The Milllion Dollar Smartphone

Million Dollar Smartphone

How is a phone worth a million dollars?

The answer is captured in one word:

Presence.

Got your attention?

Good, you are present.

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.I’ve been working with a large manufacturing company recently, helping the senior management teams improve their performance by exploring better ways of working together.

During these sessions an interesting phenomenon emerged.  Some of the top management in the business have become heavy users of smartphones to the extent that they bring them in to meetings. Not a problem you may think.  Not unusual too.

In one particular meeting the lead executive was attending a briefing about managing the product portfolio.  A decision had been made to manage out one of the question mark products (see earlier post ) The lead exec spent the meeting tapping away on his smartphone during the briefing.  A dispiriting experience for the team presenting.

• Later this same executive led the negotiations to sell the technology to another company.
• He thought the negotiation had gone rather well
• It had.
• It had gone well for the buyer rather than the seller.

The product had been sold for less than its true value and the lead executive’s company had retained the liabilities for product failure after it had been sold.

The cost of this mistake?  you guessed it…..  about a million dollars.

Attending meetings is not just about being there.  It is about being Present.

The hundred million tea break

Valuable work gets done in the breaks when running workshops

I’ve been running a large event kicking off the collective working capability for several parts of a multinational company.

There were people representing 4 organisations each of which had annual turnovers of several hundred million pounds.

I thought I’d share what happened.  We had to think on our feet a lot….

Background

• Developed the workshop bringing 20 or so people together to develop collective working capability over two days.
• Spent weeks planning the event
• Planned down to the minute (we had expected highly structured, task oriented types present)
• On the day the plan got busted within the first 5 mins when the client asked for something different than I’d been told – ok we fitted that in.
• Then these tasky, structured types started to get more creative and overran our timings, so we ran with the energy in the room and made space for this.
• Did more prep in the break re-planning on the fly (this was possible because we’d put all that work in beforehand)
• The end of the event we got real success achieved everything we set out to.

 So why am I telling you all this?

In the feedback session we asked what had gone really well about the event, where the real value was

The answer – It was the tea breaks where we got the most value

My inner reaction for a microsecond – OH NO!

[for those of you that facilitate you'll know the mind works in the fast lane where you are stood up there]

Then it suddenly occurred:

• Yes they were right, the real value was in the unstructured dialogue when people were relaxed
• But if I’d just brought them together for a tea break :
  • They wouldn’t have come
  • Nothing would have happened
  • So the structure is needed to get things started
  • Then allow space for people to start to feel safe
  • Then allow time for all that relationship building stuff to kick in
  • Stand back and try not to interfere.

 So What?

Learning for me..

• Build in longer breaks, let people talk
• Allow space when people in the room get energised
• Your plans can change
• It’s the result for the people in the room that matters

The event was such a success we’ve been commissioned to take it to other parts of the organisation.

I’m now busy planning more overseas trips

Funny old world isn’t it.

It Doesn’t Happen Without You….

Interesting comment, it was made by the members of one of the Chief Executive Groups I run.

Empty Meeting Room

Sometimes letting things happen can be quite revealing.

This answers one of the questions posed earlier in this blog (Why do we need facilitation anyway?)

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You’ll need some background:

• I have been facilitating this particular group for about 4 years.
• We meet once every 2 months or so.
• We started it because being a CEO is a particularly lonely position.
• Talking to peers in a confidential environment is really valuable.
• CEOs need others to bounce ideas around
• We have unlocked so many seemingly intractable situations.
• Problem solving at this level needs absolute confidentiality.
• This builds a lot of commitment between the members of the group.

Why change anything?

I’m constantly aware of being complacent, and try not to take situations for granted.

 They had all known one another for 4 years.  A lot of trust builds up in that time.  I got to wondering whether I was actually adding any value.

So I started to let go of this group.

So what happened?

• Interestingly, nothing happened.
• The group stopped meeting.
• Gradually they began to ask me when the next meeting was to be.
• We held a series of reality check conversations to find out whether what we were doing was still worthwhile or just habit.
• These conversations need to be 1:1
• They all needed the group to continue.
• “It just doesn’t happen with you” they told me when we got together again.

Facilitation does make a difference.  Really valuable group working doesn’t just happen.

I’ll still not be complacent though…