Many thanks for your reply. One of the several roles I play within the business is that of the facilitator, very often in innovation sessions and workshops. Whilst training to become a facilitator, one of the many principles that I learnt about was the principle of ‘Be a mirror, not a magnet’. This is about mirroring back to the group what you observe and sense, such that a discussion within the group might occur - its no guarantee! - but in this way the unknown can be explored (i.e. just what will it be like to be sat in a room with x consumers, where are they from, for how long, do we all talk?, take it in turn?, etc.. etc…). Through the use of coaches, facilitators or members of the group sensitive to these tensions, we can achieve AWARENESS of the issues or red lines that exist, and through discussion within the group we often achieve ACCEPTANCE, such that (as in this case) we could cross the line through ACTION.

Awareness can be built into projects in several ways;

1) By just asking the group ‘What red lines do we see?’
2) It could also be done indirectly (where members might not be comfortable with sharing their thoughts in open discussion) by the project leader, coach etc.. through simple postcards given to each member in the team for feedback
3) Simply through conversations over coffee or during lunch, perhaps through an appointed ‘ team doctor’ - this can work very successfully.
4) In situations where the project runs over two or more days, the start of the second day is a good time to spot new observations - as the subconcious works on these in our sleep.

Acceptance is achieved through discussion within the team, to more fully understand and explore the red lines. Going through the mental thought process of how it will feel / or how things will look can be a useful exercise and very powerful. Take care though not to lose the context and what needs to be achieved, as discussions can sometimes start to undo the red line, blurring it and moving it back to where we feel more comfortable.

With awareness and acceptance in place, action is usally delivered with higher energy and more confidence! Action without acceptance though, often achieves mixed responses.

Returning to the example, I mirrored the issues that I was sensing back to the group, this in turn opened up a discussion on the task, where we could bring the experience more fully to life, this enabled the coaches to work more closely with the projects teams. Finally the context of it being training, and an opportunity to learn helped reframe the task. Overall these events made for a more powerful outcome that left the teams with a high the following day.

Hope these comments are helpful.

i guess we all know when we are facing one of those lines, but what are littel aids or tips that might help us to cross it?

I´d also love to know why the tension was rising - and what you did to help the people cross the red line .

Bettina von Stamm,
Innovation Leadership Forum