Monday, February 23, 2015
Good morning,
Meetings have long been the butt of jokes in the business world. But they don’t have to be. You can get a lot more done, assuming you follow some basic steps and work with others to get the necessary attention and efforts.
Be sure you actually need a meeting. The biggest problem with meetings is that they have become a default response to many issues at work. Not sure of something? Have a meeting. Need to review material? Call a meeting. Unfortunately, starting this way translates into, “Want to waste a lot of time? Go to a meeting.” For better meetings, only have the ones you really need. If you’re trying to inform a group of something, send a memo. Meetings should result in action. If everyone in the meeting doesn’t walk away with some responsibility, you have to wonder why the meeting was held in the first place.
Create the meeting structure. Don’t run a meeting until you have the structure and contents clear. That means you can briefly state what it is meant to cover and why that is important to the company’s operations and strategy. Again, if the company doesn’t have a clear reason for the meeting, you don’t need it. Also decide on who absolutely needs to be there. Don’t add to the roster any more than you need to; attendees can always brief other people in their departments.
Create a strong agenda. These documents are too often dashed off as a formality. But this is where you will set the tone of the meeting and begin the process of control. An agenda is like an outline for an important piece of writing. The agenda should cover the overall purpose of the meeting and the intended results. It should indicate how long the meeting will be and the amount of time to allot to each section, and definitely reach all participants long before the meeting actually happens. Sometimes it can help to have others help set the agenda. You get broader buy-in and others may come up with important points that you missed.
Meeting Length. Consider making the meeting significantly shorter than you initially think is necessary; former insurance executive and current consultant Victor Lipman says cut it in half. That may seem too extreme, but it’s worth a try. Eventually you’ll get better at estimating the time necessary.
Get some respect. People have little respect for meetings because of past experiences. You need to firmly steer them straight. First, the meeting starts exactly on time. This is classic advice for a reason: It makes sense. You’ll have stragglers the first few times, but if you delay, meetings will continue to consume more time than they should and do far less than you want. Set a timer. When the timer goes off, the meeting is over. This will help people pay attention.
Actively run the meeting. Every meeting needs facilitation. Watch the timer and remind people when you’re coming up on the end of the time for a part of the meeting. Summarize longer points both to be sure that the group understands what was said and that you have a succinct version for notes. And don’t let people drift off topic.
Follow up. It is the rare meeting where everyone goes off and nothing need be done afterward. (In fact, if that happens, you shouldn’t have had a meeting.) You’ll need to follow up with people and ensure that they do what they said they would.
Set your meetings up wisely so you get the most out of them and so do those that attend.