This document discusses how the unseen structures of meetings, such as physical layout, agenda, and follow-up procedures, can impact meeting effectiveness. It outlines structural choices for planning, conducting, and achieving results from meetings. Tools are provided to structure discussion, manage feedback, and ensure follow-up. The author advocates applying insights from large meeting facilitation to make typical meetings more productive through intentional structural design.

1. Naked Meetings:
Using Unseen Structures to Achieve Results
Rick Lent
April 25, 2012
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5. Naked Meetings: Using Unseen
Structures to Achieve Results
Rick Lent, Ph.D.
www.meetingforresults.com

6. Agenda
1. Enable you to recognize how unseen structures
that may affect your meetings
2. Outline your choices in working to improve
meeting structures
3. Give you some tools for implementing effective
structures:
• To keep discussion productive
• To manage feedback on proposals
• To improve follow-up on action plans
• And take your questions …
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7. Unseen structures …
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8. Unseen Structures of Meetings
• Physical, temporal,
procedural aspects of
meetings.
• With an (unrecognized)
impact on how we
interact with each other
and the work of the
meeting.
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9. www.meetingforresults.com 9

10. Changing Structure to Change Results
• Small town
• With a 10 year
history of failed
efforts to create a
plan the town
would support…
• New committee and
new approach
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11. Changing Structures to Change Results
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12. Changing Structures to Change Results
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13. Changing Structures to Change Results
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14. Changing Structures:
What Remains Unseen?
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15. Structures Behind Initial Questions
1) Meeting size …
• Principle of 8
2) Staying on time and on task …
• Defining task(s) and time required
• Sharing responsibility
3) Decision-making
• Choosing among 5 Cs
• Supporting respectful discussion
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16. Structuring Effective Meetings:
Three stages to any meeting…
1. Planning
2. Conducting
3. Achieving Results
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17. Structural Choices in Planning
Choice 1: How you define the task or work of the
meeting.
Choice 2: Who you invite.
Choice 3: How you design the discussion.
Choice 4: How you plan to reach a decision.
Choice 5: How time will be spent.
Choice 6: How you will arrange meeting space.
This work by Rick Lent, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. www.meetingforresults.com 17

18. Choice 1. How you define the task or
work of the meeting.
Example:
In response to a safety incident, a management
team might meet to discuss “Yesterday’s safety
incident.”
A more clearly focused task statement would
be, “What can we learn from yesterday’s safety
incident that we can apply to improve
workplace safety going forward?”
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19. Structural Choices in Planning
Choice 1: How you define the task or work of the
meeting.
Choice 2: Who you invite.
Choice 3: How you design the discussion.
Choice 4:How you plan to reach a decision.
Choice 5: How time will be spent.
Choice 6: How you will arrange the meeting space.
Leading to an Agenda
This work by Rick Lent, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. www.meetingforresults.com 19

20. Structural Choices in Conducting
Choice 1: How you share responsibility.
Choice 2: How you support dialogue.
Choice 3: How you manage time.
Choice 4: How you work with any conflict.
This work by Rick Lent, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. www.meetingforresults.com 20

21. Structural Choices in Achieving Results
Choice 1: How you build decisions with your
group.
Choice 2: How you plan to follow-up.
This work by Rick Lent, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. www.meetingforresults.com 21

22. Tools to Support Choices
Planning the discussion to keep it focused and
productive: “1-2-All”
Conducting the meeting to manage difficult/varied
reactions to some proposal: “PALPaR”
Achieving Results with effective follow-up:
“Three Follow-Up Questions” and
“Follow-Up Timing”
This work by Rick Lent, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. www.meetingforresults.com 22

23. Tool for Structuring Discussion: 1-2-All
Effective Engagement for Any Size Group
After introducing a subject or question to be addressed by the group,
complete the following steps.
1: Individual Reflection. Make sure everyone understands the
question or topic for consideration, then give individuals a minute
or two to gather their own thoughts. (This is the “1” of the tool).
2: Small Group Discussion. Then ask participants to turn to
their neighbors to form small, 2-3 person groups to share their
ideas. Explain the time they have for their discussion and to make
sure everyone in their group shares their thoughts in that time.
All: Whole Group Report. Ask each group for a brief report
(typically 1-3 minutes) summarizing their small group discussion.
This work by Rick Lent, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. www.meetingforresults.com 23

24. Tool for Working with Feedback: PALPaR
Creating a Respective Exchange in Response to Some Proposal
Present: You present the proposal (report or other information).
Ask: Ask participants to talk with each other (in small groups) to answer three
“reaction” questions such as:
1. What did you like about this proposal?
2. Where do you need more information?
3. What don’t you like?
Listen: Take reports from each small group, one question at a time..
Pause: Take a specified break to incorporate what you have heard before
continuing, and
Reply: Come back to the group and summarize what you heard as key points
in the feedback, and how you have taken feedback into account (or not).
This work by Rick Lent, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. www.meetingforresults.com 24

25. Achieving Results: Three Follow-Up Questions
Learning from a balanced review of progress
Bring the group together and focus the discussion around these
three questions:
1. What has been accomplished as planned?
2. What hasn’t been accomplished as planned?
3. What can we learn about making progress in this area from our
answers to both questions?
Use all three questions one at a time in this order. Try to balance
time and attention across replies to all three questions. You can
modify the questions to fit the circumstances, but use all three
types.
This work by Rick Lent, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. www.meetingforresults.com 25

26. Achieving Results: Follow Up Timing
Choosing an Effective Time for Learning from Actions
Announce a review of progress on agreed actions within 30-45
days of the original meeting.
• This period of time is usually long enough to have some accomplishments.
• More important, this is not so long that the only thing that is “top of
mind” is why some planned action was unrealistic.
The discussion should review both what has been done as well
as what has not been done. Try not to focus only on problem
areas. Build the group’s learning about its efforts from a
balanced review of all their experience so far.
This work by Rick Lent, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. www.meetingforresults.com 26

27. How Do I Know This Works?
• The last 30 years have seen major advances in how we
conduct effective large group meetings of 50, 100, 500 or
more participants.
• In such large meetings, it is very difficult to direct the behavior
or participation of individuals. Instead, a facilitator uses
structure to enable all to participate effectively and efficiently.
• For ten years I have been adapting the structural approaches
of these large group meeting techniques so that leaders
everywhere can make smaller, regular meetings more
effective.
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28. For More Information..
Stories of challenging meetings and structural tools to help at
www.meetingforresults.com/blog
Complimentary consultation on a meeting challenge (by email or
phone appointment)
rick@meetingforresults.com
1-978-580-4262
E-book on structural tools for better meetings: Meeting for Results
Tool Kit: Make Your Meetings Work. Available this summer. Sign up
to be notified when available: www.meetingforresults.com
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