Getting to Nowhere - Why Are Your Meetings Lousy?
Good meetings are good only when they produce actionable results. That only happens when the leader of the meeting or conference call sets an idiot-proof agenda, maintains order and remembers the human factor.Today is Wednesday and I have been in 9 internal meetings this week that I wasn't leading. Only 2 of them were well planned so I had 7 bad, bad meetings. Here are a few traits I noticed from these meetings and in some cases, I've added how I combat the issue:
- The first 8 minutes were spent discussing sports, weekend plans, kids, etc. Basically, it was absolutely unproductive and costs time and money. How much? Well on average, the meetings had 6 participants so that a total of 48 minutes that were lost for EACH meeting. Multiply that by 7 meetings and you have over 5 hours of lost time!
- Getting past this is very simple. As the leader of the meeting you need to be on time and you have to show some authority. I am not saying you should bring a gavel and bang on the table, but plan to be 2 minutes early and try to kill the small talk as it begins.
- If the meeting was scheduled to begin at 2:00, you should start at 2:00 regardless of who you are waiting on. There is no reason to delay 9 people just because 1 person is late.
- Issues that were important to more vocal people got the attention, whereas issues important to the project itself, seemingly got pushed aside.
- This is counter-productive and I've seen this before. Include an agenda that people can add things to in the days before the meeting. As the manager, objectively decide what is most important to the project and set the master agenda and distribute it. Less important issues are handled offline.
- This one has always killed me. A few of the meeting's I've been invited to had 2 or 3 hours blocked off in my calender. While certain topics certainly require that kind of attention, you need to watch this because you will always notice people not paying attention after the first 30 minutes. There is an old myth that says a human's attention span in minutes is 10 + the person's age. It's actually on Wikipedia and they don't buy it but I do. Take a look at people in your meetings and see if you agree. Blank stares, doodling, people hacking away at their blackberry - you will definitely see it. If people are in a trance, they are clearly not thinking about contributing or solving problems. How much does that help?
- For as simple as this solution is, I don't know why people don't practice it. If you meeting is this long, schedule small breaks or schedule a breakout session where small teams work on a task applicable to the topic. You have to break it up somehow.
- If someone is really typing on the blackberry, think about how important their involvement is in that particular meeting. Clearly this person either knows everything already or doesn't need to provide input. To be fair, certain issues do require an immediate response, but I've seen people typing away in meeting after meeting for 20 minutes.
- Things were solved but who is doing what?
- On most projects people are in charge of certain tasks and yes, I believe that those accountable should know their responsibilities. However, I've always liked the idea of either assigning a note-taker and sending a post-meeting summary to the group. I've seen too many instances where items from the meeting were either forgotten or misunderstood so we had to reconvene again AFTER hours were spent moving in the wrong direction. Again it's just a waste of resources.
- Set a firm agenda
- Assign a note-taker
- Carve out Micro-Meetings
- Hold Office Hours
- Discourage Politics
- Stick to the clock
