Silent meetings
“There are approximately 55 million meetings a day in the United States. Most of them involve talking, which can also be subject to a host of problems: one person dominating, others checking out and multitasking, side conversations, straying off course, and pressures to conform to the boss’s ideas.” - Harvard Business Review
To make meetings more effective, consider making some parts of it silent. Here are situations where silence can be handy.
When you must consume background information so that everyone is equipped to participate in the activities that follow. Set aside a few minutes during the meeting for people to read this information in silence.
Brainstorms are particularly effective when you conduct them silently and privately. Allow people the time to generate their ideas and place them on a collaborative whiteboard where they can’t yet see other people’s ideas. Tools like Mural have a private mode that you can use for such situations.
Even when making decisions, silence can be handy. Allow people to vote in silence for the topics they wish to discuss. That way the loudest voices don’t get to push their agenda.
By adopting this approach you’ll make your interactions more inclusive. You’ll also notice that silence can enhance people’s sense of safety to contribute ideas because it allows everyone to share their views in parallel. It’s also a good way to slowly nudge your team into working asynchronously. Once the team gets into the habit of reading information before getting into a conversation, you can easily move the silent meeting to an asynchronous format.