naked meetings: using unseen structures to achieve results
DESCRIPTION
Leaders rely on effective meetings to get work done. What if you could make your staff meetings, your board and stakeholder meetings, or your community meetings more effective and efficient? What if you could do it tomorrow?Underneath what we see as a "meeting" is an unseen structure that influences how we behave. This webinar will help you recognize these structures and identify more effective ones for your meetings. Using an appropriate structure makes it easier to stay focused, manage time and conflicts ... and build better decisions.The webinar teaches an approach that is different from other approaches to "better meetings." You will learn to recognize and choose the most effective structures for particular meetings. Leave this webinar having the tools you need to run successful meetings - without relying on meeting "rules," facilitators or special training.TRANSCRIPT
Sponsored by:A Service
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Naked Meetings:
Using Unseen Structures to Achieve Results
Rick Lent
April 25, 2012
Sponsored by:A Service
Of:
Advising nonprofits in:
• Strategy
• Planning
• Organizational Development
www.synthesispartnership.com
(617) 969-1881
INTEGRATED PLANNING
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Today’s Speaker
Rick LentPrincipal
Meeting for Results
Hosting:
Sam Frank, Synthesis PartnershipAssisting with chat questions: April Hunt, Nonprofit Webinars
Naked Meetings: Using Unseen Structures to Achieve Results
Rick Lent, Ph.D.
www.meetingforresults.com
Agenda
1. Enable you to recognize how unseen structures that may affect your meetings
2. Outline your choices in working to improve meeting structures
3. Give you some tools for implementing effective structures:
• To keep discussion productive
• To manage feedback on proposals
• To improve follow-up on action plans
• And take your questions …
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Unseen structures …
Unseen Structures of Meetings
• Physical, temporal, procedural aspects of meetings.
• With an (unrecognized) impact on how we interact with each other and the work of the meeting.
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Changing Structure to Change Results
• Small town
• With a 10 year history of failed efforts to create a plan the town would support…
• New committee and new approach
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Changing Structures to Change Results
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Changing Structures to Change Results
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Changing Structures to Change Results
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Changing Structures: What Remains Unseen?
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Structures Behind Initial Questions
1) Meeting size …
• Principle of 8
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2) Staying on time and on task … • Defining task(s) and time required• Sharing responsibility
3) Decision-making• Choosing among 5 Cs• Supporting respectful discussion
Structuring Effective Meetings:Three stages to any meeting…
1. Planning
2. Conducting
3. Achieving Results
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Structural Choices in Planning
Choice 1: How you define the task or work of the meeting.
Choice 2: Who you invite.
Choice 3: How you design the discussion.
Choice 4: How you plan to reach a decision.
Choice 5: How time will be spent.
Choice 6: How you will arrange meeting space.
www.meetingforresults.com 17This work by Rick Lent, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Choice 1. How you define the task or work of the meeting.
Example:
In response to a safety incident, a management team might meet to discuss “Yesterday’s safety incident.”
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A more clearly focused task statement would be, “What can we learn from yesterday’s safety incident that we can apply to improve workplace safety going forward?”
Structural Choices in Planning
Choice 1: How you define the task or work of the meeting.
Choice 2: Who you invite.
Choice 3: How you design the discussion.
Choice 4:How you plan to reach a decision.
Choice 5: How time will be spent.
Choice 6: How you will arrange the meeting space.
www.meetingforresults.com 19This work by Rick Lent, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Leading to an Agenda
Structural Choices in Conducting
Choice 1: How you share responsibility.
Choice 2: How you support dialogue.
Choice 3: How you manage time.
Choice 4: How you work with any conflict.
www.meetingforresults.com 20This work by Rick Lent, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Structural Choices in Achieving Results
Choice 1: How you build decisions with your group.
Choice 2: How you plan to follow-up.
www.meetingforresults.com 21This work by Rick Lent, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Tools to Support Choices
Planning the discussion to keep it focused and
productive: “1-2-All”
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Conducting the meeting to manage difficult/varied reactions to some proposal: “PALPaR”
Achieving Results with effective follow-up: “Three Follow-Up Questions” and “Follow-Up Timing”
This work by Rick Lent, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Tool for Structuring Discussion: 1-2-All Effective Engagement for Any Size Group
After introducing a subject or question to be addressed by the group, complete the following steps.
1: Individual Reflection. Make sure everyone understands the question or topic for consideration, then give individuals a minute or two to gather their own thoughts. (This is the “1” of the tool).
2: Small Group Discussion. Then ask participants to turn to their neighbors to form small, 2-3 person groups to share their ideas. Explain the time they have for their discussion and to make sure everyone in their group shares their thoughts in that time.
All: Whole Group Report. Ask each group for a brief report (typically 1-3 minutes) summarizing their small group discussion.
www.meetingforresults.com 23This work by Rick Lent, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Tool for Working with Feedback: PALPaRCreating a Respective Exchange in Response to Some Proposal
Present: You present the proposal (report or other information).
Ask: Ask participants to talk with each other (in small groups) to answer three
“reaction” questions such as:
1. What did you like about this proposal?
2. Where do you need more information?
3. What don’t you like?
Listen: Take reports from each small group, one question at a time..
Pause: Take a specified break to incorporate what you have heard before
continuing, and
Reply: Come back to the group and summarize what you heard as key points
in the feedback, and how you have taken feedback into account (or not).
www.meetingforresults.com 24This work by Rick Lent, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Achieving Results: Three Follow-Up Questions Learning from a balanced review of progress
Bring the group together and focus the discussion around these three questions:
1. What has been accomplished as planned?
2. What hasn’t been accomplished as planned?
3. What can we learn about making progress in this area from our answers to both questions?
Use all three questions one at a time in this order. Try to balance time and attention across replies to all three questions. You can modify the questions to fit the circumstances, but use all three types.
www.meetingforresults.com 25This work by Rick Lent, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Achieving Results: Follow Up Timing Choosing an Effective Time for Learning from Actions
Announce a review of progress on agreed actions within 30-45 days of the original meeting. • This period of time is usually long enough to have some accomplishments.
• More important, this is not so long that the only thing that is “top of mind” is why some planned action was unrealistic.
The discussion should review both what has been done as well as what has not been done. Try not to focus only on problem areas. Build the group’s learning about its efforts from a balanced review of all their experience so far.
www.meetingforresults.com 26This work by Rick Lent, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
How Do I Know This Works?
• The last 30 years have seen major advances in how we conduct effective large group meetings of 50, 100, 500 or more participants.
• In such large meetings, it is very difficult to direct the behavior or participation of individuals. Instead, a facilitator uses structure to enable all to participate effectively and efficiently.
• For ten years I have been adapting the structural approaches of these large group meeting techniques so that leaders everywhere can make smaller, regular meetings more effective.
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For More Information..
Stories of challenging meetings and structural tools to help at www.meetingforresults.com/blog
Complimentary consultation on a meeting challenge (by email or phone appointment) [email protected]
1-978-580-4262
E-book on structural tools for better meetings: Meeting for Results Tool Kit: Make Your Meetings Work. Available this summer. Sign up
to be notified when available: www.meetingforresults.com
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