Problem Solving — Front & Back Channels

People need to solve problems. The problem, however, is that some people have a slightly or sometimes very different idea of what the problem actually is. Without alignment about what that is, people will be solving different problems, and chaos ensues.

Making ideas visible allows each person to create a physical, public presentation of what they believe is the problem to be solved. As a result, we can now normalize it and have the group align on what is the real problem they want to tackle.

When working together as a team there are two modes of engagement. The front channel is the physical space and tangible objects people use. It’s what we collectively see, hear and touch. The backchannel is the psychological space such as the emotion, mindset, and attitude of the team. Setting up the front channel with the right actions unlocks the backchannel.

Front channel is where you physically present ideas, and the back channel is the energy, attention, and emotion where the magic actually happens. As a problem solver, you need to be aware of and comfortable with directing both channels.

One of the biggest blocks in collaboration is that we don’t tend to follow a process. Instead, we follow our hunches and do what we typically do, and the results can be poor. we can establish an intentional process for it. The word SPACE (acronym) can help you remember these steps.

• Stage a shared workspace — White Board, Digital Board, Wall or entire Room since we can’t keep everything in our working memory. Pick a stage that is big enough to hold the problem you’re mapping with room for your team to work it.
• Populate it with accurate information — Getting important information on sticky notes. Physically writing and drawing activates much more of our brainpower than talking or typing.
• Arrange that information into diagrams — Organize data into meaningful visual forms.
• Clarify the meaning of the diagrams — Summarize the meaning or Impact.
• Execute the output — Figure out what’s next; Plan/ Output.

Back channel consists of hidden-but-visible dynamics of meetings, including body postures, language, and choice of words and motivations. The underlying dynamics will either make a solution work well or lead it to fail.

As a facilitator and great collaborator, part of your role is to make those dynamics visible and use your tools to manipulate the backchannel to move the group forward toward resolution.

Sometimes the backchannel is more important than the front channel because if people are not checked in, they are not going to produce good results.

The Psychological Space — In every meeting and discussion, there is a psychological space. That’s the shared reality of thoughts and emotions. To create an optimal back channel, be clear of your intentions to make a safe space for people. It’s a place of non-judgment, where ideas are invited, encouraged, valued, understood, and then debated on their merit— not on the status of the speaker.

Honest Signals — According to MIT researcher, Sandy Pentland, human beings exhibit four primary honest signals that display their degree of trust and involvement with others: body language, eye contact, head nodding, and syncopated tones of voice. Pay attention to these to track the psychological energy that the group is sharing.

• Body Language — People sharing a high degree of trust match body position and posture. They mirror each other’s postures. A closed body posture, indicative of the crossed arms, torso tilted away, and direction of feet, shows that people are not engaged.
• Eye Contact — People who are engaged with each other will make clear and direct eye contact, but not too much. There is a sweet spot and a rhythm where people make contact when they are listening and speaking. They complete thoughts.
• Head Nodding — Think of cocktail party conversations. It’s easy to spot the conversations that are going well because people unconsciously nod their heads in agreement and in rhythm with each other. It’s a signal of communication that is present in most social mammals.
• Tone of Voice — Typically the person with a high social status or power, will have a more dynamic or lyrical expression in their tone. People with lower status or power will have less dynamic range. If that status remains unbalanced, then the voice range remains similar. But if, through conversation, connection, agreement, alignment, people connect, the difference between the tonal range diminishes. The lower social status will relax and their dynamic range increases.

Working remotely makes tracking the back channel of collaboration much more difficult. Since we only see a small two-dimensional surface on our screens, we can’t track everyone’s signals. And we can’t see all of the interactions.

This article is based on my learnings from the PMI Wicked Problem Solver. You can learn more about Creative Collaboration, Facilitating Meetings, and Solving Wicked Problems with this course.