THE PROBLEM WITH MEETINGS
It’s a fact of business life. We spend much of our time in meetings. And from what most people tell me, meetings are not the highlight of their day. We find ourselves spending too much time in conversations that seem to go on without an end with a few people who dominate the discussions. Important topics aren’t addressed because discussions go off topic, on tangents, and down rabbit holes where they swirl to no end. Eventually, the meeting ends with no clear sense of purpose or what’s next.
And then there’s the inevitable meeting after the meeting to discuss the meeting. At this point, people’s energy is critically low. There is a palpable frustration and your people are probably internally screaming, “This meeting is a waste of time!” But they say nothing because you are the boss, and this is your meeting.
If this sounds all too familiar, then the question becomes how can you optimize these less-than-satisfying-but-still-important meetings you and your teams have come to live with?
There is a lot of great information online about how to have better meetings. I, myself have written exstensively on this topic. But before you even deploy specific tips and methods, consider the basic human needs that underlie a successful meeting. By being aware of and planning for these needs, your meetings will already be a step ahead. I call this being conscious about how you plan and conduct meeting.
FIVE DIMENSIONS: A HIERARCHY OF MEETING NEEDS
Conscious meeting facilitation begins (but does not end) with managing what is within your control; the five dimensions of a healthy meeting experience:
1. Physical Comfort
2. Time and Traffic Control
3. Cognitive Focus
4. Emotions Management
5. Business Outcomes
1. Physical Comfort
Human beings need to be in a position of physical comfort in order to relax their concerns and focus their attention. This means not only having a comfortable place to sit, a chair that supports your body and back, but also a meeting rhythm that parallels your body’s natural rhythms and needs for circulation, nutrition and heeding the “call of nature.” Great meetings allow for comfortable seating, but also for movement, regular breaks, and the right kind of fuel for focused concentration.
You can even impact this virtually by requesting that participants make themselves physically comfortable even if it means not sitting at a desk looking directly at their computer. Let each person create their own physical comfort when conducing meetings virtually.
2. Time and Traffic Control
Second only to physical comfort, proper management of time and interaction is fundamental for meetings to run more efficiently. Who speaks when? How long is too long? How much time does a topic or task need? How do you make sure everyone’s voice is heard? These are questions addressed by well-facilitated time and traffic control.
When conducting meetings virtually, use tools such as clocks, chat, emojis, and hand raising to control time and traffic. Set clear rules for how much time people speak. You can say, I'll give each of you 1 minute to respond and as you get to about 50 seconds, I'll gently raise my hand so you know it's time to wrap up your statement.
3. Cognitive Focus
Dimensions one and two take care of the basics of meeting facilitation and alone can make any meeting more productive. However, to really take effectiveness to new heights, it is necessary to manage people’s attention. It’s important to keep their mindsets on track, helping participants be able to respond while also staying open and curious. Know-it-alls and victims kill productivity. Asking great and thoughtful questions is one of the best ways to focus attention. By asking questions you create a reality and context that gives people a space to occupy and focus on. Make your inferences and assumptions known and ask others to do the same. This will help people stay tuned to make sure you are in tune and visa versa.
All the more important when conducting meetings virtually. Give time and thought before thee meeting to questions you can ask during the meeting. Make your infereences and assumptions known and inquire about the inferences and assumptions of others during the meeting. Call on them to do so. Virtually it also helps to frequently check in every 10 to 20 minutes to see how people's attention is with regards to staying focused or not. Take frequent breaks wen conducting metings online to help maintain the congnitive focus of your participants.
4. Emotions Management
Just like people’s cognitive focus can be managed by a skillful facilitator, so can their emotions. Emotions are our natural reactions to various meeting elements, like the topics being discussed and the way they are being discussed; the environment we’re in; and each individual’s perception of what makes valuable time spent. Skillful facilitation constantly monitors the emotional state of participants and knows when and how to intervene to keep emotions healthy and in support of meeting goals.
Managing emotions can be more challenging when conducting virtual meetings. It requires a few additional approaches. Just as in face-to-face meetings, monitor the faces and shoulders of your participants. You are likely not seeing their entire body, but you can pay attention to subtle cues of people's emotions as they leak out via their body language. Emotions always leak out through body language. Ask people to respond about their emotinos using a scale of 1 to 5 where 5 represents a very strong presence of a particular emotion and 1 means very little presence of that emotion. Finally, encourage people to speak up and voice not only their opinions, but ask them to specifically voice their concerns.. This helps people express their emotions in what feels like a productive way.
5. Business Outcomes
Finally, meetings are only as good as the business outcomes they produce. Skilled facilitators know how to keep meetings focused on the desired business outcomes. They understand how to manage the relationships between complex concepts without having to know all the details. They are able to keep conversations on track, always keeping the greater business objectives in mind.
When conducting meetings virtually, use a visual aid on the screen to represent the business area of focus, or the desired outcome of the meeting. Revisit that visual device or icon frequently. Check every 3 to 5 minutes that what is being discussed is on target with the desired business outcome. Make your virtual meetings shorter and focused on bite-sized pieces of a business process or task. Don't try to boil the ocean virtually for hours at a time.
CONCLUSION
The Internet is full of useful tips for having better meetings, but before you even begin to deploy new methods, make sure you have the basics covered. Use the hierarchy of meeting needs to set the baseline for managing great meetings. With these needs covered, all other methods will add even more value.
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