SYSTEMIC TEAM COACHING DELEGATED PROCESSES
A Systemic Team Coaching and Organization Coaching Tool

Download in PDF format

Para consultar este texto en español

This article presents a systemic team and organization development and coaching approach experimented and developed over 25 years within different types of teams and companies, in numerous business environments, on different corporate levels and in a variety of countries and multicultural settings.  We have called it the Systemic Delegated Processes.

After some contextual considerations, we will first focus our presentation on the practical aspects of the Systemic Delegated Processes as these specifically apply to organizing and running efficient meetings to transform them into organization culture learning environments.  Later in this article, we will offer general comments on how the Systmic Delegated Processes serve to modify hidden organizational achitectures, how they permit rapid management-development, multi-national and large-scale organization development.  This will demonstrate how Systemic Delegated Processes can be central in team coaching and organization coaching processes.

It may surprise the reader that we are presenting here a meeting process as an organization development or cross-cultural management and coaching tool.  The surprise may build even more.  The approach presented below has also proved to be instrumental in transforming organization culture.  It can definitely be considered as an extremely efficient means to implement significantly better team management and leadership networks. 

GENERAL CONTEXT

As no one tool is a universal panacea, we consider the Systemic Delegated Processes to be especially useful in a specific context.  Although the process in general and some parts of it may be useful in organizing and running any kind of meeting or reunion, we suggest coaches first achieve an in depth understanding of client meeting structures and objectives prior to using Systemic Delegated Processes or expecting significant results.

  • First, any communication or management tool is neither good nor bad, efficient or inefficient in itself. 

The way it is taught and learned, the context or environment in which it is used, the attitude of the people who use it all have a huge effect on both the short term and long term outcome or results.  Much as with Participative Management by Objectives (MBO), Quality Circles, 360° evaluations, Re-engineering, etc., the way we implement tools sometimes has more influence on the quality of the results than the tool itself

  • Second, the Systemic Delegated Processes are particularly tailored to develop efficiency within intact teams meetings. 

This is especially the case within regularly scheduled executive team monthly or quarterly meetings or during any specific system’s regular weekly or bi-monthly meeting.  The Systemic Delegated Processes tool is therefore most efficiently used on a regular basis in teams of five to fifteen persons that include no more than the team or network, i.e. the leader and all direct reports.

Conversely, the Delegated Processes tool is less necessary or less efficient when used in “crisis-centered” or exceptional meetings that convene on an irregular or short term basis and include relative strangers coming from disparate origins, mixing numerous hierarchical levels and organizational contexts.

Initially, it is neither useful nor efficient in very large meetings that include participants or an “audience” originating from several levels of an organization, in conventions, in informational Power-point type of presentations to very large groups, etc.

  • Third the Delegated Processes are most useful in meetings centered on decision making.

We have witnessed that the Systemic Delegated Processes are especially efficient in teams that want their meetings to be intensely focused on well-prepared issues, well driven debates and powerful decision making. 

The Systemic Delegated Processes will bring less satisfactory results if a team revels in “podium” type meetings structured by one-way speaker-to-audience messages, or centered on purely informative presentations through overhead projectors and slides or “PowerPoint” deliveries.  Consequently, information-centered meetings may not be the best context for deploying Systemic Delegated Processes.  In general, as a matter of fact, we have not witnessed that an intense use of structured «informational» meetings serve dynamic organizations very well.

For a more in-depth analysis and other general reflections on meeting processes and how these may reflect team “profiles”, promote or stifle efficiency and characterize organizational culture we refer the reader to an introductory article entitled “Circularity“ on this same web-site.

To consult the article on circularity on this website

Suffice it to say here that the Systemic Delegated Processes are specially useful when the organizational context in general and top management in particular is very actively and measurably engaged in developing employee and mid-management empowerment, committed to a participative approach that includes honest consulting and delegation processes.  It works best in a result-oriented, reactive, risk-taking, entrepreneurial corporate culture, or in a context which truly wishes to develop that type of environment.

Consequently, the Systemic Delegated Processes are an active and efficient tool to develop the above type of organization culture, and may be considered counter-productive if management is blatantly behaving in ways which could be perceived as withholding information, centralizing and controlling, risk-fearing, and generally conservative.

  • Fourth, the Systemic Delegated Processes have been developed as a “systemic” developmental tool and gains in being used as such. 

It is “systemic” in that it rests on the premise that meetings are central in organizations and teams much in the same way as the nucleus is central in a biological cell.  Modifying team meeting processes and results for the better will improve all that team’s processes and results.  Transforming an executive team’s meeting processes and results can eventually modify the whole organization’s processes and results.  By acting on the system’s DNA, we are acting on the general system’s genetics and therefore on all its processes, identity and ultimate outcome or results.

Also, the Systemic Delegated Processes tool is “systemic” in that it primarily aims to influence or modify interactions between people rather than change the people themselves.  The tool is focused on transforming professional interactions rather than relationships and personalities.  It aims to modify achievement-oriented interfaces between entities in general rather than the entities themselves, such as departments, territories, fields, people, subjects and specialties.  In this context, the Systemic Delegated Process tool is particularly recommended to develop transversal cooperation in a team, and by extension, all collective ownership for an organization’s results. 

In most organizations, a large number of managers want to avoid meetings in as much as many of them are time wasters.  As a result, they would rather deal with problems in a one-on-one situation rather than collectively.  This avoidance solution contributes to the breakdown of collective transversal cooperation within organizations and teams.  The Systemic Delegated Processes tool is an answer to running team and network meetings efficiently to develop collective efficiency and tangible or measurable operational results in systems. 

The Systemic Delegated Processes tool is also systemic or viral in that it can gradually develop or spread throughout a given corporate environment.  It is expected that once the tool is well implemented within one team on any level of an organization, the members of that team can individually spread the process to other teams, meetings and levels and gradually influence the way meetings are run in the whole system.  Consequently, the tool generally can and should be spread in a sort of viral mode throughout the client organization.

MEETING PROCESSES

Careful consideration can first be given to preparing a meeting.  Often, a precisely timed agenda is prepared and distributed to all participant prior to a meeting, sometimes  documents or pre-reads accompany the preparation to be sure each is well informed.  All this preparation, however is focused on meeting content and not on interactive processes during the meeting.  This is quite surprizing on a systemic level, for no matter the meeting content and the professionalism in its preparation, meeting processes have a huge influence on organizational culture and results.

A well-prepared and well-run meeting can be totally timed and controlled by the system’s boss or the meeting chairperson to reach a series of very well prepared and defined decisions.  This may be immediately efficient but will re-enforce long term organizational centralization, control, and general dis-empowerment by the rest of the meeting members.  This is particularly true when the other meeting members are kept out of the preparation loop and limit their meeting participation to just being good listeners.

A very participative open meeting format can favor exchanges, discussion, debate, dialogue and consensus-reaching.  This will probably develop the individual commitment of team members but may be time-consuming.  Open meeting structures that over-priviledge participant exchange and relationships generally affect the reactivity of the system and ultimately leads it to underestimate urgency or emergency situations.

Well-prepared meetings crammed with over-head projected slides and “PowerPoint” informational content may gradually limit a system to a series of long and boring show-and-tell rituals focused on explanations and analysis, having little for future-oriented challenging, results-driven decisions and timely action.

Creative high-energy and intellectually challenging or stimulating brain-storming or arguing marathons may sometimes lack the real down-to earth focus on one or two key obvious back-to-basics actions that just need professionally structured, long-term implementation and follow up.

To conclude, after observing one or two meetings in a team, and no matter the professionalism of its content, the commitment of the participants, it is often possible to extrapolate from its processes some of that team’s basic cultural or behavioral shortcomings and by extension, its organization’s limits.

So as a general rule, if meeting attendants are often focused on content and results to justify itheir presence, we will temporarily also suggest to take a close look at meeting processes in order to review the ones that need to be modified and to make the necessary team decisions for meeting process change.

DECISION MAKING

The ultimate function of a system’s meetings, as we have stated it above, is to permit collective decisions making so as to drive collective action and results.  This will develop transversal teamwork, cooperation and collective ownership of organization processes and results.

This decision-making function typically places the official system’s decision-maker, the boss or project manager in a central position in the system.  This will therefore put that person in a central position during the entire meeting’s processes.  In effect, the meeting chairperson or decision-maker becomes not only responsible for making or validating decisions, but for all of the system processes following the meeting.  As a result, we have often alternatively witnessed team leaders or decision-makers host and organize “their” meetings, and actively participate in the preparation before, the content during and the follow-up after their system’s meetings.  More often than not through these centralized meeting processes, the decision-maker reinforces the position of being the central driving force in all of his or her future team’s processes.

Typically, the team leader may also moderate, keep track of time, push for decisions, refocus the content, follow up on the minutes, confront and drive the other team members, set deadlines, comment on individual poor preparation and participation and generally carry the responsibility for the whole process.

This type of de-facto one-man-or-woman-show process may lead observers to justifiably conclude that if the leader cannot make it to any one team meeting, that meeting may as well be postponed or cancelled.  This is surprisingly and unfortunately very often the case in numerous systems.  Ironically, this process can be witnessed in a large number of organizations that very blatantly post and pay lip service to cultural statements underlining their in-depth commitment to empowerment, delegation, sharing of responsibilities and other buzz-words.

To get organizations to walk their talk, we first suggest that teams rather than leaders become decision driven, and that specifically tailored team meeting tools such as delegated roles and other Systemic Delegated Processes help them get there.  To achieve this goal effectively, all meeting processes need to be delegated to the team as a system, and to each of its members taken individually.  This is the one main objective and measurable result of the Systemic Delegated Processes tool.

Again, remember that the delegation of all meeting processes to the team members during a meeting is an intermediate step that ultimately aims to modify the general culture or collective operational frame of reference within a leadership team, and ultimately within their whole organization. 

Indeed, in as much as a meeting is only a partial microcosm of a team’s reality, implementing a delegation process during a leadership meeting primarily aims to promote a general modification of the team’s total delegation and empowerment processes outside of the meeting.  In this sense, delegation during a meeting is not a goal in itself but a means to promote a change in the delegation and empowerment processes in all the team’s realities, before and after meetings.

Online SELF-COACHING JOURNEY: evaluate your manager and coach skills and patterns on line!

SYSTEMIC DELEGATED FUNCTIONS

The one function that a decision-maker cannot totally delegate is that of making decisions.  Implicitly or explicitly, the decision-maker is expected to either make or validate all the decisions made within a team or by each one of the team members.  As in any executive branch of any organization, this ultimate responsibility covers all decisions and actions made by the system for which the decision-maker is responsible.

From this basic principle can be deduced the fact that if the decision-maker does not necessarily explicitly make all the decisions, he or she is just ultimately responsible for all of them and for all their their effects.  This validation principle implies that the decision-maker is necessarily informed of all decisions, whether or not the content of these are in fact delegated to the team or not.

Beyond the absolute necessity to be informed of all decisions, the decision-maker can and ultimately should be in a position to delegate all the other meeting functions mentioned in the chart below. These systemic functions apply to any team or network meeting. They are  focused on meeting participation and moderation, time-keeping and pacing, decision driving and follow-up, process coaching, meeting preparation and hosting the meeting.  Of course, depending on specific team needs, other functions can and sometimes should be developed.

With this frame of reference in mind, it is of the utmost importance to underline that the ultimate objective is also to delegate the decision making process to the team as a whole.  Indeed, if the team as a system is to become action-driven or results oriented, it is to collectively process information during meetings to the point of making its own decisions whether or not the decision maker is present at the time these are made (so long as he or she is immediately informed).  Consequently, if one can be ultimately absent from a well-managed systemic meeting, that person is the team leader.

When this process is installed in a team, one can truthfully say that an empowerment process is actually taking place in a delegated context, where all the responsibility for actions and results are really taken by the team rather than delegated upwards to the team leader.

To acquire a KINDLE book on Team and Organizational Systemic Coaching

SYSTEMIC DELEGATED ROLES

To delegate the meeting functions we propose the following specific roles focused on precise managerial competence.  Each one of these roles can or should be carried out by one of the team members in turn.  We stress here that this systematic and planned rotational process between all the team members is paramount to developing total team coresponsibility for all the processes.

  • The first systemic or process role to be delegated is the meeting moderator or facilitator. 

The facilitator’s responsibility is to ensure a good management of the team’s energy during the meeting.  The best metaphor for this role is that of an orchestra conductor’s role, leading a musical group’s collective expression. 

Like a conductor, the facilitator, should be facing the group rather be than part of it, often standing rather than statically sitting, and using his or her body expression and movements to give a rhythm to the work at hand.  “Baton” movements such as hand gestures, eye contact with specific participants, movements towards or away from active members of the group, varying facial expressions and the judicious use of a paperboard are all visual aids to accompanying shared team participation, energy and pace.

The facilitator-conductor also has in mind to keep all participants playing variations on the expected music, keeping them focused on the subject at hand.  Managing good interfaces between participants, limiting interruptions, keeping each in their rightful place as an “equal” and respectful participant could also be considered part of the facilitator role.

Of course, the facilitator should also occasionally input his or her personal ideas without becoming the main participant.  The facilitator should avoid to get too involved with personal input to the extent of “hogging” the show.  In a way, the conductor is first at the service of the orchestra.  Choosing when to lead, and when to let go, when to be central and when to let others become more active, when to be firm and when to be soft, in quick and easy changes of pace and posture can also keep the movement dynamic and everyone usefully involved.

The facilitator can be helped in the task of driving the meeting by two other active meeting roles: the pacer and the decision driver.  When the facilitator gets indications from either of these as to the management of time or of decisions, it is useful to work with these indications and persons, for the sake of better meeting efficiency.  In a way, these two other roles could be considered the main meeting helpers to being a good facilitator.

  • The second systemic or process role to be delegated is the decision-driver.

This role’s responsibility is to be constantly and actively focused first on provoking and then on recording decisions.

Provoking decisions consists in regularly and judiciously reminding the group to focus on formulating decisions.  Typical interventions could be for instance: “are we nearing a decision?”, “Could we focus on making a decision now?”, “How can we formulate this into a clear decision?”, “Are changing subjects without having made a decision on the previous issue”, "We clearly disagree, so what decision can we make?"  etc.

Whenever the decision driver is attempting to focus the team on making a decision, the team should offer full support.  For a majority of teams, it is very easy indeed to avoid the issue altogether, and continue to debate.  when clarifying decisions, the decision driver will also ensure that these are clearly defined and measurable, that the deadlines are discussed and set, and that the responsibility for carrying or piloting these decisions or for monitoring or tracking them is precise.

In short, the decision driver's role is to make sure that the group or team has a clear understanding that measurable future action needs to be defined, in the proper direction and at with appropriate timing.  During a systemic meeting, this role is a form of “decision-punctuator” that relentlessly drives the group from decision to decision.

Recording decisions, the second function of the decision driver, consists in writing on legal-size paper (or typing on an EXEL worksheet), as specifically as possible, the group’s wording of each decision.  These must include specifically measurable responsibilities for actions within deadlines.

This record should be written on a prepared template or chart that remains similar from meeting to meeting.  A general and simplified format we often suggest may have the following headings and appearance:

Once this template is completely filled, the decision driver should immediately photocopy it and distribute it (or e-mail it), giving each participant an immediate and complete record of all the decisions.  This filled-out form must be immediately distributed to all concerned participants before departure from the meeting.

In the pilot column, the decision driver will record the name of the person responsible for the follow up of the decision.  Specific responsibilities are individual (i.e. only one person can be responsible for following up on any given action or for monitoring any collective action).  We have indeed noticed that when more than one person is responsible for an action, no one really feels responsible for it.  If you don’t want to get something done, delegate it to a group.

Decisions should define actions.  They therefore must be entered in precise and measurable terms rather than with vague or philosophical liguistic formulas. We have noticed that being “legalist” about goals, writing them down in specific, observable and measurable terms, in complete sentences with all necessary details, makes them more real and permits better team commitment to making them happen.

Deadlines must be specifically dated. These often gain in effectiveness when they are as short-term as possible to create a sense of urgency.  We have noticed that when deadlines are too far off, people and teams may just be buying time.  In time, decisions and related actions are forgotten, and goals are not reached.  this is like the proverbial “I’ll stop smoking next year”.  Tomorrow is better, right now is best.

All in all, the decision driver role is central in keeping a team meeting focused on it’s main measure for collective efficiency: clear-cut, recorded and measurable decisions that are immediately distribude and that intend to make a real change on the team’s or organization's future reality.

  • The third systemic process role to be delegated is the pacer.

This function consists in helping the team pace itself in whatever short-sequence time allotments it has chosen.  For instance if a meeting sequence on a specific subject is to last for 20 minutes the pacer can intervene to signal the passing of every five minutes (every quarter of the sequence). Typically, this consists in clearly and loudly announcing to all the team members the time spent and the time left in the collective contract, for instance, “we have just used ten minutes out of our twenty minute allotment”. 

If the team were to run overtime, the role consists in announcing just that, every five minutes, for instance: “we now are five minutes overtime on our twenty minute contract”.

Meeting sequences should never be longer that twenty minutes, so pacing needs to be at most every five minutes.  This may initially seem excessive, but it works wonders in gradually training teams to better manage their time and to meet their deadlines, in much larger systemic contexts.

The function for the pacer is to help keep the whole team totally focused on the work at hand during the whole sequence, so as to avoid the usual waste of time in the first three quarters of the meeting, and the usual low-quality time rush in the last quarter. 

Remember that the pacer is not responsible to be a “cop” on the time issue pressing the group to hurry up or to stop when time is out.  Poor time management is not the pacer’s responsibility but the whole team culture’s issue.  The pacer is a form of Big Ben, and is in no way responsible for possible effectiveness or waste of time.  Nor is the pacer to be a decision-maker on the time issue, allotting more or less time to different sequences.  Managing time allotments and segments is ultimately of the whole team’s responsibility.  Consequently, all collective options regarding time management should be worked out with the moderator’s help.  It is not to be delegated to one team scapegoat.  When correctly implemented and after a few team members have held the role, measurable team time effectiveness becomes measurable, in meetings and after.  Also remember that there is a decision-maker in the meeting who can make final decisions on the time issue, just as for any other any other decision, should that need arise.

  • The fourth systemic process role to be delegated is the meeting process advisor or coach

The process advisor’s function is to do just that, at the end of the meeting.  A ten-minute time slot is reserved at the end of every meeting to allow the person holding that role to give improvement-focused feedforward or future-oriented advice to each of the team members in turn.  This feed-forward session should be delivered by using some coaching skills. As we have often observed that these are not necessarily well known nor practiced by managers, we will give underline a few basic options.

Speak to each person and look at her or him.  Do not talk about them in the third person, looking elsewhere.  Coaching is about establishing connections, not about avoidance or speaking about people as if they were absent from the room.

Do not formulate general comments on the group.  Nobody really feels concerned with observations such as “the energy was low and it seems that we were all tired”.  General comments are also unjust, as they do not apply to all equally.  “We have a listening problem” said in a group setting often only applies to a minority.  A number of people are good listeners, quite aware of the problem, and bothered its disrespectful effects.

Coaching consists in giving clear individual and improvement-focused future solution-oriented advice to each person in turn.  Consider: "Next meetings, I suggest you contract with your neighbors that they will stop your side-discussions."  "Next meetings, experiment with sitting close to an active participant, and participating at least as much on all issues at hand."  "In the next meetings, have Linda pick you up on the way coming, and that way, you will be on time with her."

Consequently, avoid finger pointing or judgment-type comments on past observations such as “in the beginning of this meeting, you had a side discussion with your neighbor and should avoid that”.  Finger-pointing and behavioral judgments never worked for promoting change.  They just create resentment.

Formulate observation by speaking for yourself, such as “I suggest...", "I would try...", etc.  And introduce these with "low" positionning such as "I'm not sure if this will be well formulated, but..." "I don't know if this will work for you but try...".

Give options for solutions such as “I’m not saying that you need to cut out what you have to say to your neighbor.  Then we’d all loose out on the comment.  In the future, I’d rather you include us all in the discussion and get us involved with your ideas.  So in the future, I suggest you give your side comments to the whole group”.

These are all simple coaching skills that are not often known by managers and even less practiced.  The aim, through this role is to develop awareness on what can be efficient meeting behavior and processes, and link these to efficient organizational behaviors and processes.  In time managers who practice this systemic role in meetings gradually start giving future-oriented feed-forward in other organizational contexts.  This defenitely has an effect on perceived respect, results and commitment in the larger organization.

Enter your email and suscribe to our newsletter
Your email is not valid, please enter a valid email.
  • Other regular or exceptional systemic meeting roles can be created depending on specific team needs, such as the host, the technician or the scribe.

The host is a role that has often been developed in organizations which choose to have their meetings in different locations on a rotating basis.  In one European company, for instance, each quarterly meeting was held in a different country in turn.  Organizing the three-day event for the rest of the executive team occupied the host quite well.  One of the concerns was to see that the European team had an influence on the local system through visits, other meetings and interfaces with local departments.  Another expectation was that the executive team could give a feedback to the local system before they left.  A well-organized rotational process of meeting locations often has a strong influence on all the local systems in turn.

This same type of rotational process for meeting location was organized in a regional restaurant chain.  The managers had their regional meetings in each of the restaurants in turn, and modeled the professional attitude and behaviors they expected their employees to have.  Each meeting was organized by a different host in a different location.

The technician is a useful role in the case of use of complex technical equipment.  So many meetings have been sidetracked because of faulty or poorly mastered complex equipment. 

The scribe is a temporary support role for the moderator if the latter has difficulty in flip-chart writing.  The danger of course is in having two people up-front, competing for group attention.  a similar type of confusion would take place if the scribe suddenly starts focusing on pushing group decisions, thereby shadowing the decision driver.

DELEGATED MEETING AGENDA PREPARATION

This text would not be complete if it did not mention the issue of how to prepare meetings in a fashion that would be in keeping with the Systemic Delegated Process philosophy.  Typically in teams that aim to achieve true ownership of their processes and results, meeting preparation is also delegated to the team members. 

To achieve this aim, each team member typically proposes agenda items by sending them to the moderator at least four days before a monthly meeting.  This is done by filling out a dedicated template on which will be carefully detailed the following important elements: The title of the sequence, a detailed description of the issue to be covered, the complete formutation of the decisions that are proposed by the participant, including measures, pilots and deadlines, the meeting sequence time judged useful to modify, add to, or validate these decisions and finally, the list of synthetic pre-reads other team members need to consult to come prepared.

The moderator then designs a prelimary meeting agenda by integrating all the received proposals and sends it to the team leader for modification, additions and approval.  The team leader then sends the agenda to all the team members at least three days before the meeting, in order to give the team members ample time to prepare.

THE SYSTEMIC CIRCULATION PRINCIPLE

Experience with the Systemic Delegation Processes has shown that it is important to formally ensure that the above meeting roles rotate among all the team members without exception, on a regular, predictable or programmed basis.  If that is not done, teams will generally arrange to have the same people doing the same roles on a regular basis.  That will have a very clearly measurable conservative effect.  Regularly having the same people “carry” the same delegated roles gradually gives them a “power” or expert position compeletely in contradiction with the developement of systemic effectiveness. As we have observed in all organizations, people tend to yse their expertise to push their agendas.   Experts that specialize in specific content or in the above process-oriented roles will often unknowingly limit others from assuming their equal share of responsibility in team processes and results, within or outside of meetings.

Consequently, the systematic circulation of the above systemic functional roles helps promote shared ownership, co-responsibility, empowerment, delegation, and partnership in teams.  As each of the team members become proficient in each of the roles, he or she will also gradually acquire the basic managerial skills inherent in each of the roles. These skills will also gradually be displayed by the team members in all other arenas where managerial skills are needed, when managing themselves and others outside of meetings.

This management training dimension is one of the most important arguments against having the “good” team members carry any one role on a regular basis.  It is important for all the team members to learn and become proficient in all the systemic process roles, first in order to develop themselves, and secondly in order to gradually transform the organizational management culture towards the developement of more ownership and empowerment.

To ensure the circularity of the roles, we again propose a medium term plan that will chart  their rotation among all the team members on a predictable basis, over a period of 6 to 12 months.  The following chart is a partial example of one we have seen, with team member names remaining to be filled in.

To acquire a KINDLE book on Team and Organizational Systemic Coaching

CONCLUSION

We have witnessed that when it is carried out correctly, the systemic delegated meeting process has a quick and direct effect in developing meeting efficiency in most team meetings.  Countless teams have very rapidly benefited from the tool in almost any organizational or national culture or in any multicultural setting, worldwide.

It is important to underline however, that meeting efficiency is not the tool’s main effect nor its most important goal.   Each of the delegated roles is tailored to teach and allow the practice of specific managerial competencies. in a relatively short period of time (months) the effects of such a systemic delegated process has had lasting effects in rendering very large systems very efficient.  As different team members practice and see others practice the same roles time and again, they each gradually and almost “naturally” learn the concerned competencies.  Each team member learn by doing and by seeing others experiment with the same difficulties.  As the roles or functions are practiced and learned by each team member during team meetings, the skills are naturally carried over in their day to day management outside of meetings, in other personal and professional contexts.

By practicing and observing others practice the coaching role in meetings on a regular basis teaches each of the team members how to be a practical, future and solutions-oriented manager.  The learned coach feed-forward skills are then applied in the management of each of their own teams elsewhere.

By practicing and observing others practice the decision driver role in meetings, each of the team members learns to focus on making, writing down and following-up decisions.  That skill is then used in the management of their own teams outside of meetings.

By practicing and observing others practice the pacer role on a regular basis within all meetings, each of the team members gradually learns how to better pace themselves in their daily tasks and ultimately, pace their own teams.  In this way, the systemic process tool gradually teaches better time management to the whole system.

By practicing and observing others practice the facilitator role in every meeting, each of the team members learns some of the fundamentals of how to manage team energy and participation in collective endeavors.  That management skill is then used elsewhere in the management of each of the participant’s teams and in following up on projects outside of meetings.

The roles provided by the Systemic Delegated Processes are actually designed to provide a management development and training context that is very practically inserted in meetings.  As participants play each role in turn in each meeting, they all indirectly learn how to model basic management tools.  In effect, team meetings gradually become a systemic management development learning environment.  Delegation happens through the Systemic Delegated Processes and gradually disappears from the list of buzz words that generally serve to replace active modeling

Note that when a Systemic Delegated Process is effectively implemented by a leadership team within its own meetings, all other teams within the same organization gradually learns to do the same.  As usual, modeling is a much more effective to achieve change in organizations than merely paying lip service to principles while keeping the same behavior. Consequently, implementing the Systemic Delegated Processes tool in a large number of meetings in an organization is not only a way to ensure better meeting management.  It is mainly a tool to develop a more effective delegation management culture in general, and ultimately a central tool in implementing systemic organization transformation. 

Copyright 2008.  www.metasysteme-coaching.eu  Alain Cardon

To attend workshops to develop systemic coaching and management skills