Are your meetings effective?

‘Mum, I went to my first Student Representative Council meeting today,” said my friend’s 16-year old daughter. “I didn’t really understand anything that people were saying, and then we all left.”

“Ah! Welcome to the world of meetings, love!” said her mother, chuckling to herself while thinking of the recent Utopia episode she watched on Netflix.

Effective meetings are supposed to be the source of great decision-making. The place where intelligent minds meet to conduct important business, inspire each other and move initiatives forward at pace. How long is it since you’ve been in a meeting like that?

Rules

1. Does it need to be a meeting at all?

First rule of the effective meeting: ask yourself – does it need to be a meeting at all?  In our business if there is no strict agenda and no time limit, there is no meeting. Get your team to create a specific and defined purpose for every meeting, including an expectation of what they want to get out of it.

2. Who is in the room?

Once the purpose of a meeting is outlined carefully, it is very easy to see who needs to be there – and more importantly – who doesn’t. The less people, the better in our experience. More bodies does not equal better meetings, in fact, the opposite is true. Teach your team to include only those who are accountable for next steps, or need to be consulted for direction.

3. Can you make a no-tech rule?

No tech keeps everyone present (more or less) and shortens meeting time. Obviously it depends on the kind of meeting it is, however, next time you go to brainstorm or workshop something important, just try and leave the tech out and see what happens.

4. Start with the rules of the game

Meetings can be hijacked by a number of bird-like humans who you’ll notice fall into the following categories:

Roosters – constantly puffing out their chests

Chickens – constantly negating (yes, but…)

Peacocks – creating distraction

Rules on contribution need to be set up at the beginning and ‘refereed’ diligently to avoid your meeting starting to resemble the menagerie you visited on your farm-stay at Easter.

5. Respect the time and the people in the room

Your time, as a manager is precious. Your organisation wants increasingly more productivity from you, so the least your team can do is respect the time you’re offering. So why not create some rules of your own, and some consequences for not following them.

6. Pay Attention

Be Present. Take your own notes and actions. Do not leave the meeting with any misunderstanding. An obvious point, but still, rare.

7. Follow-up

Make sure someone is tasked with documenting and sharing decisions, responsibilities, tasks and deadlines. Send minutes within an hour of the meetings close and ask for clarification if there is anything that has been misread.

Reference:
1. The Manager's Guide to Effective Meetings: Barbara J. Streibel