Much is being written about change these days – the need to change at pace, how to create transformational change, how to deal with change. One of the principles that underpins my Gestalt approach, is the paradoxical nature of change, it only happens when we truly understand what is going on in the present. When we take this stance, through the lens of meetings, we can see some fundamentals that are not changing and what this means for how we work together.
The connection between meetings and change …
It feels important for me to start by stating the connection I see between meetings and change.
Meetings are fractals of organisations and society and, by looking at meetings closely we can see the patterns at play in how we work.
It is impossible to actually see how an organisation works so we form conceptual beliefs about how we work together, based on our experiences and mental models. However, when we get a group of people in a room together, we can literally see (with a trained eye) how people are actually working together.
When we combine this hypothesis with the paradoxical theory of change it is this that leads me to believe in the power of meetings for change #changehowyoumeetchangetheworld
Meetings are the heart of how we work together, the numerous meetings going on everyday are the beating pulse of our organisations, our everyday experience of culture, and the way in which work is progressed. By taking a forensic look at what’s happening in our meetings we can see systemic patterns and by being aware of these we can learn, adapt, and create change.
When we look at the pervasive patterns in how we meet at work today, we can see
so little has changed in the way we meet despite the huge changes in the world.
Even moving meetings online has failed to impact this.
Pervasive patterns…
Here are just 3 of the most pervasive meeting habits.
- Meetings are updates
The majority of meeting time is spent on updating each other. People are primarily there to share or hear information being shared by others in some form of presentation mode ie one person speaking and others listening and sometimes asking questions. Presentation skills and influencing skills are still considered to be amongst the most important skills needed in business. The majority of meeting rooms are arranged in a portrait orientation with a screen at the ‘front’.
Yet we now have a multitude of different platforms that enable us to share information through video, audio and visual means – why do we need to use meetings for this?
- Meeting agendas are made up of topics
There is little or no group work done in meetings ie the cocreation of new knowledge or ideas or decisions. Any group work tends to be either Q&A or discussions in which people pitch in with their different views on the topic – without the synthesis that creates new meaning. The nearest thing to group work in meetings is ‘alignment’, a term used to describe people agreeing to a point of view.
There is huge potential power that lies in people working together. We know the myth that the whole is greater than the parts but we are not achieving this in our meetings today.
- Agenda items are lead by subject matter experts
This means a leading-through-knowing style of leadership is adopted, based on content expertise and having the answers, this is different from being able to facilitate a group to reach collective answers. To work this way the leader needs to be willing to not know, and to have group facilitation skills.
The art and science of group work sits predominantly in the consulting sector. These skills are not considered essential to managers and leaders. Leaders and managers are rarely equipped to apply more than what they know through the adoption of old meeting conventions passed down through the decades.
The offer of hope …
I expect that most of the above sounds familiar – no news there. What I find shocking is that this has not changed in over 30 years I have been in business and yet the world has changed so dramatically. Just to think that, in 1999, when I founded Meeting Magic, the internet was fledgling, Google was just starting out and mobile phones were the size of bricks!
There is much intellectual acknowledgement of complexity and our need to be able to sense and respond to our complex, fast paced environment, and yet our meeting habits reveal an uncomfortable truth… that we are unable to do this even in our everyday work together in meetings, yet alone at scale in organisations and society.
However, all is not lost 😊
This is not a story of doom and gloom.
Actually, it is a story of hope for there are simple and practical ways we can make impactful changes. Even small changes in the way we meet can ripple system-wide. #changehowyoumeetchangetheworld
By becoming aware of these old patterns we can start to shift them even in small ways, which can have a big impact.
Profound change starts with ending…
In the tyranny of our busyness it is really hard to make space for anything new and there is loads of evidence that initiating new things has much less impact than ending what isn’t working.
William Bridges in his work on transitions, once said, ‘ Every transition begins with an ending. We have to let go of the old thing before we can pick up the new – not just outwardly, but inwardly.’ I have experienced this to be true both personally and professionally. Until we let go of the out-of-date meeting practices that pervade our organisations, we cannot truly move to a new way of being together.
So, let’s stop spending time in dreadful meetings. Here is a magic formula to free up some time in your calendar…. These are 3 questions you can ask when you are invited to meeting, to help you decide whether it is a good use of time – they spell OMG!
O – Outcomes: does the meeting have specific outcomes ie results we need to achieve together, synchronously, in a meeting space? What will happen as a result of this meeting that, without it, would not happen? BEWARE – update is not an outcome!
M – My role: what is my role in achieving these outcomes? Why am I needed, specifically? Do I need to be in the whole meeting? Is there any other way I could contribute?
G – Group work: is there any collective work that is going to happen ie are we going to work together in the session to create something together? If not, why are we meeting?
By ending the meetings in your life that are wasting your time, I hope that you can create some space for yourself and, in that space you might have the bandwidth of trying some different ways of meeting that can create change for the better.
Over the forthcoming months I will be publishing a series of Myth Busting Blogs about the current myths that underpin how we work together including: the need for speed; how to create sustainable change; change initiatives and programme management; our focus on growth… in each one I will offer alternatives, and things that you can try out for yourself.