This article is written by Susan Johnston, Project Lead, Transferable Skills, Canada School of Public Service

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Meetings. As public servants, we attend a lot of them. Yet how often do we walk away energised, satisfied that we accomplished what we set out to do and ready to move forward on next steps? Or was this a meeting that could have been an email? Too often, the answer is yes.

I’d also argue we spend too much time crafting emails, some of which should be meetings. A good meeting serves to create a strong, shared understanding of a topic at-hand, or engage in a robust discussion to develop more inclusive decisions. In this article, I’ll talk about what makes a meeting valuable, and how we can get better results for our investment in time.

In Liberating Structures, Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless note that “simple shifts in our routine patterns of interaction make it possible for everyone to be included, engaged, and unleashed in solving problems, driving innovation and achieving extraordinary outcomes.”

Often, our more traditional meeting structures (such as open discussions, presentations, and brainstorms) limit the perspectives and voices we are able to hear from. We lose the opportunity to generate new ideas, and to build on them through creative and robust dialogue. In weighing the evidence and perspectives needed to develop robust public policy, programs, and services, we need meetings that help us work together to create shared ownership of new solutions.

Most, if not all, of us have tales of meetings that have missed the mark. The information dumps that started late and offered no time for questions, much less dialogue. The project meetings we thought were intended for decision-making, but in fact were focused solely on advancing our thinking. In Canada, our colleague Sean Boots developed a calculator so we can quantify the cost of our meetings.

Success is possible, but it requires upfront investment. In this post I’ll share some approaches that I have found helpful in planning for meetings that generate momentum toward broader objectives, through setting meaningful objectives and harnessing the “structures” we use to design meetings.

Meaningful outcomes through full participation, mutual understanding and inclusive solutions

If meetings are a tool people can use to work together towards a shared purpose, let’s consider how we establish a strong sense of shared responsibility to achieve that common goal.

Meetings offer tremendous opportunities for collaboration, building relationships, and generating new ideas. They can reinforce our shared sense of mission, and move us toward the greater good that is core to public service

In the Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making, author Sam Kaner outlines three core principles that underpin the participatory process, which then build our collective ability to take action on the issue at-hand. These are:

  • Full participation: Meeting participants engage actively, sharing what’s on their minds and acknowledge a diversity of opinions and backgrounds
  • Mutual understanding: Participants understand and accept the legitimacy of one another’s needs and goals
  • Inclusive solutions: Participants recognise the wisdom inherent in integrating everybody’s needs and perspectives in determining next steps

Together, organising meetings based on these values helps to create a sense of shared responsibility among participants. When we plan meetings, we can build an agenda based on a series of activities to encourage people to participate in varied ways, to generate different types of ideas and elicit a range of perspectives and ultimately integrate a broader range of thinking to develop inclusive solutions.

Bringing these principles to life is an art. It starts by determining what you want to accomplish, and how that meeting objective fits into broader project or organisational goals.

Establish and articulate a clear, shared, purpose

According to Sam Kaner, most meetings have one of seven goals or desired outcomes. Not surprisingly, what matters most is that both you and your participants know which goal you’re pursuing. In this way, participants are clear on what you are collectively trying to accomplish.

In addition to your explicit (or “tangible”) goals, such as getting a decision on something, you may have implicit (or “intangible”) goals, like building community or sharing information. Think back to the core participatory values we discussed above. Naming the goal helps build mutual understanding. So what are these goals?

  • Sharing information: Making an announcement, reporting on an issue or making a presentation.
  • Providing input: When someone presents options to the group for feedback or suggestions only (versus decisions). Examples include commenting on a strategy, proposed budget options, an event scenario, etc.
  • Advancing the thinking: When work on a given issue involves multiple stages, it can be helpful to structure meetings likewise. That is, defining or analysing a problem, identifying root causes, evaluating options, etc.
  • Making decisions: When you want a group to address an issue and bring it to closure, the meeting goal is to make a decision.
  • Improving communication: Strengthen working relationships among group members to create a supportive environment for more challenging conversations. It’s important to build a safe, supportive space for authentic back-and-forth discussion and feedback.
  • Building community: Promote camaraderie, strengthen working relationships, and generally boost morale. The team coffee, the birthday or the holiday celebration are examples.
  • Building capacity: Have shared concepts and shared language. Integrate discussions on problem-solving, decision-making, trends, best practices or methods into a team's ongoing work. This strengthens the maturity and competence of the overall group.

Colleagues often characterise meetings without decisions as not being successful. I’d remind them that meetings are but one possible goal among several, and that clear agreement on next steps matters more.

Design your core meeting elements to realise your objectives

To what extent are we structuring our meetings to actually accomplish our goals?

Think about a keynote presentation. The invitation focuses on coming to listen, seating is set out in rows, participation is limited to a few questions and answers at the end, the group is configured as one speaker and everyone else listening; and sequencing includes an introduction, a presentation; and questions and answers. Given the amount of brainpower in the room, it’s worth looking at ways to reconfigure the meeting to enable more fulsome participation, in order that the participants truly benefit from the opportunity.

As our approaches to our work continue to shift through the pandemic and into recovery, creating gaining clarity about their needs and concerns can inform planning for the next steps and help generate inclusive solutions that are grounded in a robust, mutual understanding of the issues at-hand

In Liberating Structures, Lipmanowicz and McCandless remind us that, intentionally or not, all meetings, large and small, share a number of design elements. These include:

  • The invitation. Not just the wording but how you frame what you’re asking people to do and whether or not there’s a particular feeling you want to impart (e.g. excitement, energy, anticipation).
  • The space. Its arrangement and the materials used.
  • Participation. Who participates and who sits back?
  • How groups are configured. Who is speaking or interacting? Is there one presenter addressing a group or are people working in pairs, groups of four and so on?
  • The sequence of activities and the time allocated to each.

Imagine my surprise during Phoebe Tickell’s keynote at Berlin Change Days last fall when, partway through her presentation, she paused and asked us to turn to a partner and spend a couple of minutes exploring whether and how we might apply what we were learning.

It was a fantastic reminder of how to engage the people who are intended to receive the ideas and information, and to check that it’s really happening. But can this really happen in public service meetings? I’d wager that It can.

Designing good meetings doesn’t have to be rocket science

For starters, it doesn’t need to be complex. At the Canada School of Public Service, where I’m currently on an assignment as a Free Agent, our management has organised a series of highly-successful all-staff meetings following the principles I’ve laid out above.

At first glance, the constraints appear daunting. We’re all working remotely due to the pandemic, and in locations with varying Internet speeds. We operate using both of Canada’s official languages, English and French. Given the unique circumstances, there has been a lot of evolving information to share. Our executive team wanted to maintain a sense of community cohesion and offer opportunities for authentic dialogue.

They considered the space, or platforms, in this case. Virtual meetings need to be shorter. They used a broadcast video platform so that human resources officials and team leads could share information, and concurrently used a polling platform (Sli.do in our case) to elicit and prioritise questions. They answered questions voted as most prescient during the meeting, offering certainty where possible given the range of issues about returning to the workplace remain unknown. Colleagues reported appreciating the opportunity to actively participate, the open dialogue and the opportunity to recognise the shared understanding of their concerns right across the organisation. As our approaches to our work continue to shift through the pandemic and into recovery, creating gaining clarity about their needs and concerns can inform planning for the next steps and help generate inclusive solutions that are grounded in a robust, mutual understanding of the issues at-hand.

In our quest for meaningful, lasting outcomes, we may not get everything right the first time. As John Medcof, Director General of Transferable Skills at the Canada School of Public Service has said, “if you establish a principles-driven approach to how you're going to work, and then you try new things, and some of them work and some of them don't, people know you’re going to keep iterating”.

In summary, whatever outcomes you are working towards, effective meetings will help you move forward. By considering the core principles of participatory leadership, establishing a clear objective, and designing the core elements of your meeting to serve this, you are well on your way to convening meetings that matter. Meetings offer tremendous opportunities for collaboration, building relationships, and generating new ideas. They can reinforce our shared sense of mission, and move us toward the greater good that is core to public service. ⁠— Susan Johnston

(Picture credit: Unsplash)