Why Meetings Matter
I am a results consultant. Getting things done and being productive have always fascinated me. My clients and colleagues through the years know my process and total quality management approach to operational excellence also applies to my passion for engineering meetings that people love attending.
I have a continuous improvement approach to meetings, and a passion for Edward Tufte’s approach to data visualisation (versus PowerPoint dullness). Recently, I was working with a retail store management team and added up that the meeting was costing over $1000 per hour. I then asked everyone present to use adjectives to describe how they felt about the two to three hour weekly meetings they had been suffering through. Words like boring, hell, waste, painful, unproductive, and more negatives were offered. Sadly, this is normal in many businesses.
We have all been in meetings where people are unprepared, the meeting ends up off-track on tangents, the topics discussed are a waste of time, and there is either no agenda or it is poorly designed. Several years ago, I met a speaker at a Vistage meeting whose expertise was holding effective meetings. What I learned from him is an effective agenda sets clear expectations for what needs to take place before, during and after a meeting.
An Approach to Productive Meetings
The following are my emerging list of principles for meetings that matter:
- Team meeting time is expensive and difficult to schedule. It should mainly be used to discuss and make decisions on issues that affect the whole team — and need the whole team to solve them.
- Do not waste time reading results in a meeting. Have everyone review and analyse results prior to team meetings. In the meeting discuss what the financial scoreboard is telling the team, and what we need to adjust.
- If you want your team to be engaged in meetings, make sure the agenda includes items that reflect their needs. Ask team members to suggest agenda items along with a reason why each item needs to be addressed in a team setting.
- Arrange the meeting in the form of topics expressed as questions. A question enables team members to better prepare for the discussion and to monitor whether their own and others’ comments are on track. During the meeting, anyone who thinks a comment is off-track can say something like, “I’m not seeing how your comment relates to the question we’re trying to answer. Can you help me understand the connection?” Finally, the team knows that when the question has been answered, the discussion is complete.
TOPIC PREPARATION PROPOSED PROCESS
| 1. What changes do we need to make to today’s agenda?
TIME: 2 minutes
|
None for this meeting | Kevin polls team. |
| 2. What actions from last meeting have been completed?
TIME: 10 minutes
|
Review last meeting notes and complete commitments you have made. | 1. Read your action commitment.
2. Report whether commitment was kept. 3. Answer questions |
| 3. Are KPIs on track with plan?
TIME: 15 minutes
|
Review KPI dashboard and your area performance. | Each manager discuss a summary of their financial scoreboard—is their team winning? What are the numbers telling you? What adjustments need to be made? |
5. For each topic on the agenda, state its purpose for being on the agenda. You will notice in the above agenda that there is a line for describing the purpose for this topic being on the agenda. Stating the topic purpose makes it clear what objectives and key results (OKR) they are being asked to contribute to a particular topic, and for a fellow team member. There are three purposes a topic can be placed on an agenda:
–Share information: This topic is on the agenda solely to inform.
—Seek input for a decision: When a person is looking for input in order to later make a decision, but not asking the team to make the decision in the meeting.
–Make a decision: If a topic in the meeting needs a decision made in the meeting.
It’s difficult for team members to participate effectively if they don’t know whether to simply listen, give their input, or be part of the decision making process. If people think they are involved in making a decision, but you simply want their input, everyone is likely to feel frustrated by the end of the conversation.
6. Updates are better distributed — and read — prior to the meeting, using a brief part of the meeting to answer participants’ questions.
7. If the purpose is to make a decision, state the decision-making rule. If you are the formal leader, at the beginning of the agenda item you might say, “If possible, I want us to make this decision by consensus. That means that everyone can support and implement the decision given their roles on the team. If we’re not able to reach consensus after an hour of discussion, I’ll reserve the right to make the decision based on the conversation we’ve had. I’ll tell you my decision and my reasoning for making it.”
8. Estimate a realistic amount of time for each topic. Leaders typically underestimate the amount of time needed. Timed meeting topics enable meeting participants to either adapt their comments to fit within the allotted timeframe or to suggest that more time may be needed. The purpose of listing the time is not to stop discussion when the time has elapsed; that simply contributes to poor decision making and frustration. The purpose is to get better at allocating enough time for the team to effectively and efficiently answer the questions before it.
9. Propose a process for addressing each agenda item.
The process identifies the steps through which the team will move together to complete the discussion or make a decision. Agreeing on a process significantly increases meeting effectiveness, yet leaders rarely do it. Unless the team has agreed on a process, members will, in good faith, participate based on their own process. You’ve probably seen this in action: some team members are trying to define the problem, other team members are wondering why the topic is on the agenda, and still other members are already identifying and evaluating solutions.
The process for addressing an item should appear on the written agenda. When you reach that item during the meeting, explain the process and seek agreement: “I suggest we use the following process. First, let’s take about 10 minutes to get all the relevant information on the table. Second, let’s take another 10 minutes to identify and agree on any assumptions we need to make. Third, we’ll take another 10 minutes to identify and agree on the interests that should be met for any solution. Finally, we’ll use about 15 minutes to craft a solution that ideally takes into account all the interests, and is consistent with our relevant information and assumptions. Any suggestions for improving this process?”
11. Identify who is responsible for leading each topic. Someone other than the formal meeting leader is often responsible for leading the discussion of a particular agenda item. This person may be providing context for the topic, explaining data, or may have organizational responsibility for that area. Identifying this person next to the agenda item ensures that anyone who is responsible for leading part of the agenda knows it — and prepares for it — before the meeting.
12. Make the first topic “review and modify agenda as needed.” Even if you and your team have jointly developed the agenda before the meeting, take a minute to see if anything needs to be changed due to late breaking events.
13. End the meeting with a continuous improvement step. If your team meets regularly, two questions form a simple continuous improvement process:
–What did we do well today?
What do we want to do differently for the next meeting?
Investing five minutes to review a meeting’s effectiveness will enable the team to improve performance, working relationships, and team member satisfaction. Here are some questions to consider when identifying what the team has done well and what it wants to do differently:
- Was the agenda distributed in time for everyone to prepare?
- How well did team members prepare for the meeting?
- How well did we estimate the time needed for each agenda item?
- How well did we allocate our time for decision making and discussion?
- How well did everyone stay on-topic? How well did team members speak up when they thought someone was off-topic?
- How effective was the process for each agenda item?
I have found these meeting guidelines bring about meeting that people enjoy, invest their time and energy into, and which produce results.