Curious about why your meetings are not as productive as they could be? In his book, The Inner Games of Tennis, Timothy Gallwey proposed the idea that performance is equal to potential minus interference. Without interference, performance would equal potential, thus by limiting interference, tennis players can perform closer to their potential. Interference in this case can be internal. Emotions, motivation, fear and lack of confidence can all hold a player back from meeting their full potential on the court. But of course, interference can also come from external sources – a broken racquet or untied shoelace can just as easily limit performance.
This performance formula has been applied by coaches to nearly every sport. Business consultants use it to talk about management tactics. Really, you can apply this formula to almost anything where performance matters. It definitely transfers well to meetings. Every meeting has the potential to solve problems, generate ideas and/or further business goals. Different things add to a meeting’s potential, including; People – their intelligence, talent, experience, knowledge, motivation, communication skills, etc. Tools that facilitate collaboration and communication – venue, presentations, white boards, audio conferencing providers, web conferencing software, etc. Structure – the meeting’s objective and agenda and discipline to hold it to the structure. As a meeting manager, you add to the potential of a meeting by inviting the right people, using the right meeting technology products and tools and providing meeting structure. If you don’t plan properly, the potential of your meeting is limited so the meeting’s performance will be limited. Interference can come from anywhere, including; People – lack of confidence, emotions, fear, politics, motivation, opposing views, past experiences, poor communication skills etc. Tools – issues with the tools that are meant to facilitate collaboration and communication but end up hindering it. Meetings with high potential only fail if interference gets in the way. You probably don’t have a lot of control over meeting attendees’ internal interference, so let’s focus on the interference that can come from your meeting productivity tools. Flickering lights (venue) Annoying background noise (audio conference) Difficulty finding parking (venue) Broken chair (venue) Dropped calls (audio conference) Slow video streaming (web conference, webinar, webcast) Poor tool integration – managing multiple tools that don’t work well together. (audio, conference, webinar, webcast web conference, learning management systems) Tools that are difficult to use and understand. (audio, web, or video conferencing) Various “technical problems” (venue, audio, web or video conferencing) What kind of meeting interference have you experienced? Odds are you can limit meeting interference by using reliable tools; A venue with great customer service can anticipate issues and keep them from happening or react fast when something goes wrong; Web conferencing with high reliability and great support can keep your meeting on track while providing the solutions you need to make your meeting successful; Web, audio and video tools that integrate easily so you only have one tool to manage, etc. If you really want the performance of your meetings to match the potential, you painstakingly develop, find the tools that will help you rather than hinder you. We can help you with this. With just a 10-minute conversation, we guarantee you’ll come away with something that will help make your remote meetings more successful.
Performance = Potential – Interference
