Meeting Equality: How To Make Sure Everyone Gets Heard

PETER DAISYME 

When holding a meeting, you want all of the participants to feel welcomed and heard. Not only does this help everyone give their opinions and ideas, it grows the connections between coworkers and colleagues. ​

However, it may seem hard to make sure everyone is heard, especially in meetings with a larger number of people, or a meeting with introverted or remote participants.

If you’re ready to make sure everyone is heard during your meetings, here are six tips that will help.

1. Have fewer meetings or make them smaller.

It’s harder to hear 50 voices in a one hour meeting than it is to hear 10. By organizing smaller meetings, you can give more people the opportunity to speak without adding time to the meeting or cutting anyone off.

This is also an effective move to make if you have introverted or shy employees. They may feel more comfortable speaking in front of a smaller group of participants than in a larger group.

If you have a bigger team and still want to set up smaller gatherings -- try to keep from holding too many meetings. According to a recent survey from wireless presentation company Barco, 59 percent of employees feel less engaged when they have to attend multiple meetings every week.

2. Communicate ahead of time.

Let your team know the meeting agenda ahead of time to encourage thoughts and ideas to flow before you all talk together. It doesn’t have to be a detailed agenda, but just an email or sheet of paper giving a general idea of what you want to discuss in the meeting. Not only does this give them time to develop their own talking points, but it also keeps you from having to fill awkward silences or interrupt a long monologue by someone who keeps talking.

In the agenda, it’s also a good idea to add in a blurb saying you’d like for everyone to participate and that you want to make sure no view goes unexpressed. That way, you’re team understands that this meeting isn’t just for you to speak, but for all of the team to give their input as well.

Curt Cronin, the CEO of Ridgeline Partners and a former Navy SEAL, says giving people an agenda to think about ahead of time ensures everyone aligns around a common focus: “This transforms everyone at the meeting from a group of free agents into a team united around a shared set of values and goals.”

3. Ask for feedback.

One of the best ways to communicate is to ask open-ended questions. Request feedback on the latest project, role, or product. Have a discussion about what you’re looking for or what your participants need to accomplish during a task or project. This increases the odds that more people will voice their opinion and not stay silent.

One effective way to do this is by asking a question and going “around the table” or having everyone chime in one by one until everyone has been heard. Brian Scudamore, the founder and CEO of O2E Brands, holds daily meetings with a segment called “missing systems and opportunities.” He says, “Missing systems and opportunities is a chance for anyone to mention things that are broken, processes that could be better, and ask questions of managers and directors if necessary. It’s totally open -- we’ve had call center agents ask our COO tough questions, for example. The family-dinner style format keeps us all accountable.”

4. Use the right tools.

If you hold meetings virtually, or have remote team members, use tools that can allow each person the option to participate at their convenience. Using a tool like GoWall or GoToMeeting gives your remote participants the ability to “speak up” without feeling hidden behind their phones or computers.

GoWall gives everyone access to a digital note wall where people can post ideas. Any employee can like or comment on a note in real time, letting you see if they’re participating, even if they aren’t speaking. This can be done anonymously, so attendees can feel more confident in voicing their opinions without judgement.

GoToMeeting not only allows your remote workers the opportunity to chat while on the go or at home. This channel also uses business chat capabilities to talk before and after your meetings -- so you can collaborate without the formality of setting up a meeting every single time.

Using these tools allows everyone the opportunity to speak up, collaborate, and chime in at their convenience.

5. Assign roles.

This may be a bit easier when you have a smaller meeting, but assigning roles is another solid way to make sure everyone is heard. You can assign a role to each attendee for each topic or subject you have in the agenda.

For example, one person can be the main speaker while discussing the first item on the agenda. Another person can chime in during the next. While you can still ask for input from any attendee at any time, assigning roles to specific topics ensures that a greater percentage of participants get a chance to speak.

6. Ask for no interruptions.

At the beginning of the meeting, it can be beneficial to let everyone know that it’s vital to give every single team member the opportunity to speak. This means that if someone is talking -- no one should interrupt them. This also helps avoid issues like “Hepeating.”

While it’s okay to allow your participants to express their views after hearing others speak, but interrupting may make people uncomfortable. This may even cause people who don’t like confrontation to shut down and not want to speak up in the future.

Making your participants feel heard and appreciated is a great benefit to them and the company. If you’re looking to increase engagement in your meetings, these six tips are a great start. 

https://www.startupgrind.com/blog/meeting-equality-how-to-make-sure-everyone-gets-heard/

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Should You Take Meeting Notes by Hand or by Computer?

A friend recently complained to me that a young woman at her workplace made fun of her for taking meeting notes by hand. The young woman acted as though my friend--let's call her Marge--were incompetent: "WHY do you take notes by hand? Using a keyboard is much more efficient." 

To Marge, this comment felt like an attack on her age, with the young, savvy woman regarding her as an old fogey. 

Marge asked my opinion: Doesn't it make sense to take meeting notes by hand? Aren't there advantages to doing it that way? 

What do you think? When it's your turn to take meeting notes or minutes, do you take them by hand or electronically? Why? Which way is more efficient? Think about your experiences before reading the ideas below.https://www.businesswritingblog.com/business_writing/2018/07/should-you-take-meeting-notes-by-hand-or-by-computer-.html

Consider these advantages and disadvantages of each approach:

Taking Notes by Hand--Advantages

• You can pay attention to what's happening in the meeting rather than focusing on typing. 
• You can easily draw arrows, cross out words, and underline information without having to look for the right key. You can use your own method of notation or shorthand. 
• It's faster to write if you are a slow typist. 
• You can easily write notes on the meeting handouts. 
• There's less temptation to record every word. 
• There's no worry about what might go wrong with the computer.  
• It's quieter and less distracting to other people in the room. 

Taking Notes on a Computer--Advantages 

• It's faster because you don't have to transcribe your notes later--they are already typed.  
• It's faster if you are a good typist.
• The notes are legible.
• It's easier and faster to check spelling.
• It's easy to edit as you go.
• You can efficiently fill in a template that includes the agenda items.
• You can display your notes on a screen if the group wants to see them.

Taking Notes by Hand--Disadvantages

• You may not be able to read your handwriting. 
• You may not be able to keep up if you write slowly. 
• Your writing hand can get tired if it's a long meeting.
• It's a longer two-step process of writing, then typing. 
• You may misplace your written notes and lose everything. 

Taking Notes on a Computer--Disadvantages

• You may record too much information because you can.
• You may focus too much on your screen rather than on the meeting. 
• Your computer battery may die if you don't have a power cord. 
• You may accidentally not save the file or may delete it. 
• Your typing may distract others in the room or make them self-conscious about what you are recording. 

Do those pros and cons match your experiences? If you have others to add, please share them in a comment. 

I reassured Marge. It IS efficient to take notes by hand--if that method works better for her. But I also encouraged her to take notes on her laptop to learn whether she likes it. She might find that it's more efficient in some situations. 

When I take meeting notes, I often use both methods. I fill in a template on my laptop as the meeting progresses. And I have paper copies of the handouts so I can make notes on them as necessary. However, when I need to participate actively in a meeting, I always take notes by hand. Typing would distract me. 

What kind of note-taking is efficient for you?

Lynn
Syntax Training

July 18, 2018 in Meeting Notes and Minutes | Permalink

Leading Questions

A leading question is a question which subtly prompts the respondent to answer in a particular way. Leading questions are generally undesirable as they result in false or slanted information. For example:

Do you have any problems with your boss?

This question prompts the person to question their employment relationship. In a subtle way it raises the prospect that there are problems.

Tell me about your relationship with your boss.

This question does not seek any judgment and there is less implication that there might be something wrong with the relationship.

The difference in the above example is minor but in some situations it can be more important. For example, in a court case:

How fast was the red car going when it smashed into the blue car?

This question implies that the red car was at fault, and the word "smashed" implies a high speed.

How fast was each car going when the accident happened?

This question does not assign any blame or pre-judgment.

Obtaining Responses to Suit the Edit

In journalism, leading questions can be used in various ways. For example, a journalist might want a particular type of answer to edit alongside some other content. This can be good or bad, as illustrated by the following example.

A hypothetical journalist is doing a story on the moon hoax theory¹. First of all the journalist gets the following statement from an advocate of the theory:

"Photographs of the moon landing show converging shadows were they should be parallel. This could only happen in a studio so the photos must be fake."

The journalist then interviews a NASA engineer. This response will be edited to appear immediately after the accusation. There are several ways to ask the question, each with very different results:

How do you explain the missing stars from the Apollo photographs?

This question leads the engineer enough to answer the specific question, while being open-ended enough to get a complete answer. This is good.

How do you respond to people who say the Apollo photographs were fake?

This question elicits a tenuously-relevant reply without actually answering the accusation. The engineer will give a broad answer such as "I think these people have got it wrong". This gives the impression that the engineer is being evasive and can't answer the question.

How do you respond to conspiracy theorists who accuse you of faking the landing and lying to America?

This question adds some spice with provocative phrases designed to encourage a stronger response.

Of course the ethical journalist will avoid using leading questions to mislead.

https://www.mediacollege.com/journalism/interviews/leading-questions.html

Cognitive Dissonance

The Ben Franklin effect is a proposed psychological phenomenon: a person who has already performed a favor for another is more likely to do another favor for the other than if they had received a favor from that person. An explanation for this is cognitive dissonance. People reason that they help others because they like them, even if they do not, because their minds struggle to maintain logical consistency between their actions and perceptions.

The Benjamin Franklin effect, in other words, is the result of one's concept of self coming under attack. Every person develops a persona, and that persona persists because inconsistencies in one's personal narrative get rewritten, redacted, and misinterpreted.^[1]

Franklin's observation of effect

Benjamin Franklin, after whom the effect is named, quoted what he described as an "old maxim" in his autobiography: "He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged."^[2]

In his autobiography, Franklin explains how he dealt with the animosity of a rival legislator when he served in the Pennsylvania legislature in the 18th century:

Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of perusing that book, and requesting he would do me the favour of lending it to me for a few days. He sent it immediately, and I return'd it in about a week with another note, expressing strongly my sense of the favour. When we next met in the House, he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death.

Research

The initial study of the effect was done by Jecker and Landy in 1969; in which students were invited to take part in a Q&A competition run by the researcher in which they could win sums of money. After this competition was over, one-third of the students who had "won" were approached by the researcher, who asked them to return the money on the grounds that he had used his own funds to pay the winners and was running short; another third were asked by a secretary to return the money because it was from the psychology department and funds were low; another third were not approached. All three groups were then asked how much they liked the researcher. The second group liked him the least, the first group the most – suggesting that a refund request by an intermediary had decreased their liking, while a direct request had increased their liking.^[3][4]

In 1971, University of North Carolina psychologists John Schopler and John Compere carried out the following experiment:

They had their subjects administer learning tests to accomplices pretending to be other students. The subjects were told the learners would watch as the teachers used sticks to tap out long patterns on a series of wooden cubes. The learners would then be asked to repeat the patterns. Each teacher was to try out two different methods on two different people, one at a time. In one run, the teachers would offer encouragement when the learner got the patterns correct. In the other run of the experiment, the teacher insulted and criticized the learner when they erred. Afterward, the teachers filled out a debriefing questionnaire that included questions about how attractive (as a human being, not romantically) and likable the learners were. Across the board, the subjects who received the insults were rated as less attractive than the ones who got encouragement.

In short, the subjects' own conduct toward the accomplices shaped their perception of them – "You tend to like the people to whom you are kind and dislike the people to whom you are rude."^[1]

Results were mimicked in a more recent but smaller study by psychologist Yu Niiya with Japanese and American subjects.^[5]

Effect as an example of cognitive dissonance

This perception of Franklin has been cited as an example within cognitive dissonance theory, which says that people change their attitudes or behavior to resolve tensions, or "dissonance", between their thoughts, attitudes, and actions. In the case of the Ben Franklin effect, the dissonance is between the subject's negative attitudes to the other person and the knowledge that they did that person a favor.^[6][7] One science blogger accounts for the phenomenon in the following way: "Current self-perception theory tells us that our brains behave like an outside observer, continually watching what we do and then contriving explanations for those actions, which subsequently influence our beliefs about ourselves....Our observing brain doesn't like it when our actions don't match the beliefs we have about ourselves, a situation commonly referred to as cognitive dissonance. So, whenever your behavior is in conflict with your beliefs (for example if you do a favor for someone you may not like very much or vice versa, when you do something bad to someone you are supposed to care about), this conflict immediately sets off alarm bells in your brain. The brain has a clever response – it goes about changing how you feel in order to reduce the conflict and turn off the alarms."^[8]

Alternative explanations

Psychologist Yu Niiya attributes the phenomenon to the requestee reciprocating a perceived attempt by the requester to ignite friendly relations.^[9] This theory would explain the Ben Franklin effect's absence when an intermediary is used.

Uses

Some have observed that the Ben Franklin effect can be useful for improving relationships among coworkers.^[10]

In the sales field, the Ben Franklin effect can be used to build rapport with a client. Instead of offering to help the potential client, a salesperson can instead ask the potential client for assistance: "For example, ask them to share with you what product benefits they find most compelling, where they think the market is headed, or what products may be of interest several years from now. This pure favor, left unrepaid, can build likability that will enhance your ability to earn that client's time and investment in the future."^[11]

The Benjamin Franklin effect can also be observed in successful mentor-protege relationships. Such relationships, one source points out, "are defined by their fundamental imbalance of knowledge and influence. Attempting to proactively reciprocate favors with a mentor can backfire, as the role reversal and unsolicited assistance may put your mentor in an unexpected, awkward situation".^[11] The Ben Franklin effect was cited in Dale Carnegie's bestselling book How to Win Friends and Influence People. Carnegie interprets the request for a favor as "a subtle but effective form of flattery".

As Carnegie suggests, when we ask a colleague to do us a favour, we are signalling that we consider them to have something we don't, whether more intelligence, more knowledge, more skills, or whatever. This is another way of showing admiration and respect, something the other person may not have noticed from us before. This immediately raises their opinion of us and makes them more willing to help us again both because they enjoy the admiration and have genuinely started to like us.^[10]

Psychologist Yu Niiya suggests that the Ben Franklin effect vindicates the theory of amae (甘え). It states that dependent, childlike behavior can induce a parent-child bond where one partner sees themselves as the caretaker.^[5] In effect, amae creates a relationship where one person feels responsible for the other, who is then free to act immaturely and make demands.

One commentator has discussed the Ben Franklin effect in connection with dog training, thinking "more about the human side of the relationship rather than about the dogs themselves." While trainers often distinguish between the impact of positive and negative reinforcement-based training methods on the dogs, it can also be relevant to "consider the effects that these two approaches may have upon the trainer. The Ben Franklin Effect suggests that how we treat our dogs during training influences how we think about them as individuals – specifically, how much we like (or dislike) them. When we do nice things for our dogs in the form of treats, praise, petting and play to reinforce desired behaviors, such treatment may result in our liking them more. And, if we use harsh words, collar jerks or hitting in an attempt to change our dog's behavior, then...we will start to like our dog less."^[8]

Converse

The opposite case is also believed to be true, namely that we come to hate a person whom we did wrong to. We de-humanize them to justify the bad things we did to them.^[3]

It has been suggested that if soldiers who have killed enemy servicemen in combat situations later come to hate them, it is because this psychological maneuver helps to "decrease the dissonance of killing".^[3] Such a phenomenon might also "explain long-standing grudges like Hatfield vs. McCoy" or vendetta situations in various cultures: "Once we start, we may not be able to stop and engage in behavior we would normally never allow."^[12] As one commentator has put it, "Jailers come to look down on inmates; camp guards come to dehumanize their captives; soldiers create derogatory terms for their enemies. It's difficult to hurt someone you admire. It's even more difficult to kill a fellow human being. Seeing the casualties you create as something less than you, something deserving of damage, makes it possible to continue seeing yourself as a good and honest person, to continue being sane."^[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect

See also

• Foot-in-the-door technique

A couple points about Meeting Minutes and Corrections...

Isn't it necessary to summarize matters discussed at a meeting in the minutes of that meeting in order for the minutes to be complete?

If minutes of a previous meeting are corrected, are the corrections entered in the minutes of the meeting at which the corrections were made?

Question 15:
Isn't it necessary to summarize matters discussed at a meeting in the minutes of that meeting in order for the minutes to be complete?

Answer:
Not only is it not necessary to summarize matters discussed at a meeting in the minutes of that meeting, it is improper to do so. Minutes are a record of what was done at a meeting, not a record of what was said. [RONR (11th ed.), p. 468, ll. 16-18; see also p. 146 of RONR In Brief.]

Question 16:
If minutes of a previous meeting are corrected, are the corrections entered in the minutes of the meeting at which the corrections were made?

Answer:
If corrections to minutes are made at the time when those minutes are originally submitted for approval, such corrections are made in the text of the minutes being approved. The minutes of the meeting at which the corrections are made should merely indicate that the minutes were approved “as corrected,” without specifying what the correction was.

If it becomes necessary to correct minutes after they have initially been approved, such correction can be made by means of the motion to Amend Something Previously Adopted. In this event, since the motion to Amend Something Previously Adopted is a main motion, the exact wording of that motion, whether adopted or rejected, should be entered in the minutes of the meeting at which it was considered. [RONR (11th ed.), p. 469, ll. 4-8; p. 475, ll. 18-24; see also p. 151 of RONR In Brief.]