Power-with perspectives #11
Please (!) object to the agenda
Taking shared responsibility for how we spend our time
If you work with prepared agendas, you likely have someone who puts them together. That’s a great service to the circle because the circle can jump into the meat of the meeting quickly.
But unless that person is an infallible mind reader and can tell the future, it’s almost impossible for all prepared agendas to get approved without objections.
Why would there be objections to a proposed agenda?
- Maybe the person who brought up a discussion is absent, and it makes sense to postpone that conversation.
- Maybe an agenda item required preparation but the prep wasn’t done.
- Maybe the agenda is too full, and an important agenda item might be bumped off.
- Maybe an important or last-minute item is missing, or there is disagreement on the prioritization of topics.
That’s why a facilitator will ask for consent to the agenda before jumping in.
Objections to agendas can typically be integrated easily. The options are the same as always - modify, time-box things or make an agreement on what to pay attention to. For example, if someone objects saying “The topic zxy doesn’t have priority right now and shouldn’t be on the agenda”, then we can time-box it to make sure it doesn’t take too long, or move it to the end of the agenda an evaluate then whether we want to devote time to it.
I always appreciate objections and modifications to the agenda. As a facilitator, I’d much rather have people pay attention and object if that means we hold responsibility together.
How we spend our meeting time might seem like a small thing. But our meetings determine what we pay attention to.
And what we pay attention to adds up and heavily influences what we do and how we do it.
Taking shared responsibility for our meeting time is therefore one of the biggest leverage points we have to steer our circle and its impact.