The Jester - How to shake up your politically correct meetings

Like most people, I participate in (too) many meetings. If you run meetings, particularly in corporate settings where political correctness is the norm, you know how frequent and damaging unproductive meetings can be.

While attending meetings, I noticed that some people had a natural ability to challenge and elevate discussions without hurting others’ feelings or seeming aggressive. Even better, they did that effortlessly, spontaneously and without any preparation. The outcome was strikingly superior to “ordinary” meetings.

I identified the behaviors that allowed them to intervene constructively in such meetings and realized these were in line with the medieval jester character. The jester leverages humor and irreverence to express, or rather helps emerge, things that others won’t notice or won’t dare saying aloud, while enjoying the protection of the jester role. Beyond the entertainer that everyone sees at first glance, the jester is empowered to “speak truth to power.”

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The Jester is a role that one person can take in an activity, such as a meeting for example. The Jester is empowered to question anything in order to disentangle a situation.

With a prop to identify himself/herself, such as a jester’s hat for example, the jester can use humorous and provocative language to raise powerful questions in order to gain a clear view of the real problem and let creative solutions emerge.

For example, the Jester hack can be used to:

• Reveal the true intentions behind politically correct business-talk
• Explore creative ways cut through read tape or bypass the traditional chain of command
• Overcome the fear leading to indecisiveness, procrastination and analysis paralysis

This 4-minute video walks you through these situations and explores the kind of powerful questions the Jester might ask.

The Jester is a hack because, unlike traditional techniques it is:

• Immediate: you can try it tomorrow (do you have the courage?)
• Emotional: more than a technique leading to an outcome, it will also push you out of your comfort zone and might challenge your beliefs of what can and can’t be done
• Visible: the Jester and its positive outcome will attract attention and may spread to other teams
• Easy to prepare: the Jester does not require any training, app or authorization

And like all hacks, try it in the spirit of experimenting something unusual and potentially powerful. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Certainly nothing as bad as… nothing.

You might wonder how the Jester hack is related with agility? Well, agility relies among others on transparency and truth, which are greatly strengthened when people are authentic in their interactions. The Jester is a practice that develops authenticity at individual and collective levels.

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If you liked the Jester article, you might also like Management Hacks Toward Agility.

Written by Bruno Collet and Maggie Sun