4 Common Reasons Why Senior Leader Team Meetings Get Derailed

I work with senior leaders who spend lots of time in meetings with their peers. Some like this fact more than others, due in part to some common challenges they experience with each other. For instance:

Meetings With Peers Produce Low-Value Outcomes

Bringing a group of senior leaders together is an expensive proposition. It’s why if you’re asking your highest-paid people to meet, it should only be for a handful of reasons: To make a decision, agree on a path forward, debate an important idea, and so on. Bringing senior leaders together to simply inform one another or provide updates, or discuss problems with no real resolution or decision, is low value for them and costly for organizations.

Stop Talking About What You Are Working On

To get at this, stop talking about what you’re working on and start shifting the conversation to producing results. If you’re leading a discussion with other senior leaders, always decide what result you’re there to achieve ahead of time and determine how you’ll achieve the result in the time given.

Nobody Sees the Benefits In Your Approach

If you’re leading a discussion with peers, take the approach that you’re there to sell them on a particular course of action. Even when the value of your approach is sound, don’t assume others will see it. Peers are often the toughest audience a leader can face, which is why it’s even more important to appreciate where your audience really is, versus where you believe they “should” be.

You May Be Playing it Too Safe

The biggest mistake senior leaders make with one another in meetings? They play not to lose, instead of playing to win. In practice, this might look like keeping comments safe when sharing ideas, offering lukewarm insights that only state the obvious, backing down when challenged, staying quiet, only agreeing, or not holding peers accountable. Most of us are guilty of a few of these, so if you suspect this could be you, start small. Identify a few small risks you’re willing to take in the next meeting, prepare ahead, and when the moment comes, go for it.

What other challenges do you experience? Write in with your comments below.