Death by Meeting…
“A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost”.
I don’t know who is responsible for that little quip, but it’s a fairly accurate description of how we can all feel about meetings. Moving between organisations working on various projects, I am constantly surprised at just how frequently people are frustrated, or even angered, by what they view as having to attend too many meetings or, more likely, too many pointless meetings. It happens all the time in large and small businesses alike, in the public and private sectors, to the extent that moaning about meetings must be one of the most common pursuits in the world of work!
When you lead others, regardless of where you sit in the hierarchy, then you will be responsible for managing meetings of some kind – the frequency and importance of which will naturally differ depending upon your seniority. Regardless of how often you run them, or how critical they are, a failure to manage those meetings for best effect not only damages your credibility but also impacts on the motivation and productivity of others too. Yet, for such an important activity undertaken by managers around the globe, meetings regularly fail and often for fairly common reasons.
Some of those common pitfalls include:
Attitude: Problems here can of course take many forms, but a major factor contributing to ineffective meetings is simply how some people view them. Often, individuals can adopt a casual approach, believing that it is acceptable to arrive unprepared, or late, and to contribute little whilst there. Unfortunately, such attitudes frequently go unchallenged, so that over time people become ‘conditioned’ that they are acceptable and the problems get worse, not better.
Linked to this is how some individuals view meetings as opportunities for game playing of various kinds. For example, an individual may have an issue with their boss, a colleague, or be disgruntled about work in some way, and meetings can provide them with a useful platform to act out their frustrations. Others can sit through meetings, pay lip-service to what has been agreed yet the moment they exit, they begin to work against any defined proposals. Again, this type of behaviour, when not challenged, tend to get worse over time.
Organisation and management problems: A multitude of difficulties can also occur in this category, from poorly planned and communicated meetings right up to lousy time-management skills once they are underway. Even when a clear agenda has been agreed, if it’s not managed correctly, people can wander off - topic or get bogged down on minor or irrelevant issues. A further concern that can be pinpointed in this area is how meetings can end up being a discussion by a few in attendance, whilst the majority have little or no input, or where there are side meetings going on within the meeting itself.
Impact concerns: Another common failing with meetings is that even when action is agreed between participants, there can often be little follow-up afterwards to ensure that any agreed action is implemented. In other words, nothing happens, and this in turn can reinforce negativity about future meetings.
These are some of the categories of problems that lead to ineffective meetings, and no doubt they will resonate with your own experience. What seems to be overlooked, or at least underplayed, by many managers is the fact that there are substantial costs, financial and otherwise, attached to failed meetings; taking a group of employees, at any level, away from their work even for an hour costs money in terms of productivity and these costs are magnified when the meeting produces little of concrete value. On the hard cost side of things, let’s imagine you have a regular weekly meeting with 10 attendees that runs for one hour. At an average salary of €30,000 per year, that translates roughly to €15 per hour per person, or €150, leading to a total cost for this one management meeting alone of €7,500 or so per annum; not an insignificant sum and particularly so these days when every penny counts.
And if those meetings are unproductive, then a significant proportion of that cost is essentially money down the drain. And that’s for one weekly meeting. Worse still are the hidden costs associated with the damage caused to motivation and morale to those who have to attend these meaningless or badly-run events.
Here are some simple things you can do to run better meetings:
1. Prepare for the Meeting
There is not a manager in the world who would argue against the need to be fully prepared for a meeting, but how often have you seen the person who is hosting one arriving next to last, with a flustered look on his or her face letting you know that they are ill prepared – at least mentally – for what lies ahead? A not too infrequent occurrence, I would suggest. So, it’s time to get the dusty record machine out, put the old and scratched 12-inch on the turntable, and play it over and over again until the message finally sinks in: when it comes to meetings, failing to prepare is preparing to fail. In terms of preparation, you need to focus on the basics, such as:
What is the purpose of the meeting?
What do I want to achieve?
Who actually needs to be there to achieve that goal?
What is the most appropriate time to hold the meeting?
Where is the best place to hold the meeting?
What will be discussed – the agenda?
And what can reasonably be covered in the time available?
The question to ask yourself is not whether you know what should be prepared in advance of a meeting, i.e., the above, but whether you actually do that preparation – every single time.
Another preparation consideration, beyond the logistics, is to recognise that when you host a meeting, you are the centre of attention and when you do it to a high standard – when others leave feeling their time has been well spent – then you raise your standing in their eyes and that naturally influences everything else you do as a manager. (The opposite is true also.) And what’s more, when you do run effective meetings, people arrive to subsequent events with high expectations (and are usually well-prepared themselves) so naturally your meetings tend to go consistently well over time. On the other hand, when you mismanage your meetings, people don’t prepare, come expecting to be bored out of their minds and tune out during it for as long as they can get away with.
2. Manage the Meeting
As with any successful mode of communication, meetings need some form of structure – they require a beginning, middle and an end. First and foremost, meetings should start on time. If you think about it, we often reward latecomers by waiting for them, or by rehashing everything once they finally arrive, which not only reinforces their bad behaviour but annoys those who did bother to arrive on time. Reward punctuality, not tardiness. Begin on the button and you will see the number of late arrivals dwindle over time. (A word in private will sort out any repeat offenders.)
It’s clear that at the outset you also need to do things such as outline the agenda points, emphasise time constraints and allocate responsibilities, i.e. note-taker/ timekeeper. By the way, despite referring to them in the opening quote, the taking of minutes is not needed in most work situations; instead, record actions agreed, by whom they are to be implemented, and by when. Often, and this might seem somewhat unusual, it can also be useful to appoint a ‘conscience’ at the beginning, one of those in attendance who is given permission to interject at any point during the proceedings when they feel things are going off -track. This can be a useful device to deploy as it gets another person involved in the running of the meeting, and it can come in handy for you when an off -agenda item is raised by someone: the conscience can step in and kill it, rather than you seeming to shut down debate on the matter. In general, the more people you can actively involve in different ways in managing the meeting the better as too many passengers around the table is never a good idea. And of course, phones off before you start.
The main, or middle part of the meeting is about working through the agenda points, sticking to time, and getting (and recording) agreement on each point before moving to the next. Sounds easy, but, as you have no doubt experienced, this is where a multitude of problems can arise. The key here is how well you balance control and participation. Anyone can control a meeting by closing down discussion and stifling debate; this defeats the purpose, however. You want participation, but you also want to manage the discussion in a way that allows involvement from all participants, encourages healthy debate, discourages side meetings and prevents conflict from getting out of hand. There’s no magic answer as to how to get that balance right; it’s about being assertive, using your communication skills for best effect, stepping in when you see unacceptable things happening, or when the ‘heat’ rises too much, and knowing when to wrap up the discussion on each point.
In terms of bringing meetings to a close, you should always endeavour to finish on time or, at the very least, that when the allocated period is reached you make a conscious decision to extend the meeting. Open-ended meetings are frustrating for all concerned and if you can’t get through things in the agreed time, it’s rare that you suddenly become hyper-productive by adding on a half-hour or so to proceedings. Unless it’s a vital matter, it’s probably best to stop and pick it up at the next meeting, or reschedule a get-together if it’s more urgent. If you agree an hour for a meeting (which is about right for most run-of-the-mill work gatherings), then stick to it – and if you realise that you can’t, then for the next time you should consider whether you are trying to do too much, or if you need to improve your meeting management skills.
To end the meeting, summarise all the points agreed, ensure that each attendee is clear about the action they must take afterwards – and the completion date for same – thank everyone for coming and for participating. It is also useful to get each person in attendance to vocally commit to what has been agreed – when people make ‘public’ commitments, they are less likely to renege later, or at least you will know by their tone that they are paying lip-service to something and you can then pick it up with them in private.
Lack of structure and poor management skills are the two most common causes of unproductive meetings. The ability to run a good meeting brings all of your communication and people management skills into play and you need to be ‘in control’ without seeming to be marshalling the event like a schoolteacher. You want to encourage participation, but only in a way that makes a positive contribution; allowing someone to drone on or stray off the point is not helpful. So, meetings are also about your ability to manage behaviour and your simple goal should be to make your meetings uplifting and inspiring affairs – not events that your people dread attending.
At the end of each meeting, here’s a suggestion, ask all in attendance two questions: 1. Did you feel the meeting was a productive use of your time? If not, why not? and 2. How can we make the meeting better the next time? feedback is vital for improving any aspect of management performance, so don’t be afraid to gather feedback from attendees at your meeting.
To close, some time back, I was working in an organisation and as I passed a group of employees on the corridor – who had just left a meeting in one of the conference rooms – I heard one girl say “I was so bored in there I thought I was going to die” which was met with “me too” all round.
Would you really want your people saying things like that as they left one of your meetings?
If you found the content of this article interesting, I have expanded on the topic in my book, 'The Essential Manager'. Click on the image to the left to purchase the book on Amazon, or if you'd like a signed copy you can purchase one directly on this site via our products page.