My friend, Bob Petrello, has a Zen garden in the middle of his beautiful back yard: raked sand, a few rocks. It’s a visual oasis of stillness and silence that evokes a feeling of tranquility.
Just what you want in a Zen garden.
But, when you’re leading an important team or project meeting – you want the opposite. You want engagement and participation. Not Zen tranquility.

You know how it goes – you’ve just finished your presentation and now you need input.
Questions. Ideas. You need people to get involved and engaged so you toss out a question to get the dialogue started.
And you smile expectantly, waiting for the conversation to kick off. But, no one talks.
Nada. Zilch.

Everyone sits there as motionless and mute as a bunch of rocks in a Zen garden.
But, this kind of stillness and silence doesn’t evoke tranquility.
Quite the opposite. As the seconds tick by you can feel the anxiety and irritation flooding through your body.

You know, full well, they have plenty to say.
And that the minute people leave the meeting – they’ll be talking up a storm.
So, how can you tap that “after the meeting energy” while everyone is in the room?

How can you generate the kind of freewheeling, authentic conversation that happens outside the meeting room walls?
Have a ménage-a-trois.
No, not that kind of ménage-a-trois!
I’m talking about clustering people into small groups to get the participation going. (It doesn’t have to be three people. It could be two, three, or four folks. But, no more than four.)

By breaking the team into small groups, you’re simulating the after-meeting environment during the meeting.
Here’s what happens when the meeting is over: people cluster and buzz. They break up into small groups, face each other and talk. It’s natural, comfortable, and feels safe.

Gathering together in small groups to talk, listen, discuss, and learn is a natural human activity.
It’s wired into our social neurology. It’s what we do. Intentionally using small groups mimics this primal structure. It promotes the flow of conversation, the openness, and the authenticity of the “water cooler” conversation and the coffee break kibbutz.

But, even though gathering in small groups is so natural, it can seem un-natural when introduced into a meeting.
If you haven’t used small groups in your meetings, people may hesitate at first. They’ve become used to sitting around the big table. And now you’ve introduced a change.
People may be uncertain about why you’re suggesting this break from the conventional protocol.

So, you need to explain why you’re suggesting this change.
After you’ve finished making your presentation, talk about your desire to have a rich and thoughtful discussion. And that you believe it is important for everyone to have a voice in the process.

Let people know that you want to energize the meeting.
Get more participation. Break out of habitual ways of thinking. And generate new ideas. And, that you hope breaking into small groups will:

• Stimulate ideas
• Make it easier for people to say what they think
• Spark creativity
• Make it safer to say things that feel “risky”

Explain that you’d like to try a structured way of getting everyone involved.
To make easy for everyone to participate in a way that is most comfortable and get the best thinking from the group. This means using a three-step process of:

• Breaking into small groups of 3-4 people.

• Talking & listening to each other. (It’s important to remind people that the small group process is not about reaching a decision. The focus is on increasing awareness, identifying issues, generating ideas, and exploring options, etc.)
• Reporting out: have someone from each group reports the key ideas of their discussion – so the whole team can benefit from their thinking. It can help to record their ideas on a flipchart paper or writing tablet – so they actually remember what they talked about.

Let them know how much time they’ll have for talking and listening, and remind them to be ready to report out.
Then, invite people to divide into small groups and let them buzz. It won’t be silent and still.

If you want silence and stillness go to a Zen garden. If you want interaction and participation in your meetings – use small groups.

Related posts:

1. Is it consensus or conflict?
2. Don’t mistake silence for consensus
3. How to stop swatting flies and start developing leaders
4. Why Talking Too Much Undermines Goal Setting
5. What’s at Risk?: Feedback & Feelings part 2