Making it worse / making it better

As more of our days are spent in online meetings, many of our bad meeting behaviours haven’t changed: they’ve transferred online... and likely gotten worse.

Meeting tips and advice often focus on the agenda: have an agenda and send it out before the meeting.

But the agenda is only the ‘what’ to be done. And the agenda is not usually the problem with bad meetings. It’s about the process.

Most meetings follow dull default processes:

- One person talks. Another talks. We vote

- Two people talk and assume everyone agrees

- One person talks. Everyone agrees so we can finish.

The problems are many: low engagement/buy in, less contribution, participation and performance, more invisibility, boredom, distraction, exclusion. If the agenda is the what, the process... is the ‘how’.

Meetings are made better when you improve the process of how you run the meeting. A better process that is run by the leader of the meeting.

To facilitate better meetings is a skill. And to facilitate better meetings online, another skill.

Progress, outcomes and people suffer because bad meetings are made worse when we flip them as-is to online. Better meeting experiences are possible. 

Lighten the online meeting load

After so many online meetings Urgh! We’re foggy, brain-fried ... like we’re in a continuous conference.

This is the human experience of cognitive overload. But it’s exacerbated and multiplied by the load that’s coming via one channel - online. Yes, its different to face to face, next to each other, same room or space.

Here are 3 COGNITIVE LOAD COPING habits:

☀️Change state and break.

Take a short break between every meeting. Yes every one. It ‘releases’ the mental load you’ve been carrying. Like emptying a truck’s load. Don’t do back-to-back. Bad. Just 30 seconds, get up, move and BREAK your state.

☀️Stop soaking information and start sensemaking.

In every meeting, WRITE some handwritten notes. Not typed. Hand written. This is ‘externalizing’ information. It actively relieves those fried feels.

☀️Write down more than a meeting’s end points, actions or decisions.

Catch a quotable quote, a smile moment, a PHRASE that sounded good. This helps retain some focus.

And it’s ok... you’re not failing.

We’re all carrying around a huge concrete slab of shock, change, worry and uncertainty. That’s already some heavy stuff.

Break your state

Write it down

Catch a phrase

Trying to do it right

There’s plenty of new happening as we try new arrangements, routines and techniques. It’s worth observing ourselves when we’re doing this newness, if we’re trying to do them properly and perfect.

We might be trying to do online and virtual stuff ‘perfectly’ (you know, lighting, sound, camera angles and backgrounds).

Or trying to do working from home the ‘right’ way, or schooling children and remote teaching ‘properly’ ... and other things right, properly or perfect.

It’s natural to want to do well in new environments but there is also this glorious human capacity we have, and that is ... to learn. There are so many expectations we’re placing on ourselves (and others) as we get used to these new ways of thinking, working and living.

Perfectionism can arrive to fill spaces when we are worried or uncertain, dealing with new circumstances.

We wonder:

🐤Am I doing this right?

🐤How am I going?

🐤Am I good enough at this?

Yes, we must follow and adhere to the standards that are asked of us in these times. And then we can be easier on ourselves and others by allowing more ‘good enough’ in. It brings brightness, flexibility and adaptability to the things that don’t matter so much right now. 

The ultimate in remote and distributed collaboration

When I'm running facilitation training programs and I gather a bunch of 'concerns, questions, challenges' at the start of the day, many people raise the remote hookups and telconference topic.

Whether it's a video hookup or audio only, there are plenty of tricky challenges:

- how do you keep people engaged

- how do you KNOW if they're engaged

- how do you achieve what you need to do in the time available

- how do .... <insert your challenge and question here!>

I am an occasional listener (wierd as it may be but thanks to my father's careers and keen interest in all things mechanical) to the Air Traffic Control feed of my local airport in Melbourne. 

Think about it - hundreds of people flying through the air at speed in the airspace above you, in big metal tubes, with a couple of people 'up front' in control of the metal tube. 

On the ground, air traffic controllers observing, managing and directing traffic through and around the airspace. 

I think this is the ultimate in remote and distributed collaboration and communication. 

Heights, speed restrictions, approaches, departures, angles, gate allocations, weather advice, wheelchair requirements for passengers (yes, they arrange this in the air) and many other key pieces of information are communicated, resolved, discussed and arranged with some, but not full visuals. 

Shorthand, codes and abbreviations are used as part of their operational jargon. It's efficient.

Questions are asked by pilots - 'can we cancel our speed restrictions'? And they are answered by air traffic controllers.

Controllers ask questions of pilots - 'can you use runway 27 or do you need 35'? 

And problems are solved - 'our headset for arrivals transmission is not operational. Can you relay please?'

If day in and out these critical pieces of information are able to be encoded, communicated and decoded in what can be perilous environments, a phone or video hookup with the team in another city shouldn't be so hard!

• You must allow more time than you think you'll need for the topic.
• Allow for time to introduce, engage, map out the agenda, take questions.
• Allow time for problem solving, information sharing and collaborating.
• Allow time for general discussions and 'wonderings' by participants too. 

In your haste to get 'stuff done', you might be communicating some messages you had no intention of conveying! The consequences could be far reaching and the rework may be costly and time consuming. Check understanding - check again for questions. 

Play air traffic controller at your next remote meeting and focus on clear communication and great collaboration. 

And now... tuning in to the feed, the massive A380 is coming in to Melbourne from LA. QF94. Now that's a BIG project to get on the ground safely!

A view from the tail camera on board the A380, coming in to land in Melbourne from LA. 

I hear what you're saying. Oh really?

Teleconference, phone hook up or remote meeting: the bottom line is, you're talking but you can't see each other. 

You can't see facial expressions, body language or pick up on those many subtle cues that the stars of Lie to Me were so clever at identifying and deciphering. 

But you do have your ears. 

And you need to tune those ears in with greater attention than you do in a normal face-to-face meeting. 

I outlined in an earlier post that you have voice tone, volume and speed to listen in to and to notice the subtle shifts and changes. This is powerful when you can see people in a workshop or meeting, but even more powerful when it's all you've got on a phone hookup. 

I think it's the best 'test' of whether someone is REALLY listening - you go beyond hearing the words that are spoken and are able to pick up on the delivery, how it is said. Then you can go from there - you can ask another (better) question or you can check, clarify and go deeper to work out what might not have been said. 

Listen up folks! This is the listening you need to put to work everyday to make sure you really do hear what people are saying.