Written by Tricia Conyers, this article is Part 2 in a Series on Gathering Genres. Part 1 by John Norcross
It’s a rainy Sunday afternoon, and my whole family is gathered on the couch, tucked in for a movie session. This week it’s my husband’s turn to choose the movie, despite the many questions about what’s the name of the movie, what’s it about (those are from me), what year it was made (that one is from my 14-year-old son, having been subjected to many a 70s or 80s flick he now takes the precaution to ask), he remains pretty silent, offering only a nod and an assurance that we will like it… hmm.
With little to no information on what we are getting into, we reluctantly take our seats and turn our attention to the screen. The first 20 mins or so pass, and really not much has happened; we seem to be watching what feels like a documentary as it’s just a bunch of people doing everyday things. I’m trusting that more will emerge. My son, to the dismay of his dad, has already started sneaking looks at his phone.
We are now touching the 60 min mark, and honestly, I’m still confused. Is this a drama, a documentary, or some dark-life comedy? What is happening here? Am I supposed to be laughing or taking stock of my life, or neither? I am truly perplexed. My son, having quickly arrived at his judgment of the film, is asleep.
The movie ends, and my husband exclaims, “it was great, right?”. I look at him with obvious disbelief and ask the question that I have been thinking the whole time. “What type of movie was this supposed to be, was it supposed to be a drama?” He shakes his head, annoyed, mumbles that I never get it, and wanders off. So much for our family bonding time. My son and the dog continue to snore loudly, and I have already forgotten the name of the movie.
Does this relate in any way to you? The confusion of not knowing what movie genre I was supposed to be watching and the fact that it didn’t become any clearer as time went on ruined the experience for me.
And if I am honest, I’ve also felt this way in meetings.
Genre (noun) A style or category of art, music or literature
While you may never have found yourself wondering what’s the genre of your meeting, you may have felt similar confusion and wondered, ‘what exactly are we doing here?’
Here’s a recent example.
Observing a recent team meeting, the team has gathered to agree on back-to-office protocols. As the meeting kicks off, some of the team are trying to understand what employees think and feel about returning to work, others are pushing for action and decisions expressing frustration that this discussion has been going on too long, and others are trying to interpret and make sense of data and what is being done industry-wide.
These confusions link directly to a misunderstanding of meeting genre, this team has all shown up for different genres; some are there to Connect, some to Coordinate, and others to Learn. All are equally important but put them all together, and suddenly we are in Improv theater.
In improv theater, there’s the genre game (check out this short video). It is always a great source of delight, mostly because putting these random genres together is quite ridiculous. Comedians bounce between comedy, drama, horror, and western themes, resulting in a complete mismatch of scenes, characters, and of course, message. There is nothing else to be done but to laugh out loud.
Research on effective and meaningful meetings will initially discuss the importance of a clear purpose. Best practices will offer tips like including the purpose in the meeting invitation, being clear about the end product, and knowing the desired impact on people from the meeting.
After decades of working with organizations to improve their meeting culture, we have found that clarity of purpose isn’t enough and that even before you think about the purpose, you need to be clear about the Genre.
Gathering Genres give clarity at the highest level; it, in turn, shapes your purpose and influences all other characteristics of your meeting, such as participants, products (work outcomes and experiential outcomes), place, process, preparation, etc. It is the most macro-level view of your gathering. Identifying Genres automatically shapes the macro questions that we are gathering to think about, it kicks off the narrative for the experience, and it is a way of framing (or perhaps reframing) the issues facing the team.
Let’s look back at our movie analogy. Think of a favorite film and walk through the questions. See how they apply, and how they link together.
While clarity of purpose will undoubtedly shift the performance of your gathering, the benefits when there is clarity of Genre have been noteworthy. In fact, without clarity of genre, we have seen purpose dissolve over time.
Clarity of Genre leads to gatherings with a razor-sharp focus, where every interaction and activity serves the purpose and nothing takes away or dilutes the overall experience. Clarity of Genre leads to experiences that feel good, that engage and inspire, and get work done.
You might still be wondering, how is this different from simply having a clear purpose for my gathering? The main challenges that we have seen with gathering or meeting purposes, no matter how well they are written, are
There are long-windedThey are multiple purposes disguised as one purposeThe purpose(s) can be linked to multiple meeting genres.
When the purpose(s) links to different genres, this leads to dilution. Dilution of the work done and the experience people have. It also requires drastic mental shifts from participants that can be difficult in a limited time span. We have found that at best, gatherings may have a primary genre and a secondary genre, but once you move beyond this, no matter how clearly the purpose is stated, the meeting is compromised.
The meeting genre becomes even more important for repeating meetings. Take, for example, a weekly resourcing meeting. The terms of reference for the meeting can be static, with the same purpose, participants, logistics, inputs, outputs, decisions to be made, and flow. For the most part, the genre of this meeting is to Control.
However, at some points in time, as the year progresses, we might find that we need to shift the genre from Control to Learn, as a step back or a review on the effectiveness of resourcing policies and decisions is needed. Without communicating the genre shift, we run the risk of frustrating and confusing participants.
Genre (noun) (edited) A style or category of art, music, literature or gathering
Netflix and iTunes have done an excellent job at helping us all to understand and identify movie and film genres, gathering genres may be a bit less obvious. Here are the 6* that we have identified from our work as meeting designers.
The 6 Gathering Genres
Listen to the podcast episode — https://episodes.everylittlemodel.com/ep1
Every Little Model, Gathering Genres on Instagram @everylittlemodel
Connect
These gatherings/meetings answer the questions, “Who else thinks about this?” “What do others think?”
Focuses ON:
building trust and relationshipsmaking personal and social connectionsengagement, involvement, gathering, and understanding perspectives
Typical Examples:
At Work: Leadership Offsite, Networking, Retreats, Council Sessions, Team Away Days, Team Social
Out of Work: Community Meeting
Create
These gatherings/meetings answer the question: “Where are we going?” “What could we do?”
Focuses ON:
generating new ideas and or contentlooking into problems with a high level of complexity and ambiguitybuilding excitement and engagement.
Typical Examples:
At work: Strategic Visioning Session, Design Sprints, Brainstorming Sessions, Planning sessions
Out of Work: Summer Camp
Communicate
These gatherings/meetings answer the question: “What do we need to share or hear?” “Where do we need alignment?”
Focuses ON:
sharing informationgaining information and feedback
Typical Examples:
At Work: Town Hall, All Hands Meeting, Interviews, Keynotes, Pitches
Out of Work: Political rally
Control
These gatherings/meetings answer the question: “What will we do?” “Are we committed to this course of action?”
Focuses ON:
Align initiatives and plansMake decisionsAlign perspectives and views
Typical Examples:
At Work: OKR meeting, Board Meeting
Out of Work: Election Day
Coordinate
These meetings answer the question: “Where are we?” “Are we on track?”
Focuses ON:
Maintain momentumUnblock obstacles and course correctUncover trends
Typical Examples:
At Work: Daily Stand Up, 1–1 Check-in, Audit, Backlog Refinement, Project Status Updates
Out of Work: Parent-Teacher Meeting
Learn
These meetings answer the question: “What do we know, and what do we think?” “what sense can we make?”
Focuses ON:
Explore common challengesMake meaning & uncover insightsDevelop confidence
Typical Examples:
At Work: Retrospectives, Training Sessions, Coaching Sessions, User Research, Meetups, Bootcamps
Out of Work: Consultations
To illustrate the concept, let me close with a story from a sales team.
A technology services firm had designed and approached their initial sales meetings from the COMMUNICATE genre. The purpose of the meeting was to build trust with the prospective client, to share relevant products, apps, and services that were of interest, and to ensure that the client left with confidence in the expertise and services that the sales team could provide.
When we met the team, they struggled to break through a performance ceiling they had been hitting for many months. They were consistent in their revenue performance but believed that they had untapped potential.
As we worked to help the team explore the factors limiting the performance, we helped them to rethink and reshape the genre of these initial client interactions. We shifted and redesigned the initial sales meeting as a primary LEARN gathering and secondary COMMUNICATE meeting.
This changed the way the sales team approached the meetings, shifting from less telling to more exploration, to seeking a deeper understanding of the client’s technology issues, and to working together to understand the ideal needs and wants of the client. Only after this was co-created would they share potential solutions.
Not only did the genre shift change the flow of the meeting, the agenda, the inputs, and the outputs, but it changed the overall purpose. And ultimately, it changed the mindset of the sales team.
In Summary
In our experience, there are six different types of organizational gatherings. And while there may not seem like there is an obvious or automatic connection between organizational gatherings and genres, in our experience, knowing your genre is the first step in hosting meetings with true clarity and purpose. Your genre directly influences your gathering purpose, design, flow, participants, artefacts and more. Knowing your genre ensures that you host a gathering that is purposeful and impactful. Knowing your genre will directly impact the success of your gathering.
caveat — most of the research to support these gathering and meeting genres has come from within the corporate world with for-profit organizations. We would be interested to understand if additional genres can be identified from work outside of this.
Just for fun
Download the Meeting Genres Worksheet and listen along to this cautionary tales podcast. How many genres can you identify?
What’s your (Gathering) Genre? was originally published in Every Little Model on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
