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Meetings occur with the assumption that individuals have someting to contribute to an organization that is best executed as a group effort, or that people learn more cost-effectively in a group rather than one-on-one. In order to get the most out of a meeting, it is important to understand a little bit about group dynamics.

This is probably what most of you think of when someone asks you to come to a meeting:

Effects of group behavior

I can tell you from first-hand experience that there are a lot of meetings that I would have been better off not attending. Assembling a bunch of brain-power in a room is ot enough to ensure successful learning, negotiation, problem-solving, or decision-making. Attitudes, feelings, and intra-office politics can affect the reaction to the material being presented or discussed. These reactions influence all of the attendees in one way or another. This is because, in a group, humans prefer to avoid rejection and gain the approval of others in the group.

This can lead to interesting circumstances where a meeting produces no substantial result at all:

• “Groupthink” can lead to acceptance of a pre-conceived solution, that may or may not be the best solution
• Attendees with higher perceived status may indicate understanding when they have no true comprehension
• Attendees with lower perceived status may refrain from offering a controversial idea for fear of rejection
• Suggestibility of people in groups can lead to an undue influence from the minority opinion
• Group participation can lead to reduced individual accountability

Establish trust and inter-dependence

There are a few things that you can do as the leader or facilitator of a meeting to increase its value and productivity:

• Establish (and express) your own belief in the value of group work. If you don’t think that the meeting is a good idea, everyone there will catch on in a minute.
• Set clear goals for the meeting right at the start. Setting a goal for the group lets the attendees know that they are accountable for the success of the meeting.
• Create an avenue for back-and-forth communication. Meetings, even for presentations, should be more like a press conference than an address. If the attendees have no means or reason to interact, then you might as well just record a video and send it out.
• Distribute the power and responsibility. As the leader of a meeting you can increase participation by assigning roles to discussion leaders, having multiple presenters, and being sure to ask open-ended (rather than yes-or-no) questions. At the end of the meeting, have a list of who is responsible for each Next Action & it’s due date.

Recognize all contributions

During the meeting itself, as well as in all follow-ups, it is important to encourage and acknowledge every attendees contribution to the process of the meeting. If participant involvement is ignored or discarded, you will be undermining the process and alienating the participants. By showing sincerity and trust, you can truly get more from the group than from the sum of its parts.

One last thing, remember to say “Thank you“. It is much more powerful and valuable than you might think!

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/5svr62. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen