Crazed metaphors: braids and encounters
Meetings provide an opportunity for creativity and productivity to flourish. Well managed, they can speed up the problem-solving process and develop intragroup harmony at the same time. Mismanaged, they can spell the end of collective collaboration.
There are three elements that constitute effective meetings. When intertwined, they represent a powerful force for productivity. With just one or two of the elements, you are metaphorically looking at a single strand of hair, rather than the strength that is evident with interlocking strands.
Once you set up your meeting (or insist that it be held) with these elements in place, you can break down the myths surrounding meetings: myths of wasted time and wasted energy. These elements enable meeting leaders and participants to enable and resolve common meeting problems. The three critical elements for effective meetings are having an agenda, appointing a topic monitor, delegating a time monitor.
1. Prepare an agenda and share it with team members at least two days before the meeting. Not only does this set a tone for efficiency, but it also allows attendees to think through issues in advance and gather whatever materials may be necessary for the meeting. The agenda should have time allotments written in parentheses next to each item. Also, the purpose of the meeting should be at the top of the agenda.
2. Once the meeting is underway, begin with a restatement of the purpose and provide further clarification if necessary.
3. Immediately add a time monitor. This person has full authority to enforce the time allotments listed on the agenda. As discreetly as possible, you should inform the group when the time allotted for a particular topic is about to end.
4. Next, add a topic monitor. This individual also has full authority, in this case, to warn the group that they are straying from the point.
5. We also recommend having a scribe.
6. Strive for a balance between maintenance tasks and behaviors, both for the group and for individual members. Task behaviors are those related to performing work. Asking for clarification, for example, is a task-related action. So is volunteering to do a certain task, reminding others of ground rules, listing brainstorming items, etc. Maintenance behaviors belong to the social glue that holds the group together. They can include icebreakers in the first team meeting. Other examples of maintenance behaviors could be complimenting the team, intervening when a conflict arises, asking for a break, etc.
7. Ground rules can be established by an experienced team leader or they can be created with full team participation. Either way, those rules must be posted.
8. Ensure the equitable contribution of the members. To achieve this equality, you may need to participate in an activity like Delphi’s answer, which invites everyone’s ideas, anonymously. You can also call on the calmer members or make sure a chatty member doesn’t dominate the discussions.
9. Take full advantage of the many tools available to teams for problem solving, idea generation, and decision making. Among them are the Crawford Technique, Benchmarking, Structured Brainstorming, Storyboarding, Force Field Analysis, Fishbone Diagram, Object Autonomy, Loop Method, Problem Optimization, and ADD to name just a few.
10. Task and talent alignment prevents members from accepting tasks in an effort to “be a team player” and instead encourages them to accept tasks because they are good at them. Will Schutz’s questions, while initially sarcastic, are actually good indicators of who should be asked to do what. Those questions are: “Who knows?” Who cares? “Also, you can ask team members ‘starter’ questions to find out what they like to do and what they would rather avoid. Finally, you can put Yale research to good use: make sure each team have diversity. “Diversity,” of course, can be defined in a number of ways, but Sternberg’s work has found that the most efficient teams have at least one person who is logical; one who is creative; and someone who is knowledgeable. on the subject in question.
11. Use the parking method to capture relevant but unscheduled problems. To achieve the purpose of the meeting, the agenda takes precedence. But, as every team leader knows, sometimes problems arise that are not on the agenda but deserve further exploration. These topics should be noted on a piece of flip chart paper (ideally posted at the beginning of each meeting) so that they can be discussed later.
12. Before the meeting concludes, remind members of the commitments: who has agreed to do what by when? If possible, write down the tasks so that you can refer to them at the end, thus eliminating the possibility of disagreement or misunderstanding. Writing them down also means they can be used both in minutes (if submitted) and at the next meeting.
13. Close the meeting by thanking the team members for their contributions, addressing the purpose and its achievement, and projecting into the future through the next steps for the team as a whole.
14. The team attempting continuous improvement realizes that it is difficult to improve without assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the meeting process. This evaluation can be handled in a number of ways. Sometimes a stranger may be invited to observe a meeting in progress. The meeting leader can also informally ask members for their opinion on the meeting before it ends. You can also determine if the purpose of the meeting was achieved. And you can prepare a simple evaluation form and distribute it at the end of the meeting.
Finally, too many of us know firsthand the wisdom of this anonymous observation: “If an hour has been spent amending a sentence, someone will move to delete the paragraph.” To ensure meeting productivity and time wasted with amendments and deletions, follow the 14 tips above.