Human-Centred Meetings
Some months ago, I wrote about how we could apply simple facilitation techniques to improve the quality of the meetings that we spend so much time in. As a follow-up to the post, I wanted to write about how we can think about making our meetings more human-centred. We often forget that discussions are less about ideas and more about the human beings that need to listen, understand and feel empowered to respond to those ideas. I recently made this blunder when I tried to run a meeting on data analytics without realising that my audience was not in the right setting (both physical and mental) to engage deeply in the content. It gave me a useful reminder of the need to deeply understand human behaviour to run effective discussions.
Rituals
There is a growing segment of Meeting Designers who are actually consulting for organisations struggling to understand how to run effective discussions, especially in this new virtual/hybrid world. Here’s a podcast where Sonja Hanau, one such meeting designer talks about the value of rituals:
She points to rituals such as check-ins as an oft-overlooked but powerful mechanism to remind everyone at the start of a session that there are human beings in the discussion, not automatons who are performing a function. In fact, many effective managers and C-suite leaders will share that they rely on rituals as a way to easily establish necessary mindsets and attitudes. Retrospectives, for example, are end-of-week share-backs that are often conducted over food or drinks to lower the stakes of sharing mistakes and to instead focus on learning forward. Kudos, where team members share thanks to other members who supported them, are intentional pockets geared towards bringing gratefulness and abundance back to teams These do not need to be separate meetings and can be designed into regular Operations discussions or weekly processes.
A good ritual can be broken down into the following:
- A human-centered goal e.g. encourage collaboration, create safety
- A simple and repeatable series of steps e.g. share what is on your mind
- Participation from all members of the team, regardless of seniority i.e. bosses are fair game too
- Consistency in application i.e. time has to be protected for rituals no matter what
Rituals remind participants of what is important as there is time dedicated on a consistent basis. By keeping it simple, it becomes something participants can look forward to and easily onboard new team members to. Most importantly, it creates a long-lasting cultural impact as rituals become difficult to stop doing once they have taken root. The human-centred goal is achieved even if the team members change, and it only takes leadership (or a lack thereof) to displace the ritual. It is no wonder why Meeting Designers are increasingly in demand.
Balancing Power
One of the best lessons I was taught was in the area of power. Power without responsibility can be a wrecking force, and the truth is that most people do not even recognise the power they hold. I found French and Raven‘s model around the Bases of Power (taught to me in an adapted form in a Facilitating Powerful Conversations course) to be an illuminating way to understand how power is given to people in a room, and why despite the best intentions, some may not speak up or have their points received well.
Simply put, there are different reasons why power flows in a room.
| Type of Power | Description |
|---|---|
| Legitimate | This comes from the belief that a person has the authority and formal right to attention. |
| Reward | This comes from someone’s ability to provide positive compensation for attention. |
| Expert | This is based on a person’s credentials i.e. their established skill and knowledge |
| Coercive | This comes from someone’s ability to provide negative punishment for lack of attention. |
| Referent | This is often about relatability and is tied to a person’s perceived visible characteristics e.g. race, gender etc. |
| Informational | This results from a person’s ability to control the information that others need to accomplish something. |
| Moral | This results from a person’s perceived ability to act consistently to their statements. |
| Charismatic | This is often about a person’s sense of wholeness. |
In most meetings, power is often initially given to those with legitimate or informational power i.e. whoever is the boss or whoever is sharing the presentation. These are often good starting points if the people holding this power know how to use their influence.
In a meeting that is meant to encourage open discussion, there is a need for the person holding power (in most cases, the legitimate power holder i.e. meeting principal) to empower others, especially if there are ongoing power imbalances (e.g. gender-based, personality-based etc.) that will likely prevent such frank conversation.
However, one need not feel limited if the person with legitimate power does not use their power responsibly. Power flows and if you wield any of the other types of power intentionally (e.g. increase reliability through referent power or increase moral power through being consistent in your specialisation), you can gain influence and use that to empower others.
Power is a necessary pre-condition for impact – assertions made without power fall flat, but assertions made with power become declarative. If you notice that someone is making an important point but it is not being received by the team, it is a signal that they lack power in that session. If you feel like you have some suasion with the group, use your power to reinforce and elevate others who deserve it, without stealing away attention to yourself.
As you can likely tell, this is an area that both energises me but also is still something that I have lots more to learn about. I have been on a journey to better understand the nature of power and how it can be used responsibly. We did a whole book club discussion on this, so I am going to drop some other posts you may find interesting.
Referencing the example I gave above, I reflected that my first discussion on data analytics was delivered virtually where no one could see anyone else. My audience had varying levels of understanding on the topic, and it potentially could be intimidating or overwhelming to those who did not feel safe engaging on the topic. For example, they may have been concerned that they appear incompetent if they do not engage with the material well, even though they earnestly wanted to learn more. There were some defensive positions taken by some team members, actions that essentially attempted to use power to maintain their safety but that also blocked the conversation from moving further. I realised that I could not achieve my goal in that session and called for a time-out to re-group in a couple of weeks.
In the interim period between sessions, I talked to different team members to understand their concerns with the material. What were their fears and concerns? What would motivate them? How can I make the discussion empowering for them? The session became less about sharing information, but about bringing team members on the journey to feel like they could participate in the transformation process. I needed the meeting to become human-centred.
In the next iteration of the meeting, I did a couple of things intentionally. Firstly, I insisted on doing this discussion face-to-face. I needed my team members to understand that I was here to support them on the journey and I cared about the team’s safety. I could only communicate that with my somatic self. Secondly, I set up some ritual checkpoints. After each section, I would pause for questions and maintain the silence for someone to speak up. I would not rush through the silence – it was important that the team feel that the moment is for them. By the third checkpoint, questions came naturally. Finally, I would use my influence to ensure that everyone in the room could share their concerns. I used the informational power I held to create space for inquiry, dissent and challenge. I asked specific individuals about what was going through their minds, especially if I saw them deep in thought, as a way to re-emphasise the collective journey we were on.
I personally felt the meeting was a lot more successful, and I got good feedback from my team members that not only did they understand the content, but they were also motivated to apply it in their work. This gave me a lot of joy.
Hopefully, this story gives you some inspiration on how you can apply the techniques I shared over these couple of posts in your professional lives. Do let me know if you have your own practices or rituals to recommend, I would love to learn from them!
