Canyon Leaping Collaboration - Vastly Improve the Work of Your Teams by John Carroll

Canyon Leaping Collaboration Vastly improve the work of your teams

John Carroll Canyon Leaping Guide, Strategist, & XLeap Advocate

Copyright © 2023 John Carroll. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................... iv Introduction ............................................................................................... vi Introducing XLeap ....................................................................................1 Basic Session Templates ........................................................................... 10 B1 - Brainstorm, Discuss, Decide ............................................................... 12 B2 - Present, Discuss, Affirm ....................................................................... 17 B3 - Document Craft, Edit, Approve ......................................................... 23 B4 - Rate This List - Single Criteria ............................................................ 33 B5 - Rate This List - Multi-Criteria ............................................................ 45 B6 - What Do We Think? - DeepDive ...................................................... 58 Lessons for Participants ......................................................................... 64 Lessons for Facilitators, Coaches, and Project Managers ...................69 Lessons for Process Mapping – Process Wins! .................................. 82 Canyon Leaping Collaboration Laboratory and Library ................. 89 Canyon Leaping – Strategies from the Vision Side ......................... 93 Canyon Leaping – Strategy Golf-Treat Agenda .,............................. 99 Elevated Human Intelligence meets GAI .,....................................... 102 About the Author ..................................................................................110

Acknowledgements Thank you to my review team including colleagues at The Parker Wright Group, Cornell Wright, Karen Whitney, and Blake McMorris, as well as Mick Blasik, Peter Beck, Todd Youngblood, Jim Sullivan, Brayden Carroll, Faraz Ahmed, Tom Klonoski, Stephen Widmer, and Mitch Grossman. Thank you to my Canyon Leaping colleagues and supporters, including Riki Merrick, Paul Dobson, Paul Cormier, Bob Antes, Amy McKinney, Jack Lord, Erik Vonk, Matt Tarkenton, Jeff Amershadian, Tom Rowles, Tom Williams, Tom Noonan, Tom Robertson, Tom Judd, Chris Bogaiges, Witold Zabinski, Joan Knapp, Guy Tessler, Tracy Vance, Bob Kramer, Liz Richards, Jack Gilbert, Dennis Monts, Mike Baer, Genia Kelly-Spencer, Kyle Bryant, John Brinkworth, Dave Jones, Paul Kurtin, Michael Glaza, Bob Farley, Joel Coulter, Connie Sinclar, Al Holbrook, Mike Reeves, John Nofsinger, Dick Ward, Larry White, Brian Peabody, Mike Wien, Brian McGann, Chris Barnes, Jay Moore, Michael O'Bannon, Rick Gilkey, Barbara Maaskant, Marshall Corson, Jay Schaudies, Heather Watson, Barbara McGill, Jon Berger, Henry Whitlow, Tammy Adams Spann, Steve Hinrichs, Scout, Roger Nopper, Amar Challa, Alex McManus, Harry Powell, Jim Seligman, Theresa McPhereson, Andrew Bate, Marty Zobel, Jennifer Bonnett, Peggy Joyner, Bill Miles, and Stephen Schwab. Thank you especially to Jerry Cybulski who taught me how to facilitate strategic planning sessions when we were at IBM, and to Professor Brown Whittington who gave me my first opportunity to author with him a paper on strategic planning. My admiration to Jay Nunamaker, Benn Konsynski, and colleagues who developed the first group decision support system (GDSS)what I now term facilitation tools that became the original IBM TeamFocus. My admiration as well to Neal Bastick, Wolfram Hoegel, and the team who developed the latest version, XLeap. iv

Introduction Canyon Leaping is my alternative to traditional strategic planning for entities that must transform. Instead of planning from where you are, you can use the XLeap platform to provide the safe environment needed for your leadership team to leap your canyon to plan from the Vision Side where you are already successful. Canyon Leaping Collaboration takes what I have learned and packages it with team processes already mapped to XLeap for facilitating everyday collaboration and decision making. This is different. Your teams need different. Teams getting work done more rapidly, accurately, and successfully. A Canyon Leap from what your teams have been doing.

Objectives

Terminology

1. Gain the attention of owners, CEOs, and other leaders by declaring that you can VASTLY improve the work of all your teams using XLeap and team processes templates. v

XLeap – the latest version of facilitation tools for collaboration and decision making. Facilitator – a person who makes an action or process easier.

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2. Since no one “gets it” until they have done it, motivate you to experience Canyon Leaping Collaboration for yourself, through a Canyon Leaping strategic planning process, a peer leadership event, or a simple demonstration.

Facilitation Tools – software that enables facilitators to make it easy to brainstorm ideas and rate them, anonymously and simultaneously, with everything documented.

3. For those who see the incredible value, equip your teams with team processes already mapped to the XLeap platform so that facilitated collaboration and decision making becomes the everyday way teams get work done.

Canyon Leaping Collaboration – Equip Your Teams I have facilitated Canyon Leaping strategic planning processes and other adventurous efforts across industries, sectors, and continents, leveraging the power of facilitation tools. My contention is that, with everyone now knowing how to run or participate in a web conference, the XLeap facilitation tools combined with team process templates can be used for getting real work done by teams everywhere. Teams doing in minutes or hours what otherwise takes days or weeks, if even possible by other means. Once owners and other leaders of businesses, professional firms and other entities experience what is possible, they can mandate that their teams be equipped. In addition to Canyon Leaping strategic planning sessions, peer leadership events are another way to experience what you will want all your teams doing. Leadership Creativity Forums, Igniter Summits, Board Meetings, and Peer Investing Sessions are great examples. vi

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Or download a trial license to the XLeap platform, download the Basic Session Template, B1 – Brainstorm Discuss Decide, and see for yourself what is possible in minutes.

Basic Session Templates To equip your teams, included are links to a core set of Basic Session Templates. Each template can be downloaded and uploaded to your team's own XLeap Meeting Centers. Each template includes a brief tutorial video and tip sheet. The tip sheets are included in this book. Basic Session Templates are single activity sessions using the XLeap facilitation tools - Brainstorm, Presentation, Rating, and DeepDive. The Basic Session Templates are designed for new XLeap facilitators to copy, tweak, and use immediately, and for the experienced XLeap facilitator to save an hour or more, or to see another way to use the platform. The Basic Session templates can vastly improve and accelerate the millions of meetings conducted every day with near zero learning curve. Anyone who can run a meeting using a web conferencing platform can significantly improve and accelerate everyday collaboration and decision making by using XLeap and these Basic Session Templates. Continue using your preferred platform for audio and video or use the Dolby web conferencing integrated into the XLeap platform. With the option to make sessions enabled for asynchronous, any time participation, the ultimate no-meeting meeting is a reality —teams getting real work done and never actually meeting. This book is dynamic, Translations of the Basic Session Templates are planned for 2023, along with additional Basic Session Templates. vii

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You Do Not Need to Do This – You Have People for That Canyon Leaping Collaboration works this way for Owners and other Leaders. Experience what is possible. Then equip your teams. Whether you use Canyon Leaping Collaboration regularly is a separate decision. Equipping your teams will free up time for you to build relationships and to spend more time on strategic thinking. This can include, for example, playing more golf with peers, having leisurely meals, shopping and more, and spending time on individual and small team strategic thinking. As Canyon Leaping Collaboration permeates all your teams, your leadership team will increasingly have the time to build relationships and think strategically. It is a simple formula to demonstrate how strategic thinking can permeate the business or other entity.

This is why companies in which an ingrained skepticism toward accepted assumptions, the habit of analysis, and the practice of strategic thinking have become a way of life are the companies that seem to prosper so remarkably in bad times as well as good. Kenichi Ohmae, The Mind of the Strategist Following the Basic Session Templates are a set of Lessons Learned with examples meant to build confidence that this works everywhere.

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Canyon Leaping Collaboration Laboratory & Library – CLCLL For those in your business or other entity ready to go further than what can be accomplished with the Basic Session Templates, they are invited to join the Canyon Leaping Collaboration Laboratory and Library (CLCLL). The CLCLL provides access to a growing array of Comprehensive Process Templates, including Canyon Leaping. This is also where we will test new Basic Session Templates and Comprehensive Process Templates. The CLCLL uses the XLeap platform to provide a continuously available and dynamic environment for shared learning, process design, testing, and downloading of templates, tutorial videos, and tip sheets. We are building a community of top professionals delivering extraordinary results for those they serve.

XLeap Acceleration Program The Parker Wright Group's XLeap Acceleration Program is designed to vastly accelerate and expand the use of XLeap throughout any business, professional firm, non-profit, agency, or other entity. The program includes customized versions of the Basic Session Templates and the Comprehensive Process Templates from the CLCLL. The program also includes: • Advanced training to build an XLeap Facilitator Corps • Co-process design for bespoke processes mapped to XLeap • Co-facilitation of initial sessions ix

Introducing XLeap XLeap enables people to improve and accelerate the millions of meetings, projects, and other team efforts occurring every day.

Anyone who can facilitate a team to brainstorm and discuss ideas, evaluate them, and assign actions can do so better and faster, and with a heck of a lot more fun, using XLeap.

Our New World Pick your reasons: pandemic(s), flattened management teams, disrupted supply chains, travel costs, security fears, inability to truly engage people with existing technologies, competitive drive to accelerate decisions, multi-everything workforce, in our new world, working more effectively in virtual teams is a necessity. 1

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What is needed is a new level of collaboration, beyond people sharing presentations and networking, with people thinking, creating, deciding, and doing. Now, equipped with XLeap, people can facilitate effective team efforts, whether these efforts have the luxury of participants working face-toface, hybrid with a core team face-to-face, or with everyone participating virtually. Whether participating at the same time, or with people doing so when they are able, and whether for a one-time event, or continuously for complex projects, leaders implementing XLeap can take their teams to the next level of performance. The XLeap presentation tool alone justifies having XLeap on everyone's desktop. By enabling anonymous commenting, instead of the typical 3 or 4 out of 10, 20, or more feeling comfortable speaking up or typing into the conference chat, in an XLeap presentation with anonymity, everyone is comfortable putting in their comments, questions, and responses. The presenter quickly knows if everyone "gets it" before moving on.

Imagine – Every Team Wins Imagine everyone who should be involved before decisions are made being able to fully interact with each other, clarify uncertainties and misconceptions, identify opportunities and risks, freely consider potential solutions, and act rapidly, decisively, confidently, and successfully, all the time. Complete awareness enabling decisive action. We don't make complex things simple. We provide the means to handle the complexities. Henry Whitlow, CEO Skybridge West Africa

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Imagine 10, 20, 100, or more people exchanging ideas, comments, and questions anonymously and simultaneously. Imagine people raising issues that otherwise would be difficult to discuss, with people making decisions, assigning tasks and time frames, with everything documented. Imagine further that by accelerating collaborative activities you are CREATING the elusive time needed for the neglected relationship building activities and much valued time for individual research and contemplation before decisions are made. The results: vastly improved outcomes with far more people involved, more factors considered, greater buy-in achieve, and reduced time and cost for implementaiton.

Skeptic to Advocate When my mentor at IBM, Jerry Cybulski, called me back to help him figure out what to do with the 80+ IBM TeamFocus centers around the globe, we were both highly skeptical that technology could replace our traditional approach to facilitation. We spent the drive from Jerry’s office in Scranton, PA up to Endicott, NY discussing how important it was to have participants looking at the facilitator and each other, not at a screen and keyboard. We were brought to a meeting room full of IBM PCs. In a matter of minutes, a group of us brainstormed problems with meetings and were amazed when not only our own ideas appeared on our screens but also those of the other participants. All anonymous. And then we rated the ideas, and the results were immediately displayed. As I recall, Jerry, who facilitated strategic planning for IBM's largest clients for more than a quarter century, exclaimed “27 years of facilitation, I could have done it in 5!” 3

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Key Benefits The benefits to the team, project, business, or other entity are immediate and enormous: • • • •

Reduce online meeting time by 50–90% Reduce project completion time by 50–90% Vastly expand team participation and satisfaction Generate confidence team member’s time will be well spent

I know you will not believe these benefits until you experience what is possible for yourself. I didn’t.

Unless You Are Dr. Frances Hesselbein Dr. Hesselbein, former head of the Drucker Foundation for NonProfits and since founder of The Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute, is the only person I ever met who “got it” without having to first experience what is possible with facilitation tools. When we met in Washington, D.C., with Robert Kramer, Dr. Hesselbein immediately understood what was possible. Her only question was whether we could scale to serving all non-profits, as Dr. Hesselbein was leading the effort for non-profits to prepare for the Contract for America in 1994. At the time, the technology was limited to local area network implementations, and I had the only IBM TeamFocus portable laptop network. Hardly scalable to the thousands of non-profits needing to plan for their own transformations. The need now is as great or greater, for businesses, professional firms, non-profits and entities throughout the public and social sectors, and XLeap can scale to all. 4

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Vastly Accelerated Collaboration & Decision Making A favorite example of accelerated collaboration and decision making was at The Carter Center. I served as the volunteer facilitator for The Atlanta Project (TAP)'s TeamFocus platform, giving me lots of opportunities to explore a variety of team processes. One opportunity was to demonstrate the facilitation tools for the heads of the top thirty foundations after their meeting with President Carter. President Carter really enjoyed their meeting, so rather than having 45 minutes, I was asked if we could do anything in 15 minutes. Of course I said yes. They first brainstormed the top issues confronting youth in our urban settings, the focus of TAP. They then discussed the ideas and rated them. 15 minutes after they entered the room, everyone received a printed report as they left the room. Yes. This book is meant to make it easy for owners and other leaders to equip their teams with facilitation tools and proven team processes just as President Carter was doing over three decades ago. A powerful example was this Spring when we teamed with Keep America Beautiful to facilitate a 90-minute session with over 40 participants representing diverse communities to identify and prioritize requirements for earning the designation of being a clean community. Our team sought to incorporate real-time feedback from a diverse group of stakeholders but did not have the opportunity to bring everyone together in person. Thanks to The Parker Wright Group’s expert facilitation, we were able to engage the stakeholders in a lively and interactive online discussion.

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Their use of the XLeap platform was perfectly suited to generating feedback, ratings, and comments by each individual that were shared in real time – and best of all, it was tremendously easy to use. David Wheeler, Grants Director, Keep America Beautiful

The Power of Anonymity If you want to know what people really think, you need to provide them with the means to speak openly. The easiest way to do this is to protect them by providing anonymity and a process everyone has confidence will work. Anonymity on the wide-open Internet is absurd. Anonymity in a walled garden among a known or knowable team is powerful. With anonymous participation, people elevate above friction, separating ideas from personalities. Creativity flourishes as people freely tap the thinking of each other. • •

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Anonymity provides safety, eliminating the fear of embarrassing someone or of being embarrassed. Anonymity enables people to tell someone they care about that their ideas are wrong. who may not be popular but who may have the best idea. Anonymity enables everyone to be heard, even the person who may not be popular but who may have the best idea. Anonymity enables people to tell someone they care about that their ideas are wrong. Anonymity enables everyone to be heard, even the person who may not be popular but who may have the best idea.

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Opposition to Anonymous Participation “We shouldn’t need anonymity!” I agree. You shouldn't. However, due to how people acquire, hold, and wield power in most businesses and other entities, you likely do. Noticeably, the people who express their opposition to using anonymity are usually the reason anonymity is needed. When attribution is needed, or when a team has sufficiently matured, I recommend having participants login with their initials to minimize screen space used for attribution.

Diffusing the Meeting Bully Anonymity is a powerful force for freeing the creative potential of individuals and teams. With anonymity, everyone can fully participate even if some try to monopolize either the vocal discussions or the on-screen dialogue. An example was a quality team charged with developing clinical guidelines for a disease. The twelve physicians, peer subject matter experts, had one among them who felt superior to the others. I launched the team into a brainstorming activity regarding the optimal course of care for various diagnoses. Eleven of them hit their keyboards typing their responses, while the twelfth assumed his role of lecturing his colleague, for 10 minutes straight. Taking a breath, he looked at his screen and realized that people had been typing ideas other than his. The rules had not changed: the facilitation tools simply made the rules effective, on the platform, everyone participated as peers! 7

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As people appreciate the opportunity to have their say and to also know they have been heard, they more readily accept decisions with which they may disagree. This has especially been the case in sessions focused on some of the most difficult and contentious issues of our time, from HIV/AIDs, to homelessness, to poverty, to environmental justice, to the targeting of the LGBTQ+ community by the tobacco industry. Where prior efforts using traditional facilitation sometimes devolved into anger, threats, thrown shoes and even fist fights, instead, decisions are made, and plans are put into action. Everyone knowing they have been heard helps to accelerate the resolution of disputes. Tom Williams, The Wales Group

The Role of the Facilitator The following is from a paper on strategic planning by Professor Brown Whittington of Emory University’s Goizueta Business School and me, “Strategic Planning for Geriatric Care Organizations,” published by Aspen Health in 1987 in the journal Topics in Geriatric Rehabilitation: A nonvoting planning session facilitator should serve as the session leader. This person's function is to efficiently guide the session's participants from initial idea generation to consensus decision-making.

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Although some organizations successfully use an employee as a facilitator, it is generally difficult to find someone who can be privy to the information to be discussed, not be a voting participant, not allow personal objectives to bias the process, and yet provide the creative stimulation, decision fostering, and meeting control that a productive planning session requires. Though most of the above still applies, some of the other rules in the paper are irrelevant due to the breakthroughs enabled by facilitation tools, including the number of people who can be effectively engaged and the time frames for completion. I still recommend having a third party facilitator for strategic planning sessions. However for the other millions of meetings that occur every day, with the safe environment provided by XLeap and the Basic Session Templates, I contend that anyone who can run a web conference can facilitate success. Due to the pandemic, everyone is experienced with web conferencing. This makes now the right time to bring facilitation tools and team processes into every business, professional firm, and other entity. Time to vastly improve the work of your teams. Time for Canyon Leaping Collaboration.

Basic Session Templates Basic Session Templates are single activity team processes already mapped to XLeap using the four tools – Brainstorm, Present, Rating, and DeepDive. They are designed for everyday use either as standalone sessions with minimal tweaking, or in combination to build more comprehensive processes. Click the links or copy and paste the links into a browser to download the templates and to view the tutorial videos. The tip sheets follow and are also available with the templates. • • • • • •

B1 – Brainstorm, Discuss, Decide https://79666119.xleap.net/viewdownloadbdd B2 – Present, Discuss, Affirm https://79666119.xleap.net/viewdownloadpda B3 – Document Craft Edit Approve - Import and Folders https://79666119.xleap.net/viewdownloaddoc-cea B4 – Rate This List – Single Criterion - Import List https://79666119.xleap.net/viewdownload-ratesingle B5 – Rate This List – Multi Criteria - Import List with Comments https://79666119.xleap.net/ viewdownload-rate-multi B6 – What Do We Think? – DeepDive - Three Alternatives https://79666119.xleap.net/viewdown-wdwt 10

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The Basic Session Templates are designed to be self-contained with a minimum learning curve, accelerated with brief tutorial videos and tip sheets. The next template is a dual language version of B1 - Brainstorm, Discuss, Decide. This is followed by a much requested combination of basic session templates and a set of workspaces to copy and paste into your own processes. • • •

Réfléchir, discuter, décider- Français Anglais - French English https://79666119.xleap.net/b1-bdd-fa-download Present, Brainstorm, Assess, Action Plan https://79666119.xleap.net/pbaap JC Breaks, Assessments & Additional Activities https://79666119.xleap.net/jc-breaks

B1 – Brainstorm, Discuss, Decide https://79666119.xleap.net/viewdownloadbdd

From the template session for Brainstorm, Discuss, Decide, view the brief tutorial video, and download the template.

Logging into your own XLeap Meeting Center, click the upload arrow.

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Go ahead and either accept the invitation defaults or make edits to whatever has a pencil. Click DONE when ready. You will have a chance to edit again when you open the session to send out invitations. Note that name and email are required for this template. This is for authentication and to enable a variety of functionality from making people content editors to enabling resubmission of rating activities.

Basic templates assume you will be using the web conferencing your teams are comfortable using for audio, video, and chat. Click on the icons in the lower left to change if you want to enable the XLeap

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conferencing services. Click the Process Designer icon in the top left to make any edits needed.

...and then click ENTER below the lightbulb.

Note that discussion and joint allocation of sticky dots are enabled, designed for a dynamic session in which people improve each other’s ideas as they move to agreement. Click the pencil to edit the instructions if needed. Click the blue comment bubble to display the example comment for the Placeholder idea.

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You can highlight and delete the Placeholder Idea, though often this is left as a tip for participants. Click the Wheel icon to review the workspace settings.

Sticky dots are pre-set with 7 each that is set for a team of 21, with each participant having one idea for a ratio of one dot to three total ideas. This one-to-three ratio enables forced prioritization of the ideas. Adjust down or up as needed. Challenge participants to use the yellow sticky dots and comments to improve each other’s ideas, striving for agreement.

Turn chronological numbering on to help with merging. Click renumber or turn numbering off after merging as this can be distracting. 15

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You can make anyone a content editor, since email is required for login. Click DONE.

Click the red dot to open the session and display the invitation.

Click on any of the pencils to edit as needed. Copy the internet address to paste into a web conference chat. 16

B2 – Present Discuss Affirm https://79666119.xleap.net/viewdownloadpda

These slides serve as a placeholder presentation so that default settings can be changed, and a new presentation can be uploaded.

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Click on the thumbnail images to download the XLeap file so you can upload to your own Meeting Center. You can also download the PDF of the presentation.

Now you can see the Facilitator's view. Toggle to additional slides to review settings or click the wheel in the upper right for workspace settings to make changes to create your own standard presentation session.

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The defaults are to enable separate discussions per slide and for complete anonymity.

Sticky dots and separate prompts are enabled so at the ready though not displayed.

…and no numbering. By requiring emails, you will be able to make people EDITORS.

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To delete the placeholder presentation, click on the thumbnail version of any of the slides on the left …

and the trash can will light up to delete.

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A recycle bin now appears should you need to retrieve the presentation. Click the large blue circle in the lower left to upload your own PDF version of a presentation.

Clicking on the red button turns the session on…

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… and displays the invitation that you can edit before copying to insert in an email invitation or share via the chat of your web conference.

B3 – Craft Edit Approve: Import and Folders https://79666119.xleap.net/viewdownloaddoc-cea This template uses folders and ideas to import an existing document to craft, edit and approve. The example document is a set of strategic planning terms and definitions. Click on the thumbnails to view the video and download the template, tip sheet, and the example Word documents.

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After uploading the template into your own Meeting Center, open the session and click ENTER.

The template is preset to import a document. Click Add new folder to activate folders and then click the pages icon.

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Click the pages icon and Import Wizard.

Use your own document, or the example document, One of the Word documents is the original.

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While the Import version has single spaces inserted to separate the terms as folders from the definitions as ideas. There are 19 terms plus the introduction. Practice using this document or try with your own document.

Paste in the import version of the Word document. 26

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Review to make sure you have the number of folders expected – 20 is correct. Click PASTE when satisfied.

And there is the content now in folders. Good to go. First, though, scroll to the top of the folders.

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XLeap defaults the first folder as unsorted. Click on and click EDIT.

Edit the first folder and click POST.

Click on the second folder and drag the introduction to the first folder. 28

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Now click on the original first folder and the trashcan lights up. Click to delete.

You now have a clean setup for crafting your document. There is now a recycle bin in case you need to retrieve something you delete.

Click on the wheel to review workspace settings. 29

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The template defaults enable commenting and contributions are set to be completely anonymous.

You can edit the sticky dots for color, count, and meaning. Allocation is set for ideas as targets.

View is set to color folders and no numbering.

The template is set to enable all privileges. Alternatively, you can make individuals content editors. Click DONE. 30

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Click to open the session.

The invite is displayed. Click any of the pencils to edit as needed. Copy the invitation and paste into an email, Teams chat, or other.

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When complete, click on the Process Designer icon and then on the W to download the new version of the document. Well Done.

B4 – Rate This List Single Criterion https://79666119.xleap.net/viewdownload-ratesingle Use this Basic Session template as an example of importing an existing list to be rated using the single criterion, Importance. The example document is a list of leadership characteristics.

The template uses a 10-point scale ala weather forecasting – is a level 5 Hurricane or Super Cyclonic Storm, a 2 a Level 2-3 Hurricane, while a 10 is the most beautiful day and an 8 is a very nice day.

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Click on the thumbnails to view the video, download the template, and download the example Word document.

After uploading the template into your own Meeting Center, open the session and click ENTER.

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Click the pages icon in the top middle and then click Import Wizard. Note that you can create a list from scratch using the plus icon in the lower left or paste a list from a brainstorming activity.

Use your own document, or the example list. Copy the list.

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Paste on the left from the Word document. Review on the right to make sure you have the number of ideas expected – 11 is correct. Click PASTE when satisfied.

And there is the content. Good to go. First, though, click the placeholder - the trash can will light up. Click to delete.

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Next, click the pencil to edit the instructions.

Cut and paste the instructions from the word document. Click Done.

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Click the wheel to review workplace settings.

Edit the Criterion. The default is set to allow resubmissions, recognizing that by discussing results, learning may occur.

View is set for participants to view results after submitting and to show prior comments in case the template is used with a list pasted from a brainstorming activity.

Commenting is set to request comments on rating, adding (optional) to the prompt. Click DONE. 38

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Click the red button to open the session.

This displays the invitation. Click any of the pencils to edit as needed. Copy the invitation and paste into an email or chat.

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Once participants are rating, you as the facilitator can exit the activity and move to the results. Click the process designer in the top left and then click exit.

Click ENTER to view the results.

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And watch the count in the upper left appear once the first participant submits. Click the blue semi-circle to view the results table.

Click the comment bubble to view explanations.

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The table shows how many rated 1 through 10. Click the comment bubble.

Explanations will be displayed by rating. Here the explanation is for rating industry knowledge a 9.

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Click the pages icon in the top middle to download the results to Excel. To download the Word report, first click the Process Designer icon in the top left.

Click the W in the top right. Optionally you might consider adding a second criterion – How Do Our Customer’s Perceive Us? Always makes for a great discussion and since the session is setup for resubmissions, this would also enable participants to adjust their ratings for the first criterion. Certainly practice this and any functionality new to you before facilitating a session. 43

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Check the workspaces you want to include in the report and click to download.

B5 – Rate This List – Multi-Criteria https://79666119.xleap.net/viewdownload-ratemulti Use this Basic Session Template as an example of importing an existing list, with comments, to be rated using multiple criteria. Click on the thumbnails to view the video, download the template, tip sheet, and example Word documents with my Top 10 Strategies for Caring for Our Brains from my Aging and Your Mind seminar.

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The template uses a 5-point scale. Easy to edit the scale and the criteria used in the example: • • •

Importance Urgency Heart-to-Do-It (likelihood with a gut check)

After uploading the template into your own Meeting Center, open the session and click ENTER.

Click on the placeholder to view the ballot. Click on the trash can to delete the placeholder.

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Click the pages icon in the top middle and then click Import Wizard.

Use your own document, or the example list. Above is the original list. To import, insert spaces before each comment under each strategy. Remove the bullets and insert two spaces. 47

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Here is the version ready for import with bullets removed and spaces added.

Copy and paste on the left from the Word document. Review on the right to make sure you have the number of ideas expected. 10 is correct. Click paste. 48

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There is the list of strategies. Click the pencil to edit the instructions.

Cut and paste the introduction to the Top 10 Strategies from the word document.

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Click on the first strategy to display the ballot.

Review to ensure the ballot is displayed as expected. Click on the comment bubble to display the additional information on the strategy.

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Click the wheel to review the workplace settings.

The template is set to enable rating all of the items using all three criteria in one pass. Edit the criteria as needed, scrolling down to view the other criteria. Also set to allow for resubmissions, recognizing that by discussing the results, learning may occur. Click DONE when ready.

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View is set to enable participants to view results after submitting, no numbering, and to show prior comments in case the template is used with a list pasted from a brainstorming activity. Randomize rate items is disabled assuming that imported lists as I am using here are often in a specific order on purpose.

Commenting is set so that explanations apply to all three ratings with item changed to strategy for the prompt. Click DONE.

Click the red button to open the session. 52

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This displays the invitation. Click any of the pencils to edit as needed. Copy the invitation and paste into an email or chat.

Once participants are rating, you as the facilitator can exit the activity. Click the Process Designer icon in the upper left.

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and click exit.

Click ENTER for the first criterion results.

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And watch the count in the upper left appear once the first participant submits. The ratings table can be viewed by clicking the blue semicircle.

Click the Process Designer icon to view the other results.

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The results for the third criterion contain any explanations.

The summary table and charts are great for igniting clarifying discussions. The summary table is sorted by All criteria.

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Here is the summary chart with sample data with the x-axis showing importance, the y-axis urgency and the size of the bubbles indicating heart to do it. Notice that aerobic exercise is highest for importance and urgency, while lowest for heart to do it. A real call to action!

Returning to the Process Designer, click the pages icon in the top middle to download the results to Excel. To download the Word report, click the W icon. Well done!

B6 – What Do We Think? Three Alternatives https://79666119.xleap.net/viewdown-wdwt Pre-set Deep Dive with separate prompts enabled and shared prompts for summaries at the ready in the Facilitation Notes. Sounds complicated. It is not.

After copying the template and entering the session, click Enter to review the first of three versions of What Do We Think?

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The activity is pre-set with topics focused on a business or other entity. Click on any topic to edit or click the selection tool to delete some or all topics. New topics can be added one at a time or use the pages icon to paste from another activity or to use the import wizard.

Click on the pencil to edit the instructions if needed. Click Enter for one of the topics to review.

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The activity is pre-set with 10 green, yellow, and red sticky dots each and three prompts across all topics. Click the wheel to review workplace settings.

Here is where you can edit the default sticky dots.

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And edit the default prompts. Note that specific prompts are enabled, and view is set for no numbering and compact view. Click done when ready.

Click the facilitation notes

To see the prompts to be added when ready for sub-teams to summarize the thinking of the whole team.

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Click the red button to open the session.

This will display the invitation that you can edit before sending.

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While the topics in the first activity are focused on a business or other entity, the second activity provides alternative topics with a global theme.

The third activity provides igniting statements for leadership teams to consider, discuss and debate and then to summarize their thinking in sub-teams.

Lessons for Participants Power of Teams Pretty quickly, people learn about the “Power of Teams” when everyone can get a word in edgewise. In a traditional 1-hour online meeting with twenty team members, everyone would get a maximum of 3 minutes airtime, though we all know that 3 or 4 people will dominate 50–80% of the meeting time. In a session we facilitate using XLeap, everyone gets to participate at once. Assuming 50% of the time is spent on the keyboards, everyone will get 30 minutes—or 15 to more than 30 times what they would have gotten in a traditional meeting. 60*50% = 30 minutes/16 (20 – 4) = less than 2 minutes for remaining participants 60*80% = 12 minutes/17 (20 – 3) = less than 1 minute for remaining participants Even the “Meeting Bullies” get more time! From 2.5 times to almost 4 times as much time.

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60*50%/4= 7.5 minutes per Meeting Bully vs 30 minutes with XLeap 60*80%/3=12 minutes per Meeting Bully vs 30 minutes with XLeap

Power of Silence If everyone is asked to type in their thinking at the same time, guess what? There is going to be silence for far longer than participants have ever experienced silence in a meeting before with everyone absorbed in many-to-many collaboration as each other's ideas are immediately displayed. The facilitator new to this level of intense, many-to-many simultaneous interaction on many topics is the one who is most often ill at ease, as the participants dive in deeply into reading, thinking, and crafting their own responses, questions, or comments. Especially when facilitating virtually, simply review the interactions and be ready for questions and the occasional check in, “looks like most of you have gotten through the questions and are responding to each other. Holler if you have any questions, though so far, looking good.”

Power for International Teams: English as a Second Language During a break while facilitating a session for a Europe-based global manufacturer, I asked the managers from Europe, Asia, and South America for whom English is a second language what they thought of the process and tools we were using. 65

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The response was that they could finally get their thoughts into the meeting, rather than just trying to listen to those for whom English is their first language do all the talking. They told me that they could read, understand, and respond to everyone else’s ideas much faster than they could when people were talking, and could also get their own ideas on the table for others to discuss.

People Want to Work: People Expect Everyone to Participate If you can show people you are not going to waste their time, a feeling of confidence that real work can be done will rapidly permeate a team. This becomes a positive, self-fulfilling prophecy as people participate more intensely and effectively, reducing the overall time, cost, and disruption to everyone.

Build a Glossary When working across anything—functions, generations, cultures, enterprises, it is important to have a ready reference of key terminology. An example of the need for harmonizing vocabulary is those embarking on leading strategic planning efforts, especially if working across organizations. Anyone who has facilitated more than a couple of strategic planning sessions has heard the conflicting definitions people carry with them for core terminology.

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Our XLeap Process Templates for facilitating Strategic Planning include a harmonized set of terms and definitions arrived at by “Friends of Morrie” from the LinkedIn Group, Strategic Planning for Non-Profits hosted by Morrie Warshawski, so that people can share their own questions and concerns before applying them. The paper I assembled from the discussion about Vision and Mission is available for download.

Phones Too! Teaming with Cornell Wright, head of The Parker Wright Group, we facilitated the face-to-face strategic planning session for the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce, 4 of the 25 participants were unable to connect using their corporate laptops and easily transitioned to using their phones to access XLeap. These participants were able to keep up with all the brainstorming, discussions, and ratings throughout a very full and engaging 6-hour session. Here are two screenshots that illustrate accessing XLeap from a phone. 67

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Lessons for Facilitators, Coaches, and Project Managers XLeap facilitation tools enable people to harness many-to-many interaction and weave in team decision-making processes.

Dive Right In Resist the temptation to tell people how great it is going to be and instead jump right in with a warm-up activity. Our goal is to have people hitting the keyboards within the first 5 minutes to experience anonymous many-to-many interaction. Warm-up activities prepare people by helping to shift their minds from what they had been doing prior to the meeting while providing orientation in a non-threatening manner. For example, asking participants to enter their favorite vacation destination, then having them make comments on each other’s ideas. Then, taking the list and have people evaluate each of the destinations on a scale of 1 to 5 for worst to best. In minutes, we have gone from brainstorming ideas, discussing them, and then deciding.

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Themes If the process you are going to use will include participants merging ideas and identifying themes, go ahead and enable folders and then extend merging and moving privileges.

Participants can now drag and drop the destinations into their choice of folders. Someone can also merge the second “Italy” with the first “Italy” and any other redundancies. Drag and drop if someone “over-merges” or if you want to move something to a different folder.

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Make Decisions about Making Decisions BEFORE Making Decisions Or continue to make decisions about making decisions every #$@!% time you make decisions. Even worse is to go with the last person talking or typing. Instead, give people confidence by deciding upfront how decisions will be made. For example: • • •

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Determining the number or percent of participants who need to agree for all to support a strategic level decision. Determining the threshold needed for non-strategic level decisions. Deciding if a subject matter expert (SME) can call for the floor if they are one of the dissenters and the decision targeted their area of expertise. Identifying who are the subject matter experts, for what subjects and even their level of expertise.

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Vote Early and Often Call it “voting,” “polling,” “evaluating” or whatever is acceptable in your environment; the fastest way to kick interaction up a notch is to ask people to vote on something they have been discussing. Once a team goes through the mental switch from dialogue to decision making, assumptions masquerading as facts, knowledge gaps, and hidden agendas surface, launching some of the best discussions— either vocal or via the keyboards—thereby eliminating two of the three reasons people disagree. 1. People not having a mutual understanding of the alternatives 2. People not having a mutual understanding of the criteria 3. People coming equipped with different knowledge, assumptions, life experience, professional experience, cultural experience, judgment, wisdom, creativity, and foresight—the real wealth of a team. Getting rid of the first two allows teams to concentrate on leveraging the latent value in the strengths of their individual diversity—the third reason people disagree. With greater clarity on the alternatives and the criteria, the team votes again. What will surface is convergence on a solution, or the recognition of the existence of well-supported alternatives, focusing further discussion and research on what is most important. An example from dozens of health systems for which I facilitated the IT strategy sessions came when we set up for the Clinical Steering Committee at one large university medical center to work through more than sixty proposed investments.

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I asked the consultants if everyone on the Steering Committee was up to speed on all the proposals and was assured that having all worked on them for over a year, they were ready. As we set up for the evaluation, one of the lead physicians asked for clarification on one project, “Could you remind me again, what is an ‘Interface Engine’?” Before the consultants could answer, I asked the consultants if we could first have a quick “vote” on whether to spend time making sure everyone was up to speed on the proposed investments they were about to evaluate. The resounding answer was “YES.” Immediately the consultants realized it would be a good idea to give the Committee some time to use the anonymous facilitation tools to ask their questions, make responses, and then move on to the evaluation. After an hour, everyone was comfortable. Whew! One more lesson is to be flexible!

Team Evolution: No Need for Anonymity As teams evolve in their confidence, trust, and knowledge of each other, the benefits of anonymity will diminish. This was the case for the second and third time I co-faciltitated the three-year strategic planning sessions for the Board of the American Society of Directors of Volunteer Services that serves our nation's hospitals. After the first session, they did not need the anonymity to perform effectively. We used anonymity simply to save space on everyone's screens, with everyone ready to speak up about their thinking.

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Team Writing in XLeap A simple yet remarkably effective use of the XLeap facilitation tools is for team writing and document approval. Participants are charged with generating a draft document and recommend improvements virtually and often asynchronously, while voting for each paragraph of the document (Agree, Needs Work—See Comments, Disagree) using Sticky Dots. As edits are made, people return to the continuous, dynamic session and update their votes until all parties agree or reach the required level of agreement. When facilitating the CONTACT Emory team for Emory University’s President, William Chace, I used this approach to draft the final report, in an hour. Alternatively, the facilitator uses their Import Wizard to import an existing draft document for discussion and approval. I recommend “flattening” documents using Folders and Ideas. See the Basic Session template B3 – Document Crafting, Editing, and Approval. Once a document is ready for editing, the XLeap facilitator has a wide array of “Privileges” to enable participants to make edits and/or can make individual participants Editors. Note: as with other functionality—including conferencing, chat, and screen sharing—to add a “Content Editor” the session invitation needs to require email for login.

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2–3 Minute Follow-Up Think of the last PowerPoint Presentation you sat through, face-toface or virtually. When a call for questions was made, at best 3 or 4 of the 10, 20, 50 + people spoke up or made comments in the chat, and the discussion only scratched the surface. Especially when presenting complex topics, adding in a very brief discussion after each section is highly effective and makes up for a lot of the communication loss from not being able to observe body language on a web conference. Every time we add a 2–3-minute (yes, just 2–3 minutes) Q&A with “What did you learn?” and “What do you hope everyone else learned?” 10, 20, or 50+ people hit the keyboards and there is no question remaining as to whether the participants “get it.” And, where they do not, often the other participants teach each other what they learned before the presenter responds. Use of the XLeap presentation tool alone for such every day presentations will justify XLeap for many, if just for how much time is saved in getting everyone on the same page.

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Accelerated Face-to-Face Sessions The XLeap tools impact more than online efforts. Face-to-face sessions are transformed as well, since much of what is often crammed into face-to-face efforts can now be done virtually before and after, allowing for much higher value uses of increasingly rare face-to-face time. If you have not participated in a facilitated face-to-face session using XLeap or a prior platform, please know a few basics: • • •

You will not get any other work done, so do not bring any. You will work intensely for the full session. Most people are “brain-drained” in 4–6 hours, even with lunch, breaks, and only 40–60% of the time is spent on the keyboards,

Both Sides of Sharing The immediate refresh of everyone’s screens with the new ideas and comments being posted by 10, 20, 50+ participants can be exciting. This, however, is only one side of sharing where people are focused mostly on getting out what they have to say. While it is important to ensure everyone feels they have had their say, it is far more valuable to ensure everyone knows they have been heard! The other side of sharing is to receive what everyone else has shared! This seldom happens well if not facilitated. A way to accelerate this effort while making the process easier on everyone is to stagger-start the review of what has been posted by having people start on different topics after everyone has had their initial say on all topics. 76

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For exceptionally large teams, to avoid massive redundancy, similarly stagger-start the initial input with instructions that when moving to the next topic, first review the existing input and commenting before adding new ideas. Challenge everyone to “get the blue out” as everything new that you did not post appears in blue providing a visual cue, so everyone reads each other’s ideas and comments.

Conference Calls and Break-Out Rooms Breakout rooms on conference calls can be accomplished by having a “Big Tent” number that everyone starts and returns to, with assignments of secondary conference call numbers for each breakout. Of course, with web conferencing platforms offering breakout rooms you can accomplish the same with the addition of video that soon is put aside with the real need being high-quality audio. Have all return to the “Big Tent” for full team reviews. The facilitator can proctor each of the breakout teams via the XLeap facilitation tools and pop in on each of the separate breakout conference calls or web conferencing breakouts.

Multiple Facilitator Screens Logging on as a participant from alternative browsers or from a second laptop, tablet, or phone can be extremely helpful. This enables the facilitator to have one screen devoted to guiding participants through the various activities, with another screen showing the participant’s view or how participants might view the screen using a different browser or device. 77

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Individual Hats and Team Hats For facilitators new to the level of interaction that can occur with facilitation tools using anonymity and simultaneous exchange, the result can appear to be uncontrollable chaos. The facilitator may be overwhelmed with the thought of processing all the content. The answer is to have the participants do the content processing! “But, John, there are hundreds of ideas and comments!” “Yes, there are. You have 15 minutes, so pick a scribe and get to work.” By handing over control of this interaction to the participants, the facilitator gains greater control over the process and the participants gain greater clarity and confidence they will succeed. They also know that what is reported is what they said they said rather than what consultants said they said. Canyon Leaping teams are charged with envisioning what it will be like on the “vision side” for the most important stakeholders, and then asked to work in sub-teams to summarize massive amounts of input—in 15 minutes. When charged with their task as a sub-team, everyone is asked to take off their “individual hats,” put on their “team hats,” and work as representatives of the whole to summarize the input of all participants on a specific stakeholder, knowing that other sub-teams are doing the same for the other stakeholders. After some initial griping and moaning, everyone is amazed at how quickly they complete the tasks. Returning to the “Main Tent,” sub-teams still wearing their “team hats” present their thinking, with other participants wearing their “individual hats” able to respond vocally or anonymously via their keyboards. 78

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By designing processes that weave together individual participation with sub-team and full-team activities, buy-in to the results is significantly enhanced because people know that even if decisions do not go their way, at least they have been heard. The use of sub-teams to process through and summarize the input of the full team ensures that every idea and comment has been read and considered. Key to being able to focus each sub-team on summarizing separate topics is to convey that the review step includes a discussion stage where the full team can review each of the sub-team’s summaries and interject comments—either vocally or anonymously via the keyboards. This either ignites further creative discussions and changes, or simply enables dissenters to gain closure because they know they have been heard. By enabling sticky dots that are green (agree), yellow (needs work— see comments), and red (disagree) and setting the count for each to match the number of summaries, you can assess consensus before moving forward, or have participants edit until sufficient agreement is reached on each summary.

Bias for Decision Making Especially important when facilitating virtual teams: do not assume a decision has been made. Neither silence nor head nodding is synonymous with making decisions. Instead, declare what decisions need to be made, make them, document them, and move on. This applies even if the team is working in an advisory capacity to the decision makers. If a decision on a recommendation can be made, make it! And record it.

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Fearless Peer Investing – Sales Acceleration One of the simplest uses of XLeap is when used to facilitate investment sessions or selling a product or service. Especially if the investments or offerings are complex or controversial. The capability for people to participate anonymously takes away one of the biggest fears people have – BEING SOLD! Fearless Peer Investing is a great way to experience the power of Canyon Leaping Collaboration when those pitching investments are not able to view the discussion of the peer investors. Peers might be a Board of Directors, actual peer investor groups, family offices, or your leadership team. My first time implementing this approach was as an extra activity when facilitating the strategic planning session for the Material Handling Equipment Dealers Association, headed by Executive Director, Liz Richards. A pitch was made regarding outsourcing the Association’s publications and by the time the pitch was finished, the Board had already discussed and decided not to proceed. A version of “Peer Investing” was for physicians at Dekalb Medical Center for facilitating their yearly clinical investment sessions, getting a process that had previously taken months down to a 3-hour dinner meeting. When facilitating virtually, use an alternative web conference for the audio and have just the participants log into XLeap where they view the presentation and have their private discussion and decision-making workspaces.

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“It’s not just that I don’t want to be pounced on if I show some interest or pose a question. I don’t even want them to know what we are discussing!” Anonymous investor

The flip side of Fearless Peer Investing is from the seller’s perspective – Sales Acceleration. This works when the seller has confidence in their knowledge of the needs being served and of the value of their solution. This simple use of XLeap enables those with products or solutions to get their message out while gaining precise feedback, without being perceived as being intrusive. This is especially of value when the product or service is complex, possibly controversial, and where those who would pay are not necessarily who would benefit in the business or other entity.

Lessons for Process Mapping – Process Wins! XLeap’s facilitation tools can be designed or “mapped,” to enable facilitation of a wide variety of team processes. I think of process “mapping” as being like software programming, though with facilitation tools we are programming for people to engage each other instead of working with data.

Walk Before You Run Resist the temptation to try all the facilitation tools and settings with new participants. Let everyone get comfortable first—the value and impact of just brainstorming ideas, discussing them, voting, and assigning actions are sufficient for everyone to “get it.” This works. Here is a participant’s view of the P2 – Action Planning Template: Single Criterion with all workspaces open. This template uses two of the four XLeap tools, Brainstorm and Rating. Note that only the initial brainstorm would be open to start with, or even a preliminary presentation or warm-up activity that are mapped to the template yet not opened unless needed. 82

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Especially in efforts that cross organizations, disciplines, hierarchies, languages, generations, etc., the first evaluation is often used to catalyze great discussions. People often then add to and edit the list and evaluate again. This template and the others that make up my Project Lifecycle templates will be available in Q1, 2024, to members of the Canyon Leaping Collaboration Laboratory and Library.

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Optional Activities When designing process templates there will often be activities that are optional. Rather than waiting to map them on the fly as the need arises, mapping these optional activities and keeping them at the ready is extremely helpful. For example, the same template you viewed above has these optional activities.

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Ignite Creativity by Seeding Initial Ideas Especially with large teams or sessions with board members or senior level executives, seed idea generation and discussions with initial lists and examples. People will see what to do by example, including the recommended syntax for the wording of ideas. Where wording is not consistent, you will find that with anonymity the team will often self-correct. The intention is not to offer a recommended listing that is complete, but a starter set to ignite the creativity of the team. Please know that once an idea is submitted to the XLeap platform as “anonymous,” it cannot subsequently be attributed.

Weave in Vocal Discussions and Mind-Shifting Activities Whiles some people are good to go for hours using the facilitation tools, most people will need to recharge their brains by switching to other tools and approaches. Design into your processes opportunities for people to discuss ideas, topics, or questions, either openly with the whole team or in sub-teams. Design into your processes activities you can have at the ready if the need arises by making them visible to the participants. One I like to use is the "Stroop Test", which illustrates the impact of interference on creativity. It is especially fun on a conference call, as it often produces a laugh for the entire team. Participants are asked to click “Open” and then say the colors out loud.

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Combination Same-Time and Asynchronous Participation Asynchronous participation means people participate in continuously available sessions when their schedule permits. This is a powerful capability for engaging participants, though just as many-to-many XLeap facilitation tools need to be experienced for the possibilities to be understood, so do people need to experience the use of asynchronous participation to understand its potential. Many experienced teams find 15–30 minute, same-time, synchronous sessions to be sufficient, when interspersed with asynchronous participation. For example, a 15-minute conference call once a week, with individual and team assignments in between, or a full team kick-off meeting for 30 minutes followed by sub-teams “jamming” asynchronously for 48 hours, followed by a core “Knowledge Team” processing the results of the sub-teams and reporting back to the full team prior to a follow-up same time decision session. Whew! These tools enable a new level of creativity for designing effective team processes.

Parking Lots In a face-to-face session, a facilitator will often use a separate flipchart to list topics or issues that surface and need to be addressed but are NOT the focus of the specific session. Parking Lots take on a heightened utility in virtual team efforts, especially with asynchronous participation. As simple as adding an additional folder to a brainstorm activity, or a separate Deep Dive activity that is always open.

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Dynamic Sessions: Resubmissions and Changes When teams are contemplating new things, ideas need to be ignited and improved on as people learn and evolve in their understanding of the matter at hand and of each other’s perspectives. For a continuously improving, dynamic session, use the P2 – Action Planning Session: Multi-Criteria template. This template and the rest of the templates for the Project Lifecycle will be available to members of the Canyon Leaping Collaboration Laboratory and Library. In the brainstorming activity, participants are asked to build on each other’s ideas, using commenting and the application of green and yellow sticky dots. Green for agreement, and yellow to indicate the idea needs work, with appropriate explanation expected in the comments. The ideas are then copied into the multi-criteria rating activity that is pre-set to allow for resubmissions. After the first iteration and results review, participants are challenged to further improve the ideas in the brainstorming activity, and to surface new ideas. Edits to existing ideas and any new ideas are then replaced or added to the multi-criteria rating activity, with everyone able to update any rating that is appropriate while rating any new ideas. One use case is for a dynamic requirements identification and prioritization process that is continuously updated. As requirements are addressed, they come off while new requirements are added, discussed, and rated.

Canyon Leaping Collaboration Laboratory and Library CLCLL - Templates, Videos, Tip Sheets and More https://79666119.XLeap.net/clcll For those ready to go beyond the Basic Session Templates, you are invited to join the dynamic and continuously improving Canyon Leaping Collaboration Laboratory and Library (CLCLL). There you will have access to Comprehensive Process Templates that are multiactivity XLeap sessions. Once you are a member of the CLCLL, names and emails will be added to the XLeap defined participants for the CLCLL. This will enable you to download the templates and tip sheets and to view the videos. These and the Basic Session Templates are all available in the CLCLL.

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For members, once logged in to the CLCLL you can view or download the current version of this book. When ready, click JOIN SESSION.

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The tutorial videos are included in a single activity to facilitate shared learning and continuous improvement of all templates. 91

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Additional Templates In Development • • • • • • • • • • • •

CSRD - Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive Igniter Summits - Large Group Process Dynamic Requirement Planning After Action Review Customer Advisory Board Sales Acceleration Process Fearless Selling Session Peer Investor Session Opportunities In Our Aging Society Top 10 Strategies for Caring for Our Brains Child Development for All Children Change, Tweak, Cast In Stone - Senior Housing

Drafts of the templates in development are available in the Lab with tutorial videos and tip sheets to be added. For many professionals, these templates serve as examples of utilizing the XLeap platform while accelerating the mapping and deployment of their own proprietary team processes.

Canyon Leaping – Strategies from the Vision Side Canyon Leaping is the name for my clearly different approach to strategic planning for those making a major transformation. The metaphor being that if you do not transform, you are heading off a cliff. Rather than planning from where you are, plan from where you have already successfully transformed—what I term the Vision Side of your canyon.

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Look at the picture. Where are the people and where are they pointing? Tradition would have them standing on what I term the Ending Side of their canyon, with full awareness of their existing and precarious position, peering across to what is at best a vague, uncertain vision, trying to figure out how to get there. Canyon Leaping assumes that planning from where you are today, what for many is the crumbling Ending Side of your canyon, is the worst place from which leadership teams should plan how to get to the other side. Get the heck out of there!

Plan from the Vision Side Canyon Leaping provides a safe environment to leap to the Vision Side and plan from success. Leadership teams, or “Canyon Leapers,” confidently “Leap” to the Vision Side, vigorously discuss, debate, decide, and vividly paint their Shared Vision of success for each of the most important stakeholders. This perspective is then used for planning the BIG IDEAS that got them to the Vision Side and what Baggage they left behind. Canyon Leaping is made possible by the combination of experienced facilitation, the XLeap facilitation tools, and the Canyon Leaping process. Canyon Leaping can be delivered as rapidly as a one-day face-to-face sessions where need demands, or an in-depth, multi-team, virtual process lasting weeks. Ideally there would be two consecutive 1/2 day sessions face-to-face as the process is very intense. 4-6 hours is usually the maximum using the facilitation tools, even with breaks and time for discussions. 94

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Canyon Leaping vs. Navigating the Waves of Change All entities are confronting massive and myriad waves of change. Unless you intend to become organizational roadkill, it's best to become adept at strategy formulation and to evolve rapidly to strategic management. I offer two adventurous approaches to strategy formulation, Canyon Leaping and Navigating Waves of Change. Determining when to use these approaches is simple. Canyon Leaping is for when you recognize the need to change your momentum and transform, or else head off the cliff. Navigating Waves of Change is for when you are striving to get the most out of your existing momentum.

Canyon Leaping Template Here is a screenshot of the Canyon Leaping Template. The process includes a Preliminary Survey and Creativity Forum to be used for enterprises that need to harvest the creativity of a large audience to then feed the Canyon Leaping session participants.

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Canyon Leaping Examples Canyon Leaping and other adventurous successes cross industries, sectors, and continents, including with the IBM Innovation Center, Farm Management Canada, Standard Life, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Emory University, Elekta, the Pediatric Steering Group, and the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce. The following are two Canyon Leaping successes.

Global Logistics One of many Canyon Leaping efforts working with Amy McKinney, JD, PMP was for a global supply chain that needed to design a new logistics business model. The effort was extremely late, and completion was needed rapidly. Eighteen highly competent subject matter experts were convened. Amy and I guided them to first make decisions about making decisions including deciding that if fourteen agreed, all eighteen would support a decision. Then, after identifying the key stakeholders, they were challenged to "Leap the Canyon" and paint their vision of success for each stakeholder. With significant debate, they utilized anonymity and simultaneous exchange to rapidly build a Shared Vision of success for each stakeholder. Then, leveraging the "Power of Teams," they broke into sub-teams to summarize the thinking about each stakeholder. The Canyon Leapers then wielded this Shared Vision to identify the "Big Ideas" that got them over their Canyon, the "Baggage" left behind, high level maps of both the "As Is" and "To Be" processes and a detailed Action Plan. 96

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Realistically, how long would such an effort take? Not 6 1/2 months, nor 6 1/2 weeks, not even 6 1/2 days. It took 6 1/2 hours. Now with XLeap, this entire process can be done virtually, with many more people, and without regard to time, or place.

Multi-Team Canyon Leaping After the acquisition of an assemblage of businesses, I was charged by the Chairman with planning the operational merger. As described by Dennis Monts, one of the Team Leaders, on my LinkedIn profile: Following the largest acquisition in our industry’s history, John led us through the transition planning to integrate 18 independent brands, multiple shared service centers and over a billion in revenue across offices planted in nearly every state. Embracing a bold vision of serving our employee customers as agents, John helped us “canyon leap” to attack the market as never before. He relentlessly facilitated 15 cross functional teams addressing brand, distribution, human resources, process, and structure to identify goals, understand our current position and set clear forward strategies. The action plans that we developed made the acquisition accretive and knitted the cultures together. Using innovative electronic connectivity and instant messaging, before most had email, John taught us to compress the planning timeframe, engage the organization and move swiftly across wide geography while staying on focus. 97

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Complex issues became manageable by freely unleashing what existed in the minds and hearts of our people. The organization “learned how to learn” and we became more nimble and more effective. Later, we deployed John's teaching and concepts within our forward planning, business development processes, customer, and community interactions. All in all, he helped us hit a home run and gave us the discipline to hit daily singles. I find it interesting that with all the talk about “teams,” there is little talk about teams competing as we did in this effort. I have found you can unleash creativity and accelerate large team processes by simply introducing team competition.

Canyon Leaping Strategy Golf-Treat Agenda The following is the agenda for my preferred approach for “Strategy Golf-Treats” to facilitate the Canyon Leaping process. Two ½ day sessions at a resort providing golf or similar activity, leisurely dining and places for intimate conversations and other relationship building activities. Leadership teams will accomplish more in those two intense sessions then what can be accomplished in a traditional 3-day Strategy Retreat.

Canyon Leaping – Strategy GolfTreat Agenda Day 1 Time 8:00 8:15 8:30

8:45

9:00

10:00 10:15 10:25 10:30

Activity

Ground Rules and Introductions Overview of Canyon Leaping Warm-Up Exercise Identify and discuss ideas Evaluate ideas Establish Canyon Leaping Decision Rules Make decisions about making decisions before making decisions. Build Shared Foresight and Societal Vision Participants identify Waves of Change and begin building the context for their own Shared Vision. Summarize in sub-teams, present, and discuss. Break Stakeholder Identification Prioritize Stakeholders – Identify most important stakeholders Paint Shared Vision 99

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12:00 12:30 1:30 6:30

Participants share images of success on the Vision Side for each stakeholder. Assimilate and respond, summarize in sub-teams, present, and discuss. BIG IDEAS from the Vision Side Participants wield Shared Vision to identify the Big Ideas that got them over to the Vision Side since you do not cross canyons with little steps. Evaluate BIG IDEAS Lunch Tee Times Cocktails & Dinner

Day 2 Time

Activity

11:30

8:00

9:15

10:30 10:45

Baggage Drop – Shared Awareness Participants exchange knowledge and assumptions about the existing environment and what needs to be left behind on the Ending Side of the Canyon. Identify and clear out the Dead Moose, Sacred Cows, and Elephants in the Living Room. Summarize in sub-teams, present, and discuss. Action Planning – Brainstorm Implementation of BIG IDEAS From the Vision Side, the participants are challenged to take the BIG IDEAS and turn each into the Action Plans that enabled them to get to the Vision Side. Break Action Planning Evaluation Criteria Participants are asked to identify the criteria to be used to evaluate the importance of the Action Plan ideas. 100

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11:00 11:15 11:30

12:15 12:30 1:30 6:30

Evaluate Criteria Evaluate Action Plan Ideas Using Criteria Detailed Action Planning For the top Action Plan ideas, participants are asked to identify who is responsible, who will participate, how each action will be accomplished, dependencies, timeframes, resources and how success will be identified. Next Steps & Session Evaluation Lunch Tee Times Cocktails & Dinner

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Elevated Human Intelligence meets GAI This addition to Canyon Leaping Collaboration is dedicated to our friend and colleague, the late Peter Beck. The perpetually curious, creative, and brilliant Peter and I have been collaborating on integrating the work of human teams using XLeap with GAI at the request of XLeap’s co-owner Neal Bastick. Generative Artificial Intelligence, or GAI, is a form of machine learning that can produce text, video, images, and other types of content. Bard, Bing Chat and ChatGPT are examples of GAI that produce text or images based on user-given prompts or dialogue. As GAI enables us to get the most out of data, it is time to get the most out of our human intelligence. Here are two examples in development.

Aging and Your Mind – Top 10 Strategies for Caring for Our Brains This example uses Bard, Bing, and ChatGPT to augment human teams who first collaborate on prompt design and then build on the responses with their own perspectives, thoroughly vet, distill, and craft the final text. 102

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This means that human collaboration and decision making occurs in a walled garden with only the prompts posted to the chatbots. The results are imported into the session with group ids citing the source with their own citations. This safe, private environment created by XLeap is further enhanced with anonymity elevating everyone above friction. Taking what I learned from Peter, I have begun updating my “Aging and Your Mind” seminar to turn it into another dynamic and continuously updatable flip book published on Issuu. A small team is helping me to craft the prompts that we are then using with the chatbots. Once completed for my existing and proposed top strategies I will engage a diverse team of SMEs to augment my existing content with what we have generated from the chatbots and then work to vet and distill to consensus text, with citations. This will then be further distilled into the much requested 1-page summary updates.

As stated on the welcome page, Welcome to Aging and Your Mind, a seminar designed to ignite conversations we should all be having with family and friends yet aren't. The existing seminar handouts are available for download. 103

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Welcome as well to this demonstration of the XLeap platform for education, collaboration and decision making. Click JOIN SESSION to begin.

Select your group and then click to open the first activity.

The session has my existing content, where I am looking to add back in the citations while updating for current research. In contrast to one-time sessions where XLeap is new to everyone and I limit the privileges to not overwhelm everyone, this is set up as a high-performance team writing workspace as everyone has full editing priviledges. 104

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Adding to my content and that of the human team, we design prompts and generate content using the GAI chatbots. For the first strategy for caring for our brains, Aerobic Exercise, the prompt we designed is “In what ways does aerobic exercise benefit our brains?”. Here is the response from Bing Chat:

This is then copied and pasted into the Import Wizard and tagged with Bing as the source..

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After pasting into the left panel, check the content in the right panel for formatting, and then click to select tag by group.

Select Bing and then click PASTE.

The same prompts are also used with Bard and ChatGPT with the results also posted.

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Group tags identify the source of the content. Click on the comment bubbles to display the citations obtained from the ChatBots.

CSRD - Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive Over 50,000 businesses in Europe are required to begin reporting on relevant sustainability matters. The European Sustainability Reporting Standards provide the requirements for preparing and presenting sustainability-related information.

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In the Canyon Leaping Collaboration Laboratory and Library (CLCLL), we are designing and testing how to improve and accelerate the process using XLeap. Here we are exploring using the same approach of tapping multiple GAI chatbots to build out negative impacts, positive impacts, and dependencies on relationships and resources throughout a business's value chain. A key component of the CSRD is that businesses must assess the materiality of relevant sustainability matters on both the impact the business has on humans and the environment as well as the impact the sustainability matter has on the business's dependencies on resources and relationships throughout the value chain.

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Prior to the DMA entities first assess relevancy of the ESRS 1 sustainability matters and additional matters for their sector. Above has people assessing the relevance of all sustainability matters for financial materiality and impact materiality. The resulting heat map will identify the relevant sustainability matters to be assessed in the actual DMA.

Those interested in CSRD are invited to join us in the CLCLL (the clickle or the Lab) to help design and test this new comprehensive template. Facilitating human teams using XLeap augmented with GAI is in line with the reality that people best implement what they help create. Saving vast amounts of time while doing better and having fun. We are taking Canyon Leaping Collaboration to another level of performance so that you can vastly improve the work of your teams.

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About the Author John Carroll serves as Canyon Leaping Guide, Aging Strategist, and XLeap Advocate for The Parker Wright Group, Inc. (PWG). John brings decades of experience gained in using facilitation tools for strategic planning and leading complex project teams across industries, sectors, and continents. Through these efforts, John developed adventurous team processes, including Canyon Leaping for strategy formulation from the Vision Side. John began his career at IBM, bringing business systems planning to former clients, rose to national marketing director for financial institutions at Deloitte and co-founded Strategic Solutions Group, bringing sophisticated market research and planning to those serving the then emerging senior markets while helping to bring together all industries serving seniors last century. This century, John brought together many leadership communities, often for the first time, including the leaders of the pediatric comminity to improve quality of care. John is updating the first in his series of seminars on aging, Aging and Your Mind, using XLeap to engage a diverse team to complete his next book to accompany the seminar. 110

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Both IBM and Deloitte brought John back twice. At IBM to figure out what to do with the original TeamFocus and to facilitate Canyon Leaping strategic planning for the IBM Innovation Center. At Deloitte, he served as the lead instructor to partners and senior managers on client satisfaction and risk. John’s focus now is on expanding the use of XLeap by mapping processes to the platform and teaching others how to facilitate successes, and, of course, to guide more successful Canyon Leaping efforts.

John has been a leader in group processes for quite some time - since his IBM days. He is thoughtful, creative, resourceful and is quick to grasp the needs of his client organizations. I know of none better at the effective leverage of technology to serve small groups or large communities. Several large enterprises and agencies owe a lot of their group creativity and consensus to his efforts. Benn Konsynski Professor Goizueta Business School Emory University

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Canyon Leaping Collaboration Vastly Improve the Work of Your Teams

Canyon Leaping Collaboration

Canyon Leaping is my alternative to traditional strategic planning for entities that must transform. Instead of planning from where they are, the XLeap platform provides the safe environment needed for leadership teams to leap their canyon to plan from the vision side where they are already successful. Canyon Leaping Collaboration takes what I have learned and packages with team processes already mapped to XLeap for facilitating everyday collaboration and decision making. This is different. Your teams need different. Teams getting work done more rapidly, accurately, and successfully. A Canyon Leap from what your teams have been doing.

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