I had the great pleasure to meet and hear Judith E. Glaser speak at the Scale Up Summit in May 2018 in New Orleans.  Her latest book “Conversational Intelligence” is one of the most powerful books you can read to create trust with anybody in your life but as well create trust with your team in your business to get results. It is a must read for everyone.  Judith delivered an amazing session closing out with a very long, standing ovation from the room!  Her work will make a difference in your life.  It already has in mine.

 One of her many tools is “Double Clicking”. This tool got its name because the process mimics the ‘double‐clicking’ that we use when opening folders on the computer. When Judith uses Double‐Clicking with teams, she asks them to delve into (or double‐click) on their individual mindscapes to share and compare word meanings and perceptions with each other.  Its a perfect way to get context and alignment with a team as to what “Success” means to each individual in context of their goals.  Judith created this tool over a decade ago.  

I like to use this tool when getting a team to focus in on “3HAG Success”.  This ensures that even though all team members may be using different words to describe success, they may mean very much the same outcome but just describe it very differently.

I recently used this tool with one of my clients.  Within their team, there seemed to be alignment on the 3HAG written down but the language that was being used by different members of the team was causing some conflict in that everyone thought there was misalignment. It is remarkable to see how often particular use of language can cause humans to “fight” against one another but for the same side! To get clarity for the team and myself as their coach, so we could move forward together, we did the following:

1. The leadership team I was working with was a team of 4 leaders.  I asked each leader to come up with 6 words that describes from their perspective “3HAG Success” and write each word on a separate post-it note.
2. In the meantime – I drew a circle in the middle of the page on the easel and wrote “3HAG Success” inside the circle.
3. I then drew 12 lines/spokes around the circle – similar to the face of a clock.
4. After all the leaders had wrote down 6 words that describes “3HAG Success” on separate post-its – I asked each one to come up and present their words one by one to the group.
5. The first leader to share put their post its up on the easel at each spoke. The second person came up and presented their words.  They put their post-its with the other leaders if there was overlap or similar meaning or if not on another spoke.
6. We did this process til all 4 leaders got their “3HAG Success” words up on the board – lining up similar meanings or putting up a new spoke.
7. Once all leaders shared their words it was amazing that there was agreement, clarity and alignment of what “3HAG Success” meant to the team and individuals. We were able to group what “3HAG Success” was to the team in 5 main areas that whole leadership team agreed upon. 

The result was ground-breaking! This alignment and clarity allowed the team to drive forward for the rest of the day to further clarify and discuss very strategic elements of their 3HAG.  The most amazing observation was that the leaders were using very different words to describe “3HAG Success” – words that were almost at opposite ends of the spectrum. When they were asked to present their words with a description it was uncanny how similar the descriptions were.  This is imparative to getting alignment.  Get each team member to explain what their words mean in the context of “3HAG Success”.

This is an adaptation of Judith Glaser’s “Double Clicking” exercise but the outcome expected is the exact same.  This is a very powerful tool to get everyone’s view on the table of what “Success” means to them and in this case what “3HAG Success”.   Start “Double Clicking” today on your “3HAG Success”.

 -Shannon Byrne Susko