Can I Just Pick Your Brains?

It’s often the consultant’s lot that people will get in touch and say, “can I just pick your brains?” and in many cases what follows is a cat and mouse conversation where the consultant is often loathed to give value away for free and the brain picker doesn’t really want to pay.

Early on in my consulting journey (I went freelance in 2007) I developed a bit of a speech impediment and I said yes to all the brain picking queries.  Initially it was because I was new and keen to explore conversations that might lead to some paid work, for a while I went through a phase of batting ‘brain pickers’ away as invariably the process left me feeling a bit used.  Eventually I learned how to strike a healthy balance between providing genuine value for free (through choice not pressure) and sometimes watching that value come back in the form of some paid work or a benefit in some other form.

In late 2020 I got more than the usual amount of pick your brain calls and, as I engaged in these conversations, I noticed a marked difference to the way they normally go.  Rather than seeking a freebie piece of advice or help with a project, those getting in touch (mainly CEO’s, Founders, Directors, Senior Managers and Business Owners) quickly turned from brain-picking to offloading their frustrations (organisational and personal), and in many cases becoming quite vulnerable in the process.

Life can be stranger than fiction because I had been playing with the idea of creating a Forum for various groups of people, mainly in the charity and social enterprise space but my attempts at pulling it all together as a coherent product that I could introduce to market wasn’t going that well.

In the face of the queries coming my way I decided to road-test the part-complete Forum idea without charge for a 6 to 8-week period and this coincided with the new-year lockdown.  Therefore, in early Jan2021 I wrote to a select group of charity Founders, CEO’s, CIC Directors and various business owners in the social enterprise space and offered them the chance to meet regularly over zoom.

I looked at what others were doing in this area of work and what I found was that most of it seemed to be face-to-face, geographically restricted (to a region or country), very travel dependent, quite pricey, aimed at the c-suite executives and either accredited in some way or subject to someone’s proprietary formula.  Most groups seemed to meet approx. 6 - 8 times a year for a full day and some also had a 2-day retreat at some point during the year.

I didn’t want to replicate this, the truth is I couldn’t replicate this, what I wanted to do was more in line with a quote I recently came across by Saint Francis of Assisi – “do what’s necessary; then do what’s possible, and soon you’re doing the impossible”

What was necessary was a short, regular meeting to allow leaders to meet safely, speak honestly, support each other and benefit from the collective experience of the group (personally and professionally).  I felt the power was in the group of people coming together and my role was to be the honest broker / facilitator of that meeting.

Lockdown gave me the opportunity to create a simple zoom version of The Forum that wasn’t geographically restricted or travel dependent, was relatively low cost, with minimal time commitment, and which I hoped would create genuine value and high impact (with a paid version coming on stream if the road-test went well)

Talking to those that responded to my email about the free Forum road-test offer, I asked them what they wanted in terms of frequency and duration of meetings.  To my surprise most said they wanted something weekly of approx. 60 – 90 mins duration and so by late January Forum#1 was up and running and by early February Forum#2 was established.

While both groups were made up of charity and/or social enterprise CEO’s, and Directors they ran very differently e.g. one group was recorded by agreement and the other worked best when not recorded and one was more organisational in focus and the other more personal.  

Anyway, the deal was, do the road-test, see how it goes and then decide if you want to carry on after the road-test for a fee.  We would use the road test to gather feedback about what went well and what needed to be changed and/or dropped going forward

Feedback:

• It was good to be connected to other leaders as peers
• Hearing about how others (leaders and organisations) dealt with and resolved things was very helpful
• Seeing that some of the stresses and dynamics being experienced were common to other organisations and leaders helped me
• Having a place to share thoughts with others rather than keeping them locked-in was a positive benefit
• Frequency & duration of meetings – going forward meet less often but for a bit longer
• As lockdown eased, life and work were likely to get busier (time pressure will increase and so will the need for support)
• I'm usually zoom fatigued but I looked forward to this
• Flexible pricing options would be good

Moving forward and armed with the experience from the road-test and the feedback from the two groups I have created The Forum v2.0 – see below for details:

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The Development Forum: “space to think, develop & grow as a leader”

Who?

• For Charity (and CIC) Founders, CEO’s, Directors, and Senior Managers

Why?

• The broad concept is that it's tough at the top.
• Most charity & CIC leaders, founders and senior managers have to be there for their organisations or shoulder the load of carrying the organisation forward.
• Peers are often hard to find, and support is usually thin on the ground. 
• My aim is to create a safe space to meet and support each other, benefit from each other’s experiences, inspire each other, and create added value for the group
• It’s a chance for the collective experience in the group to be applied to individual and organisational challenges
• High impact for minimal time commitment that's affordable

What?

A focused 4-month peer support group made up of:

• 10 x 90-min groups – weekly for the first 2-weeks, then fortnightly after that
• Access to one-to-one follow up via phone and email, as agreed
• Occasional Invited guest speakers on topics helpful to the group – by agreement
• An invite only group with a maximum of 6 - 8 attendees
• An option to securely record sessions via zoom for you to review as required

When?

• Following a successful road-test of the first 2 CEO groups I am starting new groups in May 2021, on Mondays or Thursdays from 2pm (TBC we will go with the consensus of those that sign up)

Where?

• Delivered via the Zoom Platform
• Virtual means it’s not location dependent and there is no travel time to and from a venue

Membership Fee:

• Membership is based on a 4-month contract and costs ￡500 per person.  
• There is a 10% reduction for upfront payment and no VAT is payable
• Renew after 4-months or move to an annual contract for ￡1,200 PA