Strengthening collaboration, engagement, and bolstering the power of the collective

Inefficient meetings where presenters stand in front of the crowd and pontificate for minutes and minutes without end are something we have all experienced. Likewise, they are something we all dread sitting through ever again. Once we see a long meeting booked into our calendar, our first reaction is one of dread and despair. 

Leaders need to do a better job of facilitating meetings rather than just leading. This will benefit their business and the collective sanity of the room. Every group needs to be engaged, asked for their input, and, most importantly, listened to so that leaders, managers, and decision-makers can leverage their collective intelligence and experience.

We have tailored each of our plans to help our customers achieve this, but our Enterprise plan goes further than all others when it comes to improving collaboration, boosting engagement, and harnessing the power of the collective.

Much of the following comes from a Business Reporter story written by our Co-Founder and CEO, Johnny Warström. 

Collaboration for high-impact decision-making 

The way for businesses and leaders to reach the most impactful, insightful, and actionable decisions is through collaboration. Harnessing the collective intelligence of your organization is the key to good decision-making. But collaboration is the great unperfected skill of the workplace.

Problems tend to arise when teams collaborate in ways that are more occasional and time-limited. In workshops and brainstorming sessions, we usually have the ability and the tools to succeed at the divergent stage – that phase where the goal is to get ideas on the table, bounce suggestions off each other, and expand the number of options. But this is where a lot of teams run into trouble. 

Collaboration has always been a highly requested feature from many of our Enterprise users and one we have striven to provide.  The ultimate goal was to streamline the creation of presentations and to make it a more transparent and collaborative process. Being presented with a series of slides for a brief look through once they have been fully designed is not a combined effort, nor is it likely to lead to the best results. 

Offering team members the opportunity to come together right at the beginning of the process improves transparency and makes brainstorming and truly collaborating more of a reality than a possibility. 

Collective intelligence decision-making

Where we often fall is in that final stage where decisions are made and the next steps are agreed upon. This crucial part of any workshop or meeting often means the difference between a collaboration resulting in a high business impact or a low business impact. But it is the stage we often get so badly wrong. 

Bad business decisions often occur because of biases decision-makers are unaware of. Research by McKinsey found that left unchecked, unconscious biases will undermine strategic decision-making and negatively impact business performance. 

Anonymity is key here. It allows employees to speak freely and honestly all while knowing that their contribution will be read and understood without any unconscious bias. We know that working in this way produces an atmosphere of inclusivity and transparency that is incredibly valuable for employee engagement and trust. 

Mentimeter is an anonymous tool. We want all participants to feel a sense of security and safety that they often lack when asked to raise their hands or speak up in front of others during a meeting. These scenarios are not inclusive and wildly favor those who ooze confidence and self-assurance. We aim to level the playing field and help everyone find their voice. This, in turn, means that no good idea or thought is left unsaid. 

A crisis of meaningful engagement in business 

Another pressing issue for improving business performance at many companies right now is the challenge of engagement. Even with the best collaboration tools and practices, high business impact requires an engaged team . . . and employee engagement has been in crisis for some time. 

When we bring pre-pandemic ways of working to the post-pandemic present, the result is a cohort of under-engaged employees. Many workers go from meeting link to meeting link on mute, communicating only through facial expressions (if they aren’t a blank square on a screen) and going through long periods of the day without expressing an opinion or an idea. 

In this mode, employees often leave meetings feeling unproductive and unfulfilled by work they don’t see as meaningful. Workers are leaving jobs where they do not feel meaningfully engaged and are going off in search of a career they can feel passionate about. 

We aim to break down this barrier that prevents so many meeting participants from participating in the discussion. To do so, leaders must prioritize facilitating and understand that they are there to enable others to shine, not to steal the spotlight for themselves. Our Enterprise package is tailored for larger teams (10+) when engaging each and every participant can be the toughest. 

Aiding and assisting the collective

Collaboration, engagement, and understanding the power of the collective are cornerstones of strong business performance – and encouraging a culture of Listening Leadership is the key to unlocking their potential.

The ultimate goal of Mentimeter Enterprise is to help teams put these cornerstones in place right from the get-go. Presenters are afforded the opportunity to collaborate with one another from the second they decide to create a presentation. Team members will be able to participate in meetings from the very first slide. No one needs to fade into the background of meetings because they feel they won’t be listened to or as they are afraid to be put on the spot. 

To discover more about Mentimeter Enterprise, feel free to visit our webpage and get in contact with a member of our sales team.