How do you get past imposter syndrome? (part 2)

Full transcript

Intro

Okay, we're keeping it rolling with Richard Banfield, VP of Design Transformation at InVision. Where we're talking about getting over the fear of being an imposter as a facilitator.

This is part two in the series, in part one, Richard answered some questions about why facilitation is so important and talk about the difference between being an expert versus being curious.

In part two of our conversations with Richard, we talk about how teams have responded to him when he shows up curious versus being the expert. And for you opportunities to learn and deepen your practice around facilitation.

Today’s question

Jay: And so what are you noticing? Like what shifts as you move from needing to have all the answers to remaining curious? What do you see? What do you notice from the group?

Richard: I mean, first of all you show up above the line. So instead of, and maybe this metaphor is not familiar to everybody but there's a concept where you're above the line or below the line in terms of how you show up every day. And above the line is curious, open, compassionate, empathetic. Below the line is fearful, needing to be right, showing up as somebody who's got all the answers, and in some cases, you know, angry or even egotistical.

And I think that if we show up above the line with that curiosity and openness, everybody else responds with a likeness, right? So they see you showing up with curiosity and asking good questions and being open, and facilitating openness, and having empathy, and making sure that everybody's included. And that sets the tone. That sets the mood for the room.

And if you want to take it a step further and we actually do this quite actively is we start the meeting with that conversation. So we don't just assume that being open and assume that being curious is something that osmotically will flow into the room, but we actually have that conversation. Are we open? This is what above the line looks like, this is what below the line looks like.

So if you're using a whiteboard or a virtual whiteboard, draw that line and show people, this is where those folks that want to be open will feel, they'll feel these emotions, they'll feel these incentives and then those that are below the line will feel here. And we sometimes even map it. Maybe somebody had a really bad day, like maybe they had a crappy thing happen to them. Maybe it's election day and they really are anxious, right? And they showing up below the line, then at least they can express that and they can say, "Hey, I feel below the line today, I'm really fearful." Or "I had this bad thing happen to me." Or "I'm feeling a little negative or defensive about this issue."

And so we spend a few minutes getting the health of the group back above the line, and then we'll do that in a design sprint, we'll do that every day at the beginning of each day. It's almost like our, as we might finish with the retro we'd start that with a health check. You know, where are we, how are we feeling? How do we get to openness? How do we get to curiosity? So it's an active state.

Jay: Yeah, So for... So what about the facilitator that's working in an environment that's not so forward-thinking, that's not so... That may not be open to changing how meetings happened and how conversations happen? Is there anything that you suggest to them to prime them, to get them more empathetic, more curious before they walk into the room?

Richard: Yeah, what I normally do, if it's gonna be a really tough room, and I used the example of especially C-level executives from a billion dollar company that was actually a real situation. What I did is I interviewed each of them on the phone beforehand. So I got them to express their concerns, their biases, their preferences in those first early stage conversations or you and I sometimes refer to as phase zero, the work that happens before the work.

And getting them to express that stuff and itemize it, gives very strong signals to those individuals that they're being heard, right? I heard you, I gave you a chance to express that. I know that you may not be as open to that in a meeting full of your peers but now that you've had that opportunity to express that I'm conscious of that, and I'm gonna be aware of that.

And then I'll deliberately actually say, "Hey Joe remember when we had our conversation, you mentioned this." We can use that as information, right? We're connecting their insights to the meeting proper. So that even if it's not something that they're eager to share because they're feeling shy, I'm now empowered to be able to do that on their behalf. I'm a proxy for that opinion.

I may even do it confidentially. I might say, "Hey, I've got a good question for you. What if somebody was feeling like this?" Or "What if somebody had this concern?" And I can raise that concern in anonymity and bring that to the conversation. So that's one technique.

The second technique I use is, to try and get people to open up by sharing vulnerable stories.

So there's lots of different ways to do this, but first go around. Let's say it's a small group you've got five or six people, you go around and you say, "Hey, tell everybody a story about a moment in which you felt deeply embarrassed about your actions." And everybody goes around the room. And then you'll say, "Okay, now that we've done that let's talk about how we responded to that." And then you go around the room, "And what did we learn from that?" And you go around the room. And by doing that, what you're doing is giving permission for people to be vulnerable, open, and also in a learning mindset which is, this is what I learned from that moment of you know, where I was ashamed or embarrassed, or out of my comfort zone.

And so you're basically saying, "Here's what the conversation is gonna be about." And then you can push on those buttons over and over again saying, "Hey, what do we learn about that?" Or "How did you feel about that? Did you feel shame? Did you feel embarrassment?" And that raises the level of the mood to one of openness and sharing, even if it's a bunch of stales, CEOs you know, and people that you're not used to doing that.

Jay: Yeah, and for the first time that you do that and you get a wirey engineer that says, "What's the point of this? Why are we doing this right now? Like, I've got 10 other meetings that I should be in. So why are we talking about vulnerability?"

Richard: Yeah. I don't use the word vulnerability. I just actually, you know, I talk about those situations. I might say, if it's a group of engineers and we've done this before is, "So tell me about a situation where you had a moment where you you pushed something live, or you did some work, or you worked on a project and you let everybody down. Like whether they know it or not, you knew that you let them down. Can you talk about that?"

So you can frame it in any way you want, using words like vulnerability may not necessarily come up immediately. It might not be appropriate for the team or the group. But will be you know, if you're a facilitator, you'll start to read the room and you'll start to know which words you can use. And what I've discovered is that, the moment you start doing that the moment you open those flood gates and the valves and the filters starts to disappear and people start to share more openly. It doesn't really matter what the industry is or the nature of their cultures, once they sense that there's a psychological safety they will start to share.

Jay: This has been great. So big picture is just learning to step off of the podium and needing like to feel like you have all the answers and you've got the perfect agenda, and the perfect conversation. And just showing up and being curious, maybe flexing and priming some of those muscles by talking with people before you get into the room. And then when you're in the room, allowing them a chance to feel heard and just talk about things that are not so easy to mention.

Richard: Trust the process, you know. Learn the process and know that the process has been used tens or hundreds of thousands of times, it gets used every single day and it works.

Jay: Are there any places that you recommend for the up and coming facilitator to go and practice some of this stuff about getting curious and showing up with that journalistic mindset?

Richard: You know, I think that anytime a group of people comes together. So any meeting of handful of people you can show up as a facilitator whether you explicitly say that or not, is irrelevant. You can practice your skills by thinking ahead, "Hey, what kind of conversation is this?"

Like, for instance, I've got a conversation coming up with some leadership today and I'll go and I'll interview them individually. I'll have one-on-ones with them individually with some of their team to understand what the context is. And that for me is a way to prepare so that I'm walking into the meeting with all the knowledge and all the good questions. And really it's just driven out of curiosity. I'm just like really eager to know what those things are. And that helps me facilitate, you know what's gonna happen.

Jay: Awesome. Thanks Rich.

Richard: You're welcome.

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