A dysfunctional group is a leadership opportunity

Dear Bob …

I recently joined the board of a professional association in my industry. I was flattered when they asked me to run and excited when I was elected. That lasted until my first board meeting, when I discovered that just about everyone involved, both in the committees and on the board itself, are mostly here for ego gratification.

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Honestly, I’ve never worked with a bunch of people more interested in getting their way, less interested in finding compromises, or more unable to even hear what anyone else has to say. I’m actually starting to feel some empathy for members of Congress!

I’m thinking of resigning from the board, as it’s really a complete waste of my time. I don’t want to do this if there’s any way of making our meetings more productive, though.

Any thoughts?

– Board stiff

Dear Stiff …

My first thought is a guess: In your own company, you work in a staff, supervisory, or lower-level management role. I’m pretty sure of this because by the time most managers reach a midlevel position, they’re quite used to meetings in which egos dominate and mutual problem-solving isn’t a possibility that’s reached most participants’ consciousness.

My second thought is that you’re looking at the situation backward: Rather than seeing it as a problem because everyone else is behaving so dysfunctionally, tell yourself, every time you become frustrated, that you’re there to help fix things; if this were a smoothly running, high-performance organization, they wouldn’t need you.

My third thought is that this is a wonderful opportunity for you to learn the middle-management/executive ropes without the inconvenience of having fellow employees and managers watch you make mistakes as you figure out what does and doesn’t work.

Don’t think of this as a frustrating experience. Think of it as playing games during recess to help prepare for the major leagues.

Having spent quite a few years working both on one professional association’s board and as paid staff for a larger trade association, I have some confidence in what I’m about to suggest, which is that you can do the most good by perfecting your facilitation skills.

Facilitation is the art of helping people communicate and collaborate with each other — exactly what’s missing from your association. The worst thing you can do is to join the shouting, so get it out of your head that your contribution should be to provide the brilliant ideas that will unify the squabbling factions. There is no such thing; the root cause of your organization’s dysfunction is that this is how everyone else is thinking. Everyone there wants everyone else there to recognize that their idea is the brilliant one that brings unity.

In such a case, nobody can ever acknowledge that someone else’s idea should be the one to adopt.

Instead, learn to facilitate. Doing so does, on occasion, require you to shout and get everyone’s attention, but when you do, make the shouting brief. One useful technique might sound like this: “Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey! Before we go on, I need to ask a question because I’ve lost track. I need to understand what we’re trying to accomplish with this discussion.”

Everyone will try to explain it to you at once, so yell again: “Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! Too many voices, and it doesn’t sound like everyone is saying the same thing, either. Jill — in your mind, what is this conversation really about?”

You haven’t offered a single idea of your own. Instead, you changed the rules by asking a question that has to be answered. In doing so, you’ve taken control of the meeting without appearing to have done any such thing.

What will happen next is that Jill will explain her point of view, the shouting will start again, and you’ll intervene again to ask a few other people what they think.

Then comes the magic: You say, “I think I’ve heard three versions of this,” and you’ll paraphrase the three dominant points of view, or at least three of the major points of view being shouted about.

“I’m curious — how many of you think the first is the right way of looking at the situation?” Show of hands.

The second?

The third?

Here’s a suggestion. Jill, you represent the first point of view. Fred, you represent the second. Bill, you represent the third. Can we ask the three of you to get together between this meeting and the next one to frame things up in a shape all three of you can buy into? Then we can have a more productive conversation to figure out what to do about it.

This is a for-instance, of course. You’ll have to figure out the specific technique to use for each situation. Most of the time it will start with your getting the floor to ask a question.

You’ll also need to pick your battles. Don’t try to be the facilitator for every topic that comes up; you’ll lose your effectiveness and instead become the designated facilitator.

But that’s what you’re there for — to learn how to be good at this.

One word of warning: Make this work and everyone on the board will quickly figure out you’re the most effective leader in the room — which means if you decide to go this route, expect to stay on the board for a few years, including taking a stint as its chair.

If you don’t want that to happen, here’s the alternative: Bring popcorn to the next meeting and enjoy it with the entertainment.

– Bob

This story, “A dysfunctional group is a leadership opportunity,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Bob Lewis’s Advice Line blog on InfoWorld.com.