Meetings are an essential part of business, and in 2020, the rulebook was ripped up. We learned new technology, new etiquette and perhaps unlearned some ‘received wisdom’ about what meetings were for and how they needed to be run.
So, what has the pandemic taught us about how we meet? With many organisations moving to hybrid working, how do we make meetings work, going forward?
It’s essential to know – and share – the purpose of the meeting before thinking about invitations.
Is it to generate new ideas or discuss strategy? Is it a crisis meeting or a final check on the small print?
An awareness of each attendees Belbin Team Roles can help ensure that you’ve got the right people present and can keep meetings small and productive.
The move to virtual working has challenged effective communication. With cameras switched off, we lose body language and other physical cues. When emailing or instant messaging, rather than turning in our seats, we lose tone and inference.
Belbin Team Roles offers a different kind of language, which can help plug this gap and bridge misunderstandings, as well as to recognise and value others’ strengths.
When Belbin becomes a shorthand, enthusiastic Resource Investigators can say, “Let’s not ME (Monitor Evaluate) this idea until we’ve found out more,” or an impatient Shaper can state, “Let’s CF this at a later date”.
This understanding can help keep foster new kinds of communication, as well as keeping meetings to time, and to the point.
Virtual meetings are an opportunity to change things up and see what works.
Those with strong Co-ordinator tendencies (in Belbin terms, people who take a broad outlook and draw out contributions from others) make the most effective chairs, because they give everyone airtime, seek to build towards consensus and don’t get bogged down in details.
However, the team’s most effective Co-ordinator might not be the team leader. Working with Team Role strengths provides an opportunity to look beyond hierarchical or functional considerations and shake things up a bit.
With the rise of virtual and hybrid working, informal knowledge sharing has dwindled, because these kind of meetings aren’t the ones scheduled in the diary.
We don’t tune in to useful conversations or we’re not given introductions to passers-by, helping us forge new connections and relationships.
In our survey, those with Resource Investigator tendencies, who enjoy networking and building new relationships, told us they suffered the most from the lack of those opportunities.
Consider mentoring schemes and building communities of practice to help foster tacit knowledge sharing within your organisation.
Of course, success rides on knowing the behaviours present in your team.
Only a Belbin Individual Report can provide the insights you need, but in the meantime, here’s our quick guide to Belbin Team Roles in meetings, not forgetting that each of us has strengths in more than one role!
Let's explore how Belbin can help your teams work better together.
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