Top 5 Collaboration Challenges (and Their Quick Fixes)
Since our caveman days, people have always needed to work together to get stuff done. If our ancestors didn’t work as a team, they would go hungry. If we don’t work together, organizations and societies would come to a standstill.
That’s why challenges to collaboration, especially the collaboration that’s supposed to be occurring during meetings, are such a drain on the time and resources of individuals and businesses.
Check out this list of five collaboration problems you might be having, and how to fix them:
1) Attention
We’ve all had that moment when we feel like a meeting is moving along, just to realize someone has been left behind in the conversational dust.
Even when people are trying to be attentive, they can get caught up in note-taking and lose the conversational thread. When people are taking notes and not participating, they aren’t focused and collaborating at their best level.
To avoid losing focus and still have good notes, try an AI-enabled collaboration assistant for meetings, like izi.
2) Indecisiveness
Indecision can pop up in your meetings when people are afraid to be wrong, or when they want to procrastinate. If you need a decision today, make that clear at the start of the discussion. If not, set a clear deadline on when you need an answer by. If you really need input from someone not present, create contingent plans for each of their possible answers. Put all your meeting notes and questions together in an easily shareable format to send them, or let an intelligent assistant like izi do it for you.
3) Rush
Do they have another meeting to get to? Are they in a rush to grab lunch? Maybe they’re just bored? No matter the reason, when people rush through a meeting, they aren’t at their collaborative best.
The solution? Set a time limit and ALWAYS! STICK! TO! YOUR! TIME! LIMIT!
Having a defined end time for your meeting keeps everyone focused, keeps them from rushing, and it lets people know that you value their time. This only works if you consistently stick to your time limit, otherwise everyone will know your “end time” is just a moving target. Do what you can to keep the meeting running efficiently without rushing, like being prepared and limiting the scope of the meeting.
4) Tangents
Scenic detours through tangent-land cost you time that should be dedicated to the actual subject of the meeting (especially when you have a set time limit). Have an outline, ideally made before the meeting, and stick to it. As you go, make part of your meeting notes a list of “other important things” that come up during the meeting, so you can deal with them later without losing focus on the task at hand. If you use izi, your meeting notes become a shareable resource, and those would-be tangents can become important projects moving forward.
5) Follow Through
Sometimes people can be focused and productive during a meeting, but if they forget to plan post-meeting actions, that momentum will be lost when the meeting ends. If you don’t follow through on plans, then the entire meeting was for naught.
During your meeting, make an action list of who’s doing what, and when they need to do it by. Before you break, go around the room and reiterate everyone’s tasks, and afterwards send out a written list. You can note the action items yourself, or ideally with a software that automatically creates an action list for you (so you aren’t distracted taking notes; see above), like izi.
Bonus Tip:
It’s mentioned above, but an intelligent assistant like izi can be a huge help to meeting collaboration. izi listens to your meetings and automatically captures what’s important, creates bullet notes, and makes it all searchable and shareable. She lets you focus in your meetings and be ready for action when they’re done.
Learn more and sign up for our closed beta at izi.ai, and start having better meetings, today!
