Everybody complains about meetings . . . they’re too long, boring, and don’t accomplish anything. Or as humorist Dave Barry puts it, “If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be ‘meetings.’ “ Unfortunately, too many meetings in American businesses today deserve the bad rap they get. They are, in fact, too long, boring, and don’t accomplish anything. But they don’t have to be that way. On the contrary, well-conceived, well-executed meetings can play a vital role in communicating effectively, coordinating complex activities, and solving knotty problems. For a few thoughts on how to turn your meetings from boring, pointless affairs into dynamic, productive, useful sessions, please continue reading below.
“Has anyone ever said, ‘I wish I could go to more meetings today’?” ~Matt Mullenweg
I don’t know who Matt is, but he asks a valid question with an obvious answer. But why? Why do people often dread going to meetings and consider them a waste of time. Most if not all of the blame lies at the feet of the meeting organizer. The organizer is asking people to take time out from their primary responsibilities to sit in a meeting room, so there had better be a good reason for it, and the organizer had better prepare well for it. When the organizer doesn’t prepare properly for the meeting and hopes to get away with just “winging it,” the meeting will be DOA.
Here are a few things that will help a meeting organizer to run an effective meeting:
- Start with the end in mind. What are you trying to accomplish, and is a meeting really the most efficient, effective way to accomplish it? Could you get the result you need with a few phone calls to the key players. Could you communicate just as effectively via email rather than in a meeting room? Treat calling a meeting as an option of last resort
- Publish an agenda in advance so people can come to the meeting prepared. And it is critically important that the agenda include an expected outcome. Are we going to solve a problem? Make a decision on a specific issue? Make the purpose of the meeting clear and compelling, and tell the people involved what they should expect to have accomplished when they leave the meeting.
- Think carefully about who you invite to the meeting. Be considerate of peoples’ time. Don’t oblige them to sit through a meeting if they are not needed. Whatever is being discussed, every person in the room should feel it’s relevant to them, and every person there should feel they have something to contribute.
- Manage the agenda. Start on time and move through the agenda items efficiently. Keep the discussion focused and don’t allow it to get bogged down on any one item. End on time.
- Get everyone involved and don’t let anyone monopolize the conversation. If someone is droning on and on, politely remind him or her that others need a chance to speak. If you have wallflowers in the room, you may have to work to draw them out. After all, if they didn’t have something to contribute, they wouldn’t be in the room (see #3 above).
- Check technology at the door. Don’t allow cell phones or iPads in the room. If you want peoples’ undivided attention, you can’t have them taking phone calls or responding to text messages.
- Follow up with a meeting summary. It’s not usual for people to leave a meeting with very different recollections of what was said and what was decided. So send a summary to each participant, detailing tasks to be done, by whom, and by when. Include any decisions that were agreed to by the group.
Dan Pink, noted business writer and lecturer, has an interesting take on what makes for a good meeting. He asks, does the meeting involve conflict? Anxiety? Tension? In other words, there has to be something important at stake . . . an outcome that we care about. And is there a reasonable expectation that we’ll be able to resolve something? He makes a good point. If there’s nothing important at stake and no outcome we care about, why are we bothering to meet about it?
Pink also notes that “omnibus meetings” . . . those that cover big things, little things, long-term things, short-term things, tactics, strategies . . . are usually ineffective. There’s such a potpourri of stuff on the agenda that people get lost as to what they’re supposed to do with it all. It’s better, he says, to have several short, highly focused meetings than it is to have one long catchall meeting.
Some companies are using daily check-ins (sometimes called, huddles) as effective communication and coordination tools. The idea is for every department, shift, or team to gather at the beginning of the workday for a “standing” meeting . . . no chairs. The unspoken message is, “we don’t need chairs because we’re not going to be here long enough to sit.” It’s a time for announcements, if any, to be made, but mostly a time to coordinate the unit’s activities so that everyone knows what to expect during the day and what they should expect to accomplish before quitting time. Five minutes max.
Beware of regularly scheduled meetings, as for instance a weekly “staff meeting.” These are meetings that people dutifully file into because their calendar says they’re supposed to, but they have no real idea what to expect or what is to be accomplished. Meetings like this are what make people wonder, “Why are we here and why are we wasting our time? This is pointless!”
Meetings can and should be indispensable business tools, but use them sparingly. And when you do use them, make sure meeting participants understand the importance of what’s to be discussed and the importance of what you expect the meeting to accomplish.
Rock Solid Business Development
Phone: (847) 665-9134
andy@rocksolidbizdevelopment.com
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