ThoughtForm, Inc.: No matter your company’s size, industry, or location, chances are that meetings are at least a small part of your work life—or more likely, a huge part. And unfortunately, the reality is that a lot of those meetings aren’t as effective as they could be. Bad meetings come in all shapes and sizes.
3 comments:
I personally think that a neutral facilitator is better than an engaged guide in some ways because they can’t have an agenda to push because they aren’t invested in any side. The goal of the engaged guide is also supposed to be neutral, however if you have been involved in the process in any way you will naturally lean to one side or another. It is very difficult to be truly neutral if you have a stake in the end result. However, the neutral facilitator is just there to try and smooth the discussions and to keep things moving and not linger. I think this would be harder to do when you start out with your own thoughts on what should be specifically discussed. Either one is certainly better than neither. I was also expecting this article to be longer, and more adaptable for anyone, not just to say “get these people and that will solve everything.” For example the neutral facilitator is not helpful for very small companies where everyone is involved.
The first thing that caught my eye on this article was the point that it made at the very beginning when it said that not al meetings need a leader. I think that this statement is so true. I think when you are working in a collaborative environment and ideas are just flowing out and its starting to get intense, but in a good productive way, I think that there is no need for a leader to step in and remind you to keep your voice down or that we need to move on to another topic. Sometimes a leader in a meeting that is steering the conversation does more harm than good. The next thing that I noticed about this article was not about the context at all, but about how the article was written and the work choice. I don’t think I am a fan of the usage gender specific pronouns, for the Neutral Facilitator only using the “she/her/her’s” pronoun and the Engaged Guider only using the “he/him/his’” pronoun. I think this usage of pronouns is isolating because it may make a reader believe that a Neutral Facilitator can only be a woman and that an Engaged Guider can only be a man.
This article is super interesting in the fact that it makes it so clear the two styles of leadership in meetings and from experience here in production meetings and other interdepartmental or just in the office, I have done plenty of each type of leadership especially when it comes to meetings involving problem solving like load in and strike meetings. I rarely ever know everything about lighting or sounds’ process in its entirety and those meetings are the ones where I really become a neutral facilitator because I'm the one who needs the information and have little stake in how they do it outside of how out=r timelines fit together. I can’t make informed decisions about them and their process but I can ask questions and lead us towards a position in which we can work together to achieve the same goal. I have way less experience as the engaged guide outside of class projects, but I have a feeling it is another good option for moving meetings forward.
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