This weekend I decided to attempt a family ‘Mother’s Day’ get together on Zoom – given the social distancing rules in place. We are not a particularly quiet family, but we are polite and usually observe the informal rules of conversation – where you let one person speak at a time! But, despite our best behaviour, the online gathering turned into a bit of a mess – with people talking over each other, lags and gaps in conversation and very little structure!
The result – quite a lot of frustration, my sister leaving the group chat early and all of us finished not feeling great about seeing each other! This got me thinking…
How important are your meetings?
With the COVID-19 situation, how many of us are trying to manage virtual work meetings and finding the same frustrations? Are you trying to manage virtual meetings where, unlike our trivial topics about the weather, you are discussing crucially important business matters that require urgent decisions? Maybe the team are emotionally charged and tempers fly, as people fail to communicate their thinking? Add all of this together and you have a recipe for a disastrous meeting, annoyed participants and little constructive outcome.
Structure, structure and more structure.
Fortunately that’s where the tried and tested de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats® comes in. This practical and proven method for team thinking and meetings, automatically adds structure and encourages all to participate in a way that reduces argument and adversarial thinking – leading to a more collaborative online meeting. The Six Thinking Hats® also dramatically reduces the time needed to make meetings successful, keeping the group focused on the output – so you get to a decision quicker!
If you are fed up with continuously joining loud, un-productive online meetings – why not join us at our open online workshop or in a face-to-face, you can find out more about the workshop and other delivery options at www.indigobusiness.co.uk/hats
- Public workshop dates can be found at: https://www.indigobusiness.co.uk/calendar/12
Enquire about in-house delivery options: https://www.indigobusiness.co.uk/Learning-solutions/In-house-training-email
