What It Means To Be A Facilitator

He said that one of hisclients challenged him.The client said tohim, I don't thinkwhat you're talkingabout when it comesto strategy and discovery.I think you bettergo figure it out.And that messed themup, it messed them up.It sent him intoa negative spiral.So he checked out of hisbusiness for six months.Can you believe that heunplugged for six months,so he stopped working?He thought this must be true.So he started to go anddo a lot more researchon learning, which I neverwas, that some soul searchingor, yeah, well, soul searching.But also, just likemaybe he doesn'tknow what he's talkingabout when it comesto strategy and discovery.So what was he thinkingabout, what did he do there?And the reason why I'mbringing it up to you, randy,is because you're doing it.And as you start to sellstrategy for more money now,he typically sells it for$7,500 to $10,000 for strategy.And so as you chargemore and more for it,it starts to eat away at yourown definition of self worthand what it is that, you know.And many of us sufferfrom that idea.Like, maybe wedon't know anything.Maybe we're just winging itup, maybe it's just all b.s.,and let's just go back tomaking stuff because at least weknow that's tangible.But I think for a lotof cautionary talefor you guys, ok?It's a cautionarytale for everybodythat's practicingdiscovery and strategy.First of all, I need you tochange your mind about whatyou think strategy is.Strategy is not so much.You providing answersmore as you justproviding better questions.And when the answer is thatthe clients reveal to you,your job is to remain unbiasedas much as a human canbe to help them see the dots andthen ask them what decision dothey want to make giventhis new information, givenlight of the new informationwe've discovered together?So if you definestrategy and discoveryand being a facilitator isa great question person.How could you not knowwhat you're doing?Do you mean I didn'tgive you any answers?Just let me finish,randy, and thenyou can ask all thequestions you want.You didn't.You didn't provide the answersthat you just asked them.The questions like, tellme about your ideal client.What are their pain points?What are their challenges?What's a win anda loss for them?Let's describe a whole day.Tell me every task thatthey're doing that day.Let's define the gap betweenwhat they want in their lifeand where they're at.Let's try to figureout what opportunitieswe can create for theend user and ourselves,because if we helpthem win, we win.So you do this with theclient, and it's fantastic.So if it's a badstrategy session,it's because maybe you didn'task the right questions,or maybe it's because youbrought too much bias that youarrived at the scene with aforegone conclusion to say,like, no matter what youtell me, it's going to be x,you're going toneed a new website.That's when I thinkthe clients havea very valid claim thatyou're a bad strategist,so we need to redefine this.So ask them what happened to youat the end of the six months?What happened?Because I didn't learn allthat much new and I justrealized that I've just beenbeating myself up over this.So we had to do somedeep mindset worktogether to help them getout of that phase, right?But that's the reality.So randy, when you go in to doyour session with your client,just remember a coupleof things being biased.Be a good question.Questioner a question onoffer is the book I'm reading.It's like a made up termto ask the great questionsand step aside.Now there's one last littletip I'm going to give you guys.If you haven'tdone so already, Iwould strongly recommend youguys either read or learnabout design sprintfrom Jake Knapp.It's an interesting combinationof phrasing questionsand stepping aside.It requires less ofyou as the facilitatorto do work because there's alot of quiet individual workingtime, which I found tobe really fascinating.So I've been doing core nowfor about three or four years,and we tried to dodesign sprint and Ifound that the results wererather good and positive.So there's a goodcombination of havingyou be the facilitator at thecenter of the conversationversus you stepping asideand giving people a platformto think quietly by themselves.All right.Back to you, Randy.Yeah, so like.If I understand youcorrectly, basically you'resaying that all weshould do is provideas much clarity around theirgoals and their vision and.That's the whole DiscoveryCore strategy project.Honestly, I think that's prettymuch everything that we do.We help clients make thebest decision for them,not for us, but for them.So redefine your role as afacilitator and discoverystrategy as a way tomake smarter decisions.So all those graph chartsand ways of phrasing thingsthat I provide toyou is just for youto make a better decision.For example, many of youguys have the focus sheet.What is the focus sheet, really?It's really to help you putdown on paper the thingsthat you want to get done.In order for you todo that, you firsthave to think about whatit is you want to get done.And then you have toprioritize, what itis that you want to get done.Now you become your ownboss, so when you sayI want to checkan email or I wantto visit the ESPN site tofind out what the score is?Is that going againstthe three thingsyou need to get done today?Yes then you decidenot to do thator you decide I'm in control.I'm good.I can still do thisand I get it all done.So really, all discoveryand facilitationis it's just to help theother person make the bestdecision for them, that's it.Can I ask a question, chris?Of course.So I'm a new guy in thescene and I've only juststarted running caught.I had a bad experience witha client that didn't, didn'treally buy into this a lot.So I think that his personalinvestment was minimal in thisand therefore I didn't thinkthat we got where we needed towith strategy.Thankfully, it was a freebie.It was just me trying trynot to see what happened.Didn't He didn't give theamount of time that we needed.So we I told him that we neededthree hours to run a sessionand he budgeted anhour and a half.I'm going to cut you off.What's your question?If if this sort of disbeliefin the process, how people thatdon't carry this sort of gravitythat are big firm like yoursdoes?How can I how can I frameit so that the buy into it?Ok?did you notice whatI just did there?I want to try to make ameta moment out of this.A meta moment is that Jimmyis like most human beings,especially clients.Clients want to tell youtheir whole life story.They believe the contextis so important theyneed to tell you all of this.But let's just bereally honest here.If I were to ask eachand every one of youguys listening to Jimmytalk, how many of youguys can remember wordfor word, everything,he said in the sequencein which he said.And for how long?You might say, if you'rereally smart, maybe 15 seconds.Some of you guys that aregeniuses might remember 20.But as he talks more,I lose the powerof controlling orremembering whatit is that's important to him.So when your clients start totalk so much, you have to say,oh, I'm so sorry, Ineed to be able to putthis in little containers.So that we both canrealize what is importantand what is not importantrelative to the problemthat you're going to ask.So I would like for you tophrase this in a question.So that's just me, right?So when Jimmy hasto take a momentand think about the question,he gets his own clarityand more often than not.He can answer his ownquestion at this point.I see, because if youlook inside your mind,it's just a jumbled soupof things, emotions,feelings, very abstract.When you forcesomebody to say thisis why so many people strugglewith asking the question,that's why I guessteachers have saidthere's no such thing asa stupid question thatmay be true.But there are better questionsand there are worse questions,for sure.Once dimi askeda question to me,I see a difference betweenthe size of your companyand me just starting out.I'm having trouble getting theresults that you've gotten.What do I need todo differently wouldhave been the way tophrase that question.But in phrasing thequestion that way,he doesn't need totell me any context.Do you see the difference there?I want to make you guys allanalogies or question offers.People are amazingat asking questions,because you'll noticesomething very different whenI'm talking to a client.If I ask the rightquestion, theyassume I'm the expertthat I had the experienceand that I must be really wise.Is that?I've told them nothing.But I do haveclarity of questions,so we need to start making thedeliberate practice of askingbetter questions, using or beingmore intentional with the wordsthat we choose.And how to phrase it.I forget who said this, butthey said that a problem willphrase is half the solution.So if you could ask thequestion you alreadymore than halfway atarriving at the answer.So sometimes when weask really big, broad,open ended questions,we're setting ourselvesup for some troublebecause we don't reallyknow what kind ofanswer, not the answer,but what kind of answer.This is where thingslike, is it a person?Is it a place oris it an animal?Oh, OK, that helps me.OK, so the answer to yourquestion is this do you?There are several thingsthat you're probablydoing that you're not realizingthat is undermining or erodingyour authority inthat conversation.Let's start.One is your fundamental beliefthat you and I are different.We are not different, butyour belief makes it true.My firm is not a huge firm.When I go to sell strategy,it's just really me.Yes, I do have a bodyof work and yes, Ido have years of experience.But in terms ofyears of experiencedoing what it is that I dotoday in terms of facilitation,I'm a relative newcomer.When you said I am juststarting out in this,I was thinking thesame thing to myself.I am just starting out in this.But here's the beauty of theframework that many of youguys that are using in core,you don't have to be a pro.The framework is so good, evenif you're a bumbling idiot.If you just gothrough it and youdo it wholeheartedly and inthe genuine spirit in which itwas designed, you will achieveresults with your clientsbefore that you'venever been able to do.And these are thekind of testimoniesthey hear all the time.So it's not my word,it's their word.They're getting these results.So then what's the differencebetween you and me?Well, it's bone up on ourability to ask questionsand to be better listeners.Let's remove ourbiases so that wecan be totally present andneutral in the conversation.When you change, yourclient will change.So when you're notconfident, theysense that from youbecause you're nervous,you're chattering your teeth,maybe because it's really coldand they start towonder, does this personknow what they're talking about?Maybe, maybe not.And then it becomes aself-fulfilling prophecyfor you now.OK number two, you needto charge more moneyto do what it is that you do.People will not take seriouslythe value of the thingsthat you come up with.If you only charge 50cents, who can take anybodyon five or seriously?It can't be very good you couldhave a world class artist.Charging $5 and people likemayor, it's not that good.And they've done socialexperiments like this,I'm pretty sure you guyshave seen those videos thatgo viral on social mediawhen there's a concert levelviolinist, a personthat's famousthat people pay lots of moneyand wait weeks to see perform.They put on some dirty clothes.They put on a beanie.They go into the subway and nowthey're anonymous and they playand they're barely throwing$0.50 and they just keepwalking past this person.You've seen those videos, yousee how you present yourself,how you hold yourself,and the contextin which you're seeingin has a dramatic impacton how people perceive you.So the way that we do this isto move away from the subwayinto the concert Hall andthe way we do that is wecharge even more.It's a radical idea.It is a radical idea thatwill shock you to your core.It seems counterintuitive.The more you charge, the morethe other person would justify.The cost as beingsomething that is worth it.That is also a form of bias.I'm doing research onbias for new talk, right?So the bias is once we payfor something later on,we convince ourselvesthat it was worth it.So you need to charge more.OK and lastly, I don't want toconvince anybody of anything,the convinced wordis not a great word.It means you'reselling your pitching.And you have an agenda.I would like to justpresent informationand let the other persondecide, is this somethingworthwhile to pursue?And there's veryeasy ways to do thiswithout you selling at all.It is go into the opposite,which is to undersell yourself.Jonathan stock talks aboutthis, and you've heardme say this many, many times.If you've done this, thentell me it doesn't work.Until then, I'm going toput the nail in this coffinand say, until you do whatit is, I tell you to do.Don't come back and tellme I still can't do it.And that's askedthose three questions.Jimi, you know what?They are, right?What are the three questionsthat Jonathan Starkshas to ask?Why now?Why this?Why now?Me?Yeah, I got that.And are you doing that?Well, I am.When when I saidconvince, I was mostlyreferring to how muchtime he should allocateor the things that we should bein a fairly uninterrupted spaceand things like that.But I've gotten myanswer from you.Thank you.OK, so I want tosay one last thing.People are reluctantif you're goingto show them something new.Let's say people have notseen the internet beforeand they just came out ofa cave and you're like,there's this thingcalled the internet.Yeah, it's not that good.OK, OK.So I need todemonstrate it to you.And we have that too.We have that exact samething because peoplecome to thesemeetings, I can tellthey're not literally rollingtheir eyes, but I can feel it.They're checkingtheir phone, they'relooking around the room,they're not leaning in,they're leaning back.And when we hit uponsomething that engages them,there, you sit back there,whoa, this is interesting.And then when they're done atthe end of the day, what theysay affirms what we believeto be true, which is we'vedone more in the few hours thanwe have in the last few years.Thank you.OK, so we do know that anytime anybody experiencessomething new.If you've neverhad sushi before.Don't give them thesashimi Platter,it's going to be too much.Ease them into it, and don'tworry so much at the beginningthat they need to be convinced.Demonstrate the power ofwhat it is that you do,so you don't haveto talk about it.OK