Friday, January 19, 2007
Getting The Most Out Of Meetings
The Magic Of More Than One. In our business, my partner and I continually discussed matters that occurred in the various responsibilities we each had.
We had a free-wheeling environment, where both of us felt free to pop into the other’s office at any time and talk over ideas that we had heard from our people, or ones we had individually come up with.
Sometimes it was simply an exercise in talking about something that was rattling around in our heads.
We found a magic in these sessions that I often described as serendipity. It seemed to us that when we discussed a subject with frankness and openness, the conclusions we arrived at were often better than either one of us had first thought.
Thinking of this now, I recognize that one of the reasons for this improvement was that we each felt completely free to express the ideas that occurred to us - even those ideas that were quite different from each other. Our shared ideas fed on one another.
I believe the advantages of working together this way has application in the relationship of all workers and their supervisors. Every leader should be able to discuss the work frequently and freely with employees. The resultant ideas are often better than either one could produce alone.
When a new idea is first suggested by an employee, the supervisor must be careful to ensure, that when the idea is acted upon or passed up the line, the employee is given full credit.
As we have said elsewhere, successful use of this concept demands that the worker trust his boss completely. If the two understand the magic of such a relationship, both they and the company will benefit greatly.
While I am not a fan of frequent group meetings there are times when some good can be done. Looking at them honestly, many group meetings and conferences within the company are worthless. The ideas that come out of the group are driven to a combined opinion that satisfies the leader, or the person that the group considers the most correct. I suppose if it was the intention of the leader to achieve a common consensus on a previously decided matter such a meeting is okay.
However in some cases there are ideas that must be explored with more than one or two people. Getting diverse opinions that could produce a totally new and good idea in such a setting is unusual. To do so a careful plan must be followed.
If the leader is really looking for new ideas, then he should understand some fundamentals.
In order to insure that potentially useful out-of-the-box ideas are given full expression, the leader must understand how to promote their creation in a group setting. If he is careful, the collective judgment, properly handled, can be better than that of any individual in the group. Generally, the larger the group the more sure that a new good idea could result.
1. Each person must be encouraged to give his own personal ideas and
information, even if it’s just an odd or eccentric interpretation of the known
facts. In getting all ideas out on the table, nobody is permitted to make
light of any idea.
2. The leader must insist that people work to insure that their opinions are not solely determined by the opinions of those around them, by carefully spelling out the rules of the meeting to include all ideas that come into the individual’s minds regardless of what others say.
3. People should be encouraged to give ideas which are based not only on
their own fields, but any other ideas that pop into their heads.
3. The leader must be prepared to create a mechanism to turn the individual
judgments into a collective decision.
The wise leader actively works at insuring the individual’s ideas are his own and not the group’s. In doing so he must protect the suggestion giver from any sort of ridicule.
He also actively seeks ideas from the specialized knowledge of individuals and any other ideas, long before giving his own opinion.
He finds ways to truly and accurately identify aggregated opinions and then congratulate the group.
In getting the most out of meetings, wise leaders actively seek ways to draw from the opinions of all the people to achieve the success they desire.
posted by Larry Haines at
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