Meetings: Effective or Chasm of Wasted Time?
One activity that managers use to communicate, collaborate and connect with their teams, whether remote or in-person, is the “Meeting”. Too often the good intentions are soon lost, as many participants find themselves in a vast chasm of wasted time (a precious commodity).
Meetings are expensive. Think of all the hourly dollars spent in wages/salaries for these meetings. Individuals who are often working on revenue generating and cost savings activities are now losing hours of this time.
Meetings are often wasteful. For some, there is no requirement to participate, and instead they listen to the same status updates week after week. For some, the topics are not key to the job they are tasked with, and the time away from productive activities makes it stressful (time management is not optimized). For some, these meetings are even more agonizing, as participants (including the facilitator) bring frustrations and never address key agenda topics; these meetings become BMW (bitch, whine, moan) fests.
Fortunately, with some practice, your meetings can be productive, effective, creative, celebratory, and optimally, will create focus and solutions for your team’s short-term and long-term goals. Here are some ways to make meetings meaningful:
Decide if meeting is necessary.
If it is to give a status update, create a platform (via technology: Excel or project management tools) to make status updates current and transparent. Let people read status updates and allow questions as needed, within a meeting or in another setting.
Is it a legacy meeting that has outlived its purpose? Discuss this with those who advocate for the specific meeting. Maybe it can be cancelled; maybe it can be reduced to less frequent gatherings; maybe it can be refigured to meet current and future needs.
Prepare:
Ask yourself, what is the purpose of this meeting?
If it is to create options in support of solving a problem, supporting a client, or moving a project forward, invite the RIGHT people (diverse knowledge and experiences, those who can bring ideas). Remember using the same thinking today that got you into trouble, will offer similar ineffective results. Get new ideas: new hires, high potentials, those doing the job v. managers of those living and struggling with an issue.
Networking? If main reason is to connect whole team, then find safe, fun ways to have people learn about each other, on a person level. This can also be good to kickoff various types of meetings. Easy games, safe sharing, or competitions – all have their place in various group settings.
Change up agenda.
Instead of sending out a list of topics. Create an agenda with two questions you want answered on those topics. Then provide the questions in enough time for everyone to prepare.
Be clear on purpose of meeting. If idea generation, decision-making/approval, share information, task force response, etc.
Create space for real brainstorming (every voice counts) to create options. Then let the owner choose next steps based on the collaboration process.
Red Light/Green Light: Encourage people to share successes (projects, results, etc.) that celebrate individual and team efforts (Green Light). Allow people to bring issues that they would like idea generation to help move forward a project or task (Red Light). Provide a specific amount of time for Green Light and Red Light topics.
Agree on final notes on who is doing what, and by when. Distribute within 24 hours.
Inspire Participation.
Managers and extraverts often monopolize meetings. Use facilitation skills to quiet some and bring out voice of others. Quiet does not mean agreement. Quiet does not mean understanding. Quiet does not mean ease/connection. Bring out the thoughts, ideas, concerns of those generally more quiet.
Devil’s Advocate. For every meeting, pick one person to find all the ways you will fail, all the ways ideas can be challenged. Each meeting, has a new person in this role.
Brainstorming. Learn to be a better facilitator of meetings and of brainstorming (idea generating technique).