Meetings Suck: Here’s How You Can Plan and Conduct Successful Meetings
Somehow it seems that at the beginning of the pandemic, there was also an explosion of meetings. Perhaps with so much becoming virtual, it has become easier to set up a Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, or other virtual session with anyone you need. All of these tools have been beneficial, for the most part, but I do think they have desensitized the discipline around meetings. (And I use discipline loosely here; there were plenty of unnecessary meetings before the pandemic also.)
Getting together with one or more people to discuss a situation, share information, or make decisions has always been necessary, and will continue to be. However, I hear more than ever from almost all industries that too many meetings are almost their own global challenge in itself. On the positive side, people want to be inclusive. On the opposite side, people get pulled into too many calls and discussions that are unnecessary and add little to no value. They represent a group or a team for the sake of saying they were there. That is not productive for anyone.
A side effect of these bloated invite lists is that more people attend and try to multitask during the call because they don’t understand the purpose or their need for involvement. Then when they are called upon or need to be a part of the discussion they are often unprepared or were not paying close enough attention to details to be able to respond appropriately, deploying the, ‘can you repeat that please’ phrase that immediately ‘outs’ them as multitasking during the call. Admittedly, I have been that person before. And, since I am acknowledging my own foibles here, I too have an opportunity to improve the meetings I conduct and lead. Managing (effective) meetings with cross-function partners, whether you are in a store, a district, region, or company level role, is harder than it seems.
So, how do we solve for this?
Define your purpose for the meeting
Why are you getting a group of people together in the first place? That is the first question to ask yourself. Is that clearly defined? Then determine what it is you want to accomplish with that session. This can help to determine the purpose of your meeting and the type of meeting it is.
Narrow the invite list to only those necessary
Believe it or not, everyone doesn’t have to be invited to the meeting. Keeping the invite list to people who need to be involved is both beneficial to the meeting outcome and those that already have plenty on their plates. The multitasking and not paying attention is usually driven by too many people being invited when they are not immediately needed. Once you have defined your purpose clearly, the people you require to be involved should be evident. Err on the side of a smaller group first, and follow-up meetings with others if it becomes apparent that they were a necessary member of the discussion. For virtual meetings, recording sessions to share with others can help to solve this problem as well, or catch other people up quickly if you realize they should have been included. In general, smaller is better for most meeting types.
Clearly state objectives and outcomes
At the beginning of each meeting and even before that, in the invite, state the objective of the session and what the expected outcome will be. This may be a little less important for many Informational Meetings, but for all others it should become a requirement for you. This will help level-set everyone for the time you are together, and everyone should know what you are working towards.
Using Steve Jobs Rules for Meetings
Steve Jobs often comes up when people are looking for effective meeting tips. He was famous for fiery, yet highly productive meetings. But, the top thing Jobs was adamant against was having too many people in the room and having them for too long. Here are his rules for meetings.
Keep the meeting small (3-5 people)
Keep the agenda short (no more than 3 topics)
Keep the time concentrated – stick to 30 minutes.
Jobs had some other key guardrails as well - at the conclusion of a meeting, there was assigned owner, with clear next steps. And don’t hide behind a PowerPoint presentation. The information sharing and individual contributions to discussion should be the focus of the meeting, not the slides.
I happen to agree with that last piece. Too often, we are conditioned to putting everything on a slide. We use PowerPoint for everything. If you look back at your purpose, you should also ask what the purpose is of any slides that will be used. If it would be better stated by a person to a group, then keep it that simple.
There is no one great way to have a meeting. And not all meetings will be great. But by taking the steps above and applying the thought process that Steve Jobs used, perhaps we can at least make meetings suck less and eventually make them something people value to share information, make decisions, and move objectives forward.
How can you improve the meetings you conduct?
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