You've probably seen the FedEx logo, and by now, maybe you know that in the negative space between the E and the x is a rightward-pointing arrow. The arrow is there by intention, says Lindon Leader, who designed the logo. But if you know the Roman alphabet, you probably don't see the arrow unless you already know it's there.
The difficulty of seeing it comes from the frame of reference that readers habitually use when they see writing or printing. They look at the letters, not the spaces between them. People who are unfamiliar with Roman letters have much less difficulty seeing the arrow.
And when we see flocks of birds, we see the flocks, rather than the individual birds, and not the spaces between the birds. This habitual choice of reference frame is perhaps part of what makes many of the etchings of M.C. Escher so fascinating. He calls upon us to look at the individual birds in the flocks, and at the spaces between the birds.
When we choose our frame of reference consciously, we can see many things that would otherwise escape our notice. Consider the business meeting. For many, the reference frame of choice is the content of the discussion and how we're doing personally in the often-competitive tussle to control it.
Sometimes meetings need
contributions beyond
mere contentA useful alternative frame is that of the group. In that frame, we can ask, "How's the group doing?" Here are questions we can ask in that frame.
- Energy level
- Are people engaged? Do they arrive on time and stay through till the end? Is there a good amount of laughter? Or are they disengaged? Are they fiddling with their Blackberries? Doodling?
- Coherence
- Does the group maintain focus? Can they stay on topic, or are they whipsawing from one irrelevant point to another? Can they converge to conclusions, or do they often fail to reach decisions?
- Contribution rate
- Do people offer contributions at a reasonable rate? Or do they interrupt, over-talking each other or raising their voices? Or do they sit silently when someone poses a question, too fearful to risk offering a comment?
- Viewpoint multiplicity
- Does the group welcome diverse perspectives? Does it seek fresh views proactively when they aren't in evidence?
- Polarization
- Has the group evolved into a set of "political parties" whose composition and positions are rigidly consistent? Are they unable to reach joint decisions? Can you reliably predict who will ally with whom on a given question? Is one individual a designated pariah?
To make meetings more productive, groups sometimes need contributions that reach beyond mere content. If you change your frame of reference, and you notice what contributions the group really needs, you might find new ways to contribute to the meeting, to help lead it towards true achievement. Top Next Issue
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Related articles
More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:
- Status-Report as a Second Language
- Sometimes, the clichés the losing team's players feed to sports reporters can have hidden meaning.
So it is with Project Status Reports, especially for projects in trouble.
- Selling Uphill: The Pitch
- Whether you're a CEO or a project champion, you occasionally have to persuade decision makers who have
some kind of power over you. What do they look for? What are the key elements of an effective pitch?
What does it take to Persuade Power?
- The Myth of Difficult People
- Many books and Web sites offer advice for dealing with difficult people. There are indeed some difficult
people, but are they as numerous as these books and Web sites would have us believe? I think not.
- Performance Mismanagement Systems: I
- Some well-intentioned performance management programs do more harm than good, possibly because of mistaken
fundamental beliefs. Specifically: the fallacy of composition, the reification error, the myth of identifiable
contributions, and the myth of omniscient supervision.
- Ten-Minute Training
- Despite decades of evolution of technology-assisted workplace learning, instructor-led classroom formats
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See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness and Effective Meetings for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
- Coming April 3: Recapping Factioned Meetings
- A factioned meeting is one in which participants identify more closely with their factions, rather than with the meeting as a whole. Agreements reached in such meetings are at risk of instability as participants maneuver for advantage after the meeting. Available here and by RSS on April 3.
- And on April 10: Managing Dunning-Kruger Risk
- A cognitive bias called the Dunning-Kruger Effect can create risk for organizational missions that require expertise beyond the range of knowledge and experience of decision-makers. They might misjudge the organization's capacity to execute the mission successfully. They might even be unaware of the risk of so misjudging. Available here and by RSS on April 10.
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