A New Era Requires New Meetings

It’s common wisdom that the complexity in which organisations currently operate requires a different type of organisation. New, however, is that we also need different meetings fitting these new organisations.

Organising for complexity means a radical shift away from the organisation as we know and learned. The one built upon hierarchy (command and control), planning and standardised production is feeling its limits. Big time. In the new dynamics, your organisation has become slow, chocked by the many rules and kpi’s. Your staff is demotivated, lacks creativty and shows little initiative. (Well, that’s a pretty dark picture. But isn’t that reality in manty of our organisations?)

The answer to this complexity comes in the form of networked organisations. Small teams in which value creation is the result of team interaction. It’s a process of working with one another for each other. Rules, bosses and standards don’t matter that much anymore when you realise that it’s purpose that drives people and that the quality and quantity of interactions is what creates value.

Moving away from the standard hierarchical structure is not easy. And your sigh is deep and loud: ‘wouldn’t it be easier to just start again from scratch?’ But your organisation carries history. Every organisation does. Therefore, the answer lies in setting up a minimal structure that allows for small steps. Ridiculously ambitious in the long-term, but actionable in the short-term. 21st century meetings provide this entry point.

New elements to help surf complexity

Meetings are integral part of organisational life. In the old paradigm, meetings are used by the hierarchy to inform, decide and instruct. And though a fifth of the century has already passed by, some leaders still use their team meetings to go through their stack of emails (kindly printed by their lovely assistant) to divide the work. I’ve met them!

Looking at it from a complexity perspective, new elements arise. First the centrality of the teams. Teams do the work. Without them and their team members (i.e. the people) the organisation would not thrive.

A second element is the organisation itself. Now, an organisation is something strange… as it is nothing more than a construct, a fantasy. Albeit, a very powerful one. So the essence of an organisation is not people or things, it’s an idea. Nowadays, we call it purpose.

As already mentioned, complexity evolves around interactions. That’s the third element. The fourth element is the connection with the outer world. Normally teams have that interaction embedded in their way of working, as they deliver for the outer world. But sometimes it’s useful to interact on a different basis.

These 4 elements lead to 21st century meetings

And these meetings will lead to inclusion and engagement and will help you surf the complexity inside and outside your organisation. Let’s have a look at the type of meetings every element yields.

1. The team

You want the teams to deliver. Actually, it’s not you that wants the team to deliver. The members of the team probably want it more than you do. With the purpose and values clear on the one hand and the market on the other, they want to add value.

And there are two things the members of the team need to sort out between themselves: operational stuff and tactical affairs. Hence 2 types of meetings are needed:

• Operational meetings – What do we, as a team, do on a daily basis that adds value.
• Tactical meetings – How doe we get rid of the barriers that get in the way of our day-to-day work.

2. The organisation

You want your teams to know why they need to do what they need to do. They need purpose. Actually the whole idea of teams and having an organisation is because of its purpose. Sometimes the purpose is crystal clear but often, organisations need to redefine their purpose once in a while.

These meetings are about the search for focus. That’s the sense-making part. Also here, you will find two different times of meetings. Both type of meetings are especially important to boost the interactions between the teams and their members:

• Strategy & values meetings– Setting the purpose of the organisation and organising a platform on which values are being uphold through dialogues (and dialogues will increase the quality and quantity of interactions).
• Governance meetings– Creating a platform where the distribution of power and authority takes place, on a continuous basis (again: meaning holding dialogues).

3. The interactions (communication and mastery)

Communication and mastery become increasingly important when moving away from hierarchy and the classical line of command & control. These are meetings in which the purpose is translated into execution and in which people strengthen their skills in doing their jobs well. Becoming better at your job is good for one’s motivation and thus engagement.

• Communication meetings– focused on the transfer of information in order to let teams align themselves with the purpose.
• Meetings that improve mastery– These are about knowledge transfer and improving the professionals within the organisation.

4. Connecting with the outside world

Your organisation lives for the outside world. Your teams are creating value to make the outside world happy. And in a 21st century organisation they are in close contact with the outside world. But from time to time you want to connect on a different level, to investigate trends and new forms of cooperation. Or to develop new value propositions. So, these type of meetings may take many different forms but are all about the feedback loop back into your organisation.