How Effective Are Your Team Meetings?

We attended the ISODC Conference recently and Barbara Bunker (Large Group Interventions) was interviewed. She stated that organizational meetings today seem to be poorly run. She continued by saying that facilitating effective meetings was an early OD skill and perhaps it was not passed on to younger generations. We have noticed that organizational members attending meeting often come to the meeting distracted. Their attention is on their cell phone or on paperwork. As a result, we have been using short breathing techniques (2 minutes or less) to focus members before starting the meeting. Focusing on breathing even for 2 minutes brings a person into the moment. We next establish meeting norms and confirm the objectives for the meeting. These techniques make a difference in the quality of the meeting and in the duration of the meeting as well. At the conclusion of the meeting, those in attendance leave feeling they accomplished something. How to facilitate an effective meeting should be part of training for teams.