Meeting Design: An Undervalued Skill
An animated conversation with cross-divisional executive managers over lunch one day led to a reflection on how much more engaged they were compared to earlier in the meeting. “Well, we always have the best conversations over lunch, or in the bar”, they replied. What was different? We were at the annual meeting of regional senior technical executives who were meeting face-to-face to talk about the business and agree division-wide strategies and plans. Topics ranged from capital, operating and R&D expenditure, accident reduction on-site, upskilling the labour force, and various corporate initiatives. How could we, as OD professionals, facilitate these dynamic lunchtime conversations in the meeting itself? How could we contribute to a meeting design that participants would judge to be a good use of their collective time?
