This week I had another meeting of one of the accountability groups for entrepreneurs. The agenda for these meetings is pretty packed, which forces me to stick to the script so we end on schedule. This month some of the entrepreneurs couldn’t make it because of rescheduling challenges, so I had more flexibility.

I decided to experiment with the presentation format a bit. Normally, the presenting entrepreneur shares a situation, there’s a question-and-answer session, and attendees share a relevant experience, one by one. It’s always one person speaking at a time, but today I changed that and we had an open conversation.

Two entrepreneurs are both experiencing a particular problem. The goal was to help them figure out next steps. The entrepreneurs and I focused on the objective as we conversed, asking clarifying questions, rephrasing what we were hearing, and sharing thoughts around the objective.

It was a total experiment that I wasn’t sure would work, but the entrepreneurs thought it was helpful. The piece of feedback that stuck with me was that it forced a deeper dive into the problem. The conversational nature of the discussion, including questions, forced the entrepreneurs to think more deeply, which led to some insights and clarity about their problems.

I’m pleasantly surprised that this format was helpful to the attendees. I’m not quite sure how this would work when we have full attendance, but I’m curious to try to figure it out. Depth matters a lot when founders are trying to help each other solve problems. I want to lean into adding more depth to these meetings.