Last week.
Denis tried to have a vote but it turned out to be unfair. Have the votes written down and then collect them. It is fair and avoids colleagues who vote later being influenced by preceding votes.
Denis main problems come from just not moderating and so meetings tend to be long and full of conflicts.
To avoid it: the moderator manages the speaking order, and stops colleagues interrupting each other. If there is an interruption, it’s a good idea for the moderator to apologise to the person who was interrupted and then explain that the interrupted person was speaking and let them know when they will have a chance to speak. If people are reassured that they will have a chance to contribute later, and know exactly when, they are much less likely to interrupt again.
Give participants time to prepare their thoughts before and in the meeting too. If they do then they are able to be much more concise and so you actually save time.
Let people know how long they can speak for. If the colleague has a limit then they will at least try to keep to it.
This week
Denis decides he will take the top two ideas from last week and work out how to implement them. He has himself and 6 others in the meeting so decides they should work in 2 groups of 3. He will moderate. The first group get the task to work out what kind of content should be on the company facebook page in order to find new customers. The second group have to find ways of increasing revenue at existing customers. Denis gives the groups 30 minutes each and asks them to be ready with a presentation of their results at the end. The groups go away and start discussing their opinions and collecting ideas. At the start he checks everyone understands the task and then leaves them to it. After 30 minutes Denis is amazed to find that both groups have a lot of useable content and are motivated to really implement the ideas. No fights, no arguments and no conflict.
thanks to antoniofurno on flikr for the picture
What was it that made this time so different?
