meetings

Prompting Participants’ Performance

large audience awaiting an apprehensive speakerSo how is a town hall meeting like a theater production or a church service? That’s not a clever riddle, but an actual comparison that came to mind during a sermon by a Zürich preacher who pointed out how a church service and a theater production were alike.

Similarly, in the business world, a town hall meeting or an all-hands meeting or some other staged event for employees is also like a theater production.

It’s easy to draw parallels with the two types of venues; there are stages with microphones, some kind of backdrop and perhaps some props.

Leaders can ask questions and facilitate a dialogue of sorts, with the role of the person on stage as a prompter for that discussion.
But another analogy is that in both cases the people on stage should be the prompters and the audience in employee meetings should be the performers. That role reversal may sound counterintuitive as usually the actors are active and the audience is passive.

Employee events, on the other hand, should engage the audience and encourage them to participate, prompted by the company’s leaders on stage. Instead of just presiding over the meeting and presenting to the audience, the leaders can ask questions and facilitate a dialogue of sorts, with the role of the person on stage as a prompter for that discussion.

Do you need guidance on how to orchestrate an employee event where the audience is less passive and more participatory? Ask, assess, then act. We’re here to help!

Illustration credit: Frits Ahlefeldt-Laurvig via Flickr

Tagged , , , , , ,

11 Questions and Prompts for Insightful Debriefing Sessions

flow chart for debriefing sessionIn order to create a powerful “learning organisation,” your management team needs to be able to share lessons learned among themselves in a systematic way. Structured debrief sessions following major projects can help your leaders learn from their successes, as well as the times they could have done better.

Debriefing sessions shouldn’t be viewed as negative finger-pointing exercises but as opportunities to acknowledge successes and challenges and then to empower each leader to help others in the organisation learn from their experiences.

Before the debriefing session begins, a strong discussion leader should be appointed who will encourage everyone to contribute but won’t allow personal attacks to derail the conversation.

Here are 11 prompt questions that can be used to guide the discussion during a debriefing session: Continue Reading…

Tagged , , , , ,