18NTC: Not just another meeting
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Meetings are a necessary evil, especially when kicking off new digital projects, campaigns, redesigns, etc. But while there’s no substitute for getting your team together, we often end up talking past each other about a problem rather than getting closer to a solution. Worse, an ineffective meeting can deplete everyone’s morale and creativity—and let’s face it, most meetings are ineffective. But there’s a better way. In this (really) hands-on workshop, we’ll dive headfirst into activities, tools, and techniques pulled from the world of design thinking, Silicon Valley, and improv comedy to help your team break apart problems, expose underlying issues, and build on each other’s ideas. Learn how Excelencia in Education leveraged some of these low-budget, high-impact approaches to get aligned with their site redesign challenges and identify compelling ways to tell their data-driven story. Come to this session prepared to get inspired and get out of your seat to play along with us, so you can take these games and activities back to your team and get the most out of your next meeting.
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18NTC: Not just another meeting
- 25. Future Tweet
- 26. Start with simple word- listing. Jot down words that you feel embody your organization. Triad Exercise
- 27. 27 • Pick three words that you’d put together to describe the core of the digital experience. • Noun + Verb + Adj. is powerful but the Triad doesn't have to be this combination Triads: Step 2
- 28. • Select your top Triads and put on the wall • Vote. Everyone get 5 dots to vote for grouping(s) they find the most compelling. Triads: Step 3
- 32. Online white boarding Team chat toolsScreen sharing
- 45. Another application for this kind of meeting
Editor's Notes
- EVE
- EVE The slides will be available There’s a hashtag, but we encourage you to put your devices away during the workshop Try something new and we think you’ll really get something new out of it In the spirt of emulating propoer meetings We want you to be present Don’t have to hold your qustions!
- EVE Now that that’s out of the way, Hi!
- JORDAN, EVE, MICHELLE ADD WHY MEETINGS! JORDAN Jordan Hirsch, Director, Strategy, Phase2 My job involves a lot of meetings – and part of my job is to make those meetings more valuable for everyone around the table My background is in equal parts technology and improv comedy, both of which have informed the way I communicate and teach I also used to work at BF-RED with Eve EVE I’m Eve Simon, Creative Director at BF RED where I used to work with Jordan EVE FILL IN A FEW POINTS ABOUT YOURSELF HERE Theater background Our backgrounds helped us look at our work with clients and each other through a unique lens Later on you’ll hear about our work with Excelencia in Education, where I met Michelle. MICHELLE I’m Michelle Santiago, Digital Manager, Excelencia in Education MICHELLE FILL IN A FEW POINTS ABOUT YOURSELF/EXCELENCIA HERE I only met Eve because BF RED had tried a new kind of meeting – we attended a hackathon of theirs, and later engaged them to help us change the way we tell our story.
- EVE Why are we here? We will talk about best practices, share some creative strategies to get more out of your meetings We’re going invite you to get up to and try some exercises with us And we’re going to teach you some methods to change your meetings from within, even if you’re not the one running the meeting
- JORDAN Let’s do a quick warmup to get started In your meetings, I recommend you start off with a warm up to get people’s brains (and even bodies) activated a bit Also you’ll notice I said “warmup” instead of “ice breaker” – ice-breaking is a pretty violent image, whereas warming up gets you ready to work together I recommend going around the table and having everyone tell the group their first car, or their first job, or the weirdest thing they’ve ever eaten This nice simple warmup will also get your brain nice & oxygenated, and ready to absorb new information Breathing exercise Everyone who is able to please stand up (if you need to sit, you can still participate!). Breathes in for a slow count of 3 while raising arms, out for a slow count of 4 with an audible sigh (3x)
- JORDAN, EVE JORDAN Now that you’re all oxygenated, I have a question for you: What is a meeting? (get 2-3 audience responses) For each one: who agrees? Who disagrees? Those are all great answers For us, a meeting is people coming together to accomplish something. And we think a meeting can be boiled down to 2 simple skills: listening and talking But that’s not all a meeting is… EVE Meetings are not just people together in a room Meetings are the primary place where organizational culture manifests itself They are the barometer of your org. culture They are also a lever you can pull to CHANGE your org. culture to be more effective
- JORDAN Remember that our working definition is : Meetings are really nothing more than talking and listening. Simple, right? To illustrate how simple meetings are, I’ll need some volunteers. (6 people) Yes Circle Exercise How did that feel? You can’t listen if you’re trying to talk at the same time Communication is hard! And we often think we’re communicating when we’re really not. And if we’re not communicating well together, we’re not having a good meeting.
- MICHELLE - DON’T ASSUME EVERYONE COMMUNICATES THE SAME WAY - Be aware of your own communication style and how those around you might differ - Communication requires adapting to different people’s communication styles - These styles can clash If you're not able to accommodate different communication styles, you're not really communicating - a good meeting lets all types of communicators hear and be heard Different people need to be spoken to differently to be heard If you want to know more, love languages book
- EVE This isn’t to say that all meetings are bad. Some are probably great! Maybe you’re org is totally nailing this stuff. But if you suffer from “resting meeting face,” today we want to help you get more out of your meetings
- EVE And you’re not alone! Bad meetings are so prevalent, they even get a bad rap in pop culture & memes But the fact that you’re here in this session tells us that you want your meetings to be better… GOOD NEWS: better meetings don’t just feel good, they can have a positive impact on your personal morale AND your organizational culture But bad meetings are actually more dangerous than they may appear…
- MICHELLE - BAD MEETINGS HAVE A REAL COST OK, so some meetings really suck. So what? Bad meetings drain energy and creativity right out of you Bad meetings are a team morale killer Don’t produce anything of value! Bad meetings are a total waste of time (and money!)
- MICHELLE Bad meetings have a real financial cost In this TED infographic from 2014 we can see that meetings are estimated to waste $37 Billion a year!
- MICHELLE And 50% of survey respondents felt that meetings at their org were generally UNPRODUCTIVE
- MICHELLE Maybe it’s because 75% of those people never received any training in how to make the best use of everyone’s time! Today we hope to chip away at that number
- EVE YOU CAN BRING POSITIVE CHANGE TO ANY TYPE OF MEETING The first thing to recognize is that not all meetings are equal There are different types of meetings, and they have different purposes Not every exercise is the right fit for each kind of meeting Important to understand what kind of meeting you're having Is the point to generate ideas, make a decision, teach something? Meetings feel like something we already know how to do, but they really do require planning and intention There are also some basics of meeting hygiene that are nearly always applicable… Could be part of a bigger meeting
- EVE -WE’RE SURE AL OF YOU ARE HONORING THESE YOU CAN ALSO ASK OF MEETING ORGS of this should go without saying, but it still never hurts to say it - At the LEAST you should aim for these things - Reminder: checking the items off this list only gets you so far - Better meetings require a different attitude and a different intention
- JORDAN You may have noticed “don’t multitask” on the previous slide A 2009 Stanford study showed that the people who thought they were the best at multitasking were actually worse at it than people who rarely multitasked Multitasking during an IQ test lowered the IQ by 15 points, more than smoking marijuana or staying up all night before the test Meetings are harder than they look, and yet a lot of us think we can multitask our way through them Show of hands: who here has ever multitasked in a meeting? <<< call up one of those people to be a volunteer. Multitasking Exercise 1 volunteer sits in a chair Jordan does some physical mirroring stuff – mirror my hand movements, etc. Michelle starts asking them simple math questions, “2+2,” “3+1,” etc. Eve starts asking them simple questions like “how many siblings do you have?” “where did you grow up?” “how old are you?” “what’s your favorite color?" GET THE POUCH if they survive Talk about communication Being present Focusing as a group to solve a problem
- MICHELLE It doesn’t have to be this way! If keep having the same kind of meetings, we’re probably going to keep getting the same results But we can set ourselves up to succeed by making some changes to the way we meet and solve problems as a group We’re going to teach you a simple mindset that can help you get more out of your meetings When Excelencia started working with BF RED, they didn’t even have meetings – and they were missing out on a lot of communication opportunities (IS THIS RIGHT?) We don’t pretend to have all the solutions today BUT we will give you some new/different techniques that will help you: Focus on problem solving Discover (and remove) barriers Build on your team’s strengths Be collaborative, engaging, and fun! Encourage play
- JORDAN Speaking of play, let’s play another game together [NEXT SLIDE]
- JORDAN Going to play with a very simple yet powerful concept called “Yes, and” You may have heard of this before – it’s the basis of improvised comedy, which involves creating something from nothing It is an extremely powerful way to bring positivity to a meeting and build on each other’s ideas Yes, And Exercise Have people pair up You are planning a party For the first round, Person A is going to throw out ideas for the party, and Person B is going to say “yes, but…” and find something wrong with each one Second round: Person B throws out ideas for the party, and Person A is going to say “yes, AND…” and then add to that idea – agree and accept 2-3 minutes each Debrief -“how did that feel?” “Someone tell us about their party – how was it different btwn yes, but and yes, and?”
- JORDAN Saying yes in this context means “yes, I hear you” – it allows forward momentum “Yes, and” doesn’t mean agreeing to a bad idea - but it does mean trying to build on everyone’s ideas to arrive at a place you might never have gotten to alone Doesn’t have to mean agreement This is a mindset you can bring to ANY meeting It can also mean being open to new ways of meeting… [NEXT SLIDE]
- MICHELLE BF RED INTRODUCED us TO a new way of meeting format We wanted to change the way we told our story We wanted to shift our website from talking about data to telling our story To change the way we talked about ourselves, we needed to also change the way we communicated – our meeting culture [MICHELLE: INSERT SOME TALKING POINTS ABOUT THE FOLLOWING…] Talk about how Excelencia would have approached this project vis-a-vis standard meetings Data-driven culture, difficult to translate “black & white” thinking into a “grey area” story Had to flip their way of meeting and problem solving, which flipped how they had to approach the project itself Mention the impact on the project: "This was the first time we had to look at the website from the POV of the user as opposed to just our organizational goals“ Now we’re going to show you a few of the exercises we did with BF RED that were definitely out of our usual comfort zone
- EVE We had to get at the core of how Excelencia saw itself – and how they wanted to see themselves in the future These are exercises that were brand new to Excelencia Continued work together got us to group sharing and communicate Site has launched; there’s talk on social media Imagine the "winning" tweets you’d be excited to share around the office or in marketing What is the ideal tweet? Who tweeted it? What’s the hashtag? When did it happen? (short term/longer term?)
- EVE, MICHELLE Nouns help you think about actors or objects that you might have in the system. Verbs help you think about actions that the system should support. Adjectives help you think about the more fuzzy and abstract parts of the experience, like how it should feel, how it should look, and what design principles should be evident throughout.
- EVE, MICHELLE
- EVE, MICHELLE Michelle:: "the sticky note thing was an equalizing activity...it was huge for us.” Value of words Latino student success, known Forefront, trend setter – now a connection! Meeting revealed areas where you were aligned Validating for management to see people thought that way Does staff “get it” Staff was also aligned w/overall mission/vision
- EVE, MICHELLE EVE Change your meeting, change yourself! What was it like to help an org change the way they communicated and worked together? INTERVIEW MICHELLE: How did it feel to go through this process? What was the outcome?
- MICHELLE AN INTRODUCTION TO A NEW WAY OF MEETING LED US TO RE-THINK HOW WE CAN WORK TOGETHER AS A TEAM HOW DID YOU CHANGE? Doesn’t happen TO you Being proactive vs REACTIVE The impact on our organization went far beyond just this project When we started, Excelencia didn’t even have meetings! Might sound wonderful, but we were missing out on some opportunities to communicate with each other Allows people to see how meetngs with change w/out trust falls! Learn how to communicate in different manner Another staff meeting game! Write something down and guess who said it And vote Should we open up to audience questions? ASK: Could you imagine this happening at your org? In small ways how do you think you could impact your meeting culture Now… [EVE/MICHELLE FILL IN TALKING POINTS HERE PLEASE] How it impacted their meeting culture (e.g. year-end Escape Room example) And meeting culture impact orgs culture The change lasted post launch – talk about how you meet now
- JORDAN What about the remote meeting experience? If you have a “distributed team” it requires a little more creativity and a few more steps but you can include them Remote meeting experience matters, too! Online white boarding – Realtimeboard, Boardthing, MURAL.ly Screen-sharing tools incorporated in many video conferences tools like Google Hangout, Zoom, Skype Distributed teams benefit from a shared chat tool such as Hipchat, Flowdock, Slack Payoff is big for a pretty small investment! Doodle if not on outlook or need or need to schedule people outside your org Think about remote staff when on a call Noise in particular
- JORDAN What about the remote meeting experience? Online white boarding – Realtimeboard, Boardthing, MURAL Screen-sharing tools incorporated in many video conferences tools like Google Hangout, Zoom, Skype Distributed teams benefit from a shared chat tool such as Hipchat, Flowdock, Slack Payoff is big for a pretty small investment! Doodle if not on outlook or need or need to schedule people outsdie your org
- JORDAN So, let’s see what being in a new kind of meeting feels like We’re going to practice a few of the tools you can use to start changing your meetings [NEXT SLIDE]
- JORDAN First of all, new kinds of meetings may require new kinds of tools You’ll see on the tables around the room there are pens, markers, post-it notes, stickers, etc. Bringing these to your next meeting can open up opportunities to make a small change and try something new
- JORDAN Count off into groups (1,2,3,4) Or just have people migrate to their closest table and form groups of 5-6
- JORDAN We’re going to run a few exercises about…. Colors. [NEXT SLIDE]
- JORDAN Write down the first word that comes to word when I say “think of a color” HOLD ONTO IT Show of hands: how many people wrote down a primary color For those who didn’t, great! For those who did, that’s also great! You did just what was asked of you. If we keep asking the same questions in our meetings, we will probably keep getting similar answers
- JORDAN We want to generate more interesting colors So let’s try to come up with a better question Write down 3 better questions to elicit more interesting colors
- JORDAN Then each person pick (1) favorite from the 3 that you wrote Put it up on the whiteboard
- JORDAN Using your dot stickers, vote on the question you want to answer Everyone gets 4 dots, you can put all of them on 1 question, or spread them around [NEXT SLIDE]
- JORDAN Identify the winning question Anyone have a tie? If so, do a quick 1-person, 1-vote to break it Now, answer the new question – write as many answers as you can in 2 minutes and post your answers on the board
- EVE The CEO of Crayola is on her way up in the elevator. You have 5 minutes to pick a color and pitch it to her. As a group, decide what color you’re going to pitch, you have 30 seconds. Call on each team or a few teams to give their pitch
- EVE Clap for yourselves! Ask them: how did that feel? What was fun? What was uncomfortable? What did you learn? (5-10 min of conversation)
- EVE These are the skills you just practiced Question for the audience: Can anyone think about how you might use some of these in an question that you’re facing? A little facilitated conversation here maybe
- MICHELLE Even a small change to how you meet can have a big impact Talk about the logo exercise
- EVE You may not be able to play a game at every meeting but you CAN change the experience or dynamic But can change what you bring into the room And that change can have a very big impact
- EVE PICK OEEN List of reminders! Don’t try to memorize this, it’ll be in our slides that you can download, but do be aware that these are just some of the things you can do to show up at a meeting with intention and have an effect on the meeting around you Earlier we showed you a list of meeting hygiene – this list will take you beyond the basics These are some things you can take with you into your next meeting The more you can do these things, the more you can start have an impact in your org’s meeting culture….and org culture itself “Be the change you wish to see in your meetings”
- EVE A word about people and personalities…. Especially those who may not “get” some of these new techniques you just learned Are these familiar to you? https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/242973 Bully/dominator Know it all Rambler Negative Nancy (NOT a Yes, and person!) Not paying attention Can cause conflict Learn how to react to personalities you encounter See one of these personalities as a person who needs to be heard Listen and acknowledge contribution Be positive even if people go negative Have zero tolerance for personal attacks https://www.bates-communications.com/insights/bid/83752/how-to-deal-with-difficult-people-in-meetings
- EVE Our gift to you
- EVE Some resources
- EVE Reminder: this stuff might feel weird at first! To change meetings, you may have to leave your comfort zone, and take your coworkers with you. It’s OK to feel weird….[NEXT SLIDE]
- EVE Think about your calendar when you get back home from NTC Write down in your notebook ONE thing you want to change at your next meeting
- And if you have questions for us, you can find us around NTC…or ask us right now!