Every conversation has two parts – content and process. Content is the subject of the conversation: how to meet your project deadline, what services clients are requesting, or what your fiscal year goals are. Process is how you talk about the content. It includes many elements like whether people just state their views, ask questions or both; how people deal with differences of opinion; and how people respond to others who seem “off-track”.
 
The process you use directly affects the outcomes you get. Good process creates better decisions and leads people to be more committed to the decisions.

I believe that everyone intuitively knows process is important, even people who say talking about process is touchy-feely or a waste of time. To test this out, just ask people who feel strongly about the content of a meeting and tell you they don’t want to spend time discussing process, if that means they are willing to use any process you propose. My guess is their answer will be no.

Jointly Design Next Steps and Ways to Test Disagreements is the seventh ground rule in the Ground Rules for Effective Groups. When you use this ground rule, you explicitly talk with others about how to have the conversation or meeting. By getting agreement on the process, the process will help you discuss the content, not get in your way. Here are several ways to use this ground rule:

•  Agreeing on the purpose(s) of the meeting: Start your meeting by saying something like, “My understanding of the purpose of this meeting is to X; does anyone have a different understanding or think we need to add anything?” Starting off like this (even if you called the meeting and set the agenda), ensures that if people think other issues need to be addressed, they can say explicitly rather than feel like they have to sneak in their items.”

• Moving to a new topic: Rather than say, “O.K, let’s move on” or simply move on, say something like, “I think we’re ready to move to topic Y; anyone has anything else we haven’t fully addressed on Y?” By saying this, you learn whether others are ready to move with you. If they’re not, find out what they need before they can move forward.

• Dealing with people who are “off-track”: To return to our initial example, say something like, “Dan, I’m not seeing how your comment about X is related to our topic Y. Can you help me understand how they’re related?” By saying this – and meaning it, you’re assuming that Dan might be on-topic even though you don’t see the relationship. This gives Dan a chance to show the group how his comment is related to Y or to say it’s not. Then you and the group can still decide whether to stay on topic Y or switch.

These techniques are not simply a nice way of dealing with people who really are off-track or who aren’t ready to move on. They are really a way to suspend your assumption that you understand the situation and other’s don’t; they are a way to be curious about other’s views; and they are a way to be genuinely interested in developing a process that will meet not only your needs, but the needs of others in the meeting.
 
Interested in learning how to jointly design conversations to build better results and relationships? Click here to learn more about or to register for my upcoming teleclasses.
 
--Roger Schwarz