Designing a Meeting for a Working Group
Working groups are groups of people who share a common goal (although sometimes even that can be vague), but lack a clear, formal power structure. A common example of a working group might be a cross-functional group of people tasked with implementing an initiative that has implications across all functions (like DEI initiatives, sustainability efforts, or large-scale tech transformations). Product working groups often include the product manager and everyone who will contribute to the product’s success. Another example would be a group of representatives from a large array of organizations that share related goals. This is common in the non-profit sector, as they often can find synergies and piggyback on each other’s efforts if the working group is effectively managed.
In our Meeting Design and Facilitation practice, we coach clients who are planning for and/or running a working group meeting. Here are a few of the challenges that are raised often, and some tips on how to address them.
Working Groups are Additional to Everyone’s Day-to-Day
Nine times out of ten, a working group is an extra initiative. It’s a volunteer position for the members of the working group, or the shared goal of the working group isn’t obviously relevant to the personal career goals of the members. Often, the direct supervisors of the members are themselves uninvolved in the working group processes, and have little interest or understanding of the work that goes on there. What this fundamentally means is that the working groups need to be extra engaging and inspiring for members to participate in them, otherwise it’s not seen as a good use of their time.
As a leader or facilitator of a working group session, this increases the burden to organize thoughtfully designed meetings that maximize engagement, build social glue, and lead to concrete outcomes. Members need to feel like their time is well spent AND like they’re an important contributor to the group.
TIP: When designing for a working group session, be extremely clear on what your goals are. Write them out in complete sentences, and be sure you’ve addressed what you want members to KNOW after participating in the meeting, FEEL as a result of the meeting, and DO as a follow up. Having defined goals will help you design each communication and meeting in a way that’s focused and aligned with the group’s purpose, ensuring you’re making the working group valuable and not a waste of time.
The Facilitator Feels like a Fraud
Often working group members have achieved a relatively high level of expertise and authority within their domains. The purpose of a working group is to bring together these high-level people, and leverage the collective expertise and authority of the group to solve a problem. In these cases, the facilitator or organizer may feel like he or she is less experienced or “ junior” to the working group members.
Unfortunately, this can lead to a sense of impostor syndrome on the part of the organizer. They may not feel empowered to take control of the meeting itself, assign tasks and responsibilities for follow up, or even require attendance in the first place. This invariably leads to a working group that feels stalled. The group takes too long to make decisions, people don’t feel like their contribution is necessary, and ultimately, the group members become less and less motivated to participate at all.
TIP: As Priya Parker mentions in her book, The Art of Gathering, “No one likes a chill host.” The whole reason a more junior person has been tasked with spearheading the effort is that none of the senior members have the time or mental space to do it justice. Taking control of the effort, assigning tasks, asking for input at the right time in the right ways… these are all ways of helping the experts accomplish their goals. Even if you are more “junior” than the working group members, if you’re leading the work stream, the working group needs you to show up as a leader in this venue. By being a strong facilitator, you are doing the working group a favor.
There’s No Clear Power Structure
Because working groups are made up of representatives from different groups, there’s often no clear line of accountability from anyone to anyone. This makes it easy to “forget” to do something between meetings, or simply skip a meeting once in a while.
In this case, social glue is extremely important. Without formal mechanisms of the carrot and stick that exist within structured hierarchies, working groups have to depend on the informal social niceties that guide human behavior. The stronger the social ties between members, the more likely natural accountability will establish itself.
TIP: As an organizer, this doesn’t mean you should figure out ways to shame people who don’t show up or don’t do their tasks. Rather, focus on ways to build social connections across the group as a side-effect of your meeting design. Do everything in your power to design small-group activities that require collaboration and conversation. Avoid “teach-outs” and presentations that put one person in the spotlight and the rest in the role of passive listener. Then, outside of the meetings themselves, find ways to create shared goals that require collaboration between two or three members at a time. Yes, you can also plan a bowling night or a happy hour, but the best social connections are built over a common challenge… Your working group exists to address some kind of challenge. Use that challenge as your starting point!
These are some common challenges that organizers of working groups often face. What are some of the challenges you see with organizing working groups?
This article is Part 1 of a 3-part series on planning and leading your working group meetings.
Here is the full set of articles from the series: