Audience Response: The Power of Anonymity and Listening

Your group meeting is the rare occasion in which the experiences and expectations of each and every person come together in one room. It offers you the opportunity to “walk your talk”. It can be an enlightening, perhaps transformative group experience and can even modify your culture. And it could be a rare opportunity to communicate, if you could eliminate the politics.

In a typical meeting, questions are often invited and opinions solicited; however the message delivered by the physical positioning, the lighting, the dress, etc. is clear: the true job of the audience is to listen—when in fact the real value of assembling the group together might actually be for management to listen.

As such, many organizations unwittingly structure their meeting to discourage participation. Most conventional meetings are set up as talking heads lit by stage lights behind an elevated podium, lecturing to a hushed audience sitting in the dark. That is fine for a normal/typical meeting; however, it’s not the best setting if you plan to be interactive. In fact it is the worst, so do the opposite. Bring up the lights and interact.

Through the power of anonymity, your organization can use ARS to communicate freely and openly, no matter who is in the room. Instead of tentative, reserved, self-conscious hand-raising, the Quick Tally® system allows private, anonymous responses, and introduces an instantaneous visual portrait of the group’s replies that changes the character of your meeting.

The first time members of your audience see their responses before them on the screen, a ripple of anticipation and appreciation goes through the meeting. It is a uniquely powerful experience they won’t soon forget. From that moment, the meeting is usually transformed from a ho-hum “them” gathering to an “us” event.