I often help clients make complex and important decisions. Strategic planning, significant changes, and sensitive issues are the main situations where I am brought in. Inevitably, this includes working with a group of leaders who are the decision-makers and whose buy-in is critical to success. My clients are often amazed at how quickly I can extract significant insights and guide a group to critical decisions that they all support with great enthusiasm and commitment. Want to know my secrets?

Masterful facilitation and a sound decision-making process are two essential ingredients. Those aren’t so secret though because they are pretty obvious. But there is a third that is far less obvious: choosing the right starting point and boundaries for the discussion.

If you want to lead a group to conclusions that they all embrace, you must find the right starting point and boundaries.

How do you find that starting point? There are three main avenues of inquiry:

1. You must understand what important decisions have and haven’t been made. This isn’t just one person’s perspective. If any member of the group doesn’t think a decision has been made or doesn’t agree with a decision that others think has been made, the decision hasn’t really been made. If you ignore a contested decision foundational to progress, you will lose some people right off the bat because they will be tied up in worry, anger, or frustration.
2. You must understand the relevant concerns of each group member. Open concerns will fester if ignored. If you hope to arrive at smart decisions and commitment, you must lay those issues to rest either by resolving them or explicitly obtaining agreement that a resolution is not necessary for achieving your objectives.
3. You must be clear about what options are on and off the table. If the CEO says an option, which others favor, is off-limits, you’ve got a problem. Create clarity and ensure all group members can live with options deemed on and off the table.

Get the starting point and boundaries right, and you will be a good way down the road to enthusiastic agreement. Now all you need to do is to masterfully guide the group and follow a rational process to, and through, those critical intermediate outcomes!