Meetings that Matter

“The interaction of many minds is usually more illuminating than the intuition of one.”

- Theodore Sorensen

Unproductive meetings—they are the reason I’ve left teams and the reason I have worked hard at refining my own ability to lead groups of people to do great work.

Despite the bad experiences I’ve had at meetings, I still believe that Sorensen is correct. And I believe that his words are the motivation behind why we schedule meetings in the first place—we want to harness the wide-ranging wisdom of many people in solving complex problems.

So how did meetings become such a waste of our time? It takes a short Google search to find pages of jokes about meetings, like the mock-poster that reads: “Are you lonely? Don’t like working on your own? Hate making decisions? Then call a meeting!” It’s only funny because it’s true: some people schedule meetings out of boredom, tradition, or wavering confidence in their own leadership ability.

To regain focus and get back the gift of time, heighten your awareness (and the alertness of your fellow attendees) by answering these questions before you call the next meeting:
1) What is the purpose of this meeting? This may sound like an obvious question, but too few meeting leaders actually ask it. When you do, you can be sure that you won’t be calling a meeting for one of the inappropriate reasons noted above.
2) What outcomes do I expect to see as a result of this meeting? Like any well-stated goal, you’ll want to make sure that the intended outcomes are specific, measurable, and realistic for the time you have allotted for the meeting. All conversations, agenda items, and questions should be geared towards achieving these results. I find it useful to start the meeting by stating the questions that I want to have answered by the time we’re done.
3) What is the best method for achieving those outcomes? You may get better results through one-on-one conversations, smaller team meetings, email exchanges, spreadsheet updates through a file-sharing system, or good project management software. During the meeting, if you find that a tangential issue is consuming too much time or that more thought needs to be given to a particular subject, encourage that it be taken off-line and addressed again later.
4) What benefits will be gained by bringing this particular group of people together? Choose your attendees wisely. I only invite people to attend a meeting for two reasons: the person will lend a unique perspective to our problem-solving, or I want to give the person an opportunity to ask for and receive help from others at the table.
· If you find yourself inviting certain people in order to keep them informed but not to engage them in group discussion, you might use a different approach. Consider having detailed notes disseminated, or record the conversation for selective play-back so that those not invited can still get the specific updates they need.
· If, on the other hand, you invite people to attend so that they can keep you informed, consider the investment of time that you are making. It may be a quick way for you to get updates from a lot of people, but if these meetings take 90 minutes, and you’ve got 30 attendees, you’ve just invested 45 hours in an outcome that only required a total of 10 hours, had you held short one-on-one conversations.

Test yourself: If attendees were to ask you the question “Why am I here?” and you could give a specific reason for each person, then you should be on track. And if you can actually let them know in advance why you’ve asked them to attend, you’ll be less likely to see Meeting Bingo cards and artistic doodles at the table. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll stop fiddling with their Blackberries. Maybe.

The next time you lead a meeting, let Sorensen’s wisdom guide you. Here’s to leading meetings that matter...Cheers!