Lessons meetings - where do you stand? Or sit?

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I got some interesting feedback last week at a lessons identification/capture meeting.

They said "it was great that, instead of standing up the front with a flipchart, you sat down at the table with us and took notes. It felt like a conversation, that you were part of".

I have been reflecting on this, and I am increasingly thinking that standing up the front with a flpchart is counterproductive.

When you are up front

• you are the focus
• it's about you
• you are separate
• people look at you
• people listen to you
• people read what you write
• people analyse and judge what you write

When you are at the table with the team

• the team is the focus
• its about the team
• you are part of the team*
• people look at each other
• people listen to each other
• people don't read, analyse or judge, they converse

So if you find your knowledge capture meetings or lessons identification meetings are stilted, are not flowing, and are not producing the results you hoped for, then put down your marker**, and go sit at the table.

Join the team, and join the conversation.

* I use "we language" in the meeting - "So what have we learned"- "if we were going to do this again, what would we do" and so on.


** The other benefit is that you can take proper notes. Voluminous notes. Which you can't do on a flipchart. Which means that the stories, the context and the knowledge gets lost.