Are Your Meetings Like This
Which of these phrases describe your most typical corporate meetings?
- Meetings go on for hours
- We're constantly updating PowerPoint slides
- There are always more pressing matters to discuss than the one I invited the group for
Creating a productive, successful meeting is incredibly difficult
The only way to do it is from scratch. Although meetings are made up of human beings, you cannot assess effectiveness based on emotions alone. Instead, you must evaluate each meeting and work towards establishing clear goals and expectations about what needs to occur over time. We'll call this process "Meeting Scheduling". Each meeting needs to be analyzed and analyzed again, until a schedule is in place.
How do you keep meetings on track?
- The meeting chair must ask participants to provide input on the proposed agenda several hours before the start of the meeting
- The meeting chair should ensure that he/she recuses themselves from group discussions about outputs for the project after a certain milestone has been reached. Telling individuals how good or bad your team is is no way to create a productive working environment.
In real life we do this all of the time, we just don't have deadlines or multiple project managers to insure against scope creep.
These projects are very similar to the one the group is working on.
- The meeting chair should ensure that each participant in the meeting reads and understands the key outputs of the project before they arrive at a meeting
- The meeting chair should ensure that each participant in the meeting reads and understands any major decisions or deliverables before they arrive at a meeting
In real life this doesn't happen either.
The goal of this article is to illustrate what happens within meetings with too little structure. Specific issues below are then briefly explained, with more detail given on how to fix them in future articles.
Mr A seeks inputs from Mr B, Mrs C and Mr D about their opinions on this month's budget, before the presentation begins. The meeting is supposed to end at 9pm - but instead drags on until 10:30.
The meeting begins with a "Safety Meeting". The group introduces themselves, in the hope that everyone can agree on the rules for this particular meeting. Unfortunately, this isn't the case, and some people are inattentive or not paying attention. Mr A makes strong objections about the use of certain words or phrases. It's hard to tell how much of this is due to his real concerns about the budget and how much is due to lack of communication with staff members.
The Safety Meeting ends, and the Chair asks everyone to provide their input. Mr A begins to ask some questions that are outside of the scope of the meeting. Staff members make it clear that he will have to wait his turn. It becomes clear that Mr A has not read the key outputs, and so cannot provide a solid argument for his questions at this meeting.
The Chair is annoyed by this, and suggests that maybe they should move on. Staff members respond by saying that they're really concerned about the budget, and they want all of their ideas heard. The meeting proceeds to discuss the budget.
Sometimes, staff members will try to talk over each other because they are too busy writing their own ideas down or trying to impress the group.
Other times, people will wait too long to put their input on the agenda because they are writing it down and they forgot to put it in the agenda so they'll have a chance later in the week or something.
Here's how you can avoid this pitfall:
1) Ask everyone what should happen at all meetings? Have a meeting that everyone reads and understands before even getting into the meeting room. This way they can prepare mentally, and they will begin to use less jargon, less legalistic language and generally be more productive. Even when people attend meetings on topics that are completely different from their day jobs, you can use the same format and avoid having to explain too much. That is how your customers work, so why shouldn't you? 2) Make sure that everyone gives a brief two-minute summation of any input they might have or deliverables they might have created (on an index card or via email). Tell them what's not on the agenda so that they are clear on what exactly is going to happen at this meeting.
3) Make sure that the meeting chair doesn't "give their opinion" to people in a meeting. That's not part of their job description. You're creating an environment where people are making decisions at the lowest possible level. The meeting chair should check in and ensure everyone has been involved in the process, and then move on to the next agenda item.
4) Always have an agenda for every single meeting. Even if it's just a series of bullet points, this will create structure for your staff members and keep them on task, rather than allow them to go all over the place with tangents or topics that are not relevant to completing project goals.
5) Once the meeting starts, let people ask any questions they might have. If they finish and then wait for the next agenda item, they will not be able to continue because everyone else will be busy with their own work. Ask them if they want to continue on in the moment. If not, move on and come back later after everyone has had a chance to finish.
This is a more drastic example of what can happen when a meeting isn't scheduled well. Mr A is talking about his objections to an idea until he receives permission from one of the other staff members before continuing or moving on to another topic.
Mr B has no objection to the budget, but he wants to make sure that he's read the relevant outputs before continuing.
Mrs C objects strongly to the budget and voices her opposition. She receives a lot of approval from other staff members, leading Mr A to suggest that maybe they should move on to another topic right away. The Chair suggests that she is merely being obstructive and causing paralysis by analysis.
The meeting proceeds for another 40 minutes with Mr D asking questions about what everyone thinks about a certain decision from last month.
At this point, it is clear that the group is not going in any direction, but rather has lost focus on what's supposed to be happening at this meeting.
Conclusion
If you're a manager, you're already doing everything right. The only problem is that it's sometimes difficult for you to see what your staff are doing.
Your job as a manager is to plan your meetings so that everyone knows what's going on, and why the meeting is happening. But do not try to micro-manage every detail of the meeting. You should not micromanage any meeting.
A surprising amount of meetings go on longer than they should because people are too busy thinking about their own agendas, or trying to make sure they are getting enough credit for their ideas or inputs.