Your meetings are a problem. Here’s how to avoid the meeting-after-the meeting.

2y ago

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Dr. Peter Dry

2y ago

I write about my Elite Thinking methodology to unleash the potential in teams across all sectors. It is a framework that emerges from positive psychology designed to build a world champion mindset. The framework is grounded in the belief that greater levels of self-awareness around the strengths of an individual builds sustainable success for individuals and teams. Whether it is an executive leadership team, sports team, or a school team, Elite Thinking is a solution-focused approach which entails identifying what creates a successful team, who the team is when they are at their best and then aiming to duplicate regularly.

Your meetings are a problem. Here’s how to avoid the meeting-after-the meeting.
Written by @peteradry

Meetings are a problem. My clients always complain about them. You cannot have an extraordinary team if your meetings are ordinary.

There are many issues with meetings: The meeting-after-the-meeting; no agenda; late attendees; lack of participation; too much participation from one person; lack of accountability and follow through.

I see one of the biggest problems being the lack of candor. In other words scarcity of openness, honesty and truth.

Why is this the major issue? Because lack of candor kills open communication. It destroys creativity, collaboration and innovation. It extinguishes the ability of the team to be great.

Here is a powerful practice to build candor into your meeting and ensure the team thrives and enjoys peak performance.

Collaborative Problem Solving.

 

1.     Identify a single business-critical question.

(E.g. explore innovations for the company’s tech strategy; identify new to-market strategy; an admissions model; prioritize agenda items for the next quarter).

2.     Nominate the decision-maker/s.

(You want to avoid bitterness over whose idea gets chosen to move forward). 

3.     Have a robust dialogue about the question.

(Consensus is not the aim).

4.     “The Power of Three”: Breakout into groups of three-person groups to brainstorm.

(People have greater courage in small groups and they tend to bring that candor back to the larger group).

5.     Report back to the larger group.

(The decision-maker/s give immediate feedback on the ideas ensuring the collaboration sparks action. “Yes, let’s do that and here’s why,” or “No, and here’s why not,” or “Let’s have another look when we have more research/data.”)

 

Have someone capture the notes in a shared document. An accurate version of the conversation is recorded in real time for all to see. This creates trust. It also means those ideas can be iterated.

 

Source: Keith Ferrazzi, A New Social Contract, HBR (Sept-Oct, 2022).

@peteradry


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