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A ‘confrontation meeting’ is a one-day workshop that can help you, and your team, identify your organization’s problems and develop an action plan that will solve them. It was first developed by organizational development expert Richard Beckhard in the 1960s as a tool for management groups, but can be adapted for use at any level within an organization. [1][2]
This article talks you through the basics of running a confrontation meeting, before setting out guidelines for the meeting’s facilitator. The facilitator should be someone, usually from HR or L&D, or an external consultant, who is able to maintain an outside perspective.
Objectives
Over the course of a single day, you and your team will work together to:
- identify the key problems that are faced by your organization
- identify the root causes of the problems that you face
- develop an action plan to solve your organization’s problems
- agree on a schedule for the completion of your action plan
What You’ll Need
- a large meeting room, set up with enough tables and chairs for small groups of between five and 15
- a flipchart and pens for each small group
How to Use This Exercise
A confrontation meeting has six stages and will usually take a whole work day to complete. It should be used when there is a recognized need to change, but you are unsure what to change or where to start.
The number of people involved can vary, as participants will be split into smaller discussion groups of between five and fifteen. If you wish to address organization-wide problems, you should include all of the top managers from each department. If you wish to address problems with one department, you should include all of that department’s managers and team leaders, and so on.
The facilitator should then follow the instructions below.
What to Do
1. Climate Setting (45 minutes – 1 hour)
Gather all of the participants together and present your intended goals (i.e. identifying and solving the organization/facility/department’s problems). Emphasize that all discussion should be free and uninhibited and that everything that is said should remain permanently free from reproach. It is also important to explain that no one will be criticized for bringing up the organization’s problems, as the objective of the day is to work together to solve them.
You should then explain that participants will be split into groups, and will be tasked with discussing their needs and goals, as well as the needs and goals of the wider organization. Ask participants: What are the obstacles, demotivators, poor procedures or policies, unclear goals, or poor attitudes that exist today? What different conditions, if any, would make the organization more effective and make life in the organization better?
Invite participants to ask questions, and then split them up into groups. Every group should include a representative from each department or team (one from sales, one from marketing, and so on). If senior managers are involved, they should form a distinct group. Crucially, no one should be in the same group as their boss.
2. Information Collecting (1 hour)
Give the groups one hour to follow this brief, with one or two members of the group recording what is discussed on the flipcharts so that they can easily be compared later.
During this hour, move from group to group to encourage openness and answer any questions that participants may have.
3. Information Sharing (1 hour)
Gather all of the participants together and display the flipcharts at the front of the room for all to see.
Ask a representative from each group to outline the problems they have identified, and the changes that they would suggest to make the organization more effective.
Because each group hears the results of every other group’s discussion, a maximum amount of information is shared.
4. Break for Lunch (1 hour)
During the break, create a master list of problems that eliminates duplication. Then, allocate each problem to the functional team that will need to address it – along with any suggested solutions.
For example, IT issues should be grouped together to be discussed by the organization’s IT department. Because the list of problems has been produced by representatives from across the organization, the team will not just be addressing the issues that they themselves have identified.
5. Priority Setting and Group Action Planning (1¼ hours)
Gather participants together and ask them to form their ‘natural’ work teams. For example, everyone in Sales should work together. Each team should be led by their usual team leader or department head.
Present each team with their collated list of problems, then ask them to:
- prioritize the problems to identify the issues that they will deal with first
- come up with a plan to solve the problems
- agree on a realistic schedule for implementing their plan
Review (1 hour)
At this point, the facilitator can either gather everyone back together or finish the meeting for everyone except the team leaders and senior management.
They should then invite the group leaders to share the results of their discussion with senior management and agree upon next steps.
Finally, ensure that participants agree upon a schedule for follow-up meetings. Usually, these will take place monthly and will give each team leader the opportunity to share their progress with the senior management team.
References[2] Wendell L French & Cecil H Bell, Organization Development (6th ed) (PrenticeHall, 1999), pp 193-195. Based on: Richard Beckhard, ‘The Confrontation Meeting’, Harvard Business Review (March-April 1967), pp 149–155.
