Re: Meeting (Teleconference) Facilitation

["Susan Hogarth" <hogarth -at- gmail -dot- com>]

On 5/22/07, Peter Neilson <neilson -at- windstream -dot- net> wrote:
> What you describe is not unlike running a volunteer organization. There
> are a few who do a lot of the planning and actual work, and a great
> number who criticize and nitpick.

Well, that's one way of looking at it. Or you could view the second
group as a valuable review and 'red team' resource. That seems to be
more useful.

But I totally understand the frustration. I recently sent a rough
draft around to a bunch of SMEs looking for substantive input, and
they wasted their precious (and expensive) time copyediting it, while
making no substantive contributions. I didn't know whether to be more
humiliated or aggravated.

> I've seen two approaches that seem to work. The first is to enlist help.
>  From whom? From the criticizers, of course...
>
>    "Why can't we have xxx? Whine, whine, whine"
>       "That sounds like an excellent idea. Why don't you take the lead
>        on that because you seem to have good ideas. I'm sure you are the
>        best-qualified person to work it out. Get back to us with your
>        plans. We'll help you any way we can."

I LOVE that one - I have done a fair bit of nonprofit and political
work, and that one generally at least shuts them up, and sometimes
gets them really engaged.


-- 
Susan Hogarth
http://www.colliething.com
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