1.5 - About University

10.7 G ETTING P ARTICIPATIONInspired by Jean Illsley Clarke, Robert Jolles, and numerous other sources.Eliciting group participation is a crucial skill for leaders, for many reasons:✔✔✔✔The best way to gain personal commitment and buy-in is through participation.Participation can lead to higher-quality, more innovative solutions.Two heads are better than one. Effective participation leads to synergy. Two or morepeople working together well can accomplish much more than the sum of the resultsof these same people working separately.Leaders need people’s commitment, not their compliance. Ideally, you want the discretionaryeffort to support and advance the process, not impede it. The best way toget this discretionary effort is through involvement.H OW TO SECURE PARTICIPATION IN A GROUPThere is no one best way to elicit participation from a group. Some suggestions are:❑❑❑❑❑❑❑❑❑❑Ask for participation. Making a direct and honest request for participation is very effective.Build participation into project plans and meetings. Plan when and how to elicit participation.Do not dominate airtime yourself. The most common reason for lack of participation islack of opportunity provided by an overcontrolling or dominating leader.The earlier you give people the opportunity to participate, the more likely they are toparticipate.People are more likely to participate in decisions and plans that they have opportunities toinfluence. [☛ 9.2 Situational Leadership]Express appreciation and thank people who participate. Be careful of early implied evaluationof participant ideas: using a phrase like “Excellent idea” only when it supportsyour own viewpoint, for example. [☛ 12.1 The Relationship Bank]Protect the first few ideas. Participants often judge the safety of participation by how wellthe first couple of contributions are handled.Ask open-ended questions to get participation going.Asking for examples is a powerful way of getting participation. Participants often find it easierto tell a story than to state an abstract idea.Always verbally summarize or visibly record key points, so participants know you understand,before you make an evaluative or rebuttal response. [☛ 8.7 Active Listening]SECTION 10 TOOLS FOR LEADING TEAMS AND GROUPS 317