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Key Strategies
We all have too many meetings. Our calendars are booked with back-to-back meetings, which really eats into our workday and you feel, when you leave a meeting that was ineffective, you feel like you just wasted your time. So as a manager leading a team, I would encourage you to start something I call a Meeting Revolution. And to really start that revolution the first step is to question the value of every meeting that you lead. Getting really clear on: What’s the purpose? What’s the outcome? And what do I want to be different as a result of me leading this meeting today? So if you can’t get clear on any of those three then I would suggest you step back and not call the meeting.
Then once you’re clear on the outcome – what you want to achieve – then the second step is to think very intentionally about who. Who are the people on your team, or who are the people in your organization that you need to have present to achieve those goals? The default in way too many organizations we invite everybody wasting everyone’s time and making it difficult at times to reach a decision or have a really healthy debate. So you’re clear on the outcome or the goal and then you’re getting really clear on who needs to be there to achieve it.
And then the third thing to think through is who is going to own the action. So what’s going to happen as a result of that meeting? Is there a specific person that needs to be present to help pull those action items through and make sure they’re actually taken care of? But you want something to happen as a result of your meeting so we have to think about the backend action piece.
The other thing I would suggest is that you question the length of every meeting that you lead. So can you shorten it by 15 minutes? If you shorten a meeting by 15 minutes what’s going to happen is – this happens every time – a lot of the preliminary chitchat and catch-up and warm-up will be eliminated and you’ll get right down into the focus part of what you need to accomplish faster. I would also suggest that you think about: Can it be a standing meeting and how can you arrange the physical environment to support the outcome that you need. So, for example, if it’s a brainstorming meeting I might have everyone in a semi-circle around a whiteboard. If it’s a meeting where we’re trying to review data and documentation I might want a table so people can have laptops and notes and they can use it. But what can you do to support the behavior by aligning your physical space? As a leader of the meeting, the effectiveness really begins and ends with you. So if you aren’t clear on why you’re meeting and then you aren’t clear on how you can lead an effective meeting, then you’re alternately going to undermine the effectiveness of your team.
Five Types of Meetings
There are only really a handful of different meeting types. There’s the informational meeting, so the meeting that the sole purpose is to convey information. And if this is the goal and the objective of your meeting, I’m going to challenge you to think creatively: How else might you disseminate this information? So, could it be you through using technology in your office? Maybe it’s an email, maybe your Internet site? Could you go old school, posters? But do you have to meet to convey this information? I’m just going to challenge you on that.
The second type of meeting is a decision-making meeting and the purpose is to make a decision.
The third type of meeting would be a brainstorming meeting. You want to ideate or think about a new project idea, maybe a new product.
The fourth type of meeting would be a team-building meeting. And the whole purpose of that meeting is to really gel the team and move that team through the team storming forming process. And it really could be a soft or it could be skill development as well, but it really is about that team cohesiveness.
And then the fifth type is skill development, and so the purpose of that meeting is to develop the skill set of individuals or your team.
Now, all of those meeting types can be individual meetings or you could have a combination. So you could have a team-building brainstorming session or a team-building informational meeting. If that’s the case and you’re blending meeting types, we’re just really clear on the purpose. So I want to convey this information and I want to spend five minutes with the team helping them get to know each other. So you’re still really clear on the goal and the outcome when you start to blend the different meeting types.
Seeking Feedback
When you lead a meeting it’s always helpful to get feedback from your participants on how effective it was for them. And so the easiest way to do that at the end of that meeting is just to ask for some feedback.
What worked well today in this meeting, what did not work well? What would you like for us to do more of? What would you like for us to do less of? You can also do a quick Stop Start Continue. This is a really quick effective way to get feedback – What do we need to start doing? What do we need to stop doing? What do we need to continue doing?
Then the other place for you in terms of feedback is to look through your agenda and ask yourself “Did we accomplish the stated goal of the meeting? And did you achieve each of those individual agenda items in the time that you allotted for them?” So you’re getting some qualitative feedback from participants, that Stop Start Continue, as well as quantitative “Yes we achieved the objective. Yes we got through each of our agenda items in the time that we allotted.”
Feedback Styles
As a meeting facilitator and leader, you want feedback. And so one way to do it is in real-time in the moment, which works well if there’s a high level of trust on that team and folks feel really comfortable giving feedback. However, there are times when it might be more appropriate to take the feedback offline when you want to do it one-on-one so that someone can give you that feedback without their peers present. So you would still do, I would suggest the Stop Start Continue and open it up for them. Or, if you want to protect the anonymity of your colleagues I would use maybe a SurveyMonkey and just do a quick anonymous online survey or use the polling feature that’s available in Outlook, or if it’s a WebEx that you just led you can do a polling feature in WebEx as well, and just ask the same question – the Stop Start Continue – but give folks a way to submit their feedback without their name.