It’s mid-week and work is in full swing! As you walk around the office you notice several of the meeting rooms are filled with employees discussing issues and collaborating on ideas. Wow, it feels productive right? Somehow though you keep thinking of that last status report. You get the sense that when you started asking the tough questions something wasn’t quite right. So like the great Magnum PI, you decide to investigate the matter a little further. But where to start?
My advice, pop into one of those famous hour long meetings and start putting the pieces together.
AHA YOUR FIRST CLUE!
NO AGENDA = BIG PROBLEM
The meeting invite came out an hour ago with only the title. You, as well as all the other participants, are now coming up with pre-conceived notions of what direction the conversation will take. Within the first 5 minutes, you’re pretty sure that the original meeting description “Collateral Support Balances” is in no way tied to the story Sam is telling on why the kitchenette is out of creamers and the coffee at this place is no good.
A simple rule for any successful meeting is to have a bulleted agenda with designated owners communicated well ahead of time, a time box on each discussion item, and a documented synopsis of the meeting with actionable take-aways that are disseminated and tracked with relevant stakeholders. Keeping folks focused and tracking to an agenda is key, and only those with the skillset to properly keep the conversation on topic should lead meetings.
NOW YOU’RE ON TO SOMETHING
MORE TERTIARY FOLKS = TIME SPENT GETTING EVERYONE UP TO SPEED
Nowadays, everyone believes they have the right to attend any meeting that remotely interests them. God forbid Joe, from Accounting, who was once involved in a topic discussed two months ago, and has since not been engaged in the process, is not part of the invite for today’s meeting. Multiply that by Joe #2, #3, and #4, who also decided to have the invite forwarded to them because they couldn’t stomach the thought of not getting any of the free muffins that were being offered.
Reality is, there are typically only two or three key individuals who deliver the needed output in every meeting. Target their attendance and let all the peripheral folks enjoy reading the detailed notes and take-aways. A disciplined meeting leader will communicate and inform others as necessary.
BINGO – NOW YOU’VE GOT IT
40 MINUTES = 40 MINUTES; NOT 1 HOUR
You actually go the meeting and there is a clear, concise agenda with the right folks in attendance. It’s great, and proof is in the fact that the meeting owner was able to get through the scheduled one-hour meeting in just under 40 minutes. You are about to wrap up, thanking everyone for their time, and for the 5th meeting in a row, someone raises a tangential topic to what you were discussing. You look around incredulously as the conversation starts up again. Sure enough, the last 20 minutes go by and you start thinking to yourself that even if the meeting was entitled ‘1+1 Equals What?’ these guys would find some way to fill up the full hour.
We need to feel confident when participating in a meeting to end the conversation once the purpose has been served. The extra discussions that can transpire outside the framework of the initial agenda often risk being improperly tracked and often result in no tangible progress.
In the end, it’s hard enough to have a productive meeting when all of the key elements are in place; take any one of them out of the equation (i.e. no agenda, too many people, discussing items off topic) and that one-hour meeting will be had five times over before the output is equal to one well run meeting. The cost is staggering as valuable resource time and money is wasted that could otherwise be spent focusing on executing specific tasks.
The unfortunate reality is that all too often organizations overlook the fact that there is a skillset needed to run an efficient meeting and it is not something every employee implicitly knows. So while the engine is roaring based on what is being shown on the status report, you may want to double check on that one-hour meeting, and make sure the driver isn’t just revving the engine while the car is in neutral.
Well it looks like it’s time for you and Higgins, to celebrate once again! Your detective skills have solved yet another caper but remember Tick Tock Tick Tock… time is of the essence. Get the right partner to help you stay on track and execute. It’s doing the little things, like running a meeting the right way every day, that result in success!