Susan and I had the privilege of working with UK Theatre/SOLT last week to deliver two webinars, snappily entitle ‘How to plan when planning is hard: living with unpredictability.’ Mindful of video conferencing fatigue we decided to deliver them in two bitesize 30-minute slots, it meant we packed quite a lot in but hopefully it gave participants some pointers to follow up in their own time. As part of the sessions we received some great questions and given the time limitations we couldn’t follow them all up in the moment. As a result, we’ve decided to dedicate this week to Q&A as we think that some of the questions will probably resonate with and may be helpful for others.
Today we want to tackle one of the first questions, and we will both respond. We are very often aligned in our approach but usually come from slightly different perspectives so we thought it would be good for you to see our respective responses.
How do we manage expectations of boards and others and communicate uncertainty as an ongoing certainty?
Dawn
I thought this was a great question and something I am increasingly mindful of. I am having to address it on a personal level as work I was initially contracted to do has inevitably changed and I am having to reset expectations and recontract. Two things came up for me when I was considering my reply:
- Work in progress: as some people know this has been a bit of a hobby horse of mine for some time!
- Understanding and negotiating different expectations
Work in progress
I often see organisations grappling with the challenges of ‘absolute rightism,’ that is the need to know the right answer to everything and present solutions neatly defined and packaged to teams, boards and stakeholders. We haven’t lived in a world where that is really possible for some time and the Covid-19 pandemic has very much highlighted that. We need to accept that any approach we adopt is contingent, and that we will have to adapt at some point.
The thing what has always confused me about the sector is that we accept the notion of work in progress as part of our creative work; group critiques of developing work are an essential part of developing my own creative practice for instance. We seem less forgiving of a developmental approach in running our organisations.
Good work in progress is engaging. A great work in progress informs.
The most valuable tool as far as I am concerned is asking ‘what if?’ questions and then sketching an approach to the different options. This is not about developing lots of in-depth scenarios so much as a few broad outlines and considering their feasibility.
There are lots of different tools to help with this like Rich Pictures, Paired Comparisons and so on, and don’t forget good old brainstorming. I know this is harder while people are physically distanced but there are lots of tools like Sketchtogether, Trello, Mural, Evernote, and MindMup etc., you can use to develop ideas together. The earlier people are involved the easier it is to set shared expectations.
Remember, you can set expectations about work in progress and help get groups familiar with using it as part of your collective approach.
Understanding and negotiating different expectations
In many ways this links back to an earlier post on the Ladder of Inference. From my perspective the first step is to be sure we know what the expectations really are, this is particularly important if it concerns a group we have been working with for some time where we may be more likely to make assumptions. There are a number of ways to handle different expectations:
- Check your assumptions: are you really clear what the expectations of others are, or are you projecting them?
- Keep communicating: Be clear about whether you are proposing something that is definitive or if it is developing. Stress that there may be a need to readjust and agree how that might be done. Ask great questions, don’t feel you are only expected to give answers
- Push back: where you think expectations may be unreasonable or unrealistic try and illustrate why this might be the case and how they can be adjusted
- Be open and transparent: there is no shame in being clear that you don’t have all the answers, and you shouldn’t be expected to have them at the moment
- Work collectively to problem solve: working collaboratively will help everyone agree what is feasible, brings in wider expertise and more diverse perspectives and can help reshape expectations
- Set clear deliverables and timescales: agree your boundaries up front, rather than responding to expectations help set them from the outset. If those boundaries have to change that’s fine, make sure everyone knows why and how
Susan
Like Dawn, I thought that this was a great question. As a consultant, confusion around expectations is one of the main triggers for someone inviting me into a situation. I freely acknowledge that it is easier for someone coming into a situation cold both to ask the ‘dumb questions’ and to challenge attempts to ignore the purple elephant in the corner than it is for those who have involved for months/years! But especially now it is vital that expectations are understood and respected (although not necessarily agreed with).
So, how in the absence of an external facilitator how can you manage expectations and communicate uncertainty?
Think about how you could use prototyping
Prototyping is a key practice in Design Thinking (see below). It involves creating a model/mock up to develop and test your thinking; in practice, another form of work in progress which Dawn has talked about above.
‘We never get things right first time … [prototyping] is about getting things better. (Alan Dix, Interaction Design Foundation)
You could use this approach in a wide variety of ways such as:
- Create prototype business models to share with your Board using the Business Model Canvas
- Design and test new customer offers using Value Proposition Canvas
- Map out alternative customer journeys using customer journey mapping
Using prototyping provides you with an opportunity to share your thinking as it evolves, engaging stakeholders in the design process, and creating buy-in for the final version.
Also, Design Thinking is rather fashionable in business circles right now, which might help some board members connect their work experience to their board work. There are a variety of resources that can help:
- Design thinking: get started with prototyping
- Business model canvas: Nesta toolkit
- Value proposition canvas
- Customer journey mapping
Work with options
Generally, people don’t work in the arts and culture because they like to do strategy (if they do, they become consultants) they want to get on and make stuff. Coupled with a real shortage of time and the anxiety we are all feeling, the urge to produce a plan and just implement it can be overwhelming. Unfortunately, this has the effect of asking boards and other stakeholders either to accept the plan as presented or reject it, in effect their decision making powers have been taken away and board members can often feel manipulated into ‘rubber stamping’ a plan they don’t really understand and therefore cannot really support. At the first bump in the road the recriminations then start.
If you want to build engagement, use the expertise of your board members and other stakeholders and get real informed consent then people need to be presented with options to choose from so they have a genuine decision to make and they feel that their investment of time has made a difference. Of course, you can and should make recommendations but there must be a real decision on the table.
Tips for presenting options
- Offer between three and five options – people cannot deal productively with more than five
- Agree, in advance, the criteria everyone will use in assessing the desirability of each option. This allows you to include a range of different criteria and encourages people to move beyond ‘I like/don’t like’ option A.
- Present all of the options in a common format. Keep it short and avoid long narrative sections.
- Think about the questions you would like your board or other stakeholders to consider.
- Circulate the questions and options in advance – that way you get people’s considered not knee-jerk responses.
Design thinking.
What we both agree on is that this is a time for design thinking and a framework we particularly like is known as the double diamond.
This is a really helpful tool for encouraging divergent and convergent thinking. As you can see it involves a number of stages and you can use different techniques at each stage. The Design Council gives a really clear introduction to the framework and how to use it.
Theatre Means Business
Our webinars were recorded by UK Theatre/SOLT and are available through the Theatre Means Business website. They are part of an ongoing series and there are lots of new topics coming up.
If you have any questions, you’d like us to address as part of an ongoing Q&A feel free to add them here via a comment or email me through the alchemy contact info.
Dawn & Susan
*The origin of the diagram is unknown despite extensive searches, we are using it because it is one of the more comprehensive models. If you know who designed it do let me know and I’ll happy credit them, many thanks!)