LEARNING DURING MEETINGS

By Eric de Groot and Mike van der Vijver
Managing Partners of MindMeeting
(Designers of successful international meetings)


Public Speakers, Pavlov and Meeting Programmes
The meeting industry is a world of didactics and pedagogy: One of the main reasons why people attend meetings is to learn something. So if that is the case, why are most meetings programmed around a single teaching/learning model?

When people go to meetings they expect to learn something. It would be sensible for conference organisers, therefore, to ask themselves in what kind of situation people learn most. In other words: in what sort of position should the conference organiser put the participant in order for her (him) to undergo the most rewarding learning experience?
 
The answer from the world of didactical research may come as a shock to many conference organisers. It yields a listing more or less as below:

Now, the wording of these results may vary, but the conclusion is inescapable: people learn more if their personal involvement increases and they learn most if they take the role as expert. And yet, the vast majority of meetings are organised with participants in the student role: the traditional classroom setting, with participants in the role of a passive consumers and a guy (it’s usually a guy) in front of them in the role of speaker. Of course, that speaker uses audio-visual aids (after all, PowerPoint was invented) but it’s still essentially one-way traffic.
 
Does this conclusion come as a surprise? We suspect that actually for most people it doesn’t. Most attendees to conferences, in particular international ones, recognise our own experience, which is that you rarely get sessions in which brilliant speakers break new ground and provide you with essential, revolutionary learning. Of course, the conference brochure tells you that thàt is what the conference has in store for you, but has it?

Most meetings base their learner outcomes almost entirely on the knowledge and quality of speakers and we all know how risky a bet that is. Of course, we are not saying that speakers at conferences are useless, what we are saying is that speakers should not be deployed as in a proverbial Pavlov reflex, the way many conference organisers do now.

Now, if we do try to realise a different type of meeting programme that takes learner needs and learning positions into account, we are immediately faced with a paradox: you learn the most if you are the teacher. How can people teach about something they do not master? Can this be done? We believe it can, but there are conditions.

Meeting organisers should at least do two things: firstly, they should muster up the courage to ask participants and experts to change their learning positions and secondly, they should modulate these positions depending on participant know-how. Experts can introduce and open up the subject, which should then be processed actively by participants themselves. Here is an example: we recently designed the programme for a meeting of entrepreneurs interested in outsourcing to China. They received a short (15’) power session focused on present and future developments and were then broken up into groups of four, with two people acting as interviewers and two as interviewees (the experts). Any question could be asked; “I don’t know” was not allowed as an answer. In 30 minutes, an astonishing amount of knowledge was floated into the group (and later relayed) and in the mean time each individual attendee had gained a clear insight into essential knowledge he either had or lacked. And isn’t that one of the main objectives of adult teaching and learning: helping people to become aware of the things they know and the important things they do not yet know? Of course, the expert was there (and had time) to answer many of the questions that came out of the discussion groups.

Clearly, it is possible to ‘tinker with’ meeting programmes in many ways and improve learner outcomes. Meeting planners would do themselves and participants a favour if they did this more often. However, in order to make that ‘tinkering’ effective in stead of random, it is best done by deploying two new types of professionals we see emerging in today’s meeting industry. Conference organisers can call on meeting designers - sometimes called meeting architects - to develop programmes with productive learning processes, built around desired outcomes. The second type of professional needed is a skilled facilitator, capable of conducting groups of people towards those optimum learner outcomes. The professional profiles and added value of these new process specialists are being developed and understood better as we are writing this article. We’ll keep you posted!

Eric de Groot and Mike van der Vijver
Managing Partners of MindMeeting
www.mindmeeting.org

About Eric de Groot
As a drama –teacher, Eric de Groot started working in schools and theatre companies all over the Netherlands. The foundation for Dutch schools abroad NOB invited his theatre company to perform drama projects in 22 countries.

In 1995, Eric was one of the founders of Malgil, a company specialised in designing live communication programs. Malgil’s customers included major profit and not-for-profit organisations. In April '99 Malgil won the " Golden Giraffe ", the Dutch prize for the best business event.

In May 2001,  Eric left Malgil to set up his own company,  De Wet van Thomas, which specialises in the design of congress programs. Sharing knowledge and networking are the main programme objectives.

Mindmeeting was founded in 2003, together with colleague and intercultural consultant Mike van der Vijver. It focuses on developing more effective and interactive programs for international audiences.

Eric lives in Friesland, in the north of Holland, with his wife and three daughters.

(De Wet van Thomas, “Thomas Law” refers to William I. Thomas. An American sociologist who worked on group dynamics at the beginning of the 20th century. He wrote about the influence of expectations in a group process. ‘Manipulating’ expectations is a program design tool.)

Contact details:
Phone: + 31 (0)58-216 4908
Mobile phone: + 31 (0)6 – 5533 7640
E-mail: eric@mindmeeting.org or eric@dewetvanthomas.com