These discussions are not always easy to lead. Some groups have a tendency to discuss the trends rather than the impact of the trend, and other groups might still wonder what the need is to discuss a trend like ‘ageing population’ for instance, while working in a farming company. I’m just making this up to make a point.
Something that has helped me tremendously in ‘opening the minds’ at the start of the discussions, is the use of ‘cue cards’. These are a set of around fifty pictures, words and expressions that I hand out at ‘live’ meetings, or distribute in PDF if the meeting is virtual.
Typically what I do after introducing the trend to be discussed (through the ‘fact sheets’ I prepared and sent out prior to the meeting), is to ask people to pick out one item from the cue cards which they strongly associate with the trend.
At the start of the discussion I do a roundtable asking people which picture they have chosen, and why. This creates the level of associative thinking I need for the discussion, but also it creates a group dynamic of discussing and sharing thoughts and ideas from the start.
After this, I ask people to take a couple of minutes to write down a couple of bullet-point thoughts on the impact this trend might have, in general, or on the company. The second round-table discusses each of these points (one thought per person, per round).
Of course, this process is not infallible, but it has helped me out with difficult groups, to the point that I systematically use them now.
Hereunder is an example of these cue cards (just one set out of the seven I use). It could figure out anything, though, so you could easily build your own set of cards.
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