Not literally, they’re not. You’re not producing anything if you’re talking across the table (or the Zoom window) at each other. You’re just talking. You and your team might be having great insights and making important decisions, but how do you KNOW what’s said sticks? How do you KNOW what’s decided gets done?
When I was a management consultant (a catch-all term to describe company outsiders that show up and do whatever they think can be billable), I was constantly frustrated by meetings that didn’t seem to go anywhere. More people were on their laptops and Blackberries than actually participating in the meeting.
Why? They wanted to feel productive. And answering an email, writing a Word Doc, tweaking a PowerPoint, or calculating an Excel spreadsheet FELT more productive than talking across the table.
Even after I learned how to facilitate a group process, the problem didn’t go away. Conversations were undoubtedly of higher quality, but I could never be sure the discussions and decisions stuck.
Then, one fateful day in 2009, a wise client hired a graphic recorder to support me. I had never heard of it. I was worried it would be disruptive and distracting to what I was doing. But John Ward hung a big piece of paper on the wall next to me, pulled out his trademark box of Crayola markers, and took large format handwritten notes on what he heard with a few basic illustrations to anchor the ideas.
The laptops closed. The Blackberries were pocketed. The group was transfixed. I had never seen anything like it. The group was 100% focused on the conversation. They built on each other's ideas. They were fully invested in collaborating to get to the best possible outcome.
With John functioning as the group’s hands, they PRODUCED something.
PS: After the meeting, John pulled me aside and said, “You know, I think you’d be pretty good at this, if you tried.”
PPS: If you want your meetings to be productive, let’s talk. https://calendly.com/brian-lizardbrain/45-min-discovery-call
Brian Tarallo in his happy place.
