When it comes to innovating, silos are one of the biggest challenges for organisations, and since remote working has become a global reality, this challenge has increased ten-fold. Silos are not just affecting disparate teams, individuals within the same teams are also suffering from siloed working. Problems occur when lack of transparency and communication means people work at odds with one another, don’t have enough information to understand strategic intent, or implement new projects without considering the impact on others.
One way to break down these silos is by holding regular meetings. But Ugh! Nobody needs more virtual meetings in their life, right?
Without a strategy for holding effective virtual, blended or in-person meetings, cross collaboration and innovation becomes slow, tedious or halts all together.
In 2019 we shared our top tips for holding effective meetings, and while much of the advice remains true for remote working, we’ve updated it with some extra top tips for holding virtual and blended meetings.
1. THE BOOMERANG OR THE STICK
After feeling overwhelmed by the sea of meetings in his diary, Dominic Price, Resident Work Futurist at Atlassian cancelled all meetings, regardless of whom they were from. In declining he told the sender, “This meeting is either a Boomerang or a stick”. If it was a Boomerang and he was invited back, it was on the condition that they explain the role he’s going to play, the purpose of the meeting and what he’s going to be accountable for.
The meetings that were a stick, didn’t come back. These were probably the meetings that Dom was invited to out of politeness, or to keep him in the loop, but in reality his presence was not required. This clawed him back on average 15 hours per week and made meetings more purposeful.
2. ANYONE CAN CALL A MEETING, BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN EVERYONE WILL COME.
Gore-Tex is arguably one of the world’s most innovative organisations, having on average more patents per employee than any other in the world.
Anyone at Gore-Tex can call a meeting and they can invite anyone they like, but similarly anyone can decline a meeting. This means that if you’re a time waster, a person that doesn’t listen to others or that gets overprotective of your ideas, the chances are people won’t turn up to your meetings. The onus is on individuals to create a collaborative and creative meeting environment that people want to be involved in. This is when the magic will happen.
3. BE THE HOST WITH THE MOST
If you want to be a great host, plan how you will run the meeting beforehand. If your meeting is going to be fully virtual, consider using break out rooms, time boxing conversations and utilising the chat and reactions button so attendees aren’t passive voyeurs. It’s also handy to have someone making notes in the chat function, so the purpose of the meeting and outcomes are understood. If you’ve called a very long meeting, give people breaks, encourage them to stand up, move about and go outside.
As businesses move back into their offices consideration for those still working remotely will need to be made. If you’re running a blended (part virtual, part in-person) meeting, make sure you’ve accounted for those not in the room with you. Ensure they have an equal voice and can see everyone in the physical room on their screen. Encourage remote workers to use their video, so everyone can also identify visual clues for emotions and engagement.
4. BE CREATIVE
I recently heard of an online board meeting which included a professional musical performance to offer a reprieve from the cognitive labour of the session. Nevertheless, bringing creativity into virtual meetings doesn’t have to be this grand nor does it need to involve silly hats and masks (unless that’s your team’s thing.)
One of our favourites is asking people to use the chat function on video conferencing to answer two simple questions at the start of a meeting. (This should be done privately to the host.) Firstly, ask how people are they are feeling and then what they last ate. The host then reads the list out (no names are provided). We’ve had answers like “exhausted banana”, “happy biscuit”, “pumped hamburger”, “nervous salad”.
This creates a sense of connection and humour, as well as transparency for the many different experiences in the meeting, helping to energise and create psychological safety.
5. VISUALISE IT.
Have you heard of the HPPIR problem? This is when decisions are made based on the Highest Paid Person in the Room. This can be an even bigger problem in virtual meetings, because it’s more difficult to interject or offer alternative viewpoints if videos are off or microphones have been muted by the host.
Want to avoid it? Here at G2 Innovation we advocate “you think” before “group think.” Using a tool like Google Slides, Padlet or Miro, ask people to jot down ideas or thoughts individually on virtual sticky notes or in text boxes. As a group you then theme and discuss them with equal weighting (choosing one person to read out the responses helps achieve this neutrality.)
Not only is this way of working fair and useful for bringing to light new thinking, it also helps catch problems before they become insurmountable.