Let's Get Down to Business

The Monday Kickstarter group put on their positive framing hats this week to address the following challenge: A client had expressed that many of the managers were tired of having conversations about “how people are doing,” which became a priority on virtual meetings that started during the Covid-19 pandemic. The managers wanted to just get down to business, and it was causing problems. The Kickstarter group asked generative questions to learn more about the context and clarify the issue. As is often the case once an issue is clarify, the focus of the issue changes. What emerged as the real challenge for the client is that people were not feeling heard during the meetings. With the issue clarified, the group was ready to flip the challenge to a positive frame.

The Flip

Name it: We are not having conversations where we are all heard.

Flip it: We are having conversations where we are all heard.

Frame it: We have conversations in which we move toward outcomes we all want.

Other suggested frames:

• There’s less worry or fear around minding your words.
• We have productive and meaningful conversations where everyone has the opportunity to be heard.
• We have conversations where all are heard, balancing head and heart.
• We have less anxiety about how our performance is being evaluated.

Generative Questions  

In order to achieve the outcome: We have conversations in which we move toward outcomes  we all want, everyone needs to feel heard. The group created the following questions to inspire a conversation worth having:

Questions for Self

• What is the real challenge here for me?
• What mindset do I need going into this conversation?

Questions for Others

• What methods have been used in the past to move information discussed in meetings into actionable items? Would this help everyone see that their voice was accounted for in that meeting?
• How can everyone be accountable for both heart and mind topics?
• Share a story of a great/productive meeting where all voices were engaged? What was going on?
• How might we decide where we “all want to go”?
• What accomplishments did the group have prior to and since COVID?
• What must we see to help us appreciate that we are moving in the direction we want to go?
• What makes for a great meeting where all voices can have the opportunity to share?
• What other organizations are seemingly doing a fantastic job of balancing people and results in ways that are positive and proactive?
• What place or space is best suited for the topic of discussion?
• How do you prefer/want to be heard? If there is only one thing that you would love to be received by all our ears with openness, what would it be?
• What else can accompany the conversations?
• What external resources might we need?

Cool Tip: Before creating questions for others, it is helpful to create questions that help us prime our own mindset for “connect” such as today’s questions, “What is the real challenge here for me?” and “What mindset do I need going into this conversation?”