Ever feel like you’re having the same meeting again and again?
A system will produce the similar results no matter what the content is.
If we use the same meeting processes, then even if the topic is different, the results will be largely predictable.
Think back to meetings you’ve had recently.
I bet that they were mostly presentations/updates and open discussion (open discussion being unstructured ‘talking things through’).
This is fine for what Sam Kaner, Participatory Decision Making King, calls business-as-usual meetings.
Business-as-usual meetings are for low-impact, relatively inconsequential decisions that have a reasonably clear solution people easily agree to.
However, if you’re dealing with a complex situation, with large potential consequences and no clear solution, the meeting process needs to change.
Open discussion has certain limits.
What are the patterns?
Off the top of my head:
- The most articulate/stubbon people are the one’s who get heard.
- Quieter people try a couple of times to be heard, then give up.
- People harp on about their favourite themes.
- At the first sign of conflict, some people back down and some people ramp up.
- People adopt intractable positions and defend them.
- Solutions are generally the obvious ones, with little thinking through of ramifications.
Not quite the best environment for sustainable solutions to be created, especially bearing in mind that if business-as-usual thinking would work, it would have worked already.
There are many ways that meetings can run differently
And they needn’t be earth-shattering or even very tree-huggy. For example:
- brainstorming (temporarily suspending judgment as you produce ideas)
- individually assessing the strength of support for a proposal on a sliding scale (rather than yes/no)
- instituting a formal go-around where everyone takes a turn
- distinguishing facts from opinions
- expanding the time-line into future consequences
- allowing people some structured complaining time
- seeing things from as many points of view as possible…
These are just some simple methods that allow a different quality of dialogue to happen.
Changing the way that information flows through a system can have a profound effect on its outcomes.
Surely it’s worth trying something new to stop going through Groundhog day again…
What alternatives to open discussion have you experienced? Leave a note in the comments…
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