Silent Meetings are my go-to technique for facilitating Zoom meetings remotely. First started by Jezz Bezos to avoid death by presentations. It gives everybody an opportunity to get their opinion across and understand the issue.
Jeez used this technique for product meetings, where the room would read a press release at start of the meeting in complete silence. The virtual technique is even better as you can collate all comments online with tools like Google Sheets. The comments then are focal point of the meeting.
Why Most Meetings Fail
“Here’s where typical meetings fail: Almost none of the attendees’ expertise was used in any way.” David Gasca
What is a Silent Meeting?
Everyone at the meeting reads silently, comments in and then discusses. An assigned facilitator leads the comment synthesis and discussion to ensure the meeting is valuable. In Silent Meetings there is the creator of the original Table Read and the audience that then become creators themselves through their comments. This dynamic enables in-meeting creation instead of just information dissemination.
This article about Silent Meeting is one to bookmark. It’s a part workbook and part guide. You can also buy an Amazon version but this article really covers everything you need to get started.
Silent Meeting – Table Read Template
The author of the above article has even included a silent meeting table read template you can use for your table read