of willing, committed participants. When we consider all these together; the power really is in the people.

However, the power of the participant goes both ways. People can make and break a workshop. They can add energy or drain it completely. Helping our clients to choose the right people to invite into their workshops is something we take very seriously and, we believe, adds immense value to the workshop outcomes.

Let’s talk about the room

When it comes to the types of workshops we help host, whether they be impact labs for novel transdisciplinary research ideas, peer-learning exchanges or internal strategic retreats, we know a few basic principles to be true:

1.   The workshop must have a clear objective. It must communicate the WHY NOW and WHAT ARE WE WE TRYING SOLVE?

2.   The agenda must be agile. No agenda survives first contact, it must be designed to adapt to the conditions on the day.

3.   The people must be open to ideas and, crucially, ambiguity. You don’t need creative thinking if you already know the answer. If you’re investing in a workshop, you’re seeking this answer out and need everyone to arrive with an open mind. Judgment really is a killer.

So, how do I find the right people?

Perhaps curiously, we’d like to invite you to consider the wrong people first. Whatever the purpose of a training or workshop – for innovation, skills-building, team building, strategy development – a sure-fire way to sabotage the meeting is to invite people to attend who aren’t committed to its outcome, or who have another hidden agenda. We often refer to them as Tourists, Politicos and Eyeores.

Let us elaborate.

The Tourists

Tourists are lightweight, especially in the complex realm of sustainable development. They are there to take in the sights, not to commit to a culture they would be intending on staying in long term. They’re not out to cause harm, however their lack of commitment creates an energy vacuum. Outside a workshop environment, this vacuum could easily go ignored or compensated around. Within a workshop however, this vacuum can suck the life right out of the process. Tourists can drain the energy of those that are committed and slow the whole group down, instead of driving it forward.

You might find these people get invited if the organizers are more interested in getting bodies in the room or including “someone from every department,” instead of thinking about who brings the right skills and the best attitude to the meeting.

The risk of Tourists in the field of sustainable development are even greater. Don’t let their apathy to the cause or the process dilute your potential impact.

The Politicos

Politicos are there to represent ‘ego’; be that their own or their organization’s. The problem with this group is that they come with their own political agenda, and this is not always the agenda of the meeting. And sadly, because they usually have some clout, authority or funding, they can easily hijack things in the wrong direction.

Innovation within global sustainable development is incredibly vulnerable to these egos. Even worse, they often hide in plain sight, ranging from whole nations (Global North we’re looking at you…) and CEOs with profits over the planet at their heart, to the participant who arrives with their idea to sell, and theirs alone.

The Eeyores

Eeyores are just like the character in the children’s book Winnie the Pooh. They’re the downers that come into the meeting convinced that none of this is going to work. That the premise of the meeting is wrong. That the facilitators couldn’t possibly understand their business and that workshops never do any good. Their reluctant participation impacts the energy of the rest of the people in the room.

Paradoxically, Eeyores are often the people who stand to gain the most from a successful meeting, yet they sabotage it by their inability to let go of their skepticism and just try to make things work. In the end, they get to be right about one thing: these workshops never work (for them).

When we think about the core principles of sustainable development, these ‘BUT-ters’ have no place in a workshop. If we can’t generously listen (read more on that here) and use what has come before to stimulate all kinds of thinking, you’ll never make progress. Don’t let the Eyeores dishearten and derail the group.

… as an aside, if you find an Eeyore that interrupts your process, invite them to experiment with AND, not BUT and see how it unlocks their thinking.

So how do I avoid the Tourists, Politicos and Eeyores?

It’s a great question. The first is to align on, and establish, a vetting system. We tend to work with our clients to design a comprehensive application and registration form that solicits relevant and indicative information from a participant pool.

Let’s start with the basics:

Do they have relevant experience for the workshop challenge? A pretty critical one.

Are they able to attend the whole event? We don’t want drop ins, we require full commitment for the best results. Do they need to be flown in? Do they have the right access to the tech you’re running the virtual workshop on?

Now let’s consider the finer details:

Does the group’s experience represent the range of expertise needed for the workshop’s success? If you’re after novelty, you’ll want as diverse an experience-set as possible and you’ll have to work hard to find out: i) what ‘diversity’ actually means for your challenge and ii) how to find these people as the most critical experience may not be in your current networks (or you’d be working with them already!). Alternatively, if you’re working on an internal strategic meeting, diversity may not be key. You’ll want those involved in strategic decisions in order to align them.

Are they open to ambiguity? What patience do they have to not know the answer straight away? If it’s low, they probably won’t be the best collaborators to find it in the first place.

NB.: We’ll often use open ended questions (e.g. asking them to elaborate on a time they’ve led or collaborated well / that they’re most proud of) to gauge this, II have also been known to work with a psychologist to review the participant applications, gauging the level of ego-control and the capacity to work within an intense group setting.

The result of a formal vetting procedure is twofold:

1. The organizers and facilitators spend much less time worrying about “problem participants” and much more time on the content of the workshop*.

2. The participants enter the workshop environment committed to the process and the outcomes and can feel confident and trust that their colleagues have been selected for the same reason.

*This doesn’t mean there won’t be healthy conflict and disagreement during the process, we know that can often lead to the biggest breakthroughs(!), but it does mean the focus of the workshop will be the content and the output, not the personalities.

If you’re going to organize a workshop or an off-site meeting, it makes sense to be vigilant about every detail. The right venue creates an open climate. Facilitators take the responsibility of moving things along. The program design is critical. But possibly the most important thing to attend to is the guest list: Be sure to get the right people in the room, people who care about the outcome and who are prepared to do their part to make your meeting worthwhile.

An Invitation

If you’re struggling with where to start on your participant list, we’d love to help. No commitment necessary. Our team fundamentally believes that by including the right people in the right discussions we might just be able to get ourselves out of the mess we’re in. So, if you work in sustainable development and want to soundboard ideas about how to include the right people at the table, email emma.skipper@inclusiveinnovation.org and arrange a coffee.