Heard about Rackham, measuring behaviours for better meetings?
Already know the 11 and been practising?
Want more examples to help you go Rackham Green ?
Here, red10 ‘s Kirsten Campbell shares examples for each of the six “go to” GREEN behaviours
Before we start
This article assumes that you know all about Rackham’s Behaviours. If you don’t, then you’re in for a treat, as for most people this is life-changing! Learn about them here and then come back to this article.
We heard your request!
When teaching Rackham’s Communicating Behaviours in the more intimate space of one-to-one coaching, I have often been asked:
Please can you give me some Go To examples of the green behaviours?
This request has often come from people who are translating from their mother tongue to English explaining, “I’m not used to doing this in my own language never mind in English.”
It’s occurred to me that’s maybe the reason why the request doesn’t surface so much in our Masterclasses…perhaps there’s this inbuilt sense of “I should know how to do this!”
So, if it’s examples that are limiting you from going GREEN here’s GREEN go-to phrases for all six of the behaviours coming right up.
Green Behaviour #1
SEEKING INFORMATION
We’ve previously written this article all about this entry level green behaviour.
Here are two example phrases you can use for this behaviour, in their shortest, most applicable form:-
“What do you think?”
“What are your thoughts?”
Green Behaviour #2
SUPPORTING
We’ve previously written about this tier 2 behaviour here.
(remember that in Rackham’s terms, this always follows a PROPOSAL).
Here are three example phrases you can use for this behaviour, in their shortest, most applicable form:-
“Say more please?”
“That’s an interesting idea”
“Help me understand how you see this proposal going”
Green Behaviour #3
TESTING UNDERSTANDING
We’ve previously written about this advanced behaviour here.
In these example phrases, we recommend starting with the helpful labelling prefix of “to test my understanding…..”
“Testing my understanding here, are you saying that….?”
“To test my understanding, can I repeat what I think I heard you say, did you say that …?”
“To test my understanding, is that the same as…….?”
“To test my understanding, does that mean ….?”
Green Behaviour #4
SUMMARISING
This behaviour is so important, Rackham found that it is needed at least 10% of the time for people to come out of the meeting with the same understanding. You can read about it here.
In these example phrases, you’ll see that this is another good one to prefix with the label “To summarise…”
“To summarize … I am hearing that there are 3 key factors that need further investigations, as follows:-
Factor 1, ……
Factor 2, …..
Factor 3,……. ”
“In summary, I have heard 5 themes in that brainstorm they were…1, …2, etc”
Or flip it (encourage others to develop this powerful green behaviour)
“We have heard some significant new information there, who can do us a summary please?”
Green Behaviour #5
BUILDING
You can explore the original definition here. Of all the green behaviours this is the one I hear in parlance most often. Typically it’s in response to someone having Giving Information, using the phase “building on that”.
However, in true Rackham terms you are only really using this behaviour when you are building on a previous supported proposal.
Here are two example phrases to use:
“I’d like to build on Jill’s proposal…..”
“We could build on that, how about,…..”
Green Behaviour #6
BRINGING IN
This behaviour is so important for inclusion.This behaviour is so important for inclusion, equality and diversity of thought.
We recommend starting with who you are directing the bringing in at. Start with the individual’s or group’s name, so that they can tune in early and hear all of the question.
This leads us to these two example phrases:
”James, I think your views here would be valuable, what do you think?”
“Regulatory, what do we need to consider further?”
Helpful Example Phrases?
We hope these are helpful, please let us know: what do you think?