Art and Successful Meeting Collaborations

Posted on April 11, 2011 by John

Of equal importance to effective problem solving as the approach, are the conditions or environment. At Kingbridge Conference Centre & Institute we strive to provide an environment that is not only conducive to formal learning, but rich with informal learning opportunities.

Informal learning, by its nature is unplanned and fortuitous and the physical environment can do much to enhance thisprocess.Throughout Kingbridge you will find exhibits and artwork intended to promote conversations on perspective and interpretation which can ultimately prepare attendees to engage more effectively during the meeting.

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Last week an organization that frequents Kingbridge, having noticed the array of artwork and exhibits, decided that in addition to appreciating them for their thought provoking properties would like to learn some of the stories behind them. On a tour of the facility we explored Escher’s use of perspective and diversity and how both these factors are key elements for meetings.

We stopped at the world’s largest Klein bottle, a boundless 4 dimensional construct and inspiration for the Kingbridge logo, since boundless, out of the ‘box’ thinking is what we believe makes a meeting. Then made our way to the library where you will find a small Stirling Engine, a nod to the marvels of technology next to a wine glass bent at the stem by the telekinetic powers of a mentalist – just to remind us that even science (and scientists!) don’t have all the answers.

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The list goes on from areas dedicated to humour, impression and perception – but you’ll have to come for a visit to experience them!<a style="color:white"

Designing Collaborations

Posted on March 4, 2011 by John

There are several key components that when combined in the proper measure can result in successful collaborations. Creating the framework for the collaboration is one such factor.

Harnessing the creativity of a group requires not only the usual considerations of timing, data requirements, and the resources needed but also careful ‘engineering’ of behaviors and mindset. This apparent contradiction of soft skills with the recognized hard skill association of engineering allows you to consider the process of organizing behavior in order to maximize creative mindset and minimize those that destroy collaboration.

Soft stuff is the glue that holds the hard stuff together. Knowing who should contribute to the collaboration and their necessary skill sets in addition to being prepared to mitigate negative behavioral tendencies (Divas, Pontificators and the like) are important considerations on an individual level. For example, when a particular personality needs ‘management’, the ideal approach is 3 pronged:

1. Arrange a pre-meeting one on one with the individual and warn them that they may encounter topics or opinions that could cause an emotional/negative reaction.

2. Recognize their abilities/skills etc. and let them know their inputs are valuable to the group achieving their goal.

3. Find a solution that works for the individual and the needs of the group to prevent potentially destructive situations.

Let us say for example you have a member of your group that given his level of expertise and experience believes he/she should not be limited to the one time 10 minute speaking limit that has been set for meeting participants. The result of the 3 pronged approach above could potentially be to offer this participant several opportunities to speak but with say a limit of 5 minutes per. This approach respects the time of the rest of the group and minimally disrupts the flow but satisfies the participants need to comment often. You can’t change the person but you can change the rules!

When considering the collective; dynamics, politics, pre conceived notions and potential conflicts should all be evaluated and prepared for in advance in order to ensure every participant is contributing at 100% capacity and not hindered by behavioral issues.

That isn’t to say of course that as a ‘collaboration designer’ you can’t have a little fun. At least one organization I know of employs water guns in their creative sessions. If a member of the group is perceived by others to be pontificating, squirt! If a participant is negative about an idea without first asking questions, squirt! Condescending, squirt! Hogging the floor, squirt! You get the idea.

Presentation Strategies to Change a Culture

Posted on February 25, 2011 by John

Everyone is talking about the evils of PowerPoint and how the use of it is now considered a presenter faux pas but in seems to me that as with any tool it isn’t the technology that makes or breaks a presentation but rather the presenters approach.

You may be wondering how presentations connect to creating a culture of collaboration? And the simple answer is that a great presentation can create an environment for deeper learning and collaboration by stimulating an audience to share experience and knowledge with each other. By forming the right mindset and following a few simple principles anyone can give a presentation that not only imparts knowledge but fosters collaborative culture.

1. Share knowledge rather than teach it

Plan to present something that the audience has never seen or heard before.

This may seem a daunting task but if you use a relatable example from an entirely different field/interest finding something original can be quite simple.

Be vulnerable

This suggests to your audience that you in fact don’t know everything, but you’re here to share what you do know.

Be confident

This may seem to contradict the idea of being vulnerable but in fact the most confident people are those who are curious, open and unafraid to show their vulnerability.

2. Personalize your content

Connect content to personal experiences

This demonstrates a genuine interest and sincerity in involving your audience in a way that abstract references can’t. This tactic can be used as your ‘something the audience has never seen or heard before’ quite successfully and provides more than one context that the audience can understand while stimulating them to think of their own personal metaphors that relate.

Now, while you are following the principles above if you do decide to employ PowerPoint as a presentation tool,- and I contend there is nothing evil about that! – try to restrict its use to showing relationships through images and very few words running in the background while you talk. Again, using personal images or images from ‘real life’ rather than stock photos will better serve your purpose and resonate with the audience.

Any audience will have a group of people with a range of understanding and experience with the topic of your presentation so tell a story, describe things in more than one context and be original!

Prezi: The Successor to PowerPoint

Posted on February 22, 2011 by John

Presentations haven’t evolved much in the 50 years since the slide projector was invented. PowerPoint certainly added some interest through animation schemes but is still a linear presentation. How many subjects or ideas are actually linear?

Prezi lets you bring your ideas into one space and see how they relate, helping you and your audience connect. Zoom out to see the big picture and zoom in to see details — a bit like web-based maps that have changed how we navigate through map books. Prezi is a medium that inspires creative thinking and allows the user to share ideas in a dynamic and fun format.
Adam Somlai-Fischer is an architect and has been working with zooming presentations since 2001. Back then, he was coding each presentation by hand but it allowed him to show a floor plan (big picture) and individual rooms (details). Adam became an internationally desired speaker and as more people saw his zooming presentations they wanted to create their own. In 2007, Adam met Peter Halacsy who was one of these people. Peter convinced Adam to work on an editor so that anyone could make zooming presentations.

Prezi was launched in April 2009 from Budapest, leading to an investment from TED Conferences and was in fact used by James Geary in his talk at TED Global 2009:

Mixing Mind and Metaphor on Prezi

The Collaboration Paradox: Understanding the Magic of Getting Things Done – Webinar!

Posted on November 29, 2010 by John

One of the mainstays of successful collaboration is engineering interactivity and purposeful communication between the members. Advances in technology have provided the tools to make this easier and accessible but it is still up to the organizer(s) to create the right conditions for collaboration to work.

Take advantage of the opportunity to learn about what makes a successful collaboration (and not so successful) via one of the very technology tools that make it possible by joining the Pegasus Communications Webinar “The Collaboration Paradox: Understanding the Magic of Getting Things Done” with me, John Abele on January 11, 2011.

The Collaboration Paradox:
Understanding the Magic of Getting Things Done

with John Abele

A 90-minute live webinar and interactive discussion
Tuesday, January 11, 2011, 2-3:30 pm ET | Register for this live webinar

Description
The need for more truly powerful collaborations, where the collective intelligence of a diverse set of minds is harnessed toward a common goal, is greater than ever. And yet we find collaboration vexingly difficult to do. In this webinar,John Abele, renowned co-founder of Boston Scientific, will examine the many different types of collaboration along with the barriers to making them effective. He’ll describe new tactics and approaches that may seem counterintuitive, but that will help unleash the wisdom of a crowd far better than more obvious approaches. John will share learnings from his extensive experiences in business, medicine, education, science, and philanthropy.

In this webinar, you will::

Learn from extraordinary successes and spectacular failures
Take away tips for overcoming the challenges that stand in the way of effective collaboration
Discuss how to foster rational discussion by understanding root causes, analyzing issues and options, and weighing trade offs—together
Understand how best to collaborate around implementing solutions
Receive a copy of the “Kingbridge Meeting Design Guidelines,” from the Kingbridge Centre and Institute

Pricing
This 90-minute interactive session is $129.00 per site (a single phone line). You can use a speakerphone so that a group of people can participate. You will also have unlimited access to the recorded version following the event.

Date and Time
The live webinar is being held on Tuesday, January 11, 2011, from 2 to 3:30 pm ET. When you register, you will receive detailed information about how to call in and participate.

Presenter
John Abele is the retired founding chairman of Boston Scientific Corporation (www.bsci.com) and one of the pioneers of less invasive medicine. He holds numerous patents, and has published and lectured extensively on the technical, social, economic, and political trends and issues affecting healthcare and on strategies for improving collaboration between individuals, businesses, and organizations. John’s major interests are science literacy for children, education, and disruptive technological innovation. He is currently vice chair (former chair) of the FIRST Foundation, which works with high school kids to make science literacy cool and fun, and owner of The Kingbridge Centre and Institute, a conference center that is devoted to perfecting the “Art of Conferencing” and hosting exceptional meetings.

Register for this live webinar!

Collaborative Leadership

Posted on November 15, 2010 by John

Recently, Margaret (Meg) Wheatley wrote an insightful article called “Leadership in the Age of Complexity: from Hero to Host”. Resurgence Magazine, Winter 2011.

In it she describes the wonderfully classic paradox that in order to gain control, you must cede control.

That concept raises the issue of exactly what “control” is. Suffice it to say that it refers to having a goal and achieving it….with others and not needing to take credit for the result. Although, ironically, if you do master that skill, others will begin to connect the fact that when you are around they do better.

She points out that most cultures make assumptions about leaders that are taken for granted: that they have all the answers, that the followers will follow, and that more control produces better results — particularly for big risky projects. That’s why CEOs, Managing Director’s, etc. “get the big bucks.”

But complex problems require integrating many different types of skills and creating an environment where the collective intelligence of a diverse set of minds (age, experience, knowledge, culture, geography), are harnessed to solve these problems. They identify the problems, analyze, speculate, debate, experiment, build and test ideas for their solutions. And maybe even rethink the goals. The hero-based command and control model doesn’t work when the problems are complex. It’s much more useful when you know exactly what needs to be done and just have to execute (i.e. an aid airlift).

As it turns out the political, business and academic worlds make it very difficult to assemble a truly diverse set of minds. Our societies put skill sets in silos and protect them with hard earned credentials that filter out the non-cognoscenti…the riff raff.

So, being able to “harness” the appropriately diverse minds is an art form.

One of the most common ways to do that is to convene a group. But getting the right people to come and creating an environment that overcomes the barriers to collaboration is really difficult. In the world of opera the person who can do that is known as an impresario. They can recruit and manage multiple divas. In other worlds, they are collaborative leaders.

The medical world I have lived in, of surgeons, specialists, department chairmen and a host of supporting cast is very much like the opera. The symbols of power and control are rampant. Learning to lead as “host,” not “hero,” can produce far better and longer lasting results. Thank you Meg.

Barriers to Collaboration – Group Dynamics & Pseudo Collaborations

Posted on November 1, 2010 by John

Sometimes barriers to collaboration are related not to a behavior, but rather to factors that influence the group dynamic. The following are common such problems:

Conflicts of interest. Transparency helps, but the collaborative leader can help by tactfully putting comments in context and juxtaposing individuals with different causes in a way that creates insight and comparison. The key is visibility and the best way to achieve that is with humble questioning that reveals a potential conflict or problem. The challenge is to avoid accusation, but reveal the problem.
Dueling hidden agendas. Sometimes people are not even aware that they have a hidden agenda. A good collaborative leader will tease out all the agendas by asking the right questions.
Strong egos. Few people with strong egos leave them at the door, even when asked to do so. As a result, you may get ego clashes. The right leadership, with appropriate humor, can turn egos into an asset. Sometimes a friend can mentor a colleague into not becoming a pompous ass. Introducing the potential offender as knowledgeable, skillful, open minded and humble can produce a self-fulfilling result, although admittedly not all the time.

When these dynamics dominate the result is all too often Pseudo-collaborations. A great many collaborations are in name only. A job needs to be done and a team is appointed to do it. The criteria for being appointed to that team may be technical, but frequently it is merely availability. One of the most unfortunate aspects of pseudo collaborations is that they perform the “box check requirement.” Leaders and participants know that they are serving a political function that passes a “looks-like-a-collaboration” test, but the dynamics are bureaucratic and self protective. These collaborations define the old joke that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Perhaps the most common pseudo collaborations are “blue ribbon panels.” Although this is usually a political phrase, every organization, when confronted with a highly visible major problem, wants to demonstrate its seriousness by pulling together great (and highly respected) minds to work as a team.

Most of us think of collaboration as working together for a common goal. And it is. But, is it enough to just pull together the brightest minds, put them under the command of a respected leader, and wait for the fruits of their labor to come forth? Obviously not, but frequently hope triumphs over reality. And rhetoric generally trumps facts and content. It takes a very skillful leader to create an atmosphere where the ego of the individual is subservient to the success of the team.

Kingbridge Physical/Virtual Dinner Party

Posted on October 8, 2010 by John

If anyone has ever tried to overcome the barriers of distance and time to coordinate the schedules of a group of VIP’s and the like for a gathering, they can appreciate the need to be creative. Advancements in video conferencing and virtual meeting software have been amazing in their ability to bring people together across vast distances. The technology keeps getting better and better. The pictures are clearer, larger and more realistic than ever. And at least some of it is less expensive. Even the dream of pure “telepresence” like the “holodeck” of Star Trek fame is getting closer. But somehow there is still something missing. To paraphrase Marshal McLuhan, the medium is getting in the way of the message. Perhaps, we thought, we should see if we could model the unscripted and casual conversations of the dinner after the meeting.

So the other night we had our first virtual, Skype enabled, dinner party. We invited 6 VIP entrepreneurs and innovators to Kingbridge in King City, Ontario, while Elliott Masie and his guest Alan Davis, President of Empire State College, assembled at The MASIE Center in Saratoga, NY. With our free Skype connection and 47” LCD screens at each end we were able to break down the barrier of distance and enjoy a carefully coordinated meal together. From table cloths and seasonal place settings to the menu and wine selections the event was designed to close the gap and provide a much stronger feeling of ‘being there’. We started by introducing each other at a standing reception and moved to a dinner table where we shared the descriptions of our entrées and wine. The conversation flowed freely and openly. Elliott, always the geek, would periodically Google someone’s observation on his iPad and hold it up for the camera. Even the non-geeks (most of them) at the dinner were comfortable and open.

With simple technology and some virtual coordination we were able to increase the personalization, authenticity and comfort of this physical/virtual dialogue. Of course being entrepreneurial we are always looking for improvements. So we plan to hold some more of these gatherings and keep trying out new experiments…both technical and social. Elliott and I have already put together a list of guidelines or rules of engagement and plan to expand that significantly, perhaps into templates for gatherings for different purposes. We believe that the strategies for making these multimodality gatherings work well can dramatically improve collaborations at any level.

We would be happy to share information on the technical tools we used to make this work so well, as well as some of the strategies. Maybe you’d like to add some ideas, too.

Let me know. John.abele@kingbridgecentre.com

The Collaboration Curve: Continuous Learning for Continuous Improvement

Posted on August 27, 2010 by John

“Collaboration curves hold the potential to mobilize larger and more diverse groups of participants to innovate and create new value”
~ John Hagel III, Harvard Business Review

We have all heard of the experience curve and the effects it has on reducing costs and time while increasing accuracy in product and service development- it’s logical. However, the inherent flaw in the experience curve model for business is that once you reach a certain level of expertise the costs, time and accuracy continue to improve only marginally until a new innovation is introduced. And it is with the collaboration curve that the innovation increases.

“We’re seeing the emergence of a new kind of learning curve as we scale connectivity and learning , rather than scaling efficiency”

The more participants you have working on a design or project and the more interactions between those participants in a carefully designed collaborative environment, the more the rate of performance improvement goes up. Essentially, because with continued collaboration comes continuous ideas that translate into continuous innovation. It eradicates the lull in performance improvement that occurs in the experince curve model.

Take Apple for example. They are experienceing a seemingly never ending cycle of expansion through the applications for their devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod etc.) The reason of course is that they crowdsource. Apple doesn’t think of the hundreds of application ideas and advertise them, they merely offer the platform and software neccessary for their users to develop apps based on their own ideas – and because of it the App Store is massive and Apple continues to gain revenue, reputation and offer continuously evolving product.

So I urge you to consider how you are applying the Collaboration Curve learning cycle in your organization?

Kingbridge Conference Centre and Institute

Open Minds and Expand Thinking "The paradox of real collaboration is that it is not about getting the best minds together – it's about creating a New Mind Set."

Category Archives: Collaboration

Art and Successful Meeting Collaborations

Designing Collaborations

Presentation Strategies to Change a Culture

Prezi: The Successor to PowerPoint

The Collaboration Paradox: Understanding the Magic of Getting Things Done – Webinar!

The Collaboration Paradox:
Understanding the Magic of Getting Things Done

with John Abele

A 90-minute live webinar and interactive discussion
Tuesday, January 11, 2011, 2-3:30 pm ET | Register for this live webinar

Collaborative Leadership

Barriers to Collaboration – Group Dynamics & Pseudo Collaborations

Kingbridge Physical/Virtual Dinner Party

The Collaboration Curve: Continuous Learning for Continuous Improvement

The Collaboration Paradox: Understanding the Magic of Getting Things Done

with John Abele

A 90-minute live webinar and interactive discussion Tuesday, January 11, 2011, 2-3:30 pm ET | Register for this live webinar

The Collaboration Paradox:
Understanding the Magic of Getting Things Done

A 90-minute live webinar and interactive discussion
Tuesday, January 11, 2011, 2-3:30 pm ET | Register for this live webinar