This is a follow up to my previous post From Q&As to constructive conversations.
If we want governance conversations to be more constructive then it’s helpful to look at what the professional conversation experts, in other words the facilitators, coaches, mediators, therapists, supervisors and counsellors, are doing. Of course, the exchanges you’re having in your board and committee meetings are already professional in many respects and it’s helpful to pay attention to this.
While professional conversations are similar in many ways to the day to day conversations that we might have with friends or family, they differ in a number of important respects. Some things are obvious perhaps. In our professional life, or when talking to those who are providing services, we expect people to behave in certain ways. It’s the same with a governance conversation. It’s hard to work constructively with someone who is being dismissive or rude.
Drawing on the work of the professional conversation experts, and particularly the solution focussed work of Iveson, George and Ratner [1], I’d like to suggest seven ingredients that help to make governance conversations professional and more constructive.
Seven ingredients of constructive governance conversations
Positive focus
Positive focus doesn’t just mean being supportive and kind (although it definitely does mean that). It also means paying attention to solutions rather than problems, to what’s wanted rather than what isn’t. After all, constructive means building – in a positive direction. Of course public governance requires that concerns are identified and dealt with and, having a positive focus doesn’t change that. On the contrary, knowing that the aim is to find solutions rather than pick over what’s gone wrong (this requires a different type of conversation) can help create the conditions for bringing issues of concern into the open.
Respect
Spoken words and body language have an important role in professional conversations and can show that we trust and appreciate each other. While dismissiveness or a lack of civility will stop a conversation in its tracks, over familiarity makes it difficult to establish the creative tension that is needed for a constructive conversation. Furthermore, to the public looking from the outside, over familiar conversations might appear too cosy or even suggest collusion.
Purpose
Professional conversations are conversations with a purpose. In our day to day conversations we might be happy to meander and not worry where things are going. In a professional conversation, however, it’s important to have a shared understanding of where we want the conversation to go and what the benefits of talking together might be. It’s important for citizens and service users to know that governance time is being used as productively as possible.
Turn taking
For Iveson, George and Ratner, turn taking is one of the two rules that apply to all conversations. Turn taking ensures participation and we notice when the rule is broken as we feel we have ben unfairly excluded. In governance conversations this means taking into account the different roles of executive and independent members and respecting the turns of each other.
Circularity
The second rule highlighted by Iveson, George end Ratner is that of circularity. When coaches, therapists and mediators, for example, ask questions, they will do so in a way that builds on what the client has just said and encourages a response that will give them more to build on. In the same way, if governance conversations are to be constructive, then contributions need to reflect what has gone before and encourage a back and forth that creates something new. Without circularity, governance conversations can stutter and jump between unrelated points.
Evidence
A professional conversation requires evidence, whether it comes directly from what the client says or is taken from the world outside the conversation. In a governance conversation there is an emphasis on ‘outside’ evidence as the board or committee seeks to learn about how the organisation is performing and the context it is operating in. This means that the contributions to a constructive governance conversation should be evidenced wherever possible in order to frame, justify, and increase the credibility of questions, proposals and compliments, for example.
Facilitation
Finally, in every professional conversation someone takes responsibility for managing the conversation. We would normally expect a coach, therapist or mediator, for example, to take on this responsibility to keep the talking purposeful, ensure turns are taken as they should and encourage circularity. In a governance conversation this responsibility is less clear. Perhaps the chairperson has a role, perhaps the whole group has a part to play but certainly each participant, through their contributions, can act as a facilitator.
So, these are different aspects of professional conversations that might usefully be considered when working out how to make governance conversations more constructive. But what might this look like in practice?
To unpick what members of public boards and committees could actually be doing to support more constructive conversations we need to look at two levels; the structure of a constructive governance conversation and, first, the nano structure, or grammar, of constructive contributions.
I’ll cover that in future posts.
- Two books by Iveson, George, and Ratner in particular: Brief coaching: A solution focussed approach (2012) and Solution focussed brief therapy: 100 key points and techniques (2012).
Photo credit