top of page
  • Writer's pictureMerrill B. Lamont III

Somebody Stop Me

Meetings with remote participants can be hard. I can understand embracing the silence to allow for folks to participate through lag in the network, but sometimes that silence embraces back, hugging ever more aggressively with each passing second, seemingly squeezing the value of that very meeting as thoughts of its efficiency gain a quiet spotlight in the back of our minds.


So let's stop that.


Here's a tactic to use thoughtfully when making a decision: instead of asking for consensus on agreement, ask for an instance of disagreement. When I facilitate, I pick from the following two options.


  • "Anybody want to stop me?"

  • "Anybody violently disagree?"


When asking for consensus on agreement, you're requesting input from everybody.


When asking for an instance of disagreement, you're requesting input from anybody.


You'll have to pause for a bit anyway, but the expectation of that interaction is different, and now, as you actively read the room and make eye contact with everybody as Scrum Master, you're heavily facilitating movement: you're not starting from a place of inertia, but momentum!


This isn't always appropriate, which is why you should use this tactic thoughtfully. This doesn't feel like a 'servant leader' kind of move: you're less 'serving' and more 'leading'. For example, you likely don't want to pull this out in a Retrospective, the most vulnerable of gatherings - you want the time to allow for emotions and thoughts and counter-thoughts and the group moving through its process towards resolution and Kaizen. Yet I know I've often pulled this out in a Daily Scrum, the most concise of gatherings - you have way less time, so you don't need Robert's Rules of Order to just move a virtual sticky between columns when updating the task board when it should've been updated before the Stand-Up and you sense clear agreement on the appropriate location of that virtual sticky.


What I don't like about it is its laden negativity. "...stop me" "...disagree" Not only is there negativity in the question, but if you're employing this tactic, it's likely because everybody will respond in the negative! So now everybody is shaking their heads, or murmuring, "no," and these subtle touches to how I'm contributing to a group's day don't fully jive with me, but I'll gladly take the trade-off to keep moving and then spend more time on more involved decisions.


I think I'll end the blog post here.


Anybody want to stop me?


(For a decision like this, now imagine if I asked y'all if you were OK with me ending the blog post. I'd be here forever. Waiting to hear something from all of you. That pause would start me thinking about the efficiency of this post. I'd start filling the void by typing more, vamping, content decreasing in value with every line, asymptotically reaching a point of such lost attention, not just yours, but mine, such that I act on that urge to straight up stop typ

12 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All
bottom of page