Virtuous Meetings: Technology + Design for High Engagement in Large Groups

Virtuous Meetings: Technology + Design for High Engagement in Large Groups breaks out of the confines of the meeting room to show the reader what is possible when you need to get large groups of people talking and making decisions together. The book shows that it is possible to achieve effective outcomes in large, important meetings – the kind of meetings that most organizations rely upon for aligning their leaders with strategy or managing change, innovation, and crises. When it matters most what the participants are thinking—even thousands of them at once, who may be in the room, at satellite locations or on laptops at home—this book liberates meeting designers from traditional assumptions and business-as-usual Q&A and discussion tactics with an approach for hearing and working with the contributions of all participants, live. From the Introduction,

"Virtuous Meetings is a simple notion—give participants back their voice, and enable them to generate ideas, solutions and understandings that move the whole group, no matter how large, forward together."

The book shows how meetings can be virtuous in intent as well as design, and how technology can help in this work. The book shows the reader how to use Virtuous Meeting Cycles, in which all participants' voices are heard, and shared understanding is generated, which in turn is used by participants, as a group, to generate plans and solutions, over which all feel a sense of ownership. As participants and leaders see the value of the outcomes of their interactions, their trust in each other, in the process, and intent to do good increases. With an increase in trust, the engagement becomes fuller and more robust. And so each revolution of the cycle continues...

The book shows how to choose, anchor, design, facilitate, and scale virtuous meetings. In each part, the authors speak from the front lines—from experiences with clients and their critically important large meetings. The "View from Inside the Meeting" and Case Story features of the book share important lessons from some of the authors' most memorable engagements.

Author Karl Danskin is an authority on psychology and group energetics. Lenny Lind is a pioneer in the field of technology-assisted group process and is a co-author of Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making, by Sam Kaner, et al. Together, they draw on the collected experiences of over two decades of consulting to multinational corporations, having supported thousands of top-level client meetings, to share a methodology proven to engage participants like never before.

Topics include:

• A new model for thinking about large meetings: Two levels of participant experience – table group, and whole group
• Exploring the "meta-conversations" that virtuous meetings enable
• Introducing the Virtuous Engagement Cycle
• The heart of virtuous meeting design: The Design Team
• The critical roles in a virtuous meeting
• An expanded view of (and platform for) leadership
• Participant-centered meetings of the future

Virtuous Meetings is a comprehensive guide to getting the best out of large, strategically important meetings.