We share a passion for bringing the talents of people
together. So when I caught up with him recently, I was delighted to learn that his “research and passion right nowis on howto make large-group conventions and meetings 10 times more productive than they’ve been. Just like we’re see- ing factor-10 productivity increases in [areas] like solar power and energy efficiency,” he told me, “we are now seeing factor- 10 productivity increases in conventions and conferences, in how companies and industries can leverage the power of
large-group meetings.” Here’s what else he had to say:
What role can meeting professionals play as leaders? Meeting professionals are situated at a very critical place in our society. Their work is incredibly important to our global society. It is a $260-billion-plus industry. The potential of meetings is great considering what we are learning in human sciences about the potential of large-group dynamics.We are on the eve of the meeting industry’s finest hour. Think of factory pro- ductivity. No factory would knowingly continue to operate at 80-percent capacity. Yet, manymeetings do just that. Meetings have as their pur-
pose downloading information, featuring talking heads, lots of speeches.…But there is so much more that we are capable of delivering at meetings. I advo- cate that we move meetings fromprimarily downloads to a joint design of the future. Too many meetings fall short of action and long-term impact. We must take a turn toward making meetings reach their potential in productivity. When it comes to conventions, I see three types: Confer-
Conference 2.0 —
Dialoguing and
Networking
Which leads us to the Appreciative Inquiry methodology. Tell us about that. To “appreciate” means to see the best, and when we see the best, we become better designers. My colleagues and I started studying designers and “design thinking,” wondering what we might learn about good management and leader- ship from architects and product designers as well as orches- tra leaders and graphic artists. What we observed were things that could make large groups more effective—for example, teamwork. Lots of teamwork. I would like you to imagine the energy you might…wit-
ness at IDEO in Silicon Valley, one of the top design firms in the world. Now I would like you to imagine a convention transformed into a design studio. That’s what AI does. It engages. It taps into the strengths of the whole system.…It makes the design tools accessible and available to large groups. It’s a breakthrough.
Here is a key question for all
Conference 1.0 —
Downloading State-of-the-
Art Information
Complete Convention
The
Conference 3.0 —
Designing Task- Focused AI Summit
THE MEETING PYRAMID: David Cooperrider created this diagram of the Complete Convention—which he said “provides the opportunity for everyone at the event, in person or remotely, to share their passions, understanding, and to dealwith the hard issues that their industries or professions are facing.”
meeting professionals: Why would we bring thousands of participants together and not engage their strategic and cre- ative minds and imagination for some significant advancement of opportunities for their organiza- tion? Why wouldn’t you tap into all that talent? Yet, you can’t tap into that talent without a process and method to guide groups. At the UN summit, we had 40,000 years of experience in the room. Most meetings and conventions have the same and yet don’t know how to leverage the wisdom and experience of their participants and thereby propel real meaningful agendas forward. Don’t get me wrong. Meet-
ings do many things right, and the convention industry is one
ence 1.0 is based on state-of-the-art presentations—down- loading news, information, presenting panels, even entertainment. Conference 2.0 is for networking and partici- pation, getting people talking and connecting. Conference 3.0 leaps beyond dialogue to a joint design of future strategy or some other big-league opportunity that could make a decisive difference. [See diagram above.] Just a few years ago, Kofi Annan, [who was] at that time
secretary general of the UN, called and asked if we could change the way world summits worked. He was convening hundreds of CEOs at the UN with the global goal of eradi- cating extreme poverty. Usually meetings of this kind are all Conference 1.0—talking heads, downloading information. He challenged us to create a new kind of convention.We did, and the results now reverberate with the UN Global Compact with over 8,000 of the world’s largest corpora- tions. Many want to know how we did it.
of the largest and most influential growth industries of our age. For that reason, we need to ratchet up our sights; we need to aim higher. Just like we work on productivity in fac- tories, we can achieve a better payoff from our conventions and meetings.
Typically, there is little to no integration of information at meetings. People travel from session to session and hear hundreds of points of view, exchange thousands of ideas — and then what? Exactly. There are three aspects of AI: strengths, whole sys- tems, and joint design of the future. AI is a strength-based phi- losophy—and a set of tools focusing on strengths. AI provides the powerful questions and roundtable discussions for the elevation and the combination of strengths. To realize the concentration effect that conferences can create, we need