7. Facilitator Interviews All Teammates
In Step 7 of our 12-step course in how to design a Right-Minded Team Building Workshop, you’ll learn how to:
- Interview all teammates.
- Create this team’s Punch List.
- Identify other potential workshop outcomes.
Interviews Take Time. They Are Worth It!
To design a successful RMT workshop, you must understand what the teammates collectively believe. Interviewing is by far the best way to achieve that.
You see, what you think of the teammates, especially right now, doesn’t matter. What does matter is what they think of themselves.
To truly help the team, you must first understand where they think they are because it will allow you to create the pathway that will take them to where they want to be which is a team that achieves Right-Minded Teamwork.
As you become a more effective interviewer, you will clearly see that these conversations can teach you everything you need to know about how to design and facilitate their particular workshop. Their collective answers will identify the team’s strengths and flaws.
From the information you collect in this step, you will create and present more potential workshop outcomes in your second draft plan. You will also propose exercises that reinforce their strengths and mitigate their flaws.
Become a good interviewer.
Be willing to learn. You can practice in almost any conversation.
Facilitator Interview Questions & Tips
Interview one person at a time, and let each person know that their answers will be kept confidential.
- Interview all teammates.
- Spread your interviews out over several days.
- Always ask what the teammate thinks about the leader’s suggested outcomes.
- Ask what they think of the survey’s common themes.
- Ask which outcomes they believe should be achieved in the workshop.
- Inform them that their answers will be summarized without any individual atribution in a Punch List and that everyone will receive a copy.
- Ask “What would cause this workshop to fail?”
- Remember that you are looking for root causes.
- You’ll start formulating your Second Draft Plan after your first interview. But, it’s OK to start testing some of your ideas in the final interviews.
- Look in the Resources section in your book for more facilitator interview questions.
Punch List – Summarizing the Facilitator Interviews
The Punch List is a list of teamwork topics that this team wants to address and resolve in the workshop.
You will finalize the Punch List after your last interview. It contains the evidence you’ll use in designing the Second Draft Plan.
If two or more teammates suggest a topic, make sure to include it, but do not attribute teammate names to topics.
Here are a few tips to help you write a good Punch List:
- Find 2–3 hours of uninterrupted time to write it.
- Re-read all your individual interview notes.
- Re-live those conversations.
- Dig deeper.
- Find more root causes.
When writing your Punch List, it’s more effective to present the topics as questions. Why? Because it helps to create mutual accountability.
Let me elaborate. I’ll use the Root Cause Story from Step 3. Find the Second Draft Team Building Plan in the Resources section of your book. You’ll find their actual Punch List.
If you recall, the leader wanted a training class. After the interviews, it was evident there were many unresolved conflicts that dealt with such issues as trust, respect, following through on job tasks, and work quality. For these, I created a category called “Work Ethic.”
In their Punch List, you’ll see 5 Work Ethic items. The first one reads:
Is it OK to have an unresolved conflict if it affects individual and / or team productivity? If not, what is our work agreement with respect to solving conflicts and / or giving performance feedback?
If I only presented factual data, it would read something like: “There are at least 10 unresolved conflicts involving trust, respect, etc.”
In the workshop, you will ask this type of “is it OK” question. Imagine how the team will answer. Would they dare say they want to keep their conflicts? I doubt it! So when teammates declare they want to create a work agreement, they have accepted accountability.
Can you see how the question-style Punch List helps to create accountability? That’s why it is far better to write their Punch List with as many questions as you can. Again, use the Second Draft Plan as a template.
Interviews Help Discover Other Team Building Workshop Outcomes
As you write and edit your Punch List, you will naturally begin to identify other potential workshop outcomes.
In the Root Cause Story, I started the interviews with two outcomes. After the interviews, I proposed two more outcomes and presented them in the Second Draft Plan.
We will discuss this more thoroughly in the next step, but I wanted to acknowledge that you will be identifying other potential outcomes—possibly starting with the very first teammate you interviewed.
Now, it’s time to use your Punch List to create the Second Draft Plan. In the next lesson, Step 8, we’ll discuss that process.
Can’t Wait? Links to All 12 Lessons
Over 2 Hours of Audio Instruction from Dan Hogan, Certified Master Facilitator.
These lessons will continue to arrive in your email.
Introduction – How to Design a Right-Minded Team Building Workshop |
Step 1 – Start with the End in Mind. Leader Defines Purpose |
Step 2 – Leader Meets Facilitator. Shares Purpose & Outcomes |
Step 3 – What the Leader Wants May Not Be What the Team Needs. Facilitator Uncovers Root Causes |
Step 4 – Facilitator Presents First Draft Team Building Plan to the Leader |
Step 5 – Leader Announces Workshop and Prepares Teammates |
Step 6 – Facilitator Conducts 9 or 20 Question Right-Minded Teamwork Survey |
Step 7 – Facilitator Interviews All Teammates |
Step 8 – Facilitator Presents Second Draft Plan to Leader |
Step 9 – Leader & Facilitator Finalize Agenda and Workshop Plan |
Step 10 – Achieve Workshop Outcomes |
Step 11 – Track & Report Progress for the Next 90 Days |
Step 12 – Leader & Facilitator Begin Designing the Second Workshop |