The complex culture of the meeting

They’re groaned at, suffered through and widely reported to be up to as much as 50% a waste of our time. 

Meetings. 

Every meeting you’re in is a complex construction and reflection of the culture in which it exists. 

Online or not, there are elements and behaviours in meetings that 
- include and exclude people
- accelerate and slow the pace of progress
- make the workplace more or less safe
- generate and ideate ... or stagnate and eliminate. 

This article from the World Economic Forum asks us a series of questions about what we do and how we lead in meetings. 

Do we any just accept the toll that poorly led meetings inflict on people and culture? Even when better is possible?

For your own meeting effectiveness and for those you meet with, check through the questions here and take a cultural look at what’s going on when we meet. 

Finding your way with the new

Copying someone else’s way of working might just work. 

And it might not. 

While there are methods, techniques and new habits to start, sometimes the best thing to do is simply try them out. 

No strings attached. 

Try it on. How does it feel? What do you like about it? How might it work for you? 

As businesses change to new and agile ways of working, there can be a little too much ‘don’t mess it up’ and not enough ‘let’s try it out’. 

I’ve been working with leaders and their teams as they try tools, techniques and methods like 
- visual management 
- timeboxing for tasks and meetings 
- backlogs of tasks to be done
- co-creating with customers 
- running experiments 
... and 30+ more ways of working. 

This is no switch to flip overnight. 

It’s an opportunity to learn, experiment and experience... over time. You might even bring some of the greatest detractors into the experience. 

‘This was so much better than I thought it would be’, said a participant at a Better Ways of Working virtual workshop recently. 

Safe. Experimental. Collaborative. Supportive. Experiential. 

There’s no other way to make these transitions to newer ways of working, but to help people find their way. 

Better ways for who

Imagine if your team started trying some newer ways of doing things... 

How might it impact customers? What additional value might you all bring? 
How might some frustrating customer problems get solved? 

The dramatic value that can be delivered to the customer, member, patient, user, client, can get forgotten. 

Perhaps it gets drowned out because the changes WE have to make are tricky and challenging for us. You know ... change!! *Groan* “It’s hard...”

Every team that tries some new ways of working gets a boost : 
🔅productively
🔅collaboratively
🔅effectively
🔅creatively.

And customers get a boost too!

Services become easier to use, sooner. 
Products get into their hands quicker. 
Interacting with the business becomes less frustrating or complicated... and things generally make more sense and work better. 

Better ways are available to us in how we go about:
🔆Thinking
🔆Understanding 
🔆Acting...
everyday. 

It’s not about using a new app or trying a new tool. There are new ways available at all levels of how we think about work, why we do it and how we do it. 

This is why adopting new and better ways is a cultural shift. 

Yes, it might take awhile. But your customers are waiting on you. 

Time and space for a laugh

Have a favourite comedian? One you know you can watch or listen to, loving their style of humour ... and you’ll always get a laugh?

Brian Regan cracks me up 🤣! His physical humour and his stories, I love them. (‘Man on the Moon’ and ‘Me Monsters’ are highlights).

It’s a personal choice though, isn’t it... about what makes us laugh. 

As we continue through tough times the world over, it’s good to know what gives you a laugh when you need it. 

...To know what you can do for yourself to lift or change your mood; and laughter can do that for us. 

We’re less stressed and more productive when we laugh and there are plenty more glorious benefits, so says Betty-Anne Heggie in Harvard Business Review’s ‘The benefits of laughing at the office.’

Even when the office is at home, it’s worth inviting and welcoming laughter at work. 

In meetings, workshops and when groups and teams come together online or face to face, it’s absolutely worth bringing a laugh to the work environment when you can. 

Work out what makes you laugh. And then enjoy more of it. 

😃So... how do you get a laugh? Comedy? Something else? 

More conversations - less presentations

As more of our meetings are online, there’s also an increase in the number of times we’re disappearing down a deep hole of ‘share screen’ and PowerPoint. 

Our meetings shouldn’t be all about the presentation, the monologue - just one or two voices. 

We can have better collaboration and co-creation online and remotely by having more conversation... the dialogue, many and all voices. 

This means we have discussion, debate and exploration of a topic and people’s perspectives of that topic. 

As we witness and experience disconnection and disengagement of people online, we’d do well to try for more conversation than presentation. 

But the pressure !!!
- what questions should we ask
- how do you get the conversation started
- how do you open things up
- and then what
- how do we summarize, synthesise or bring that information together
- what will keep it going
- and how do we wrap it up?


Each of these is a nuanced skill of facilitation - always balancing and rebalancing, conversation and making progress towards outcomes - ebbing and flowing. 

Instead of defaulting to sharing your screen, giving a presentation, try something new and default to conversation.