Change in the context of… meetings
When life is stable, meetings tend to operate in Voice 3, all about the targets we are trying to hit and our progress towards them. When improvements are needed we may dip into Voice-2-Lite, if you will, where we can do some redesign to invent a fix or two and move on. Shifting back and forth between Voice 2 and 3 can be done quite easily without any challenge to our mental models, and hence, no real change going on, just new arrangements of the same idea set. Most all of us know how to deal in these times as they represent the status quo most of us are most comfortable doing business within.
As uncertainty increases in our environment, meetings take on a much larger component of Voice 2, since there will be more and more unknown to be explored and workable choices to be created. As uncertainty grows further, past our ability to invent a way out of the mess from our present point of view, Voice 1 emerges, many positive feelings turn south and we recognise that we are in a change. From here on, no matter how urgent a direct, clear, agreed action may be needed, there can be virtually no agreement reached on the matter when Voice 1 is in charge.
Meetings are a critical component in making it through change with the least wasted time, resources and angst and creating the most robust possible future.
If we insist on conducting the meeting as if there was no uncertainty or change, or if we just want to suppress fears and feelings, then the opportunity to re-align will be missed. Uncertainty will ripen.
When we gather, there is the opportunity to hear the finite range of worries, possibilities and goals. We can collectively struggle with them, agree on them and get finished with each in a way which brings us all together. The energy of the people in the room, if facilitated well, is both healing and energising to all. A willingness to engage the change aggressively makes the group far more potent than the sum of the individuals assembled.
The meeting agenda must adapt to the degree of uncertainty in the room. In uncertain times, we need to be taking more time to let go of the past, invent better temporary structures and see to learning efforts which give us a platform on which to evolve clearer direction for a longer period. We may hold a meeting with some noble purpose and find that no one can get past Voice 1. This can either devolve into a session which carries people further into a depression or evolve into a completion experience where the feelings are heard, just once instead of over and over, the avoidance behaviour is acknowledged, but not judged, and we help each other to test the validity of our fears. This is the completion process for Voice 1. As meeting owners, facilitators or members, we can keep the meeting as part of the evolution. Without knowing how to spot Voice 1 language and knowing the elements of the Voice, we are stuck to just hope for the best. When we know to proceed to complete Voice 1, we can keep things on an evolutionary track.
There will be more possibility work to be done in Voice 2. Once the work in Voice 1 is well underway, I want to attempt work in Voice 2. As core fears are cut down to size there is always something left that endures and needs to be part of our future. I move the essential good stuff to Voice 2 and make it a claim on the future. With such claims and a couple of newly imagined possibilities on board the Possibility domain, we can begin inventing experiments and measures to learn how the world is really working. The dance between finishing Voice 1 and attempting Voice 2 is a form of coaching. Some might call it teasing. Voice 1 eventually recognises its limits and will let go to Voice 2. That happens most richly when both are in the room. It is a dance, and not a stepwise method. Some days it is mostly 1 and others mostly 2 and then back again.
Now, all this choreography may well occur, to the Voice 3 addicts, to take away from 'getting somewhere'. In fact, with uncertainty running at the level that drives humans into Voice 1 and 2, 'getting somewhere' is measured strictly by completing Voice 1 and 2 as richly as we can. The targets, disciplines and commitments of Voice 3 need to be directed at sanity checking and demystifying the fears, spotting and acknowledging the avoidance behaviour, creating the richest set of well understood options for the future and learning as much as possible about the true nature of the situation we find ourselves in.
Eventually, the more usual Voice 3 work will emerge. In the real world of business there will always be some in the room. But, in high uncertainty, without completing on Voice 1 and 2, the effective work in Voice 3 will be limited, and pushing it will just be unclear and unsatisfying and will likely have us wasting the energy to move Voice 1 and 2 along.
