Facilitation Counts…

Another Meeting! Leveraging effective facilitation in driving sustainable results and inclusive culture

The other day, a friend sent me a picture of her calendar. It was packed with back-to-back as well as overlapping meetings stretching to a 16-hour workday. This resonates with most if not all of us, and our workdays do not end there — with families, aged and ill loved ones and a myriad of other commitments that extend our days beyond the traditional. Virtual work has placed new and additional demands on our time, with work commitments often overflowing into family and personal life due to the very nature of the virtual context. This is what is called the ‘new normal’. Too many meetings can be exhausting causing diminishing engagement levels and ultimately, resulting into unfulfilled meeting agendas and work outcomes. Paradoxically, this can encourage more meetings to attain the desired conclusion and so the vicious cycle continues.

The challenge of creating balance is more pressing that ever- especially in sectors with lower women representation. How can we live balanced lives while making meaningful contribution? How can we see ‘another meeting’ as a mechanism to advance our visibility and career-building opportunity? Zooming into our roles in creating and contributing to productive meetings is a good start towards enhanced productivity, sustainable results and better balance.

Photo by LinkedIn Sales Solutions on Unsplash

3 Steps Towards Hosting Productive Meetings

1. There are four main reasons to hold a meeting — to influence others, to make decisions, to solve problems, or to strengthen relationships.[1] If none of the reasons apply to the meeting agenda, you can consider writing an email, sending a message, or making a phone call. However, if you still need to attend it, then determine how you are going to influence (and who), how you can contribute constructively to the decision-making and problem-solving, and perhaps, how you can strengthen relationships through your contribution.

2. The second valuable step is inviting those that need to attend. In addition to creating team accountability, it is an opportunity to ensure that the gathering of the right people is achieved.

3. The third step is the facilitation of the meeting. A good facilitator creates a mindful space that acts as a catalyst in achieving the goals of the meeting. Some must-dos for facilitating a fruitful meeting include the following,

• Keep Videos On: Multi-focus is neurologically impossible so it might be useful to contract before a meeting that videos remain on, and phones silenced. This is no different to having phones silenced and laptops closed, at face-to-face meetings. The idea is to stay fully present, read faces and body language and honor the value of everyone’s time.
• Make it interactive from the start- Check-ins can be a great way to start a meeting, making everyone comfortable to speak up from the beginning. It is also worthwhile to identify anything that was important to people at the previous meeting. On many instances, a meeting starts with a presentation and then, everyone is invited to question or discuss. Mostly, silence is the only reaction in such scenarios. Early audience involvement is key to holding engaging meetings and to building valuable relationships.
• Get everyone to speak- In a small group, it is easier to ask someone for their opinion. For large groups, using check-ins and breakout rooms can be quite effective. Encouraging people who generally prefer not to speak can also be a good opportunity for them to feel included in the conversation. Again, be mindful of the audience — know as much about the participants as possible. Prepare questions or topic areas that can keep the discussion running and people involved. Open-ended and high gain questions are valuable in creating meaningful discussion and engaging with others.
• Be okay with silence- Silence that gives participants time to collect their thoughts can be as difficult to experience as the moments of uncomfortable silence in a face-to-face meeting .Imagine being a part of an in-person meeting in a conference room. There are so many moments of silence- while people were arriving, making notes, pausing to think for a while, taking breaks and so on. While there can be technology-related challenges in virtual meetings, silence should not be a cause of discomfort. Acknowledging that there can be silence and giving participants time to collect their thoughts can be a good start of being okay with virtual silence. Offering people a few minutes break can help in these situations, even in a 1-hour virtual meeting.

Powerful facilitation can be an essential tool to impact organization’s success and increase your visibility. This is how women in energy we can Lean In and utilize virtual meetings to influence, contribute to decisions and solutions, and strengthen relationships which assist in career progress.

This article is inspired by Kim A. Page’s powerful session on Storytelling as a part of her ‘Right Kind of Loud Online’ course. Kim A. Page’s book “The Right Kind of Loud: Finding Your Communication Voice” is part of the curriculum at several business schools.

[1] How to Get People to Actually Participate in Virtual Meetings by Justin Hale and Joseph Grenny