| The vast majority of people would agree that their working life is getting faster, busier and more pressured. Time has become our scarcest commodity, as well as our best excuse for not having delivered some of the more important aspects of our roles – developing future strategy, providing feedback on a key organisational initiative, developing our people yet alone ourselves.
And what takes up most of our time at work? Meetings. A recent study by the Wharton Centre for Applied Research in Pennsylvania found that Executives and senior/middle managers spend between 30% and 60% of their time in meetings, but they describe just 56% of this time as being spent productively.
Each minute spent ineffectively in your meetings is costing the organisation money, and draining your people’s commitment and energy. The good news is there are 3 simple, practical steps you can take to make your meetings more effective and engaging: focus, energy and ownership.
FOCUS
Did you know?
- Senior teams typically spend less than 250 hours together a year, and just 15% of this time is spent discussing strategy (Harvard Business Review, 2004)
- The executive team at one global organisation spent more time selecting its Christmas card than debating the strategy for developing its African markets
- High performing organisations and individuals spend around 35-80% of their time focusing on the key issues, the things that will make the biggest difference but are not necessarily the most time pressing issues
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Taking Action
- Create a clear, distinct focus and purpose for each meeting
- Deal with operational and strategic issues in different meetings
- Patrick Lencioni, author of Death by Meeting, recommends creating a four meeting flow:
Meeting Type |
Time Required |
Purpose |
Daily Check-in |
5 minutes |
Share daily schedule and activities |
Weekly Tactical |
45 – 90 minutes |
Review operational goals, resolve obstacles and issues |
Monthly Strategic |
2 – 4 hours |
Brainstorm, define and explore issues impacting long-term success |
Quarterly Review |
1 to 2 days |
Review strategy, explore competitive landscape and external issues. Time for Team and personal development |
- Focus on decisions, not detail
- Share and read the key information ahead of the meeting
- State what this information is for (eg for info only, discussion or decision)
- Instil discipline
- Don’t allow the discussion to divert into interesting, but irrelevant areas
- If the topic isn’t relevant to the majority of people in the meeting, take it off line
- Start on time, every time – challenge each other if you’re late
- Ensure you’re discussing the right issues for your level - delegate lower value issues
- Make sure the right people are in the room
- Avoid the ‘cover my arse’ principle at all costs – ie “I’ll invite anyone and everyone, if they don’t attend then they’re responsible for any issues/problems arising”
- If others apply this principle, challenge why the meeting is happening and who really needs to attend – learn to say no
- Only invite people who can add value and who can get value from the meeting
- Invite special interest people on an ‘as needed’ basis or meet them offline
ENERGY
Did you know?
- In a recent poll, when asked what they’d prefer to do rather than have to sit through a boring meeting:
- 54% of those polled said they would rather mow the lawn
- 41% said they would rather wash the kitchen floor
- 25% said they would prefer a trip to the dentist
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Taking Action
- Set the scene
- Ensure everyone understands why you’re discussing each issue/topic, what you’re trying to achieve – the overall objective and the goal for the meeting – and the value taking action will bring people
- Encourage conflict
- It will increase the quality of the discussion, challenge assumptions in your thinking and lead to better decisions. But once a decision is made, you all own it - Intel’s meeting philosophy is “Disagree then commit”
- Never make a decision without 3 genuinely different alternatives on the table
- Change the environment
- Remove all the chairs and conduct some meetings standing up. Research shows this cuts meeting time by between 20% and 50%, with no negative impact on the quality of discussion or decision
- Regularly review the impact of your decisions, and celebrate your successes
- Get issues off the agenda as quickly as possible
- Make decisions and follow them through. If no decision is needed, why are you discussing it?
OWNERSHIP
Did you know?
- A UK study in 2005 showed that 75% of employees hear about organisational decisions on the gossip grapevine
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Taking Action
- Increase ownership
- A major media organisation found their meetings were constantly descending into moaning sessions. Now if you raise an issue, you own it! Not necessarily the actions, but ensuring the issue is resolved/improved
- Check everyone has the same understanding
- Get each individual, not the chair, to summarise their actions. Better still, to increase active involvement, get people to summarise each others’ actions
- Be prepared to give up things
- If you don’t give things up, you haven’t got space to own next priorities.
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