A Simple Tool for Effective Meetings: Shared Displays
Leaders, I want you to commit to including a simple, powerful tool in both your in-person and virtual meetings: shared displays.
Whiteboards, flip charts, digital boards - any visual tool that everyone can see and edit in real time together as a team. It changes the meeting from a status quo “talking at you” slide deck presentation to a collaboration. Shared displays are a central hub through which all ideas and dialogue flow and connect back to throughout the meeting.
Meetings are inherently high stakes. They cost time, money, resources and even relationships when not facilitated effectively. Shared displays are a key part of the solution for ensuring effective meetings harness the collective intelligence in the room.
Do your meetings usually have a shared display? They should. You will save time and money with this simple change.
Here’s Why Shared Displays Matter in Meetings
“There’s no shared team memory without a shared display. ”
Shared displays are easy, “low hanging fruit” for improving your team meetings that help:
Keep the team focused on central ideas and their work together
Keep everyone on track toward results by aligning everyone around a shared visual context
Increase engagement and clarity on objectives, ideas and plans
There’s no shared team memory without a shared display.
The Power of Shared Displays in Our Work at Integrative Leadership Strategies
Meetings that have full engagement and get results every time are one of our key specialties and service areas. We help our leadership team clients during big meetings, empowering them to take what they’ve learned back into their everyday meetings.
A Client Story
As we were facilitating a meeting for a client recently, one team member drew a connection between two sets of goals, describing it as a reinforcing loop (either a vicious or virtuous cycle).
We translated this team member’s mental model of the connection they made on a flip chart at the front of the room so that the concept could be shared among the team.
This shared display supported the team in understanding how two areas in which they wanted to develop were interconnected, and they were able to quickly agree that starting on one area would support improvement in the other area. They could see that the choice of which area to start in was a bit arbitrary.
Drawing this together was a huge part of the team achieving alignment around the dynamic. Before that, there was some spinning in the dialogue about which area was dependent on the other. Now they were aligned and could move forward
That is the power of shared displays in improving meetings.
Your Task Today – Set Up a Shared Display to Improve Your Next Meeting.
Here’s how to approach shared displays in a way that aligns with your needs as the leader running the meeting, and your team’s needs as participators.
Think of your shared display as your “group memory”, a concept coined by authors Doyle and Straus. You're creating a collective memory that is consistent and shared among team members.
Decide on the tactics of your shared display.
Where will it be, whether virtual meeting or in person?
What setup is needed?
Are you willing to slow down to work together with your team in this medium for increased understanding?
Start small - just sharing the meeting notetaker’s notes on a visual display can improve meeting results.
Reminder- just screen sharing in Zoom or displaying a static document is not enough, it needs to be something built together in real time, where rich conversations are also captured alongside the document.
Still not sure what your shared display should look like visually?
It depends on the format of the meeting, the number of people, and the complexity of your topic.
If you’re in person, decide on a hand-written flip chart or a document projected on a screen. If you’re in a virtual meeting, it could be an online whiteboard like MIRO, or a more traditional word processing document.
Do what makes the most sense and will be the most accessible to you and your team. The shared display shouldn’t feel like a burden to use; it is there to support you and your team’s alignment around the content that goes on it.
Takeaways
You don’t need to be a pro at meeting facilitation. Just start small and commit to adding this simple, highly impactful tool to your next meeting. It’s one of the five best ways to upgrade your meetings.
Shared visual context will create a group memory, align understanding and make work results more consistent among your team long after your meeting ends.
Need Help with Shared Displays and Meeting Facilitation?
