Meetings, bloody meetings

Research we did at Synectics before the social media revolution showed that managers in America spent some three quarters of their time in meetings of one sort or another. It does not seem to have been a happy experience for them.

Among managers in “star” innovation companies, only 25% thought that they regularly had productive or creative outcomes, whereas for those in “spectator” innovation companies, the figure dropped to a pitiful 2%.

But here is an interesting sub-finding: my meetings are more productive and creative in outcome than yours. The research showed that, irrespective of who I am, or in which function, I think that my meetings are pretty good – but yours are not!

I wonder whether things are improving? Or are meetings just as dire as they have ever been (as in those John Cleese videos)?

One problem that persists, it seems to me, is that the ability to chair a meeting productively is not a skill widely embraced (or well taught). The co-founder of Synectics, George Prince, concluded that it was better to split the role of the chair into two – a “problem owner” (who would lead content), and a “facilitator” (who would lead process). Both would need to model and promote positive climate in the meeting.

Is this happening much? I rather doubt it.

Birth of the facilitator

It’s not given to many of us to change the world in any significant way, but George Prince and Bill Gordon did. The founders of Synectics, they were running an innovation consultancy in the 1960s, providing clients with new ideas to brief, when they realised that clients often rejected George and Bill’s ideas, whereas they went forward with rather similar ideas they had had themselves.

Eureka! Synectics was born out of the belief that if George and Bill helped, facilitated, their clients to get better ideas, they would have a much higher strike rate.

It’s an unfortunate fact that they fell out quite soon after and Bill set up separately, but the seed was sown, and by now there are thousands of innovators and organisations successfully using Synectics-derived methodologies around the world.

I once asked George where the word “facilitator” had come from. “Well,” he smiled, “we just didn’t seem to have a word for it.”

What’s your experience of facilitators and facilitation? Helps or hinders?