The Field Guide › Article
A practical guide to running meetings — where many of us spend up to 90% of the working day — in ways that let everyone contribute. Meetings can be highly productive, but only if attendees feel psychologically safe enough to listen, present ideas, and challenge others. The techniques: start with short introductions or warm-up questions, because evidence shows people are far more able to speak up once they have already spoken in the group, even just to name a favourite food; have a leader admit a recent mistake, ideally as a story, to model that it's safe to do so; appoint a chair who is not a senior leader, to manage the schedule, prevent people being spoken over, and stop louder voices drowning out quieter but equally valuable ones (a senior leader asking the chair's permission to contribute is a powerful signal); invite women (and other quieter or less-represented voices) to speak first when several want to contribute, since speaking order shapes who is heard; and use structured turn-taking and think-time so contribution doesn't default to the most confident. Points to companion pieces on 1-1 meetings and Lean Coffee. The throughline: meeting safety is engineered through deliberate facilitation choices, not assumed.