Why We Should “Watch The Film” From Meetings

While watching the film from last week’s game may be tedious (or painful) for players and coaches, it is absolutely essential for improving performance. It enables coaches to see things that were not obvious in the moment and to recommend small corrections that can have an outsized effect. It also provides insight into what other teams are doing well.

What if we took this practice into the corporate environment? Many of us spend half the day in meetings, the corporate equivalent of the big game. In those settings, we have the opportunity to showcase our expertise, contribute to team performance, and make sure that everyone is a winner. We have the opportunity, that is, but not typically the obligation.

Instead, most participants in a meeting tend to look more like bored spectators who don’t understand the rules of the game. They wile away the time sending snarky IMs to colleagues and aimlessly responding to emails. They can barely put on a game face, much less play to win.

But what if someone watched the film?

Research by Gartner suggests that 75% of business meetings are already being recorded, likely so that AI notetakers can create a summary. We have the data. Now we need to use it to our advantage.

One of the many challenges with giving feedback to colleagues is that it tends to be generalized rather than specific. “You should speak up more,” for example. Imagine instead that a manager said, “Watch the meeting from minutes 18 to 22. You had several opportunities to assert your point of view during that piece of the conversation, but you remained silent. What kept you from speaking up?”

Using video data sets the stage for a coaching conversation between the manager and their direct report. The employee has the opportunity to reflect on their own mindset and to also point out how other people’s behavior, even the manager’s, might have signaled that it wasn’t safe to speak up.

The next time you and your team have a cross-functional working session, consider reviewing the footage afterwards to see what lessons can be learned. Consider aspects such as:

• How was airtime distributed among participants? Were all voices invited to contribute?
• How engaged were participants? If highly engaged, what helped encourage that? If there was low engagement, what was the cause? How could the meeting have been designed differently to encourage greater participation?
• Were decisions and action items recapped clearly to ensure everyone had the same understanding? If yes, who made that happen?
• Did anyone connect the dots between disparate elements of the conversation? If so, what can we learn from their actions?
• If we were to grade this meeting, what grade would we give it and why? What would we do better next time?

If you want to foster a culture of learning, you’re sitting on a goldmine of opportunity. Make watching the tapes together a common practice, and see how quickly your team’s performance improves.