In most organizations, meetings are the most common way to address issues. People gather in a room or digitally, an agenda is set, and then we hope that the discussions will lead to decisions, insights or forward movement. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t. The difference between a meeting and a process is fundamentally about that uncertainty.
The meeting as a situation and the process as a construction
A meeting is often a social and cognitive situation where the participants’ knowledge, mood, willingness to contribute, relationships and roles have a decisive impact. A meeting can be a creative breakthrough or a frustrating dead end, depending on how the energy falls. It is an open context, and that is precisely why it is so unpredictable.
A process, on the other hand, is a consciously constructed path forward. It consists of predetermined steps with the aim of creating the best possible conditions for insights and results. These can be exercises that aim to highlight tacit knowledge, create security, make experiences visible or create focus. The process takes into account human needs and creates a structure where more people have a say and where the outcome does not solely depend on who is heard the most or who is most used to expressing themselves.
Where the process makes a difference
An example of this is when you start a workshop with a warm-up exercise where the participants share something personal or unexpected. Perhaps what inspires them, something they are proud of or a childhood memory. This type of activity has nothing directly to do with the issue at task, but lowers thresholds and increases trust in the group. When trust exists, more people dare to contribute. It becomes easier to think out loud, to take risks and having new thoughts and thus to think of new things.
This is particularly important in creative processes. Here you need to get away from the ordinary and rational and into the associative and bold. A common way to open up creativity is to let participants first think about something that does not concern themselves. For example, you can let a group discuss how McDonald’s should change its menu, its personnel policy or its sustainability goals. It sounds playful and unrelated, but that’s exactly why it works. It opens the mind. Then, when the group is asked: What does this mean for us, in our organization? Then they are mentally ready to think of new things, even about things that are close and sensitive.
Facilitating instead of just calling to a meeting
Designing such processes is a skill. It’s not about creating more steps than necessary, but about creating the right steps in the right order. It requires understanding group dynamics, cognition, human needs and at the same time having the clarity to know what result you want to achieve. This is where facilitation comes in. A facilitator does not lead the content, but shapes the structure. It’s the difference between asking people to talk and creating an order that elicits their best ideas.
Just calling a meeting is easy. Facilitating a process that leads to something other than the predictable, takes practice.
Examples of challenges and processes in organizations
In product development, a common challenge is that ideas stay with the product team and are never tested early enough. A process to solve this can start with user interviews, followed by a visualization exercise where several solutions are sketched, and end with a joint prioritization based on actual customer needs.
In business modelling, a recurring challenge is that ideas are based on what the company already knows, rather than what customers need. Here, a process can involve to first mapping invisible needs in an industry, then doing an analog exercise on how other industries have solved similar problems, and then combining these insights into new models.
When it comes to business ideas, it is common to get stuck in internal limitations. An effective process can then start in the open: if you had to start a completely new company in a completely different industry, what would you do? This excursion can then be led back to the existing company and create insights about what is hindering innovation today.
In branding processes, it is often difficult to get beyond logos and slogans. A well-managed process can instead start with feelings: what values do we want people to feel when they think of us? Then follow exercises in translating these feelings into concrete expressions, stories, images and language.
In organizational development, a typical challenge is that roles and responsibilities are unclear. Here, a process can start by visualizing the current situation, letting individuals describe their experiences of responsibility, and then creating new roles together with a focus on function rather than hierarchy.
Moving from conversation to results
In a world where change is rapid and complexity is increasing, it is no longer enough to just talk about things. We must create structures that make conversations lead to results. The difference between a meeting and a process is the difference between hoping for a good result and creating the conditions for it.
Organizations that invest in process design not only make better decisions, they create a climate where more people feel involved, listened to, and where ideas come to life. It takes courage, preparation, and a different way of thinking, but it yields returns far beyond the meeting itself.
