Tech has made it easier to fake scientific results. Is a cultural shift required to fix the problem?
Cases of scientific misconduct are on the rise. For every 10,000 papers on PubMed, 2.5 are retracted, with more than half of these retractions attributed to scientific misconduct, which includes mismanagement of data and plagiarism.
"Papers from twenty or thirty years ago were fairly simple – they [had] maybe one or two photos," says Elisabeth Bik, a microbiologist who now works as a scientific integrity consultant. "That's around the time that I did my PhD. If we wanted to submit papers with photos, we had to make an actual appointment with a photographer! It was very hard to fake anything."
Tasks like photographing results and constructing academic figures were once specialized, requiring designated experts who had nothing to do with the data collection process. That's not the case in the 21st century. As technology has advanced, not only has the amount of data increased exponentially, but so has our ability to record and report this data. With more people competing for fewer academic jobs, scientists are constantly under pressure to acquire more data, publish in high impact journals, and secure more external funding.
One study from Arizona State University found that the mounting professional pressure and the low chances of getting caught are some of the reasons that scientific misconduct is so prevalent. Coupled with availability of image editing tools and the ease of cutting-and-pasting phrases, it is also a lot less challenging to misrepresent findings.
In 2016, Bik and colleagues analyzed over 20,000 papers from 40 biomedical research journals, finding that one in 25 images had evidence of image duplication. 6.1% of papers from the Molecular and Cell Biology journal alone showed signs of inappropriate alterations.
One of the organizations looking for solutions to this growing issue of scientific misconduct is the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI). Founded in 1978, the ILSI is an organization of scientists working in food safety and nutritional science. One of their major aims is to ensure scientific integrity in nutrition-related research, especially since research findings in this field often inform public health policy decisions. To find a solution, ILSI's North American branch (ILSI North America) co-founded the Scientific Integrity Consortium to evaluate the extent of scientific misconduct, and to broaden the scope of this conversation beyond food science. In 2019, the consortium published their findings, which included guidelines on how to define research misconduct and detrimental research practices, in addition to a comprehensive list of recommendations to tackle the issue.
This includes encouraging scientists to connect their work to a broader social context and to consider the implications of their work for the general public. To nurture this culture, a number of steps need to be taken by both institutions and scientists. Institutions must provide the necessary educational resources, infrastructure and quality maintenance support for equipment and research, alongside better training and standardized universal expectations for integrity. On the other hand, scientists need to follow the given standardized procedures for research design and publication, engage in transparency and honest communication, and be mindful of the ethical implications of their work.
The committee acknowledged that the training received by scientists is insufficient to help them deal with the different stages of their career, and that the "publish-or-perish" mentality only makes it harder to create the cultural shift they recommend. For example, practices like "p-hacking", where an individual selectively analyzes data to create significance from non-significant results, are more likely to occur under the pressure to secure funding.
Some ways to foster this change are to provide better ethics training for scientists, and to incorporate a scientific integrity "checklist" to be followed by scientists. The proposed checklist would entail best practices to be followed for designing studies and writing papers, such as ensuring that methods are reproducible, and that ethical data analysis standards are upheld. On the institutional level, journals should be encouraged to value rigorous research that may not always yield conventionally "exciting" findings. Currently, many journals prefer to publish positive findings as opposed to negative or null findings, which are equally important for scientific progress. One way that the consortium would like to nurture this culture is by changing the vocabulary we use to communicate these findings – instead of referring to results as "positive" or "negative," they suggest terms such as "anticipated"and "unanticipated" findings.
Another important point made by the consortium was to further emphasize the role and importance of mentorship. Cases where scientific misconduct occurs can put students in a difficult position. Trainees often have to deal with the dilemma of reporting the misconduct at the risk of potentially losing their positions. This normalizes scientific misconduct, and can lead to further instances of academic dishonesty. Once misconduct is caught, trainees can also suffer the eventual backlash, including difficulty in finding future positions.
Not only can open science reduce the chances of misconduct, but it can be an excellent resource for fellow scientists, and a way to increase public trust in the scientific process. In line with the open science efforts, some scientists are suggesting that individuals should be able to offer post-publication comments on papers, as opposed to having a static review process that ends after publication. This would allow every reader to issue comments and feedback, keeping the paper under constant "live" review. While some journals — such as eLife — currently allow post-publication feedback, platforms like PubPeer allow scientists to search and leave comments on papers from any journal.
When asked about what policy changes she would like to see to reduce scientific misconduct, Bik highlighted the importance of open communication and clear guidelines. "Every journal and every institute should have a contact person that anyone can contact – I cannot report cases if I can't find e-mail addresses," says Bik. "There should be guidelines for when a paper should be retracted, versus when a paper should be corrected."
In addition, it's worth noting that many errors are honest errors, that don't necessarily deserve a paper retraction. Bik says that "90% of the scientists are very honest. We all make errors – the bigger our datasets get, the harder it becomes. There is so much data now!"
A recent study following 12 retracted publications found that out of the 68 papers they had been cited in, only one had been re-assessed and corrected to account for the retraction. Even after retraction, findings from flawed papers can live on. One example is the frenzy that continues to surround the 1998 paper that falsely claimed a link between vaccines and autism, despite its retraction in 2010.
Furthermore, the social stigma that follows a retraction due to scientific misconduct can actually spill over to collaborators who had nothing to do with the misconduct. Former collaborators of dishonest scientists can have an 8-9% drop in paper citations. Sadly, this means that potential whistleblowers might be less likely to report cases of misconduct in fear of jeopardizing their own careers by association with the perpetrator.
"I hope I can make people aware how much damage it can do to fake results – it can lead other people to pursue results that did not happen," says Bik.
Knowing the consequences of scientific misconduct, Bik quit her full-time job to tackle this problem as a scientific integrity consultant. "My mission is to make sure that science is reliable."
Making My Own DIY Super-Wide-Angle Macro Lens
As we know, wide angle lenses show a larger field of view and therefore make things appear smaller and further away than they are. Which contradicts the concept of macro photography, where we want our subject to be projected onto the sensor at a magnification ratio of at least 1.0x. So how can we combine a wide angle perspective and macro macro-capabilities?
The concept of wide-angle macro photography is not exactly new and there are other photographers out there who have built their own super-wide macro lenses. There even are a couple lenses on the market that provide 1.0x at a 15mm focal length, but I’d much rather embark on an interesting DIY project than spending 500$ on a niche lens.
In this article I share my quest of creating a DIY super-wide macro lens and my experience with wide angle macro photography. These are the criteria I set for the project:
And after a long journey of trial and error I eventually managed to create a lens that met all the criteria above.
Basically there are two different ways to combine close-focusing capabilities with a wide-angle look:
1. Extension Tubes
The easy way, and probably the one that comes to mind first, is to mount a wide-angle lens on some extension tubes. This can work, but only to a limited degree.
If the tube is too short, the desired magnification won’t be achieved; if the tube is too long, the image circle gets cropped and the wide angle captivities of the lens will be offset. Plus, if the a lens is too wide in relation to the length of the tube, the focusing plane shifts into the front element and the aerial image can no longer be focused on.
So we are balancing three corners of a triangle and, much like with the well-known exposure triangle, you simply cannot have everything. The factors are: viewing angle, the lens’ size, and its working distance. Keep this triangle in mind, as it will play an important role in this article…
One combination that I found to work particularly well was the Canon EF-S 18-55 kit lens on a short extension tube, mounted to a full-frame camera.
The short-back focusing of the EF-S lens makes it penetrate further into the APS-C body that it’s meant for, prohibiting the use of EF-S lenses on full-frame cameras. The image circle would be too small and the rear element of the lens would likely damage the mirror and shutter mechanism. A short extension tube can solve that problem, extend the image circle enough to cover a 35mm sensor, and allow the lens to focus much closer.
Not close enough for true macro photography, but certainly close enough to capture eye-catching close-ups of larger critters, such as flowers, butterflies or small amphibians. The beauty of this set-up is its zoom range, which allows to adjust viewing angle and working distance.
This set-up is not only versatile but also likely to be the cheapest and easiest solution for wide-angle close-ups. And the results are incredibly sharp considering that I used a 10-year-old crop-sensor lens on a full-frame camera. There is some minor vignetting between 18-21mm, which is usually easy to correct in post. Zoom in to 22mm to remove vignetting completely.
However, if this is just not enough magnification for you, there is another way…
2. Adding Wide-Angle Elements
After extension tubes did not really provide the desired result, I tried a different tactic: adding wide-angle elements to lenses with close-focusing capabilities.
Fish-eye/macro converters were the first thing that came to mind. Such converters usually consist of two parts: A macro lens, which is basically a close-up filter (the rear element of the converter) and a fish-eye/wide-angle lens that sits on top of it.
The “macro” element allows for a compact lens design; without it, the wide-angle element would have to be much further away from the lens for the aerial image to line up with the focusing plane.
Unfortunately, such converters don’t allow you to get quite close enough with the full ensemble attached to your lens, and the macro lens by itself alone doesn’t provide the desired viewing angle.
It is, however, possible to use such conversion lenses to create a super-wide macro lens. In order to gain 1.0x magnification we need to be able to focus incredibly close. By moving our new front element further away from the lens and closer to the subject, we can shift the focusing plane, similar to the effect of an extension tube.
But since we are making adjustments to the front of the lens and not to its rear, instead of extending the image circle, we shrink the image of the wide-angle element as we move it further out. This can be corrected with extension tubes and brings us to the previously mentioned triangle-of-balance—improving one of the factors requires sacrifices in the other corners of the triangle.
The Triangle of Balance
Of course, those converters aren’t the only candidate for this task. Wide-angle elements of all kinds can be used for this purpose, as long as their optical quality is satisfying. The triangle applies to all combinations of wide-angle font elements and base lenses (as long as they are compatible). However, the variables of the trade will shift between different combinations…
Building a Lens
The process of configuring a lens this way is somewhat tedious but the steps are simple:
The wide angle adapters worked well, given the circumstances of the triangle above—I was able to achieve a magnification ratio of almost 1.0x at a 20mm viewing angle and fill the sensor with the image, but the optical quality was not quite there yet with most converters I tried. Chromatic aberration was much too strong and sharpness was somewhat less than perfect.
So I gathered a bunch of potential base lenses, wide angle elements and adapters, converters, extension tubes, etc. and started experimenting…
My first choice here was a fish-eye CCTV lens, as its super-wide field of view and its small diameter would make it the ideal lens for photographing insects in the field (the small size would be much less intimidating to potential subjects).
I got the best results in combination with a reversed 24mm lens, but unfortunately its image circle was far too small to even fill an APS-C or even a Micro 4/3 camera sensor. Naturally, the image can be enlarged by adding extension tubes and that’s what I did; to a certain extend. The problem is that, with super-wide lenses like this, the working distance will eventually turn negative, which means that the aerial image moves into the actual lens and can no longer be focused on.
Unfortunately, that effect came into play before I could fill the (APS-C) sensor of my camera, and it occurred with all base lenses I tried. In addition to that, the excessive use of extension tubes can decrease the image quality, as the enlargement amplifies flaws of the optics such as chromatic aberrations or limitations in sharpness. Alternatively a tele-converter could be used to “zoom in” without affecting the working distance, but adding another block of glass (especially a tele-converter!) would decrease the image quality too much.
The following images where taken with a 5MP CCTV lens that I mounted to a reversed 28mm lens on a couple extension tubes. Both images have been sharpened, flipped and retouched in Camera Raw. Trying to extend the image circle beyond this point would result in a working distance of less than 2mm.
Such CCTV lenses are also difficult to use, as they project the image inverted, which makes it extremely difficult to coordinate and focus the camera. This could be worked around (by using live-view and Magic Lantern firmware to flip the image digitally, for example), but to me the rather poor image quality and the restrictions of this lens were too much of a trade-off.
Lenses like the one above can potentially yield great results on APS-C or smaller sized sensors, but image quality seems to vary heavily between models; the Swedish macro photographer John Hallmen built an effective set-up based on a CCTV fish-eye lens and a Canon T6s. You can find his article here.
Personally, I don’t consider this branch of the project a dead-end yet; the extreme fish-eye effect of these lenses and their small size would make them the ideal front element and maybe I’ll be able to make them work in the future…
Moving on.
My next choice of glass was the former front element of a Canon EF-S 18-55 kit lens, which I modified for extreme macro photography last year. Most standard zooms can be modified for macro photography beyond 2.0x magnification simply by removing their front element. I did a few of these conversions over the past year and so I had some wide angle front elements at hand.
The front element of this lens performed great in terms of image quality and was able to cover the entire sensor at 0.8x magnification with very minor vignetting. After inserting an additional (convex) wide angle element (from an Opteka 0.35 fish-eye converter), the vignetting disappeared and the magnification ratio reached 1.0x in the center of the frame with very good sharpness.
This lens met almost all the conditions I had set for this project. The only downsides where the missing focus mechanism and the lens’ requirement to sit on a full stack of extension tubes, which makes it impractical to use and carry. A focusing mechanism could easily be installed by replacing one of the tubes with a helicoid, but the problem of its length seemed to lie with the base lens…
So what would the ideal base lens look like? It would obviously have close-focusing capabilities, a wide angle perspective, and a fairly small front element to avoid vignetting. So If I used a wide-angle base lens and mount it, facing frontwards, on just one slim extension tube, that should solve all my problems.
The lens I picked was a 28mm Albinar lens, which offered a perfect compromise between a wide perspective and only minor vignetting. I mounted it on an EF-adapter and some step-rings that function as a short extension tube.
Next I tried to combine it with the Canon front lens, and it worked incredibly well! No vignetting, good contrast, and the best part: no need for extension tubes needed and the new front element needs to be just about an inch in front of the base lens.
The Final Lens 
The front element of the Canon 28-80mm was a perfect fit in terms of size and viewing angle. It yielded better results than the front element that I tried previously and was easier to adapt and smaller in size as well, which is an important factor when photographing insects in nature (especially when the working distance only measures a few millimeters).
All I had to do now was to build an adapter to combine the two lenses. An old lens cap and the original thread of the Canon lens were sufficient material:
This combination worked beautifully. The magnification ratio and the focal length seemed about right with good sharpness. Plus, unlike its predecessor, it fits into any camera bag. So I took it out for some test shots:
And I was happy—the lens had a super-wide focal length of 17mm with some minor vignetting. But the best part was the image quality, which was the best I had seen since I started this project.
Its aperture ranges from f/2.8 – f/22 and it focuses from 21mm all the way down to 0mm. This is quite a short range and the lens’ major downside: it can’t focus on infinity. In the future I might add a helicoid to this lens to enable infinity focus…
Measuring the magnification factor
To measure the magnification factor of the lens, I photographed a ruler while focused at 2mm (closest workable distance). Next, I selected the center three millimeters in the photo in Photoshop; the selection measured 532 pixels.
This means, that one millimeter measures 144px in my photograph. Dividing the 5616px width of the camera sensor by 35mm shows that one millimeter of the sensor holds 147px.
Finally we need to determine the ratio between photograph and life size: 144/147 = 0.98 ≈ 1x
The following two images illustrate the lens’ furthest and closest focusing distances as of this article.
Next I needed to measure the viewing angle—a simple task at last. All I had to do was to fill the frame with a background, mark the background at the edge of the frame and then measure the angle between the marking and the orientation of the lens (measuring from its very center).
I used a closet for the background and filled the frame with 4 of its panels—this way I didn’t have to use markings, I could measure straight from the center of the lens to the edges of the closet:
To measure the angle, I used the homemade device in the image above. By holding the plastic disc right to the front of the lens (perfectly parallel to the sensor plane) and the other end of the string to the corner of the closet, I can determine the viewing angle.
In this example, the scale showed and angle of 43° on the one side and 137° on the other. To finally determine the angle of view we have to calculate the difference between these numbers. The result is 94, which equals a focal length on 17mm.
Shooting Wide-Angle Macro
After using this lens for a while now, I have to say that I absolutely love it! As with any other macro lens, it takes some time to get used to it, especially its incredibly short working distance. But the images it delivers look fantastic and are definitely make up for that challenge.
Working Distance
As mentioned before, handling this lens is not as “easy” as a 60 or 100mm macro lens, mostly due to its abnormally short working distance measuring only about 2.5mm at a magnification ratio of 1X in the center of the frame. The lens also creates a slightly distorted image—as super-wide angle lenses tend to—and therefore the magnification falls off towards the edges of the shot.
This short working distance makes it difficult to arrange shots in the field; in some situations the lens simply can’t fit where you need it to be to get the shot. In terms of photographing insects I have only little experience so far, as I started this project in early fall and I only got to use the first prototype for taking photos of live subjects (images below).
It’s possible, but challenging, and definitely takes practice. The right circumstances help, too. Early in the morning, when the sun just rises, insects are slow and don’t move around as much as they do during warmer hours of the day. There will definitely be a lot of running and gunning involved with this lens, but I am also very excited to use this lens in the field once it gets warm again!
Author’s note: Sample images below where shot with the first, longer, prototype.
Shooting with this lens is challenging, not only because of the intensely short focusing distance, but also because of the lack of light that this introduces. The lens is bound to cast a shadow on the subject, no matter where the light is coming from.
This image was shot at a working distance of about 5-6mm with a traditional shoot-through diffuser. Even though already optimized in orientation and position, it doesn’t yield a lot of light on the right side of the frame, where lens was just too close to the subject.
Another lighting solution that can work well (given the right circumstances) is a simple DIY diffuser made from a can of chips. You find more information on DIY diffusers and how to build one here.
This modifier creates the good lighting for most subjects. In many scenarios fill light will be reflected back up from surfaces underneath, such as leaves or the ground. Notice the little piece of black paper: that is my lens hood. Without this, the flash would cause too much flaring in the images.
The “ideal” light source to choose really depends a lot on the specific situation, but generally a ring flash will be the best and most universal solution.
A dedicated macro ring-flash fits around the the front element of the lens and supplies light from all directions. This definitely helps with the lack of light, but also adds to the size of the lens. At short working distances this can get in the way when there is limited room.
Fortunately this lens gathers a good amount of light and can be shot with ambient light at working distances above 5mm or so.
But light does not only affect our image in regards to the exposure, it also plays a roll in terms of image quality. So how does this lens do with bright lights? Even though back-lighting is not exactly the strength of many wide-angle lenses, this one performs quite alright. Flares are present, but pleasing, and the lens produces sunbursts from apertures of f/8 and higher.
When shooting directly into the sun, however, the contrast suffers and chromatic aberration increases drastically. The sharpness/contrast remains good as long is the sun is partially hidden behind a subject and/or off-center.
Because of its short focusing distance and the relatively large depth of field, this lens is very susceptible to dust and dirt and even slight haze on the front element. Especially when stopping the lens down, every spec of dust on the glass will become visible and exaggerated by chromatic aberration.
In the set of images below you can compare the RAW file to the processed image. The specs might not stand out a lot at this viewing size, but they do stand out when viewing the image at full size. Note the relatively large piece of fiber to the top left of the sunburst: this illustrates how sharp dirt on the actual lens shows up in the photograph.
They are almost inevitable with any kind of wide angle macro lens—it’s just the nature of optics. When shooting the lens wide open this is not as problematic, however.
The background blur of the lens, or its bokeh, is soft and soapy when wide open. It renders specular highlights nicely and with a bit of a swirl, a look many old Russian lenses are known for.
After using it for a few weeks now, I have gotten used to it and to the fact that you always need to have a lens cloth on you with this one. Ultimately I’m very pleased with the lens and with the way this project worked out; I used two old lenses with a combined value of less than $100 and transformed them into capable macro lenses.
The conversion is reversible, meaning that I could still use the Albinar lens as a 24mm prime or as a super-macro lens (reverse mounting) and put the front element back into the canon EF 28-20 anytime.
If I were to review the fish-eye lens that I put together here, I would point out its noticeable chromatic aberration and its insanely short working distance, which is less than the 5mm of the Laowa lens. It’s working distance ranges from about 2mm to 20mm, depending on the magnification ratio. The magnification comes to a maximum of 1.0x when focused on a distance of about 2-3mm.
As far as pros, I’d have to mention its viewing angle of super-wide 17mm, the fact that it is a true macro lens and, last but not least, the way it renders images and especially out of focus areas.
For a DIY project, I think the results are quite alright. Most of its flaws are due to the nature of physics and will be found with most super-wide lenses—focusing this close will inevitably augment these flaws (susceptibility to flares, haze, dirt and aberrations). Besides the fact that I now have an awesome and unique lens, which a special value to me, this has also been a very insightful learning experiences and I hope you found some bits of new knowledge or inspiration along the lines, too.
Author’s Note: All sample images in this article have been taken with full frame cameras and post processed unless stated differently.
Lenses I used for this project where either cheap, faulty or only used in a reversible manner. I do not recommend using new / expensive lenses for projects such as this.
About the author: Maximilian Simson is a London-based portrait and event photographer who also shoots fine art and macro photography. To see more of his work, visit his website. This article was also published here.
9 Ways To Make Your Meetings Matter
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Everyone attends them, most people hate them, and few are done well. What are we talking about? Meetings! Studies show that poorly-run meetings are a multi-billion-dollar problem in U.S. organizations. Meetings are supposed to be an engine of collaboration and productivity, yet studies show that less than 50% of time spent in meetings is considered effective and useful. This rampant misuse of people’s time and energy can be prevented if we all learn how to better design, run, and participate in meetings.
Effective meetings produce useful results. Effective meetings have high participation, good energy, constructive collaboration, and meaningful conversations. In short, effective meetings are those which tap into the wisdom, expertise, and energy of the group. Effective meetings are interactive and valuable to both the meeting leader and the meeting attendees. Effective meetings stay on topic and use people’s time and energy well.
Leading effective meetings—meetings that matter–is part science and part art. The science is in taking care of the essential elements that go into the meeting structure. The art is in the way we think about designing our meetings and promoting positive engagement of participants. The following nine tools and techniques are essential building blocks that will help you lead meetings that get results – meetings that are positive, engaging, and efficient. Your next meeting participants will thank you!
1. Have a Purpose
Most people begin planning their meetings by creating an agenda; this is a serious mistake. The first step should always be defining the purpose of the meeting. Everything else follows the purpose. Ask yourself:
· Why are we meeting?
· What do we need to accomplish?
· What are the meeting’s goals and objectives?
· What are the meeting deliverables?
· What will be different for us as a result of our meeting?
2. Design an Agenda
Once you have clearly articulated the meeting’s purpose and objectives, it is time to design the agenda. The key word here is design. Creating a meeting that is engaging and productive requires more than simply jotting down a few topic areas—it requires being creative and thoughtful about the “what” needs to be discussed and the “how” to discuss them. Think of meetings as a series of conversations in which the participants must engage in order to accomplish the purpose. Ask yourself:
· What conversations need to take place in order to accomplish our purpose?
· In what order do we need to have these conversations?
· What is the goal of each conversation?
· What is the best way to conduct each conversation?
This is where a little “art” comes in. Be creative about how you conduct the conversations. Don’t just rely on introducing the topic and waiting for folks to chime in. There are many tools and techniques you can use to tap into the wisdom of your participants—all your participants, not just the most vocal ones. Techniques can range from simple “round-robins” where you go around the room and hear from everyone, to pair-shares, to more elaborate conversation structures like SWOT Analysis where participants identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Specific tools and techniques are readily available online. Here are a few to get you started:
Facilitation Techniques and Workshop Activities | LibrarySessionLab ProcessProjectmanagement
Finally, create a meeting timeline based on the conversations you intend to facilitate. Keep your meeting tight, focused, and as short and as efficient as possible.
3. Invite the Right People
Not having the right people in the room is one of the top ten complaints people have about wasted meetings. Many organizations have a bad habit of including everybody and their sister on meeting invites. This just wastes time and dilutes engagement. Don’t let this happen. Go back to the purpose of the meeting. Ask yourself:
· In order to accomplish our purpose, who needs to be in the room?
· Whose input, support, knowledge, or expertise is needed to reach the meeting goals?
Then, make sure those people are invited, available, and committed. If possible, try to limit the attendance of people who aren’t needed. Do what you can to invite the right people, and only the right people.
4. Open Effectively
Take the time to open your meeting properly. How meetings are opened portend how they proceed. A strong and clear opening sets the meeting up for success, while a weak opening invites disengagement, confusion, and disorder. As a meeting leader, it is essential that you graciously take control right from the start. People need to feel that they are in competent hands and that the leader is going to use their time well. It is your job as meeting leader to set the tone up front.
Meeting openings need to include:
· Opening Welcome: Officially open the meeting. Thank the participants for attending.
· Goals and objectives: Clearly state the meeting’s purpose, goals, and objectives. All too often people skip this critical piece which leaves participants either guessing at the objectives or bringing their own agenda to bear. Everybody needs to be super clear about the why and the what of this meeting!
· Motivate and Inspire: After you express the goal, take a moment to motivate the people in the room to participate. You chose them for a reason. Let them know you need their expertise, input, and wisdom to accomplish the goal. Let them know right from the start that they are the right people needed to accomplish the goal. Get them energized to participate.
· Introductions: Make sure people know who is “at the table.” Unless you are in a regular standing meeting or a team meeting, take the time to have participants introduce themselves. This not only helps build trust and relationships, but also helps participants discover the expertise in the room.
· Introduce Ground Rules: If you aren’t using ground rules, shame on you. (See #5 below!) Ground Rules (or meeting norms, participation agreements, etc.) are a critical element for effective meetings. Make sure everyone is clear about the ground rules.
· Review the Agenda: Take a moment to review the agenda and disclose the road map for the meeting. This will help participants stay on topic and focused.
· Icebreakers: Icebreakers are used when leaders need to energize and warm up participants. Like every conversation on the agenda, icebreakers need to have a purpose. The icebreaker should support accomplishing the meeting’s objective. For example, if you need to build relationship and trust among the group, then choose an icebreaker that is focused on that. But if your meeting is about problem-solving or brainstorming, then choose an icebreaker that gets the creative juices flowing. Bottom line: icebreakers with no purpose will fall flat and may alienate participants right from the start.
5. Use Ground Rules
Ground rules spell out the rules of the road for how to behave and interact in your meeting. Ground rules clearly articulate and encourage the desired behaviors and discourage the undesired behaviors that derail meetings. Properly communicated and enforced ground rules will take care of 99% of dysfunctional meeting behavior. Ground rules give you and other participants the “permission” to redirect derailing behavior. Customize your ground rules to the meeting at hand. Ground rules need to be clearly articulated and agreed upon at the start of the meeting. Make sure that participants know that it is EVERYBODY’S JOB to enforce the ground rules. A few all-purpose ground rules include:
· One conversation at a time: We listen to who is speaking, and we don’t carry on sidebar conversations.
· One topic at a time: If we are talking about “X,” we don’t go on tangents to talk about “Y” until we are done with “X”.
· Land the plane/Bottom lining: We try to be succinct and to the point.
· Don’t beat a dead horse: We don’t keep repeating ourselves or revisiting decisions already made.
· E-etiquette: We agree on how we are using (or not using!) electronic devices in our meeting.
· Full engagement: We agree to be fully invested and engaged.
· Timeliness: We agree to show up on time, start on time, and end on time.
· Share the air: We consciously try to make space for everybody to contribute (e.g., extroverts make space for introverts!) below!) Ground Rules (or meeting norms, participation agreements, etc.) are a critical element for effective meetings. Make sure everyone is clear about the ground rules.
6. Park Things in a Parking Lot
A parking lot (or bike rack, holding tank, etc.) is a metaphorical place to record important ideas, conversations, etc. that need to be addressed—but not at this meeting. This is a technique that helps keep the meeting from being derailed by conversations that are important, but not germane to the meeting at hand. When the group starts to discuss something that may be connected to the topic, but not essential to this meeting, simply redirect it to the parking lot. It is helpful to record parking lot items on flip charts or whiteboards, making them visible to participants. Be sure to address next steps for parking lot items at the end of the meeting.
7. Manage Participant Behavior
This 1864 vintage illustration features a female lion tamer.
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It is your job as meeting leader to intervene on behaviors that derail meetings. It is your job to set the climate for engagement by encouraging productive behavior and discouraging unproductive behavior. Nothing thwarts engagement like letting bothersome behavior run rampant in your meeting. To make matters worse, allowing unproductive behaviors to go unchecked breeds more unproductive behaviors. For example, letting one participant dominate the conversation creates fertile ground for others to disengage, drop out, or disappear into their electronics. If you have ground rules, this is when you and others enforce them. Need help in finding the right words? These resources can help:
Post | meeteormeeteor Dealing With Difficult BehaviorsFacilitatoru Steve Davis
8. Recap and Follow Up
One of the biggest blunders people make when leading meetings is failing to record, recap, and follow-up on action items, next steps and important meeting outcomes. Because most meetings create work and action items for the participants, it is the responsibility of the meeting leader to ensure all action items are actionable and understood. Simply put, every action item needs to be articulated, recorded, and confirmed. Every action item needs three things: 1) Clear deliverable; 2) Owner; and 3) Due date. A simple chart like the one below can help track these items.
Meeting Recap Template
Mary Abbajay
It is the meeting leader’s responsibility to follow up on action items! While the meeting leader may delegate this responsibility, it is her job to make sure follow-up happens. Follow-up memos, email, telephone messages, and other forms of reminders are helpful. Sometimes it is useful to schedule a check-in meeting after a few days or weeks, depending on the cycle-times involved, to have people report on their progress in completing agreed upon work. Check-in and follow-up activities help enforce deadlines for deliverables.
9. Close and Appreciate
Congratulations! You’ve just run an effective and productive meeting. Make sure you end it on a high note. Take the time to officially close the meeting and thank your attendees for their participation, input, and collaboration. Time is our most valuable resource; be sure to show your appreciation to the people who gave you their time. Reinforce that you value their contributions.
Bonus Tip: If you want to make sure you are leading effective meetings, take five minutes at the end of your meeting to do a quick evaluation. Try doing a quick plus/delta with your participants. Simply ask the attendees:
· Plus: What worked well with this meeting?
· Delta: What could we do differently next time to make it even better?
Getting input and feedback from your meeting participants helps you ensure your meetings are effective and engages participants in future meeting design.
The ability to lead effective meetings from wherever one sits is an indispensable leadership skill in every industry. It’s time to stop throwing away time and money and learn how to lead meetings that matter.
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