Author: Paurian

In the last post, I briefly mentioned that having a purpose statement for the meeting could reduce the time it will take. That’s the focus aspect of planning, with the intent of staying on the predetermined topic and goal.

In our world, across the globe, no symbol is more ecumenically purposeful and meaningful than the bathroom sign. Everyone wants to know where it is in case they, or someone they know, needs it. That sign has a specific purpose, and is meaningful to a wide audience. This is what our meetings aspire to be. However…

There are different types of people who attend these meetings and each one will have a different goal. In a board meeting with treasurer, publicity, technical, administrative and secretarial staff present, you have each person interested in a different aspect of the meeting. Even stand-ups have a manager and sometimes a director attending along with developers and knowledge experts.

The purpose of the meeting should be distinct and focused. If everyone needs or wants to know the information that other departments provide, it should be stated what the expectations are. Perhaps the director wants to know how much a software upgrade costs and the developer wants to know if and when to expect that software to provide an estimated time of completion to the manager.

Often there are attendees who have little input and no interest in the rest of the meeting. The brief information they provide could be summed up in an email or a pre-recorded video presentation.

To make meetings more meaningful:

1. Think of what you can provide that others cannot.
   • It doesn’t have to be unique knowledge or abilities … it might be finding some time putting slides together when other members of the team cannot spare the time for it.
2. Consider if what you provide has interest to other attendees.
   • Put on a thinking cap and use your listening skills. Ask the other attendees if you’re unsure. Healthy teams want to improve the overall productivity and will be glad to help.
3. Think of what you’d like from the other attendees.
   • A favor to ask
   • Information
   • Opportunity request
4. Remember that these meetings are give and take.
   • Don’t spend too much time doing one or the other; Ideally, you want to sit on both sides. Otherwise there are better ways to achieve the goal than taking up other people’s time in meetings.

Meetings should be genuinely helpful in providing direction and cohesion to the team and its individuals. They are a critical element in the decision making process, and can be a form of team building. Making them more effective, impactful, timely, and meaningful saves money and frustration by increasing productivity and involvement.

Meetings are inevitable, but sometimes they become extreme. At one time, Ford had meetings to prepare for meetings.

Research published by the MIT Sloan in 2007 expressed that meetings increased in length and frequency since 1960 such that executive employees spend an average of 13 hours more a week on them.

Today, these same people spend over half of their time at work in meetings. It was determined in a 2014 Bain & Co. research that to prepare for a successful meeting, the presenter (or moderator) and his/her collective subordinates spend nearly 43x more time on collecting, organizing and preparing the content than the time spent in the meetings themselves.

“One company’s weekly senior leadership meeting directly consumed 7,000 hours per year for the attendees—but 300,000 hours company-wide among subordinates in preparation and related meetings, the study said.”

The “Stand-Up” meeting, introduced with the Scrum methodology, was created to reduce meeting times. The idea was that with everyone standing up, we would get tired on our feet and want to leave soon after the meeting started. In nearly every stand-up meeting I’ve attended in the past seven years, most, if not all, of the attendees were sitting down and they lasted longer than the 5 to 10 minute suggested time block.

From grandiose annual board meetings to mundane daily stand-ups, meetings have been found to only be effective during 1/3 of their time.

For the most part, I suggest using email, wikis, and discussion technology (like Slack or MS Teams) to disseminate information. In situations where you think the chat would go longer than 2 responses or an email would require more than 5 lines, call for a quick meeting.

We need a balance between long-threaded emails, confusing text chats and drudging group-meets. I don’t have one answer that fits the variety of daily situations, but there are some suggestions from personal experience and the experiences of others that can help.

Here are some that I found noteworthy:

Have a purpose Statement For The Meeting

I have a successful friend who refuses to attend any meeting without one. It must have a time-block, a topic and a goal like: Meeting to discuss the new client website 2-2:15, to make a decision on a WordPress theme.

Prepare for the meeting, even if you only an attendee

If you’re leading the meeting, provide something for the attendees to read or do before the meeting.

If you’re attending the meeting, treat it as a job interview with questions for yourself that you’d like answered. You don’t need to ask them in the meeting because just having them makes you more attentive and aware. Several coworkers have treated meetings this way and I’ve watched every one of them advance their career quickly. I believe there’s a correlation.

Treat each meeting differently

Not all problems are the same. Some are quick one-offs. Others are larger or more heated issues. Adjust the time in the meetings accordingly.

Use an Egg Timer

End every meeting 5 minutes early via an egg-timer. When it goes off, the meeting is over. It’s nobody’s fault – it’s just the rule. If more needs to be discussed then more time is needed to plan the discussion. Take a break and schedule the meeting at least one hour later. This gives people time to prepare.

Penalize Latecomers

Seth Godin suggests that those who come in 2-minutes later than the last person, after the meeting’s start time, contributes $10 to a collective group fund.

It’s best to work this out with the team’s culture, first. As it can ruffle some feathers telling people how to spend their money.

I had a boss/company owner who would create penalties (such as singing to the group) if they were late.

Prohibit Phones

A Harvard study shows that just having a phone, even face-down, on a table reduces attention and productivity.

Leave Unproductive Meetings Early

Seth Godin also suggests that if you’re not adding value to a meeting, leave.

I suggest you do it politely and with permission. Leaving meetings might be against the corporate culture and can come across as rude. Talk to your supervisor to gather expectations on this.