Where
to start?
To create a meeting with meaning, you should
clarify these three components before beginning:
Purpose
Outcome
Learning
When deciding the core purpose of the meeting, there are two key questions to ask yourself:
-
Why are you meeting?
-
What are you meeting about?
Purpose becomes the guide:
Within your meeting there will exist
the focused purpose for the individual and the overall purpose for the entire process. By setting the purpose clearly and agreeing on it together at the start, it becomes the guide which carries us through the meeting when things feel unclear.
This is especially helpful when you're dealing with complex issues.
Balancing power dynamics:
If your purpose is clear and compelling, you'll be less likely to follow the strong opinion of an individual voice which may feel persuasive. Keeping the overall purpose in-mind prevents any individual voice from becoming the 'guide' or 'leader', rather than the group as a whole.
Purpose maintains energy:
Does the purpose of your meeting respond to a clear need? People are often short on time, running low on resilience or energy. Having a purpose that answers a direct question or problem will give all participants a clear reason to attend.
Purpose
When deciding the outcome of the meeting, you can ask yourself:
-
Why is this meeting or
project necessary? -
What do people need to take away from the session to be able to act on the purpose?
Answering these questions help us get to the bottom of exactly what we want to achieve during meetings.
Outcome
Learning
When you have decided these two parts (the Purpose and the Outcome) then you can begin to design how you will discover the learning you want to record together.
To do this, you can ask:
-
How are we going to record the information?
There are many ways to record information, you might choose to digitally record the meeting, have dedicated note takers, or even have a *scriber, or illustrator.
Some other examples of how you may capture and present your learning:
-
A written document or report
-
Blogs
-
A video or short documentary
-
An audio recording or podcast
-
Spoken word poetry
-
Songs
-
Expressive artworks
-
Short stories
Although some of these examples may not be things you or your organisation typically do to convey information,
the more creative you get, the more memorable your learning will be.
*What is a Scriber?
A scriber is someone who creates a visual representation of themes and ideas coming out of your meeting either in real-time or after the event. Having imagery to convey your ideas is a great way of condensing down rich or complex information, and is also accessible to more people.
Discover more resources
Meeting basics and invitations
How will you hear from a variety of voices?
Structuring group conversation
Get more out of bringing people together.