An Offer You Can(‘t) Refuse

In this blog post, I’ll share a piece of personal reflection with you. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and only recently it all seemed to come together. I was reading the “Deeper, Funner Facilitation Cookbook” by Julie Huffaker. The book was a gift that Christiaan Verwijs and I received after we hosted a workshop on conflict navigation together with Julie and Karen Dawson. Interestingly, the reflection I’ll share is about both facilitation and conflict. This can’t be a coincidence…

Informants And Outliers

In the book, Julie talks about how as a workshop facilitator you continuously get offers. Offers from “informants”; these people offer you a clue that there is something that hasn’t yet surfaced but needs to be considered. And offers from “outliers”; offers that are specific to one or two people and don’t represent the needs of the entire group.

When you facilitate a workshop, meeting, or Scrum event, you always receive offers. The question is: do you notice and recognize them? And, are you able or willing to do something with it? The one thing you should never do is ignore an offer. You’ll definitely lose the person raising the offer, and if it’s a broadly shared offer, you’ll even be at risk of losing the entire group. Even worse, you’ll miss the opportunity to include an idea or insight that would have drastically improved your session.

As Julie describes in her book:

“Noticing offers allows you to truly see your audience and maintains flow with them, building connection and co-creating to get to unexpected promising places”.

And:

“Accepting difficult offers effectively, with grace and clarity, is part of the personal growth of a facilitator.”

Accepting difficult offers is exactly where I struggle. I’m inclined to believe that I recognize most offers during a workshop or meeting. I’ll also confess that I’ve often labeled “informants” as “outliers”. And although I didn’t ignore their offer, I also didn’t use it as an opportunity for improvement. Something I almost always regretted in hindsight.

Real-Life Examples Of Offers

What is actually meant with an “offer”? I can imagine this is something you wonder about right now. So, let’s make it less abstract and more specific. It was quite easy to come up with examples of offers I’ve experienced in my role as a Scrum Master, trainer, and workshop facilitator. I gracefully accepted some of them, ignored a few, and unconsciously missed others.

Examples Of Offers I Received As A Scrum Master

The Scrum events are the most obvious moments to receive an offer. For example, that time when I supported a team with the Daily Scrum. They seemed to be on track to craft a plan for the upcoming day, and everyone was eager to get started. With only a couple of minutes left, one developer raised his concern about the overall progress the team was making. I could see faces that expressed annoyance around me. My initial response was to cut him off and make this an item for the Sprint Retrospective. But I also noticed that some people seemed to support his opinion. So, I accepted his offer to discuss this in more detail and gave everyone the opportunity to share their thoughts and concerns. This proved to be a good choice because the team had quite a lot of hidden frustrations that came to the surface. If I would have refused the offer it might have “exploded” in a more intense form at a later moment.

Another example is a Sprint Retrospective I facilitated for a Scrum team. As always, I had spent lots of time preparing it. I used the weekend to create supporting materials, and was confident it would be a blast! One hour before the session took place, the team asked me if the retrospective could be rescheduled to a later moment. They wanted to finish their work first and release a new increment to production. In a moment of frustration, I refused and urged the Sprint Retrospective to take place. Wasn’t the fact that they didn’t finish their work on time precisely the reason to do the retrospective? So, eventually, the Sprint Retrospective did happen, but it only resulted in a session full of frustration, and the format I prepared never took of…

The examples I shared about the Daily Scrum and Sprint Retrospective were very clear offers. I’ve also experienced a Sprint Review in which an offer was made that I only recognized afterward. When we started the session, we explained that the intention was to use tablets, laptops, and mobile phones to try a new version of the product. One person suggested discussing the budget, and roadmap first. Although those were valid topics, we preferred to gather feedback on the product, so we parked his suggestion. From that moment on, I could feel lots of tension in the room. Nobody was really focused on using the devices and we didn’t gather much useful feedback. We did run out of time and closed the Sprint Review without discussing the budget, and the roadmap. Afterward, the person approached me again and told me they’re going to pull the plug on our product. He wanted to be transparent about it, and offer the team a chance to ask questions, and share their thoughts. This was already known by the other stakeholders, hence the tension in the room. I should have listened to this “outlier”…

Example Of An Offer I Received As A Workshop Facilitator

A couple of years ago Christiaan and I organized a Liberating Structures Immersion Workshop. From the start, we noticed that a small group of participants wasn’t actively contributing. They were just sitting in a corner, talking to each other, having grumpy faces. It was an intense workshop with a large group, and it was the first time we tried a new format. So, we were already quite nervous and needed all our focus to give clear instructions and guidance. We briefly considered approaching the small group and ask what was going on, but decided to focus on the majority instead who seemed to have a great time.

During the full 2 days, the attitude of the small group never changed. And I got more worried, annoyed, and distracted by it. Strangely enough, my fear of approaching them also got stronger. What if they’ve got a valid point and we’re doing something completely wrong? In the end, I never asked them what was on their mind. I did spend lots of time thinking about them during the workshop, which drained so much energy from me that I was exhausted afterward. So, although this group made a clear offer, something was holding me back to learn what it was about.

Example Of Offers I Received As A Trainer

In my role as a Scrum.org trainer, I’m familiar with receiving offers during classes. Often these are offers made by participants on timing, breaks, to spend more time on a subject or less. Sometimes these offers are formulated as a question, like: “can we talk a bit longer about…?”. By asking people to raise their hands you can check if the offer is made by an informant or an outlier. An offer can also be more subtle. For example, when someone is playing with their phone. Is (s)he checking an important email or just bored? Is this person trying to tell you to make it more interactive or to start a break, or is (s)he an outlier and should you move on? Again, these are offers you probably recognize as well.

Interestingly, there’s one person who gave me the most offers during my classes and workshop. It’s a person I considered an informant, but also frequently an outlier. His offers were even the source of intense conflict between us. I’m talking about my co-trainer/co-facilitator Christiaan. During training or workshops, we continuously make offers to each other. Offers to change the steps of an exercise, to use other material, or to change the flow to the class. The way I handled these offers was the root of some conflicts. Even when he made a perfect offer, I sometimes considered it an offer by an outlier, brushing it aside so we didn’t have to change anything. Only to recognize in hindsight that it would have benefitted the learning experience of the participants if I would have excepted to offer.

So, What’s The Pattern?

While I wrote this article, three clear patterns emerged on how I dealt with offers from informants and outliers. The first is that the more time I’ve spent preparing a Scrum event, workshop, or training, the less I’m willing to accept an offer. The second is that when I’m uncertain about a session or an exercise, I’m also not relaxed. As a result, I’m so focused on running the session, that I don’t notice offers or quickly label them as offers from outliers. The third pattern is that if something proved to work, why change it? Accepting an offer means changing your workshop. And change is scary. Especially if you’ve done something for years, and someone suddenly proposes to do it differently. What if it doesn’t work? But what if it proves to be an even better alternative?

How To Effectively Accept An Offer?

Whenever you run a Scrum event, workshop, or meetup, never ignore the offers you receive. If you like it or not, the offer is there. Ignoring it will only frustrate the outlier, or in the case of a shared offer, it will frustrate the entire group. So the least you should always do is acknowledge the offer. The next step is to have an open mind. Give the person that makes the offer the benefit of the doubt. Even if it means you need to reshuffle your agenda, it’s not about you, it’s about offering the group the best experience. So always ask yourself how the offer would benefit the group. Also, make it a group decision. Be transparent about the offer you’re considering. For example, share that you’ve received signals you might need to spend more time on a topic before moving on. Ask the group how they feel about it. If you do decide that the offer is made by an outlier, treat him/her with respect. Again, acknowledge the offer and agree to discuss it after the session. Or invite the person to briefly talk about it during the lunch break. This gives you the opportunity to do something with it afterward.

Closing

In the blog post, I shared a personal reflection on how I’ve dealt with offers from informants and outliers. Offers I’ve received in my work as a Scrum Master, workshop facilitator, and trainer. To make the concept of “offers” more specific, I shared some personal examples. What are examples of offers you recently received? How have you handled them? Was it with grace & clarity? Of could you have done it more effectively? I’m very eager to learn from your experiences as well. Let’s learn and grow, together!