The Meeting Canoe – Productive Meetings

“Meeting Canoe” is a concept introduced in the book “Let’s Stop Meeting Like This: Tools to Save Time and Get More Done” by Dick and Emily Axelrod. This book offers practical advice and tools for improving the effectiveness of meetings within organizations.

In the book, the Meeting Canoe is used as a metaphor to represent a well-structured and productive meeting. Just as a canoe has specific components and needs careful balancing to stay afloat and move smoothly, a meeting also has essential elements that should be balanced for it to be successful.

1- Welcome

Productive meetings are rooted in safety, so welcome people to create a safe environment. See Making meetings welcoming

2- Connect

Connect people to each other and the task. Icebreakers like two truths and a lie, etc., or asking for names, roles, etc. do not help in connection. Dialogues build strong connections when they are about things that matter to them. Connection occurs through conversation.

Ideas for connecting:

• Why did you say yes to attending this meeting?
• What strengths or gifts do you bring to this meeting?
• What are your hopes or fears about this meeting?
• What will success require of you in this meeting?
• What is important to you about the topic being discussed and why?

3- Discover

You get two kinds of results when you discover the way things are:

• You get a group of people who have a shared understanding of the situation.
• Once they understand the situation, they have ideas about what to do and want to join you in taking action.

Your investment of time, in discovery saves time because you no longer have to worry about whether others are on board or not. When someone discovers things for himself or herself, he/she is ready to face reality head on.

After discovering reality and building a shared view, the next step is to make sense of that reality. This requires reflection and dialogue. There are 3 components of making sense of the reality being faced:

1. The facts: Objectives, verifiable data
2. Your thoughts: How do you interpret the facts?
3. Your feelings: How do you feel about the facts?

Recognize that people can have very different thoughts and feelings about the same set of  facts. Only dialogue lets you build a shared view of your reality and make sense of your situation.

For the meeting facilitator, the trick is to keep everyone focused on the reality you face.

• Chat: Listen to the other person.
• Huddle: Ask each person two questions:
  • What do you plan to do ?
  • What help or support do you need?
• Staff meeting: Engage in dialogue to understand the current situation. Ask participants to do research before the meeting and share the results during this meeting.
• Town Hall: Present information to the group. Ask participants:
  • What did you hear?
  • What do you want to know more about?

Discover the way things are by asking yourself:

• What would I like to know more about?
• How do other people understand the situation? What are their viewpoints?
• What do I see when I take a bird’s-eye view?
• What do I see from the ground?

4- Elicit

Discovering the way things are and eliciting people’s dreams are opposites and both are needed. If you spend all your time discovering the current state, you end up feeling overwhelmed. There is no future and no way out. If you spend all your time dreaming about the future, you end up being Pollyanna-ish.

Techniques to elicit people’s dreams:

• Find out what people care about
• Talk about the future as if it were the present.
  • The key to this discussion is not to talk about what you would be doing in the future but to talk in the present about what you are doing and how you are working together. This leap into the future helps you see what life might be like in your preferred future. By doing so, you create energy to make the future you just experienced a reality.
• Use arts to engage the creative right side of your brain
  • Drawing, doing skits, etc.
• Take a break and stop eliciting people’s dreams
  • Most ideas come during breaks like talking, walking, or showering. Allow time and space for insights to emerge during the meeting.

For the meeting facilitator, the trick is to keep everyone focused on the issue at hand.

• Chat: Talk about what you would like to happen. Ask the other person what he or she would like to have happen.
• Huddle: Share what you would like to have happen.
• Staff meeting: Discuss what you would like to create as a result of participating in this meeting? Or What would you like to create as a result of discussing a particular agenda item?
• Work session: Discuss what is important to you about the topic. Talk about the future as if it were the present. Use the arts to engage the right side of the brain. Built in breaks and times for reflection so that insights can emerge.

5- Decide

To successfully navigate the decision process, you must be clear about

• Who is making the decision?
• How will they go about deciding?
• What are they deciding?

Leaders can either 

• Make the decision
• Seek advice from the group but maintain the final say
• Work as an equal with the group
• Delegate the decision to the group and let the group decide.

Explicitly stating who will make the decision provides certainty for everyone involved and prevents the betrayal you experience when you think you are part of the decision making process when in fact you are not. You bring a different level of attention to a discussion when you know you are responsible for making the decision than when you know you are offering up help.

Research says that if there is only one right answer and you are reasonably sure that people will accept your choice, you are safe making the decision yourself. If, however, you need a high quality decision and you need everyone on board with the decision, then you should shift towards a group decision making process.

Helping the group make a decision:

• Thumb up/down
  • It can help a group determine whether it has spent enough time discussing an issue. Thumbs up when you have spent enough time and thumbs down otherwise. Majority rule will determine the direction to take.
• Voting works
  • If a group does not agree on the same thing, then say, We all have our say and if we go with a simple majority, we will be able to move on. If the group agrees, move on.

Put on your thinking hat to answer these questions:

1. What are the facts that surround this proposal?
2. What is your gut reaction to the proposal?
3. What are your pessimistic thoughts about this proposal? Why won’t it work?
4. What are your optimistic thoughts about the proposal? Why do you think it will work?
5. How could you build on this proposal and make it even better?
6. What conclusions can you draw from this discussion?

Once you have made your decision, make sure you address who is going to do what.

• Chat and huddle: Agree on further action.
• Staff meeting and town hall: Agree on actions to take based on the issues and decision making process identified prior to the start of the meeting.

6-Attend

A good ending has three parts

1. Summarize the discussion and review the decisions you reached
2. Provide a roadmap of next steps
3. Take time to reflect on the meeting experience

To prevent misalignment, you need to review the key decisions the group made and who has responsibility for implementing them, prior to leaving the meeting. When people have different understandings of the decisions they have made and different expectations of what should happen next, they inevitably waste time.

Reflection is the next step in continuous improvement. These five questions lead the way:

1. Did we do the work we needed to get done in this meeting?
2. If the meeting was  time well spent, what contributed to making it time well spent, and what worked against making it time well spent?
3. What do we need to do to make sure that our next meeting is time well spent?
4. Whom would you like to recognize for their contribution during this meeting?
5. What accomplishments would you like to celebrate?

Chat: Say goodbye and thank the other person for listening.

Huddle: Review the agreements and commitments made.

Staff meeting:  Review the discussions and commitments made. Review everyone’s role going forward. Create your roadmap for going forward.

 Discuss whether this meeting was time well spent:

• How can we strengthen those things that contributed to making this meeting time well spent?
• What do we need to do differently?

Reference: Let’s stop meeting like this by Dick and Emily Axelrod