How can I reinvigorate team meetings, and engage everyone in what needs to happen?
Do you sometimes feel as if your team isn’t fully on board or engaged?
Are people so caught up in operational work that they aren’t connecting with what needs to be done at a strategic level?
Have new ways of working made it more difficult to run meetings that are focussed and dynamic? Do you find it challenging to make the best use of precious meeting time, whether meeting online or in person ?
Maybe you want to involve the team more in strategic planning and want to engage them in a way that is focussed and constructive. Are you facing difficult decisions and want team members’ inputs but you’re concerned that it’ll end up involving too much discussion and delay progress?
What if you found a way to give everyone on the team an opportunity to contribute in meetings, to come up with fresh ideas in a productive way?
There is a way.
A way to transform your meetings and ignite fresh thinking.
A way to involve people in developing plans and making decisions while keeping the interaction focussed and effective.
Using the Thinking Environment framework can encourage and focus discussion and lead to more collaborative and creative problem-solving by the team, and help you make better decisions.
How does it work?
The Thinking Environment is an approach which helps people do their finest thinking individually and together, by creating certain enabling conditions. At the heart of this approach are the observations of Nancy Kline (founder of Time To Think Ltd) that “The quality of everything we do depends on the quality of the thinking we do first”, and that “The quality of our thinking depends on the way we treat each other while we are thinking”.
The conditions that can generate the finest thinking (known as The Ten Components) are: Attention, Equality, Ease, Appreciation, Encouragement, Feelings, Information, Difference, Incisive Questions, and Place. While any one of these components (or behaviours) can have a powerful effect, the presence of all ten working together gives this approach its transformative impact.
The “Building Blocks” is the term used for tools that can be used to create a Thinking Environment in meetings. These tools are: Thinking Pairs, Dialogue, Rounds and Open Discussion, and each of these can be used to give people an opportunity to think well and to listen well together. You can learn about and experience these tools in the “Build a Thinking Environment Programme” and the “Unlock Your Team’s Best Thinking” programme. Applying the principles and tools to meetings and interactions can transform your team culture.
How can you keep team meetings focussed and productive?
Do you find it challenging to keep people focussed on what you’re trying to achieve? Does the discussion sometimes go off track or get derailed? Maybe you find people are talking at cross-purposes as they contribute to the meeting, or that their responses can lead the discussion away from the critical issue you need to focus on.
The lack of focus may be caused by the way the agenda is structured around topics, rather than focussing on the question you need to pay attention to, or the issue to be resolved. As you plan for meetings, and think about the outcome you need from the meeting, what question could you include on the agenda to encourage people to focus their attention? Shifting to a question based approach can help people focus on what really matters.
Inviting people to consider a question can spark fresh thinking, it can drive discovery. As Nancy Kline has observed, “the mind works best in the presence of a question “(Time To Think 2009). Rather than planning your meeting around topics or items, what if you identified the question(s) you want the team to think about?
Could this approach make online meetings better?
One of the most disruptive changes we have all experienced as we adapted to new ways of working has been the move from in-person meetings to online interaction. Along with the positives of how technology supported this shift and enabled “connection”, there have also been losses and gaps in how we create the human “connection” when we are online.
Would you like a way to help people feel connected and engaged in a virtual meeting? What could you put in place, what conditions can the team agree and commit to that can create a more engaging and productive interaction? How can everyone feel heard, feel like they matter? And feel like the meeting matters? Using the Thinking Environment framework can build a connected and collaborative space, where meetings can be both structured and easeful. And by designing a meeting agenda around questions, you could focus on what really matters, on what needs everyone’s attention.
At the heart of the Thinking Environment is what Nancy Kline has described (and the title of her book published in 2020) as “The Promise That Changes Everything…I Won’t Interrupt You”.
This simple yet profound commitment, this promise, is what can free up a thinker to respond to the agenda question with their best thinking. When we know that the meeting is set up so that everyone will have an equal opportunity to contribute, when we know we won’t be interrupted when it is our turn to speak, when we know others are listening with interes, it can free us to think with confidence and creativity. Creating that feeling of ease, of encouragement, of equality for people in an online meeting is powerful. As team members learn to listen to each other with interest , not listening “to reply”, and as they promise not to interrupt, the feeling of “connection” can be restored.
What difference can a Thinking Environment approach make to your team, for your team?
When you create a thinking environment, where everyone’s thinking matters, you can gather knowledge, expertise and information from everyone on the team, which can help you and the team make better decisions.
You may hear contributions that you hadn’t anticipated, that could spark ideas or new solutions. As everyone listens to different ideas and opinions, it can shift perspectives and build the capacity to collaborate and innovate. It can build adaptability and accountability.
The conditions of a Thinking Environment help create a place where people encourage and appreciate each other. Learning new ways to interact with colleagues, and un-learning unhelpful behaviours, can transform how people relate to each other. The Thinking Environment encourages a way of interacting that builds trust among team members and can lead to a psychologically safe working environment where people are more likely to make suggestions or to take risks. It can build a work environment where people have the courage to speak up, to identify risks. It can help you avoid the danger of group-think.
Using this approach can help a team create a space that feels safe and non-judgemental, and where people can feel energised, enthusiastic, and empowered; they can come up with new ideas, they can go to the edge of their thinking and light the spark of innovation.
A thinking environment is a place where innovation can flourish.
How can a Thinking Environment approach lead to better decisions and outcomes?
Do you want to explore all your options before you make a decision? Have you all the information you need?
Gathering inputs and ideas from everyone on the team, not just hearing from those with the loudest voices, can unlock fresh thinking and new possibilities. When people listen to each other in a “yes-and“ frame of mind rather than judging or reacting, it can spark fresh ideas. Hearing all the voices in the room may uncover valuable information or may alert you to an information deficit to address before a decision can be made.
Encouraging the team to question any assumptions they may be making can lead to breakthrough thinking.
When a team is given the opportunity to hear everyone’s thinking and to work together, it can lay the foundation that will support the next stages, as the team moves to execution or implementation after the discussion or decision.
If people feel engaged in what’s happening, they’re more likely to engage in what needs to be done next. By involving them in strategy development or planning, it can build support for the implementation or execution that follows the meeting or the decision. Even for those that may hold alternative views, having the opportunity to contribute, to feel heard, can bring them on board.
Often a meeting outcome will need to be communicated to others, perhaps to cascade to other levels in the organisation. Using an approach where everyone’s thinking was valued enables the team to feel connected and engaged with the outcome and with what needs to be communicated.
What difference can the Thinking Environment make for you as the leader of the team?
The Thinking Environment approach offers you a way to access the knowledge and experience of everyone on your team. Listening to people’s different perspectives, their insights and ideas will help you understand where people are coming from. It might shift your own perspective and might spark new thinking or ideas for you. Having the courage and curiosity as a leader to explore what you don’t know you don’t know, by listening to your team, can open up possibilities and innovative solutions
As a leader, this approach encourages you to do your own high-quality thinking , and also to challenge anything that could be limiting your thinking.
It encourages diversity of thinking. As you listen to others, you may hear views an contributions that reassure you the team supports your plans. Or you may hear alternative views or questions that lead to to deepen your thinking or take a fresh look at your options.
You can use this approach to generate quality thinking and create new team behaviours that can have a lasting impact.
You can use it to reinvigorate meetings and connect with and engage the team in what needs to be done. It can help you make better decisions and lead to better outcomes.
By creating a Thinking Environment in which everyone’s views are valued and appreciated, it can shift their perspective on the problem and their view of it and can build their capacity to work together. By allowing different voices and views be heard, in an environment that feels safe and non-judgemental, the team will do their best thinking individually and collectively.
Building a team culture where people can think independently can generate new ideas and solutions. When people listen to each other with interest and value different views and opinions, it can unlock possibilities and allow fresh thinking to emerge.
Does this sound like something you value as a leader? Do you want to transform your meetings in this way?
If you’d like to find out more about how to implement the Thinking Environment approach in your team or your organisation, schedule a free Discovery Call with me now.
