A Recipe for Moving Forward Together
A few years ago, I was facilitating a session for a cross-functional group tackling a challenge that had been plaguing the organization for a long time. This particular challenge affected many areas of the organization, required coordinated contributions from multiple departments, and had a major influence on the organization’s culture. Several attempts had been made by different teams to address the challenge, but no one felt like meaningful progress had been made – and some folks felt the situation had gotten worse.
They were stuck – and the dedicated and thoughtful team members who had been working to make things better were feeling frustrated, tired, and even a little hopeless.
When we started working together, it became clear they didn’t just need a solution to the original challenge – they now needed a way to get unstuck so everyone could feel ready and capable of moving forward together.
This group isn’t alone – many organizations and their teams struggle with being stuck from time to time. And while the specifics of the challenges they face may differ, the systems and approaches used to get unstuck and move forward together can be applied broadly.
Getting unstuck so you can move forward together is a little like baking. There are key ingredients that should be combined in certain ways to get the desired result, and if you accidentally leave out an ingredient or miss a step, the results can range from disappointing to disastrous.
That’s what was happening with the team I mentioned above. In their previous attempts, they were missing some key ingredients and they weren’t quite getting the important steps right. And it showed in their initial results. But when we applied the right approach for getting unstuck so they could move forward together, they finally had the recipe they needed to make their efforts successful.
So, in the spirit of holiday recipe swaps, I’m happy to share with you my recipe for meaningful meetings that help cross-functional teams move forward together.
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A Recipe for Meaningful Meetings that Help Us Move Forward Together
KEY INGREDIENTS
The Meeting Objective – before you jump into mixing your ingredients, you need to know what you want to make. Having a clear meeting objective that the group commits to accomplishing in the meeting makes a huge difference. Good objectives are clear and tangible, and they ensure you’ll leave the meeting with an actionable plan the team can work together to advance.
The Team – getting the right people in the room is essential. You need at least one committed decision-maker – this could be an executive sponsor, a department head, or someone else with the authority and willingness to back up the group’s recommendations. You also need good representation from subject matter experts and the team members who will be charged with doing the work. Everyone in the room should have a reason for being there and should be ready to commit to the action steps that come out of the group’s discussion.
The Ground Rules – Stating ground rules in advance – either in the meeting invitation, at the beginning of the meeting, or both – gives the team a clear understanding of how to approach this meeting and what’s expected of them. Ground rules may differ based on your organization’s culture, but they should cover things like staying present in the meeting (no cell phones or email distractions), participating by sharing ideas and perspectives, listening well and being curious about root causes, and working together to find solutions.
The Facilitator – I strongly recommend using a third-party facilitator for this kind of meeting. They can be a consultant or a skilled colleague from another department who can empathetically and objectively support the team in moving forward. When an “insider” facilitates a meeting – even if they are excellent at facilitation – it can affect the team’s willingness to speak freely and it can prevent the facilitator from fully sharing their own critical insights. A third-party facilitator can also bring in new approaches, exercises, and activities that help the team expand their thinking and discover new opportunities.
Dedicated Time – as organizational psychologist Adam Grant says, “Your scarcest resource is not your time. It's your attention.” Carve out at least half a day (a full day is better) for your session. The team needs enough time to work through the steps below with focus and without feeling rushed or like their ideas or concerns haven’t been heard. Investing 4 or 8 hours of focused time together in one day often saves several days (or weeks!) worth of strife and stalling out down the road.
INSTRUCTIONS
A talented facilitator will be able to work with you directly to design a session that fully addresses your team’s needs. Like skilled bakers, they can adapt the recipe as needed to get the desired result. As a baseline recipe, though, you’ll want to incorporate the following steps into your session.
Objective, Agenda, Ground Rules, and Introductions – start the day well by setting expectations from the beginning and ensuring your team members know each other.
Icebreaker – Moving forward together relies on trust, and a relevant icebreaker can be a great start. I like to custom design icebreakers for the meeting by creating activities that help folks feel a certain way based on what we’re trying to accomplish – do they need to feel focused, brave, prepared? Do the different personalities in the room need a way to understand one another’s differing perspectives? Icebreakers can support that – and they also help level the playing field so teammates who may be less comfortable speaking up in front of decision-makers feel more included and an equal contributor to the conversation.
Review – start with an understanding of how we got here. What work has already been done? Where did we hit roadblocks? What did we learn along the way? This is a chance for the teammates who’ve been working hard to address the challenge can share their experience and the knowledge they’ve gained. The sharing should focus on helping everyone in the room get acquainted with the situation – information, ideas, and challenges are helpful for the group to hear, but if the discussion veers into complaints or accusations, then a gentle redirect to the task at hand is needed.
Explore – now that we know how we got here, we can explore the opportunities and challenges related to how best to move forward. Depending on the project or challenge at hand, this can take many different forms – brainstorming, structured conversation, breaking into small groups, etc. The key is to generate options that the group can discuss and compare, and asking key questions like “what needs to be true to make this work?” and “what aren’t we sure about for this option?”
Activate – with ideas generated, it’s now time to reflect, choose an option, assign roles, and make a plan the team can stick with. A skilled facilitator can help the group narrow down or rank options in a variety of ways. The key is to choose one approach the team is willing (and ideally excited) to move forward. From there, the group can assign a team lead, identify roles for key team members, and put together an initial action plan for moving forward. For the sake of maximizing momentum, I like to use a simple activation framework I call “Now, Next, Next Year” that the team can use to flesh out what will happen in the next 30 days, what will happen by the end of the next quarter, and what will happen by this time next year. Keeping the discussion at this level centers the most essential components of the plan instead of jumping into a detailed and overwhelming project plan that no one really has the time to manage.
Follow Through – a plan is a wish until it’s properly executed. It’s essential to leave the session with a commitment from the team to follow through on their roles and assignments, including how often and in what format they’ll touch base. The team lead is accountable for keeping everyone on track, but each person is accountable for doing their part. As the team makes it through the “Next” timeframe, they may choose to redo their plan with a revised set of “Now, Next, Next Year” priorities.