Meetings are a Conversation
I have been receiving wonderful feedback from my recent talk at Ottawa’s Human Factors group, CapCHI, entitled Being Human is NOT Quantifiable.
This feedback has come from business leaders in fortune 100 companies; senior directors in the public sector; developers; and designers from around the world.
The common theme of my talk was summarized quite well by User Experience Designer Alla Zollers on Twitter:
It’s about communication, not deliverables. It’s about understanding, not compromise!
This lead me to thinking about one of the most common practices in the development of any product or service, the meeting!
The idea is simple enough – get everyone together in a room to talk about the project and work together towards a specific end state.
And even though there are few who manage productive meetings, it is still one of the most common practices in both business and government.
The larger impact this has on any organization, beyond the delivery of a lesser product or service, is the impact it has on the corporate culture. In one of the funniest quotes from the movie Office Space, Peter quips:
It’s not that I’m lazy…it’s that I just don’t care!
Having worked in, and consulted to, “Office Space” like environments I wanted to share a “Meeting Manifesto” that I use to run productive meetings.
The purpose is to ensure the interdisciplinary teams that make up every sector today, are able to convey their ideas while respecting the experiences and ideas of others:
How we need to work together to effectively accomplish our purpose…
* Since everyone here has a valid perspective, say what you think. We need your open and honest inputs.
* Since it is difficult to tell how others see things, if something does not make sense to you, ask about it.
* Since being judgmental can impair the openness necessary for teamwork and understanding, try not to attack others’ ideas. Questioning for clarity is OK.
* Since it is easy to get off on tangents in a meeting, work to ensure that issues discussed relate to the topic at hand.
* Since developing our best thinking about the designated task is our primary goal, work to upgrade thoughts not words.
* Work together towards consensus.
* Expect from others professionalism through your demonstration of it.
This Manifesto is especially useful in corporate cultures where people are afraid to share ideas / experiences for fear of being ridiculed.
The rules apply to everyone at every level in the corporate hierarchy, very much including the leader of the meeting.
