Whenever I teach about decision making, inevitably, the comment comes up, "These frameworks are great and all, but what do I do about the other people in the room?"
Decision making in groups definitely adds a layer of complexity. That's why I invited Katherine Rosback, an expert decision and risk analysis facilitator and a colleague of mine from the Society of Decision Professionals onto the show.
We'll be talking about the science behind asking questions, how to lay the groundwork for shifting someone's perspective, and strategies for facilitating more effective meetings.
Topics Covered
02:35 How Katherine came to do this work
4:28 What do I do about organizational politics?
5:14 The science behind questioning
9:16 Look at the system, not the individual
11:07 Facilitate what is happening, not what you think ought to be happening
12:08 Asking > Telling
14:10 The mountain peak vs the tectonic plates
15:10 The bridging technique
20:42 Center meetings around questions instead of objectives
24:20 Meetings are the most expensive form of communication
26:24 How to think about who should be in the room
30:33 Be mindful about ensuring people are heard
32:54 After we've solicited these different perspectives, then what?
35:13 Islands, bananas, and keeping the boat from turning around
38:30 Two key lessons to take away
Guest Bio
Katherine Rosback is an expert in coaching decision and problem-solving teams and facilitating the messy, ambiguous but must-succeed meeting. She has a BS in Chemical Engineering and an MA in Organizational Communication. Katherine has over 25 years’ experience facilitating decision teams, cross-functional strategic planning workshops, and teaching team facilitators and decision boards how to improve decision quality by asking the better question and navigate the inevitable behavioral complexities. Katherine works with Fortune 500 industries such as airline, oil & gas, and pharma. She is the author of Asking is Better than Telling and host of the podcast, What’s Another Question.
Resources
To learn more from Michelle about decision making, check out
Michelle Florendo is a Stanford-trained decision engineer and executive coach who is on a mission to teach people how to make decisions with less stress and more clarity. Over the past decade, she has coached and taught hundreds of leaders across tech, healthcare, and financial services, in organizations ranging from pre-IPO startups to major tech companies like Amazon, Google, and Salesforce.
She's been an adjunct lecturer at Stanford, helps train coaches as a faculty coach for Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute, and hosts the podcast, Ask A Decision Engineer. She earned her engineering degree from Stanford and her MBA from UC Berkeley.
For those interested in exploring Michelle's coaching and speaking services further, additional information can be found on her professional website at poweredbydecisions.com.
