Hawk Software

I have spent a lot of time the last few weeks thinking about positive management attributes while completing an application package for a Caltrans executive position.  I am a pretty good meeting facilitator; I can keep a meeting on track and on schedule.  I also embrace innovation, a value important to Caltrans.  I love looking for new and better ways to do things, but might innovation in meetings be stifled by a strong facilitator?

This potential conflict came to mind while thinking about the importance of facilitating meetings by keeping people on topic.  It is important to not waste people’s time and address all the agenda items.  But, there was a nagging in the back of my mind about how some people come up with innovative ideas; they allow their thoughts to wander.

In a meeting there are sometimes tangent thoughts that are expressed, and these are the slight wanderings I believe can be important to innovation.  Not only can these wanderings be important for the person who brought them forth; anyone hearing it could have an epiphany and come up with a truly innovative idea.

I have been at meetings where the facilitator was known to be strong at keeping the meeting on a laser-straight course.  Those who were experienced with the facilitator knew to keep precisely on topic, while the newbies were quickly educated when they were cut-off in mid sentence as they strayed a tiny bit outside the current agenda item.  Sometimes they were offered to ‘take it offline’ or to ‘add it to the next agenda’.  Yes, those meetings ran silky smooth, on-time, and all the agenda items were covered, but I don’t remember any real innovation occurring.

I am going to remember this post as I facilitate meetings in the future.  I’m sure I will need to experiment with how much latitude I allow before drawing the discussion back to the current topic, and some of these meetings might run a little over, but I believe it will be worth it.  It sounds good in theory, now to see how it really works.