Then, you can prepare for the next part of the meeting—the “convergent thinking”— in which you’ll:
- Evaluate alternatives
- Summarize key points
- Sort ideas into categories
- Exercise judgment
There are also plenty of ways to spur ideas if your meeting starts to falter, which you’ll recognize if you’re actively reading the room for signs of discomfort or boredom or fatigue. You may consider breaking the team into smaller groups using breakout boards, or using a timer to put some moderate pressure on the team to move forward (which is often useful for generating ideas). If your team comes to an impasse on an idea, consider putting it to a vote.
Not everything will go as planned, and you may not come out of the meeting with a perfect solution. But you’ll find that issues are less challenging to address when people are connected, and there’s something very powerful about using collective brainpower and creativity to generate ideas.
Pay attention to who’s not contributing, how everyone is engaging, and what people’s body language looks like to determine if your team is struggling. If they need some help, ask them what would be beneficial to generate ideas or solve problems. Being direct can often be the antidote to awkwardness.
Closing together
A great meeting with a bad ending can ruin the whole experience. For a graceful exit, begin closing the meeting five minutes before the end of the hour. Some things to do before you end:
- Wrap up any final questions - Don’t leave anyone hanging. If there’s a question you don’t have the immediate answer to, make an action item.
- Be clear on next steps around what was discussed in the meeting - The greatest intentions mean nothing without clear assignments. If you’re using Lucidspark, you can turn suggestions into action items easily.
- Close the connection - This means more than just saying “Thanks!” Your team has opened a connection, used that connection with each other, and it’s important to honor that connection. Consider asking your team to use one word to describe something they’re grateful for about the meeting or their day.
Hybrid work is here to stay. You and your team will be better off by building up emotional intelligence to read rooms, including virtual ones, when leading meetings. And that’s one thing that sets meeting leaders—people who are preoccupied with delegating—apart from facilitators, who are more concerned with guiding the team through a constructive process. Facilitation is what you want to aim for, as it’s the best way to encourage team members to collaborate and do their best creative thinking and problem-solving. It’s more about creating the right environment for the magic to happen.
Reading the room is very much about reintroducing humanity into meetings, and that is crucial for building business value. Robots, after all, cannot brainstorm or create. Without allowing your team the space to lean into their humanity, they won’t be able to establish the connections needed that are so vital for solving problems and developing ideas.
Remember that, no matter what you need to get done in your meeting, if you start and end well, the agenda will go more smoothly. It may seem like much more effort to connect with yourself and encourage connection in others instead of just starting the way you usually do, but those minutes really are worth their weight in gold.
