This reflection and insight in the Mindful Meeting series follows on from the tracks Breathing Together and Agreeing Together.
It can be used in conjunction with these tracks or in isolation.
Now in this context,
Seeing refers to capturing a scene or situation,
Either with our eyes or with our mind's eye.
For example,
When we see what someone means,
We can see an image of beauty like a sunset or artwork.
We could also see the situation that someone's got themselves into or see an opportunity coming our way.
Some of the processes in this visualisation are not mine,
But they are ones that I've used in many business meetings to get to a new and heightened level of understanding.
The luminaries who came up with them,
Possibly inspired by the thinking of others before them are Walt Disney,
Edward de Bono and Tony Buzan.
I am honouring their wisdom and passing on their baton.
The first three techniques are an example of parallel thinking and the final technique is one of visual or whole brain thinking.
The idea behind parallel thinking is for a team to focus on one thing at a time.
The idea behind visual thinking is to give both sides of the brain something that suits the specialisation of each of our brain hemispheres.
When you want to run a meeting where everyone sees together,
It's best to use an agenda format that promotes free thinking,
But also to use a process which encourages everyone to see everything together at the same time.
Now the actual format of the meeting will depend on what sort of meeting it is.
So it is internal,
External,
A process review,
New product launch or innovation.
If the meeting is of an exploratory nature,
I've used a number of techniques that drastically reduced meeting times and increased consensus and output.
The ones I recommend are Walt Disney's three rooms.
Here you take your idea into three virtual rooms and in turn anyone can dream wildly about it,
Criticise it or be realistic about it.
A Priest of Enquiry is a fantastic process as you put the positive output at the core and you look at what is working and think about how you can make it even better still.
And Edward de Bohnen's Six Thinking Hats is an example of parallel thinking where you only focus on one aspect of thinking at one time.
For the latter two techniques at least,
You'll probably need some training before you can facilitate a meeting using them.
But of course you can create your own methodology or use a standard in-house format.
What is important is that all attendees are aware that the meeting has a format and will elicit inputs along with that format.
Otherwise chaos will often ensue with louder voices taking control and input from quieter voices never being heard.
Now when it comes to visualisation of an opportunity or an issue,
My tool of choice is the mind map.
Some brains don't think in lists,
They think radially.
This radial flow of thought is actually mirrored in the structures of interconnected neurons that fire and wire together.
A good mind map allows the left and right brain to do what they are both best at,
At the same time.
When the two hemispheres work in concert,
It's called whole brain or symmetrical thinking.
When presented with a mind map,
You can imagine this unconscious dialogue between the hemispheres.
Aha,
A map says the left brain.
I do the navigation round here,
Leave this one to me.
The right brain observes.
Good,
I see the left brain is busy,
Now I can sneak under its radar and do what I do best,
Tying to see the wood from the trees.
What also makes for a great meeting is if the person who is taking notes or minutes is trained in mind mapping.
They can use a white board or a blank wall and complete the mind map manually with coloured markers and post-it notes.
Other attendees can then come up and augment the map.
Alternatively,
They could use one of the many excellent mind mapping software programs on a computer or tablet feeding into a projector.
And some of these programs allow group collaboration by hosting the map on the internet so everyone can input to them.
And in addition,
Each branch of the mind map can be given attributes such as the start or completion time for an action and the assignment of an owner of the source idea or the agreed action.
The mind map should of course encapsulate and summarise the agreed meeting format.
To get everyone to see together from the inception of the meeting,
It is a good idea to preload a template map from the start,
Which is completed dynamically as the meeting progresses.
As meetings naturally follow a forward chronology,
It is best if the map is organised as a clockface with the first items on the agenda at 1 o'clock and the agreements around 11 or 12 o'clock.
Note that this is not a hard and fast rule,
There are some exceptions for some types of meeting where spatial as opposed to temporal encoded is more appropriate.
As a simple example,
Here is a generic map of a process I use to drive meetings from idea to completion.
It's based on four words that all begin with A.
So you start the collective mind mapping process in the top right and you list down all the aspirations that the attendees have for the meeting and for the subject of the meeting.
And next you go down to bottom right and you think of all the ways that whatever it is that you are dreaming about can be augmented and made even better.
Then you move down to bottom left and you list all the things that you agree on.
Don't focus on the disagreements just on what you agree on.
And then you move up to top left and you simply list a set of actions required to make your aspirations come into reality.
Now I told you this was a simple map,
It's very powerful,
You can of course add other branches to it and other processes and as many sub-branches as you like.
So I hope this brief introduction to seeing together is useful to you and it's my belief that the company that sees together,
Grows together,
Thrives together and succeeds together.
