The Friday Afternoon Retro — Scenario 1
It’s a Friday afternoon, 3 pm, and a sales team has just kicked off their weekly online retrospective meeting. The group of 7 has gathered to review the week’s challenges and successes. On paper, the primary genre¹ of this meeting is to LEARN, to make sense of what has transpired this week. The secondary genre is to CREATE, ideate, and brainstorm about what to do differently.
This is not what will take place in today’s gathering.
The team begins well; they check in and hear from everyone a personal win from the week. Following the check-in, the group moves into an open discussion on learnings and challenges; this discussion gathers momentum. Eventually, one courageous participant proposes a particular meaty and wicked question about tricky customer objections they encountered, an excellent question for the team to explore. The situation is well suited for an idea-generation process that will encourage idea diversity, creativity, inspiration, and perspective.
Instead, they take a different route.
One team member believes they know the answer to this question, have the relevant experience and need to educate others. So they begin telling the individual what they should do and say in this situation. They hold the floor, advising the challenge holder without stopping to take note of what is happening in the virtual room. Any witness to the conversation can see that the challenge holder has lost interest, uttering a few ummm, ahhhs, and head nods from time to time to appear tuned in. But they are not interested, engaged, or motivated by the advice. After all, you don’t solve problems with advice.
This dynamic continues. Two participants drop off the call and do not rejoin. Another turns off their video, and another is visibly answering text messages. Finally, a brave participant attempts to join in by offering a different perspective. The speaker interrupts before they finish sharing, rebutting the input and repeating their initial sentiments. Eventually, the clock ticks over and releases those who have remained on the call. The meeting ends, and everyone departs, drained of energy, and witnesses to a monster of a missed opportunity.
Spot the disengagement?
There are thousands of reasons why people disengage in meetings; in the above scenario, I am sure you can spot a dozen or more. From a poorly framed topic to connection issues, social detachment to lack of participation, terrible timing to uncorrected unhelpful behaviors. The above team retro is a typical example of ‘meetings that just happen.’
This scenario is not unique to this team or this organization. In meetings like this, at the very bottom of the Meeting Ladder (see Diagram 2), many thoughts run through participants’ minds. They asked themselves why. Why am I here? Why do I have to listen to this? Why can’t this be over?
Not only are the individual participants in the meeting frustrated, but if the business, the collective organization, had a voice, if it could express emotions, it too would be annoyed. Meetings like this are a waste. They waste time, money, and energy to start. Nothing productive or value-adding comes out of them, making them a straight-line expense, a cost, and a drain on the organization’s cash flow. If organizations tracked meeting costs in their accounts, as they did salary costs, utilities, or raw materials costs, executives would think much more carefully about the number and quality of meetings held across the organization.
Now, life without meetings is just as dull as life with too many bad meetings. And there is potential to release and value to create by leveling up the Meeting Ladder. Great meetings offer a chance to connect — to each other, to what’s essential, to purpose, to culture, and to future potential. Great gatherings light us up, ignite our minds, and leave us inspired, excited, and empowered to make change happen. Great meetings shape culture, shape experiences, anchor liberating beliefs, and unleash untapped performance.
Meetings are touch points that can become tipping points for cultural change.Diagram 2 — The Meeting Ladder by Island Inspirations
Moving from “meetings that just happen” to “meetings that shape culture and drive new levels of performance” takes intentionality and design. It is more than simply including organizational values and cultural rituals in a meeting or using appropriate language, activities, and processes. It requires a commitment and dedication to design sessions that will become transformative and reinforcing experiences.
How to begin climbing the Ladder
We start by focusing on the basic meeting effectiveness principles of purpose, tools, and practices. Through a focus on purpose, we create “meetings with clarity.” Meeting participants need and deserve clarity. They should understand why the meeting is required, why it is relevant to them, what success looks like, and how they need to contribute. As Brene Brown says, “clear is kind, unclear is unkind.”
Here are three easy tips for how to achieve meetings with clarity
Once clarity is established, we introduce essential meeting tools such as action logs, decision logs, meeting notes, parking lots, meeting reviews, etc. With tools like these, we create “meetings that function.” Meeting tools further enhance clarity and ensure that participants practice rituals. In addition, these tools establish consistency and set meeting expectations.
To further improve the effectiveness of meetings, we introduce meeting practices. Meeting practices include ways of working together, such as co-created ground rules, rotating roles, time management, decision dynamics, and conversation dynamics. As practices become ingrained in meetings, we scratch the surface of “meetings that involve.”
Now while purpose, tools, and practices are critical. They contribute most to making meetings effective. Making them work, eliminating frustrations like not knowing why we are meeting, what we decided or who’s going to do what. They ensure participants can work well together while gathered. With consistent meeting effectiveness principles, we can shift meetings to a point where they become cost neutral to the organization. Here the value produced from bringing participants together is about equal to the cost of the participants’ time spent in that meeting.
As a change agent, this was where we focused. We used the meeting effectiveness principles of purpose, tools, and practices to shift meetings to this point. Participants now had clarity and utilized rituals, symbols, and tools to shape their sessions. They worked well together and created value when they gathered. As change agents, this was also where we stopped.
A quick sidebar (and facilitator’s perspective)
As a change agent, the operational aspect of meetings was my primary focus. However, as a learning designer and facilitator, creating and hosting engaging experiences was my primary focus. Experiences that wowed, were different and left participants inspired and excited. Through this practice of intentionally designing for engagement, I identified and explored the many dimensions² that can be varied and tweaked to shape, create and hold engaging experiences. (refer to diagram 3).
Basic Meeting Math:Meeting Effectiveness + Meeting Engagement = Peak ExperiencesPeak Experiences = Culture Shaping Moments x Unleashed Performance
Crossing the Cost Neutral Threshold of the Ladder
Meeting effectiveness raises the bar for meetings improving performance and value creation. Yet there are further gains to be realized by focusing on meeting engagement. When meeting design intentionally engages the voices, minds, thinking, and ideas of everyone who comes together, it is in these moments that what the gathering creates is of greater value than the cost of bringing people together.
By focusing on role modeling and reinforcing meeting behaviors such as appreciation, encouragement, equality, attention, mindfulness, curiosity, and ease, we begin to shape a meeting environment that unleashes possibility. In ‘meetings that unleash possibility,” the environment invites connection, listening, creativity and play. The attendees feel supported and encouraged to be truthful, vulnerable, and authentic. There is a creative flow in these sessions and electric energy. Participants can welcome engaging in challenging experiences and grow stronger with reinforced values.
These types of meetings liberate and reveal new meeting mindsets and beliefs. Beliefs such as;
we are all accountable for making meetings workwe believe it is our collective responsibility to protect each otherwe believe we can reframe challenges as opportunitieswe believe all voices are equal and necessary in liberating ideaswe believe that differences are the launch pads for creativitywe believe it is our collective responsibility to embody our culture when we gather.
We achieve meetings that empower change when these beliefs are imprinted and reinforced by behaviors, practices, tools, and purpose. These peak meeting experiences strengthen and shape culture and unleash new levels of organizational performance.
The Friday Afternoon Retro — Scenario 2
It’s a Friday afternoon, 3 pm, and a sales team has just kicked off their weekly online retrospective meeting. The group of 7 has gathered to review the week’s challenges and successes. On paper, the primary genre¹ of this meeting is to LEARN, to make sense of what has transpired this week, and the secondary genre is to CREATE, to ideate and brainstorm about what we could do differently.
As they usually do, the team starts with a check-in and hears from everyone a personal win from the week. They then move into a thinking pair, allowing each person to process and connect with their thoughts around the difficulties and challenges they faced. As they regroup, they level up their thinking by articulating a wicked challenge that took shape for each of them. Next, they capture these challenges in chat and engage in a timed open discussion to further explore challenges.
Through this discussion, common themes running through the challenges emerge. Someone on the team asks if anyone would like to propose a new question for the group to explore further. Three participants step forward, each articulating a meaty and wicked question that encompasses the themes and tensions with which they are personally wrestling. Each share their question with the group using the chat. All participants vote amongst the three questions and hone in on a single question to further explore in the meeting. The winning question owner reposts this in chat for everyone’s visibility.
They set a timer for four mins; in these four mins of silence, they capture their unique ideas and experiences in service of the question. Each person then has the floor for three mins to share their thoughts verbally while a volunteer scribe captures them in the chat. Following this, the question owner shares a few words about what is taking shape and emerging for them, and the others each share their appreciation in light of the courage displayed to step forward with today’s question. The meeting ends. The chat is saved.
This weekly scenario reinforces their organizational values of learning, respect, courage, and service.
Meetings are necessary. A critical touch point in any business. Not only should they be effective at getting work done they should also shape the wider organizational culture. Work on meeting design and improvement should not be casual or optional in workplaces. It is a skill that should be practiced by all team leaders, managers, executives, and leaders. When we hold effective and engaging meetings, we unleash inspiration, value diversity of ideas, role model inclusion, reinforce strengths, connect, operate from a center of appreciation, play, and grow individually and collectively. We build work cultures, and we achieve.
FREE Meeting Effectiveness Plus Engagement Checklist
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¹ Gathering Genres by John Norcross and Tricia Conyers
For more information on Gathering Genres, listen to the Every Little Model Podcast episode, where co-hosts and model creators John Norcross and Tricia Conyers explain and explore the model.
Diagram 1 — Gathering Genres by John Norcross and Tricia Conyers
² Engagement Dimensions by Tricia Conyers, Island Inspirations
Listen to the Every Little Model Podcast episode for more information on the Dimensions of Engagement. Also, check out the Engagement Matters online course to deepen your skills in the engagement dimensions.
Diagram 3 — The Dimensions of Engagement by Tricia Conyers
Written by Tricia Conyers, Founder Island Inspirations Ltd., INIFAC Certified Master Facilitator, and Certified Virtual Facilitator
