Meeting the needs of your meeting
There is much thought given to the design of Microsoft Teams Rooms - and meeting spaces in general - but what about the meetings themselves? Some observations.
Let’s start with the proposition that meetings are exercises involving power, performance – and kindness.
“Meet” and “meeting” occupy several pages in the Oxford English Dictionary, cited from the year 888! We use the word, we do the meetings, but the activity itself is something seldom given conscious thought.
Although it made me laugh to learn that the Coldplay singer Chris Martin was ‘consciously uncoupling’ from that Goop lady Gwyneth Paltrow, nevertheless I think the concept of ‘meeting consciously’ is very helpful.
We talk about how well people do in their jobs and the associated skills, but rarely how well they are at doing, at running, or participating in meetings. Why? I think there might be two reasons for this.
The first reason is that meetings might be our Achilles Heel. I, strange person that I am, enjoy meetings. I love the human interaction. But I know I could be better at them. How can meeting room design help me to ‘do meetings’ better?
The second reason might be that it somehow feels improper to acknowledge the elements of power, of status, of that raft of assumptions that are involved whilst we adopt our ‘this is me at a meeting’ personas! No-one wants to be the little boy who shouted out that the Emperor was naked in The Emperor’s New Clothes! How can these tacit undercurrents and assumptions help us to design better spaces?
But we can’t take a mechanistic view on this. Moderating an AV Awards judging panel yesterday, several times the subject of mental health came up and how this is the tip of the iceberg of health and wellbeing we see above the surface. We can do more to help our colleagues - and for them to succeed in the work - if we at least spend some time face to face.
Kindness and warmth are important and need to be more consciously considered. Trying to get people to want to come back to the office more? Well, to spend time and money on smelly public transport just to sit at an anonymous office desk, that is not going to swing it.
How do we get people to want to spend more time, another day, at the workplace?
The opportunities for room design and technology to enhance meeting experiences are there, but there are two essential steps of discovery about the human occupants and their workflows that need to be undertaken before that in order to unlock that potential.
Human Centred Design (HCD) is the way forward for the next generation of meeting rooms. You might be able to get people to say what they want. But it’s another thing to work out what they need - and to provide it.
Posted: 3rd October 2024