You're facing power dynamics in decision-making discussions. How can you ensure equity prevails?

An example I’ve seen is level setting the experience. Guiding participants to realize we all have unconscious bias—- Using examples to highlight when it’s presented in your personal and professional life. Not that this justifies the mistreatment of others, but rather recognizing it so we can begin to have open conversations and dialogue around shifting perspectives.

Call it what you will, but ground rules, rules of engagement, and group alliances are all ways of setting group behavior expectations. This is a necessary step but often insufficient to ensure the goals of the meeting or group are met, and the power dynamics are held in check. Three crucial steps are often overlooked: 1) Gaining commitment from the group to honor and abide by the listed behaviors. 2) Naming behaviors that don't align with the list. 3) Check in with the group regarding the listed behaviors during the session. These three steps give the facilitator the space and opportunity to keep power dynamics at bay and allow for equity in decision-making, strategy setting, and more.

To ensure equity in decision-making given power dynamics, I found two practices helpful: Inclusive Meeting Practices: Ensure meeting minutes accurately reflect diverse viewpoints. Structured Decision-Making: Use frameworks that require input from all stakeholders to prevent any single voice from dominating.

I really like using pre-surveys before facilitating a session with a leadership team. They provide valuable insights, which allows me to plan and strategize in advance formulating questions in a way that address key points relevant for that particular team and encouraging different voices to be heard. Especially in spaces where people feel it’s too risky to speak up, I am able to raise complex or sensitive topics carefully without anyone’s safety being compromised, but allows progress to still be made.

I think it’s important to be careful not to discourage an excited participant from engaging in the discussion. As an alternative, in my experience, I’ve found it helpful to vary how people engage with one another. Personally, when facilitating, I appreciate moments of personal reflection, pair and triad conversations, whole group— using tools for better randomization— there’s a multitude of ways to ensure equitable voices are captured.

One thing I find helpful, considering my background in neuroscience, is giving individuals the opportunity to work independently. Using times of reflection, going inwardly, and then pairing to share. This shifts and quiets the dominant voice and moves the power around the room. As a facilitator, we also have the responsibility to ensure engagement is gathered from across the room, not just a sole source.

I have found that fostering equity can be achieved when it’s acknowledged that every decision generally involves a trade-off or shift- prioritizing one arena will simultaneously deprioritize another relative to resources, time, people, budget or efforts. By guiding leaders to objectively evaluate and engage in healthy discourse through this amplify vs diminish lens, you facilitate dialogue that is rooted in broader organizational needs rather than individual agendas. This approach is instrumental in remaining focused on the impact and outcome of each decision, promoting a balanced, holistic perspective. It positively and productively destabilizes dominance, and definitely empowers an equity based decision process.