The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – 8 Core Practices of Facilitative Leaders by Michael Wilkinson

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

8 Core Practices of Facilitative Leaders by Michael Wilkinson Amazon.com Michaelthefacilitator.com Leadstrat.com What is a Facilitative Leader? Facilitative leaders create organizations where engagement is the norm, collaboration is the vehicle, and higher levels of achievement are the result. Unfortunately, many leaders continue to view their role primarily as one of setting direction, allocating resources, and putting in place rewards, support, and development systems that ensure their people stay focused on achieving that direction. In the changing workplace, this archaic view of leadership is completely inadequate. More and more, employees are seeking to understand where their organization is going and to influence the paths taken to get there. This shift in the workplace requires a new set of leadership skills. Leaders must know how to inspire people around a vision, foster trust, manage group interaction, build consensus, resolve conflict, and adapt their approach to the specific needs of each person they lead. They must be able to facilitate rather than dictate. This new direction calls for facilitative leaders. Praise for 8 Core Practices of Facilitative Leaders "If you want a great book that takes a facilitative approach to leadership, here it is! The 8 Core Practices of Facilitative Leaders offers practical and insightful strategies any leader can apply immediately. Read this book and learn the best ways to create engagement, buy-in, and alignment in your organization." --Ken Blanchard, coauthor ofThe New One Minute Manager(R) and Leading at a Higher Level "Michael credits me with teaching him to value thinking and communication preferences. He has written a practical guide to help you understand the behaviors needed to be highly impactful as a facilitative leader." --Ann Herrmann-Nehdi, chief thought leader and chair of the board at Herrmann, creators of the HBDI Assessment and Whole Brain Thinking

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from the chrisvossshow.com. Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, that makes it official. Welcome to the big show.

For 16 years, going on 17 years, we will bring you over 2,100 episodes of the most smartest, brightest people in the world. None of them are me because I'm just the idiot with the mic, but we have the most smartest people on the show. The CEOs, the billionaires, White House presidential advisors, the Pulitzer Prize winners, people you see on TV interviewing presidents and doing all that thing. Folks bring their books, their stories, their cathartic moments, the journeys they've been through in life, and they help you realize that you are not alone. I'm talking to you, my friend, that person in the back with the blue shirt there. You are not alone. And so that's why you listen to the show, so you can learn something new. Anyway, there's some guy right now in a blue shirt

in an office going what the fuck he can see me anyway guys we have an amazing young man on the show with us today he is a multi-book author his current book eight core practices of facilitative leaders came out august 13th 2029 by michael wilkinson we'll be talking to him about his insights and a lot of his amazing writing in his books. One of the quotes from someone who knows him well, the CEO of United Way Worldwide, said he is hands down the most talented and effective facilitator with whom I have ever worked. And they call him Michael, the facilitator. Does his girlfriend call him that? We'll find out.

He is the founder of Leadership Strategies, the largest professional facilitation company in the nation. He's the writer of seven books on facilitation, including the industry bestseller, The Secrets of Facilitation. He is a member of the International Facilitation Hall of Fame, and since learning about the power of facilitation 30 years ago, he has helped leaders from organizations around the globe use facilitation to achieve amazing results, including the largest company in Australia, a UK car auction company, and the government of Jamaica to create their own 10-year strategic plan. Welcome to the show, Michael. How are you? I am well, Chris, and it's a pleasure to be here, and thanks for having me on. I appreciate it, my friend. Thanks for coming. This show needs all the facilitation it can get. Give us a dot coms. Where can people find you on the interwebs?

Cool. So my people in the industry know me as Michael the Facilitator. So it's michaelthefacilitator.com. I'm there on LinkedIn and other places as well. But michaelthefacilitator.com is probably the best and easiest to remember. So give us an overview. What is this facilitative stuff for those people that didn't go to college like I did and they didn't learn the big words? What does facilitate mean to you in the context? And Chris, let's be clear. Those of us who are in it are still trying to define what it is. Let me share my way of a story because I think it illustrates it. I spent back in 1980, I'm a little older than I look, Chris, so you would not call me a young man

if you knew my age, but I was with one of the, what was then the big eight. And as a consultant, we'd go into companies with our smart consultants, right? We interview everybody, come up with a hundred percent plan and then go away. Good consultants do go away, Chris. But when we come back a year later, we'd be lucky if 15% was implemented. Oh, wow. But my last two years with that organization, we started doing things different. We still would come in with smart people, but we would organize their team and let their team come up with the solutions. Now, their team may only come up with the 60% solution.

So we'd float ideas. They go, oh, yeah, that's good. Oh, yeah, that's good. Oh, no, no, that won't work. They may only accept the 85% solution. But here's the kicker. We go away, come back a year later. Eighty percent of it would be implemented. How much sense did that make? We come up with 100. They only implement 15. They come with the 85. They implement 80. So that's what it's all about. The why is because of facilitation.

When they come up with the solutions, they create it, they understand it, they accept it. And so it makes a difference if they have their own personal buy-in, I guess. You said the word. It's buy-in. Because leaders think, if I come up with the right decision, I'm really smart. And then they'll try to build buy-in. But as we say, it's a formula. Effective decisions equals the right decision times commitment to the decision.

So if they have 100% right decision, their people have zero commitment to it. Chris, tell me. You can do the multiplication. 100 times zero is? Zero. Yes. Not very effective at all. So that's called facilitation.

So we teach leaders and do keynotes and so on, helping leaders understand facilitation works if you work it. And it just makes sense to do. Get the people involved and impacted by the decision. Get them engaged in the work. They'll own the decision and they will drive it to implementation. I mean, it's all about the buy-in. When you're a CEO and you're trying to sell, you know, get people to buy into whatever your vision is, it can be tough. And so I think in any case, you know, trying to get people to feel like it was their idea makes all the difference.

Is that what you're saying? It's not making them feel like their idea because we call that checking the box. It's getting them engaged in creating the idea because here's what happens. You often get better ideas. The CEOs and the leadership team are way up here. The people on the ground, they know the real deal. So you can get better decisions and with much higher levels of buy-in and what do you want a great decision not implemented

or something that's really driven by the people on the ground yeah you and and if they're totally buy-in if you know they're they understand it this is one of the reasons when employees used to ask me about why we did something or how something worked, we give them an explanation of not only how it worked, but why we built it that way. You said it so right. It's about the why. In fact, that is the first of the eight core practices.

You must have read the book. You're thinking ahead because that's exactly right. First core practice. Start with the why. Eng engage them in the how don't walk in and say okay you do this you do this you do this how much buy-in are you going to get when you keep treating people like hands and feet oh yeah they're just going to look at you and just go yeah it's a nice idea idea boy but i'm i don't want to do it so i'm going to do something different that's right or they're going to drag their feet.

Or the worst, they're going to be the oak tree. If you've ever driven a car into an oak tree, the oak tree don't move. That's right. I like that. I like that. I try to avoid oak trees. Yes, you and me too. So you've got to wonder, how come most leaders don't use facilitation if it works?

And unfortunately, it's because most of them don't know how. And so the newsflash, and I appreciate being on this program, somebody's written a book called The Eight Core Practices of Facilitative Leaders, yours truly. And so I've been out evangelizing to the world, hey, leaders, understand, there's another approach to leadership, and it's called facilitative leadership. And you get people engaged, you get their buy-in, you get better decisions and much, much higher levels of buy-in and commitment. Makes all the difference in the world. Some of the questions I have for you, I want to take and run by you. In the book, you have a thing about eight core practices of facilitative leaders

and eight core principles. Tell us where they came from before we get into the eight core principles. There you go. One of the things, in the business world, I had a chance to work on over 200 what would be called strategic plans, strategic initiatives. So I worked with a number of different leaders. There were a handful of them that were really facilitative in their approach. So, basically, I went to MBA school on them, watching what they were doing. And through what they were doing came these eight practices of what facilitative leaders do. And I tell you what, you're a facilitative leader your people love you because they know you care about them they know you listen to them leaders have to lead but when you connect

with your people makes a big difference you mean i have to care yeah yeah no no you don't have to care chris you have to pretend you care all right you've got to ask the questions and actually listen you know it's like yeah this is where you show you care chris've got to ask the questions and actually listen. Yeah, this is where you show you care, Chris, really. Acting. No, I'm just kidding. Don't do that, folks. That's not nice to act and pretend like you care to people. So can you give us a quick overview of the eight principles that are in your book? You know what? Let me run through quick. And I'd love, in fact, let me give you a bit of a test, Chris. I'd love for you to pick the one or the two that we should talk about more in depth. Okay, so I'm going to run through the eight, let you pick the two, because you know your audience way better than I would, what they would most benefit from.

So quickly, they spell the words, if you take the start of each one, it spells the word succeeds, just as a way to remember. So the S, start with the Y, engage with the how. The U, understand and empower your people. Don't command and control. The first C, communicate in their language, not yours. Most leaders speak in their own language. Four, and the one for me, that's my personal one that I am still working on. Connect first, correct second. You know, when someone makes a mistake, what do you want to do? Yeah, yeah. Hey, here's it. Now, connect first, correct second. Huge difference. The first E, it's really about equipping your people for success. Monitor for results. The second E, I have to confess, is the most controversial. It's engage conflict. Encourage disagreement. And people went, well, why should you encourage disagreement? Just really quickly. We know that there are only three reasons people disagree. And most leaders don't want disagreement because, oh, my God, it may take a long time for us to

figure out. Nobody will agree. If we knew the three reasons people disagreed and had the tools to address them, it would be easy. Because if you as a leader, Chris, you say to your team, look, everybody, we should do this. And everyone says, OK, we'll do this. Suppose you encourage disagreement and said, you know what? I think we want to do this. Can we talk about what are the strengths of doing this? Cool. What are the challenges of doing this?

So what might be a better idea? Oh, let's try this. Someone else says, that would be good. How about this? Oh, yeah. You end up here instead of here, because you as the leader encourage disagreement. Let's get to the D. This is something that's difficult for many leaders, drive strategic thinking throughout the organization. See, the more people who are thinking forward, the better for the organization. You can have what we call a level three receptionist who's thinking forward. So drive strategic thinking is the D. And then the last S, you know, most leaders, they spend anywhere from 50 to 80% of their day in meetings.

It might be one-on-one meetings. It might be group meetings. But that's where they get their work done. So those meetings should start, execute, and close masterfully. And so unfortunately, as you know, meetings in America literally suck. We could say, yeah, the S could stand for Sucky Meetings. But we're saying this is what you should do. So that's our succeeds model. Quickly start with the why, engage with the how, understand and empower, don't command and control, communicate in their language, not yours,

connect first, correct second, equip for success, monitor for results, engage conflict, encourage disagreement, drive strategic thinking throughout the organization, and start, execute, and close every meeting masterfully. Back to you, Chris. What do you think? Let's pick the one that you think your audience would most want to hear more about. I think what I want to hear more about and understand is the speak in the language of the, I can't say it the way you yes communicate

in their language not the worst i mean english and they're yeah and they're mexican i gotta that's what makes you such a great host right you you get into the material and then you twist it to make that bring the humor so thank you i wish had that gift. I'm still learning that one. It's the only gift I have. I'm going to start simple and then really get into what it's really all about. Let's say

because you were a telemarketing person and you called someone up and you heard on the phone, yeah, what you got? You know right away you're going to communicate with that person in a certain way, aren't you? You are. You're a hustler, sort of.

Yeah, because you know this person, they want to know right away, what's the deal, what are you here for? Someone gets on the phone and says, good morning, how are you? You know, okay, I got someone I can engage and talk with. You can phone with someone and says, listen, thank you for calling. I've only got a few minutes here. In fact, why don't we take just five minutes and why don't you tell me what you're calling for? You go, okay, I need to give this person all that.

So the person has only said a sentence or two, and you already know how to adapt if you're a gifted telemarketing person. In the same way, we find there are four different communication styles, classic ones. And we as leaders can really drive connection with our people if we communicate in their language. So we talk about the high D employee, right? They're the ones, businesses love them. They get stuff done, Chris. I mean, they're knocking stuff out and so on and so forth. So, you know, these people, what do they need?

Short communication, clear direction, let them run with it. It's great. So those are the Ds. Let them run with it because so many times we're doing all these meetings. Hey, how come sales isn't going up? We're in fucking meetings. You know it. And Chris, I think you have a high D communication style.

It wouldn't surprise me. But your D is also modified with an I. And the I is the influence style. So D is the drive style. I is the influence style. The I's love the stage. They love talking. They love. And so if you have an employee who's a high I, you can't just tell them what to do. You got to engage them in conversation because that's where they learn. They learn by speaking

about what you want them to do. They say, okay, let me get this straight, Michael. What you're telling me is you want me to do this. When they do you know okay they got it now because when they speak it that's where they learn so they usually spend if you're in a conversation with the D you're going to be talking and they're going to it's going to be really quick you're in conversation with an I an influencer they have to do a lot of the talking very different the s in that disc style is steadiness supporter these are the people chris i am sure on your show you have on your staff you have people because you will you need a lot of support around you because you're dealing with guests and so on you've got some servant leaders who really just love helping people and that's of people that just help me cry when it's over

they give you your blankie you put your thumb in your mouth good show those folks yeah you just need to communicate differently just lots of assurances letting them know you support them and then you've got Chris I bet you the folks on your staff who drive you crazy. They're the C's. The folks who want to touch all the bases, follow all the rules, make sure every box is ticked. Yeah, that group may give you a little trouble. But as a leader, you've got to be able to communicate with them as well. So it's just knowing your people and being able to pull out and help them be more effective by adjusting your communication style to theirs to get the most out of them. Facilitative leaders do it without even thinking about it.

It's just native to them. It's something that can make all the difference in the world. In how you approach people, in knowing that they care, that you care about their buy-in. Which of the eight is hardest for you to achieve? Yeah, I did mention it. Let me, yeah, connect first. Why is it hard for you then? Yeah, because I was created as a, each one of us by our creator, we've been endowed with all these amazing gifts.

Unfortunately, what most of us do is pile all this crap on top of these gifts we've been given. And all the world sees is this crap and wonder what's wrong with us. When deep down inside. Deep down inside. That sounds like your dating profile, I'm told. I was created as a process improver. I am good at seeing, hey, this could be done better this way, that way. People don't really want to be improved. They'd rather do it on their own. They don't want

to be told. But when they are told, you really have to connect first. Just really short story. This is where I've learned this one from a non-facilitative leader. When I was back with that big aid firm, the first project that I did was installing a payroll system in 500 convenience stores across the Southeast. Yes, Chris, I was an IT nerd. That was me. That's how I grew up. That's how I started my career. I wanted that to be the best payroll system ever implemented in the history of a man. Six-month project. I was working until 8, 9, 10 o'clock every single night, busting my butt because I that to be the best payroll system ever implemented in the history of a man six month project i was working until eight nine ten o'clock every single night busting my butt because i wanted that to be the best payroll system we are nearing the end of month one the cfo of that company the sponsor

comes into my office chris he says this with this kind of attitude. Can I speak French? Michael, you're doing a shit job. I was just talking to the controller. He's upset because he doesn't understand how this new payroll system is going to update the balance sheet accounts. Would you get on the stick? He walked out of the room. We call that seagull management.

You fly in, make a lot of noise, dump on everybody, fly out. Now, Chris, I've only been truly upset twice in my entire life. Actually, four times. I was livid. This ungrateful so-and-so. Here I am. And for those on the call who don't know systems, the update to the balance sheet accounts is called the interface. Six-month project, you design them in month two, you implement in month five. We were at the end six month project you design them in month two you implement in month five we were at the end of month one he was busting my chops chris about something

we hadn't even gotten to yet i mean i was just here's the point if he had come into my office and said you know michael i know you've been putting a lot of time on this project really appreciate it i need you to do something for me, though. Would you sit down with the controller? He's upset. He doesn't understand how this new system's going to update the balance sheet accounts. Could you get him comfortable with that? Could you do that for me? Wow. You know what I said?

Yes. Sure. He was making the same message. I'm not doing something he wanted me to do. So what do you think? Why the different reaction if he had done it that way? It's more of a buy-in, right? He connected first. Yeah. He connected. He said, Michael, I see you. Michael, I see you. And here's something you can do that would be even better. That message, Michael, I see you. And that's what we teach leaders to do. Connect with their people. Let them know they see their greatness. And before you correct, before you stare, let them know you see their greatness, man.

So I would have gotten that lesson from him as opposed to getting the lesson I got. You ungrateful. It's kind of one of those move the cheese things where people are just like, so there's some resistance and yeah, the connection, knowing that people have empathy from you. where people are just alike. So there's some resistance. Yeah, the connection. Knowing that people have empathy from you, they care about you, or you care about them as a leader is signaled.

That makes all the difference in the world. Well, let me ask you, Chris. Do you connect first, correct second? I choke first, and then tell them I'm doing it in a loving way. I'm doing this to help them. This hurts me more than it hurts you. Oh, and you're choking them and they're gasping for air. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of, I learned that from Darth Vader. Yes. Darth Vader is actually my coach. Most people don't know you can hire Darth Vader as a coach, but you can. And how's that working for you, Chris? He chokes me a lot. A lot of choking going on. And if you have that working for you Chris, it's he chokes me a lot. Let's see a

Lot of choking going on. It's almost like it. I think you learned that from P. Diddy freak fest. Anyway, I'm not sure what that means The news right now You're watching this ten years from now Google what was going on in 2024 anyway Yeah, what are in some of the other eight principles that you have what are what what are some that you find that most people overlook that they have the hardest time with yeah and that sixth principle let's go back to that engage conflict ah see that's what the choking is for engaging the yeah so i'm gonna here's i'm gonna give good news and then bad news good news as i said before there are only three reasons people disagree every disagreement in the entire world we've trained thousands of people on this material

no one has said there's a fourth reason once they've learned the three. I guess with the three reasons. Oh, you want to go? Go, Chris. Three reasons people disagree. Here we go. Chris, drum roll. Three reasons people disagree with me.

It all just comes down to one, really, when it comes down to it. They haven't realized that I'm always right at all times. They haven't concluded that yet. They haven't gotten there. We call that an awareness issue. I thought that was narcissism. Yeah, they're not aware you're a narcissist. I mean, you understand.

They are now. It's the choking. It's a great call. That is the good news. There are only three reasons. Here's the bad news. If you have a level three disagreement, you try to solve it with level one techniques, you're going to fail. Level three disagreements can't be solved with level one.

If you have a level one disagreement, try to solve it with level two techniques. You're going to fail. So let's go through those three reasons. Number one, first and the most common reason people are disagreeing is information. One has information the other doesn't have. And they're arguing. If you ever hear an argument, it sounds like this. Statement, statement, statement.

If one of them would sit back and just say, you know what, help me understand. And they ask a question. At the end of that, you would hear all level one disagreements in the same way with one or the other person saying words similar to this oh oh is that what you meant that's level one disagreement it's all about information they're not hearing each other they they're making assumptions about what the other means you solve level one disagreements as it was implied by asking questions you slow down the conversation hey help, help me understand. How would that work? If we did what you're saying, how would that work? What do you see

as the benefits and so on? Level two disagreements are different. They understand each other perfectly. They just have different values or different experiences. Think of Republicans and Democrats. That's a level two disagreement. They just value things differently. And that's okay. You can still come to agreement. And the way you do that is, as we say, you identify the underlying values that say, because positions, I want to do this, I want to do this values that support those positions. Because if you understand the values, you can create new solutions that combine those values. The positions are just representations of values. What's under the surface is the stuff that really matters. So facilitative leaders know to stop the conversation and go, hey, what do you see as the strengths of doing that? Because when you ask somebody the strengths of what they want to do you're getting their values which is really cool and then you can create solutions and then level three disagreement it's our current political environment where it goes beyond

republicans and democrats it's about who said it oh if they said it i disagree oh if that's the person who said it i disagree it has nothing to it, I disagree. Oh, if that's the person who said it, I disagree. It has nothing to do with the issue. It's either personality, past history with another, outside positions. It has nothing to do with the issue. Because I just don't like what you're saying. Chris, you stole my girlfriend

when we were in grade school. Since you've done that, I'm going to disagree with every freaking thing you say. Doesn't matter what you say. You said it, disagree. every freaking thing you say oh yeah doesn't matter what you say you said it disagree yeah there's some people that are that way i mean you're right in politics it's it's a big thing you know oh big thing you know you're like hey hey we shouldn't all jump off the bridge and kill ourselves and people like oh no you're a political party we we're going to do the opposite we're going to jump off a bridge and kill ourselves and so you're a political party. We're going to do the opposite. We're going to jump off a bridge and kill ourselves.

And so you're like, okay, have fun voting. You see that a lot in politics where people actually vote against their own personal interests. You see that a lot. And you wonder whether that's insanity, poor education, or it's really just ego and everything else tied to it. It gets messy. Either way, it's really just ego and everything else tied to it. It gets messy. Either way, it's level three stuff.

And you saw level three disagreements differently. You actually, inside of business, you take it to a higher source. So if you and I are disagreeing about something and I'm disagreeing with you because you stole my girlfriend, somebody else, listen, let's the two of us you know go to the department head chris you say what you want to do michael you say it's not a good idea let the department head decide and i'm either going to say one or two things fine i'm not going to agree with chris or i'm going to say you know i don't want the department head to realize how much of an idiot i am all right chris i'm not saying i'm agreeing with you but could you explain it again all of a sudden you get the girlfriend's really hot oh and so that's all about understanding how to engage conflict and then the encouraged disagreement part as i heard before when you

as a leader have a suggestion invite the question what do you like about what i'm suggesting here what concerns you about it? And then what would make it even better? Having that conversation allows you to get to even better solutions, encouraging disagreement. Darrell Bock Ah, I like it. And of course, getting people interested and buying in and all that good stuff. These are great ways to get stuff done, to get people motivated, to get people in principles. Tell us about some of the offerings you do on your website.

Do you do keynotes, workshops? Oh, you're kind. I can see why guests like being on your show. You give them the opening. We cover the plugs. So let's go from smallest to biggest. So folks who want to learn more about the eight core practices, please, on Amazon, eight core practices of facilitative leaders. You will see that.

You can just look up facilitative leaders. It really is. Do yourself a favor. Get a copy of the book for your boss and just ask your boss to just take a look at it. And if there's one of the principles in particular, circle it on index page hey this one in particular i'd love to chat with you about if they need to connect first correct second look just as a thought second for those who want to go a step further sure enough we do workshops so i've gotten with groups to do that hour 90 minute keynote as well each of the principles principles for organizations who really want to do

a, think of it as a book study, where we can take any one of these practices and do a virtual session for a two-hour virtual session on that particular practice. And then we also teach it as a full three days. Our company teaches a three-day course on the eight core practices of facilitated leaders so as little or as much as you'd like but please go to our website sign up for our newsletter michaelthefacilitator.com you'll see all the interesting information thanks for that opening chris awesome stuff man it was all you michael you brought the energy and the the knowledge and the power and of course these wonderful books you've written. As we go out, tell people how they can reach out to you. There's an email on your website. They sure can. I'm at Michael at

michaelthefacilitator.com. Please go ahead and reach out. And my ask is, it really is about thinking. If you want to engage your leadership team in this kind of discussion think about this one thought what are the leadership principles of your organization what are the principles that every leader should be living by and making sure that those principles are communicated that this is the way we lead around here. And so if you don't have them, that's what the eight core practices helps you build. You can have our team's consulting service come in and help your team come up with your leadership principles. It makes a difference when all the leaders

understand this is the way we lead around here. It's a good thing. This facilitation works if you work it. You work the facilitation. Yes. It's been wonderful to have you on, Michael, and very insightful and lots of inspiring messages. Thank you for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Again, thanks for having me on. I appreciate the opportunity to share with your audience.

Thanks for tuning in. Go to Goodreads or Amazon, wherever fine books are sold. You can order up his fine book and tell everybody about it, share it and all that good stuff. Go to goodreads.com, Fortress Christophers, linkedin.com, Fortress Christophers, Christophers1, the TikTokity and all those crazy places on the internet. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. And there we go.