Welcome to Leading by Adventure - Your adventures have begun

Disrupting the Camouflage; Better Embrace Diversity in your Meetings; Make your virtual meetings a visual feast

Why take this challenge?

To redress the effect that web conferencing (Zoom, Teams, etc.) is having on our ability to remember meeting content.

To make discussion within meetings more memorable, and thereby easier to apply and recall in practice.

To increase creativity and diversity in virtual meetings.

Virtual meetings have enabled so much to take place through the Covid pandemic that otherwise would not have been possible.

But there are problems, and one of these is that people are finding it more difficult to remember them. The visual similarity between one meeting and the next (same interface, same room) is limiting the cues our mind uses to connect pieces of information together, and this means we are getting more forgetful.

So this weeks adventure is all about creating new perspectives in your meetings to aid people’s ability to ‘connect the dots’ in their own memories.

+ Green track - taking it in your stride

A radical location every day

Most virtual meeting software has the ability to put in a virtual background. Some people use this to blur their background, or to place themselves in a scenic location – a beach, sunset, room, mountain, … but often the same one each time.

The green challenge is to select a new background every day – and not just a conventional one, but something radical and memorable which expresses something about your situation that day.

Simply think about your recent experience, your attitude, a statement, Google an image or symbol that expresses it, and put it in as your background.

It will help those who meet with you that day to associate the ideas you talk about. It may also help to make diversity a more practical element of each gathering.

+ Blue track - a bit of a workout (click to open)

Start a movement

Of course, if you are the only person changing your background each day, the impact on memory will be limited, particularly for you.

But if everyone does it, there will be many more visual cues available to trigger associations and link the things that were spoken about – the mind works that way.

So the blue track is to start a movement – get your whole team to select their background of the day. And use this to better engage people in check-ins (a few words about the background you have selected and why) and sharing at the start of meetings.

This helps better appreciate and acknowledge people as individuals, and it helps further diversity.

+ Red track - stepping up to bat (click to open)

You may find the following resources helpful in tackling your challenge or in gaining further benefits from the skills and insights you develop

Article on meetings & memory – 15 things you can do to improve it
Guidance on changing your background: Teams | Zoom
Good sources of free images to use as backgrounds: Pixabay | Pexels | Unsplash | Wikimedia

Let us know how you get on.
Share your experience, your insights and your observation using the comments section at the bottom of the Linkedin post.

Please help us to extend and develop our community by sharing what you are doing. Click on the links below where you are most active, and then like or share the article to your network. Thank you for helping.

Share the Linkedin version of the challenge
Tweet the challenge on Twitter
Share your progress and insights with the Linkedin LbA community
And share your progress and insights with the Twitter LbA community using #leadingbyadventure

Useful links:

Introduction to Leading by Adventure  |  What we mean by spirituality?  |  Why Adventure
Adventures to date   |  I did it, but it didn’t work very well   |  How do I know if it is working
Bringing this thinking into your meetings   |  Adventure & Mental Health
Leading by Adventure community   |  Explore Strategic Support options