Many times in my corporate past I have heard grumblings about meetings and the ineffectiveness surrounding them. I would hear things like “let’s go to another meeting to talk about meetings” or “our meetings are really just a session to hear so and so talk” or the most common “our meetings are too frequent, too long and accomplish nothing”. The sad thing is, in most cases those negative comments rang true. Many meetings were long, ineffective, and irrelevant or served as an opportunity to have select people grandstand on an issue, while accomplishing little. Even sadder yet, is the fact that meetings could serve as one of the most important and effective communication vehicles a company has. But meetings need to be kept in perspective. They serve as a vital communication vehicle and an opportunity to collaborate and obtain a consensus, but the “real work” happens between meetings.
In every step along the Execulytics Method effective meetings are an essential piece on the road to success. Whether your group is defining the project,
measuring or analyzing data or executing on the solution, communication with your team in a group setting is vital. “Communication with your team in a group setting” is really just a nice way of describing a meeting. It sounds much more positive than the negative connotation surrounding the word “meeting”. So here are some proposed ground rules that should help turn a meeting into “communication with your team in a group setting”.
- Schedule every meeting to start on the hour. This ensures that everyone in your organization is on the same schedule. By staying away from meetings on the half hour you eliminate the annoyance of someone joining a meeting halfway through and requiring a debrief to catch up.
- Schedule the meeting to last exactly 45 minutes. Any longer than this usually means one of two things. Either you are not in a meeting but rather a working session or your meetings are unproductive. Having 45 minute meetings coupled with starting all meetings on the hour has a number of benefits. For one all participants can either attend the entire meeting or they cannot. At no time should someone arrive halfway through the meeting. Secondly with all meetings ending with a 15 minute break afterwards gives everyone time to get to the next meeting. It also provides them the time to grab a coffee, answer their important emails or return a vital phone call or two.
- Keep strict timeframes for allowable meeting times by keeping certain hours throughout the day sacred. One recommendation for a typical 9-5 office would be to schedule meetings starting no earlier than 9 am and no later than 3 pm and keep the lunch hour free. This gives all employees the opportunity to come into the office a little early to catch up and to end the day with some time to finish off key functions. It also allows everyone a vital midday break to catch up, grab a lunch and recharge their minds for the second half of the day.
- Ensure someone chairs the meeting. This will usually be the person who calls the meeting or their delegate. This person is responsible for meeting organization prior to the meeting, during the meeting and after the meeting. This role is extremely important for ensuring the meeting is effective. Without proper execution of this role it is difficult to maintain effective meetings in the 45 minute time frame.
- Pre-meeting preparation is difficult but vital. Sometimes emergency meetings are necessary and require key staff to re-arrange their schedule in order to accommodate. Unfortunately due to lack of preparation and organization many regular meetings are put onto an emergency timetable. By following some simple steps meetings can be planned ahead of time to avoid the emergency timetable.
- Schedule the meeting at least 1 week in advance. This will allow key participants the time to manage their agenda accordingly.
- Communicate the agenda to the meeting at the same time the meeting is scheduled. This will allow your invites to determine if they need to attend in person or to send a delegate.
- Communicate any accompanying documentation such as slide presentations or other exhibits at least 24 hours prior to the scheduled time and preferably 48 hours prior. This will allow participants an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the content of the meeting.
- Ensure the chair of the meeting, or their delegate keeps detailed notes of information shared and action items taken during the meeting. These notes should be communicated to all participants either by the end of the day or at the latest by lunchtime on the following day.
- All participants should come to the meeting prepared by reviewing all documentation sent out prior. Any clarifying points, rebuttals or additional opinions or comments should be noted and addressed at the meeting.
- All departments that need to be represented at a meeting should only send one representative to the meeting. This person should be best suited to represent the department and should be empowered to speak on behalf of the department. This will free up other department staff to attend other vital meetings or maybe even get to the “real work”.
- The meeting should start precisely on the hour and end precisely after 45 minutes. All participants should strive to arrive at the meeting 5 minutes ahead of time and at the very latest on the hour. Latecomers disrupt the flow of the meeting and reduce productivity. Sometimes social chitchat will improve camaraderie and take contention out of the meeting. This chitchat should occur in the 5 minutes prior to the start of the meeting. The social chitchat is an opportunity to network with coworkers so it is a great incentive to arrive 5 minutes earlier so as to capitalize on this networking opportunity.
- The chair of the meeting needs to be responsible for the flow of the meeting. A few recommendations would be to start each meeting with a recap of action items from the last meeting. This should last no longer than 10 minutes. The bulk of the meeting would be to review the documentation sent out prior. If all participants have reviewed the documentation then this time can be spent clarifying and discussing alternate opinions. The ultimate purpose would be to refine the goals and direction with the benefit of a healthy debate by all informed participants. Going through the documentation page by page should be a waste of time if everyone is prepared. This should last approximately 30 minutes with the last 5 minutes spent recapping changes discussed and action items coming out of the discussion.
- And as already mentioned, meeting notes need to be communicated within 24 hours of the meeting.
So there you have it. Simple, easy to follow steps to ensure your organization’s meetings are productive, meaningful and do not dominate everyone’s workday. Many people will agree the “real work” happens between meetings and if the entire day is jammed with meetings then it is hard to see when that gets done.
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