How to #MakeMeetingsWork

So linkedin has sent out an invitation for people to write about how to?#MakeMeetingsWork This is what they asked:

How can leaders structure meetings so more people feel they can share their ideas? And as companies adopt hybrid work environments, how can we make sure remote attendees feel heard just as much as those in the office?

I’ve been a Mediator, Conflict Coach and trainer in communication and conflict resolution skills and practices for 27 years which inevitably leads me to encounter situations where meetings have worked well and where they have fallen apart disastrously.?

So I thought I’d select a few tips and ideas that I have used or seen used that support the theme: #MakeMeetingsWork

Mediation and conflict coaching are processes designed to support effective communication and creativity in response to a conflict situation. All meetings have conflict and that’s a good thing. When I speak of conflict I see it as something inevitable and an opportunity for learning, connection and insight rather than a more common association with conflict of being ‘personal, long-term and stressful’.??

Our tag-line at CAOS Conflict Management is ‘Promoting Mindful Communication, Growth Through Conflict’ and I hope you will see examples of how this can be possible in the examples below.?

There are two sections:

1.????Tips and ideas to support discussion, engagement and creativity

2.????Overcoming challenges, common difficulties and supporting procedural effectiveness

I want to acknowledge of course that not all meetings are the same and they will all serve a different purpose and additionally, in recent times they are being held much more online or a hybrid of online and ‘in person’. So, the tips and ideas are intended to be for application in any meeting situation and I have left out tips and ideas that might be specific to a particular context although I will outline how some can be particularly suitable for some contexts. I hope you can see the simplicity of these ideas and yet how powerful they can be in helping to #MakeMeetingsWork

1.????Tips and ideas to support discussion, engagement and creativity:

One Word: This is such a simple activity to use at the start of any meeting where each person is asked to say just one word on a particular theme as part of their introduction of themselves. You do have introductions at the start of your meetings don’t you? Even large meetings can allow for some level of this happening – if you are looking for ideas then please get in touch via the contact details at the end.??

There are many themes that can be used for the ‘one word’ but it could be something like:?Please say your name (and job title if important for other attendees to know) and give one word to describe how your week has gone so far.?

Why is this a useful activity at the start:

1.????It means everyone has had a chance to speak, to lubricate their vocal chords, to know they will be listened to and be recognised in the meeting, and they’ve also had the chance to share something personal and not necessarily job-related about themselves.?

2.????It puts everyone on the same level and respects them as having a right to speak rather than the meeting be more like a speech from ‘the boss’ or ‘the Chair’ or only particular individuals which detracts from the point of it being ‘a meeting’ rather than just a ‘diktat from on high’.

3.????It stimulates connection between people. Depending on the theme used for the ‘one word’ it can sometimes lead people to be curious about the word said by another person and that curiosity lead to further discussion outside of the meeting. It is of course important that the exploration doesn’t occur within the meeting, or even while people are going round saying their one word as that then isn’t respecting the space for each person to introduce themselves and missing the point that it is to help the meeting to start by putting people at ease and focus on its purpose?

4.????It’s so simple. Depending on numbers it can mean a useful, engaging, welcoming activity all over in 5 mins or less.?

Other themes for the ‘one word’ could be:?

How I’m feeling today.

My ideal holiday destination

The time of day I’m at my best

My favourite film

……but you can make some up for yourself. Don’t worry too much about the theme, it is what it supports happening as listed above which is what matters.

4-Word Build: If you have a topic that is needing engagement and contribution from people and perhaps even has a level of controversy over it, this exercise is an extremely effective gradual ‘build’ of connection and listening and creativity between people with a direct focus on the topic being addressed. There’s a link to a more detailed description of?the activity here, but essentially this is the process:

Ask each person present to think of and write down any 4 words they associate with the topic in question. There are no rules to how they decide on their own 4 words because that’s the important aspect of it, the exercise is looking to draw upon all thoughts, feelings and associations with the issue and giving a chance to discuss them.?

Once everyone has their own 4 words ask them to pair up. If an odd number of people just make one group of 3 (see the link above for more on how to deal with the different group number possibilities). Each pair now has 8 words between them. They are now asked to consider their 8 words and decide on 4 to keep and 4 to get rid of, based on any criteria they choose within their pair. It may of course be that some of their 8 words replicate and that’s fine, the job is still the same – choose 4 to keep and 4 to get rid of.?

The next stage is a repeat of the last one. That is, each pair now has 4 words so move into groups of 4 where each pair will bring 4 words, totalling 8. They now have to do the same in their group of 4 – decide on 4 to keep and 4 to get rid of, based on any approach their group chooses.?

You can probably see how this enables quite a deep discussion of people’s associations with a particular issue and allows for a lot of sharing of views and understandings and recognitions of different perspectives and concerns and inspirations associated with the topic.?

You may choose to leave the activity there and just see it as a structured way of supporting a conversation and simply use it as a springboard to go on to discuss the topic in the full group.??Sometimes however, you might want to gather together the words people have come up with for the whole group to see. It’s important to recognise the purpose of the exercise – to enable a thorough discussion of a topic in a way that is continuously listening to and discussing others’ views – something that is often absent from a lot of meetings where a ‘battle’ occurs to be the ‘only voice heard’ and to ‘win’ the discussion. While this exercise can’t eliminate that if the ethos exists, what it does achieve is to give so many more people a chance to have a voice and to understand and explore a topic further rather than feel like it’s just listening to a speech by the person with the loudest voice or greater authority. See the link here for more detail on this activity.?

2.????Overcoming challenges, common difficulties and supporting procedural effectiveness

Communication: When different views exist on a topic being discussed in a meeting it is important that challenging or exploring ideas and viewpoints takes place rather than directing criticism or negative motive to the person raising any idea. When criticism of a person with a different view occurs it easily causes a distraction into personal difficulties between the people involved rather than keep a focus on the topic and creating ideas for taking forward.?

This kind of situation can be where suggestions are made that people need to ‘be tough’ in meetings as if such situations are about ‘character’ and ‘assertiveness’. This is where you get notions about who is ‘alpha’ in the group as if that is what the meeting is about rather than seeking to optimise the contributions from all present so that it ensures the greatest use of the knowledge, resources and insights that the whole group can bring, rather than just those who ‘shout loudest’ or who have the ‘dominant’ character.?

What matters for any meeting is not ‘who’ but ‘what', by which I mean it doesn’t matter who ‘dominated’ or whose idea ‘won’, because if it came about by such means it is very unlikely to be the best idea. What always matters to #MakeMeetingsWork is whether the greatest amount of insight, creativity and contribution as possible was achieved from those who attended. So many benefits arise from this that they can’t all be listed here but as examples it means that those attending feel a sense of ‘buy in’ and ownership of any outcomes decided rather than a sense of disconnect or even sometimes resentment when an idea is only born out of a small number of ‘loudest shouters’. Using an ‘all contribution’ approach means that the idea will be more sustainable as a consequence and not eventually undermined by those who don’t fully understand it nor feel aligned with it because their opinions were dismissed or not even listened to in such meetings.

When comments and arguments in a meeting have become ‘personal’ it is this kind of situation which leads to a meeting environment where the ethos is to ‘win’ with ‘your idea’ and use personal and undermining comments about the character of others to try to do so. Where all opinions are listened to as opportunities for greater insight and possible modification of our own ideas in light of those insights, the collaborative, creative and ultimately more effective outcome will be achieved.?

The Chair is not the ‘parent’: A common difficulty with some meetings is the relationship between the Chair and other committee members or attendees. I emphasise that it is the relationship rather than one or the other as the problem I am about to describe can only arise mutually rather than one ‘causing’ the issue.?

Sometimes, instead of the Chair being seen as the facilitator of the meeting and ensuring procedures, timings, agendas etc. are adhered to, they can become expected to have a ‘behaviour management’ role as well.??In committee and other meetings that are ineffective, this is a common issue.??Attendees might say ‘The Chair didn’t say/do anything…..’ etc. in relation to behaviour or language of concern, as if it is only the Chair who is ‘allowed’ to challenge such things, rather than for each individual to be responsible for their own behaviour and conduct.

Ideally for any type of meeting that occurs frequently or regularly,??there will be principles regarding conduct that all can adhere to and are established as a shared commitment to ensure the meetings can proceed smoothly. This means??that all attendees take responsibility for their own behaviour …as adults…and do not wait for the Chair to act as if they are the ‘parent’.?

It is of course important that the Chair also recognises the risk that they take on a ‘parental’ role in the meeting and learn to avoid it so that the adult-to-adult relationship amongst all members is maintained.?

In mediation organisations I have worked in we use the principles that inform our mediation practice to also inform our meetings so that we have a consistency of approach to both the service we provide and the way we run the organisation.?

Minutes of meetings: A common cause of difficulty in relation to minutes of meetings can be that they become contested in subsequent meetings with regard to whether they are a ‘true record’ of what was said or decided. If your meetings have this difficulty an effective way of dealing with the issue is to create and agree a summation of the minutes?in the meeting itself, so that the wording is agreed in the meeting, rather than leave someone else to write them up afterwards and risk having to revisit them and contest them at the start of the next meeting because their content doesn’t fit what people were expecting. This may seem like it would take up a lot of time but when contrasted with the protracted revisiting of minutes that are contested at the start of future meetings it can be seen how it is actually a time-saving practice. Again there are many benefits but one is a sense of teamwork that can arise when the wording of minutes are fully agreed by the group during a meeting rather than decided by an individual after it is over.?

A feature of minutes that will often reflect meetings that are not working can be seen when they contain phrases such as: “Fred X wanted it explicitly recorded that he fundamentally disagreed with the decision to…”. This is unlikely to be the only such statement and others will record the ‘objection’ of particular individuals in relation to a decision that has been made.?

This will mainly arise when people do not feel that their ideas and thoughts have been listened to and have been either dismissed or not given space to be explored. It may also be that a certain level of ‘personal conflict’ will have occurred in such meetings and the entrenchment represented by such comments are an illustration of that happening.??(See the activities in the first section above for some ways in which this can be more effectively dealt with, but there are many other options as well). While it can be hard to accept that these issues arise from how the meeting is conducted rather than because of ‘difficult individuals’ it is crucial to recognise these symbols of problems with how a meeting is operating as they are unlikely to go away if changes are not made.

Why are you here?: I am often surprised that people attend meetings because they believe they are ‘expected to’, but don’t really know why they are actually doing so. If a meeting has no relevance to you, or you don’t really know why you are attending even if it is supposedly expected of you because someone in authority has said you should attend, then you are wasting your time and probably wasting the time of others at the meeting as well. Worse still you may sometimes be eating their sandwiches and biscuits and drinking their tea or coffee while contributing little if anything to the meeting.?

So, if you attend meetings that don’t seem to have any purpose for you, ask yourself ‘Why am I here?’ and then, ideally, if no satisfactory answer arises, ask yourself ‘How can I extricate myself from attending these meetings in the future?’ and do something more useful with my time.?

Sometimes people say?‘But my boss said I have to attend them!’ but do not ask them why, apparently overlooking that if they find it a waste of time then their boss will almost certainly want them to do something more productive or will give them more purposeful detail about why they want them to attend. So simply asking that boss ‘why do you want me to attend this meeting’ leads to a win-win outcome all round.?

What is your role in the meeting?: A flip side to the previous situation can be that people who have good reason and a desire to be at a meeting do not have an identified role. This risks both frustration for the person attending and a perception of passivity by those who do have a role.?

A very common cause of breakdown in community group committee meetings can be that in a committee of perhaps 6-8 people, only 2 or 3 will have an identified role, commonly the Chair, Secretary and the Finance Officer. The remaining members will often attend without any particular ‘angle’ from which to explore and give a view on items arising for discussion. This can mean that there becomes a polarisation between those who have a role and those who don’t as if there is a hierarchy. There can also be a perception that people without an identified??role are not ‘pulling their weight’ and perhaps just ‘moaning’, not recognising that without an identified role title it’s hard for them to do much other than perhaps be??‘helpers’ to those with a role, again suggesting a two tier level of importance within the committee.?

An effective way of dealing with this is simply to create a role - ideally one that the person has chosen for themselves so that they don’t feel patronised (tea making officer?). It may not have to be a ‘crucial’ role but it is at least one that can lead to the person considering items from a defined perspective. Examples I have come across are social event officer, staff liaison officer, policy review officer, marketing officer, community liaison officer. Note that these are not to replace staff who may do the tasks associated with these roles but can be as someone who works alongside them and ensures their views and needs are recognised on the committee. These support a more coherent structure to meetings (and the organisation) and gives each person a function rather than be simply a passive ‘attendee’ unless they have one of the essential roles.?

So the above are a fairly ‘off the cuff’ list of activities or considerations that can help to #MakeMeetingsWork.?

Please comment below on any thoughts or questions you have about them, or questions about other aspects of how to #MakeMeetingsWork.?

At CAOS Conflict Management we work with individuals and groups involved in communication and conflict resolution challenges so if you feel we may be able to assist you please get in touch to discuss what you are looking for.

We are happy to use Zoom to connect with clients, particularly for conflict coaching or other consultancy on developing effective communication approaches to meetings, whether formal or informal.??

Email us at?[email protected]?or call us on 020 3371 7507

Alan Sharland?is a Conflict Coach and Director of?CAOS Conflict Management?a Mediation, Conflict Coaching and Conflict Management Training and Consultancy provider organisation based in London, UK. He has published a book on the topic:?How to Resolve Bullying in the Workplace - Stepping out of the Circle of Blame to Create an Effective Outcome for All, and another book:?A Guide to Effective Communication for Conflict Resolution, both available on Amazon.?

He also has a?YouTube?channel and?Podcast?where he explores mediation, communication and conflict related issues.