Participation levels can enable you to identify the reason you are calling on a particular group. During any meeting, it’s important to mention it before launching into a particular topic.
This way, everyone knows why they have been asked to attend:
to listen to what is being shared: information,
to give their opinion: consultation,
to reflect, imagine and design together: co-creation,
to decide together: co-decision.
By giving the participants the chance to adjust their mindset, you prevent misunderstandings and frustration, therefore enabling the group to work more efficiently.
Information
This is about simply transmitting information to the group. There is no decision-making. E.g.: following the last board meeting, some areas of the company strategy have been revised. As team leader, it’s important that you share these developments with your employees, even if you don’t yet know how it will affect operations. During your weekly meeting, you can share the news in a factual manner, taking care to specify that at this stage, you are simply informing them.
Consultation
The group is convened to give their opinion, but they don’t make the final decision. There are one or two individuals who will make the decision alone once they have listened to the group discussions. E.g.: following the newly announced strategy, you ask your team to share their opinions and ideas. At the start of the meeting, you warn your employees that you are simply consulting them so that you can prepare for another meeting with the team leaders. Not all their ideas will be put into practise, but they will be taken on board by the team managers when deciding what actions to implement in line with the new company strategy.
Cocreation
The group is asked to reflect, imagine and design together. E.g.: following the announcement of the new strategy adopted by management, you want your whole team to get involved in coming up with ways of how it can be effectively deployed. The intention of your team meeting is clear: “We are all stakeholders in this company and I think it’s important that you take an active role in deploying its strategy.”
Co-decision
The group is asked to make a decision together.
This level of participation can be requested at different points in time:
immediately after a co-creation meeting, the group is asked to deliberate, make decisions and put together an action plan,
several pre-defined proposals are presented to the group so that they can choose the best option, in their opinion.
Announcing the participation level in advance of your meeting means you avoid any ambiguity regarding your expectations from the participants, therefore limiting risks of frustration or misunderstandings on the day.
Really thinking about what level of participation you need from them in advance will often enable you to adjust or readjust your list of invitees.
