Conduct Your Meetings Well

How many times has it happened that you’ve been to a meeting or attended a call and realized that it was a total waste of your time? That you were there just as a ceremonial head or to mark your presence? That there were so many people that it was more of a townhall than a meeting? That the meeting or call was mostly monologue and there was hardly any exchange of ideas to arrive at a better collective decision which is the actual intent of a meeting? If you answered ‘yes’ to anyone of these, would you like to know how to conduct a more effective meeting? Or, would you like to know how to escape the meetings that are not useful to you and make the most of the meetings that you attend? If yes, let’s continue.

The original purpose of the meeting was to arrive at a better and more effective decision in the interest of the organization. The intent was to harness the collective brain power of the group vis-à-vis an individual’s intellect that may not suffice when stakes are high. Over a period of time, we forget the goal behind meetings and get into a meeting-rut where meetings happen for the sake of meeting. Any meeting where you’ve not contributed or at least learned something that could not have been done via a simple email or memo is a total waste of your time. A meeting where your brain is not getting stretched beyond the routine work is not an effective meeting; neither for you nor for the organization.

How many meetings do you attend where you just want to be seen? It’s like being a good student in the class who sits on the first bench and who must be in the eyes of the teacher all the time. If we’re welcoming bench warmers in the meetings, are we encouraging the right culture in the organization? Is that the best use of the company time?

How many meetings and calls have you attended where you don’t even know the agenda? Where there is no agenda mentioned in the meeting invite? Or, where there is an agenda mentioned but you don’t know your part? Or, where you don’t know what message you’ll share or what you’re expected to learn? Or, where you don’t know what you’re trying to achieve as a team?

What should be the ideal number of participants in a meeting? What should be the ideal duration of meeting? If the number is more than 7-9, it won’t be an effective meeting. Even if each person gets 5 minutes to speak or contribute, we’re talking about a meeting that would last approximately an hour. More than that, we start to lose interest and focus. If your meeting lasts more than an hour, better call it a brainstorming session and that should be conducted differently than a meeting. If there are more than 7-9 participants in a meeting, find out how you’re going to contribute and/or how everyone in the team is going to add value to the meeting. Anybody who is there just as an audience can be better served by sharing the meeting notes later.

The whole intent of this conversation is to pause, ponder and ask question – are we making best use of our time and the time of the organization? If we’re doing something because it has always been done like this, we are not being optimally effective and we’re not serving the organization the best way we can.

So, next time you send a meeting invite ask yourself this question – do you need everyone in that meeting? Can you write in the agenda how everybody is going to contribute in the meeting? If you don’t have the answer, don’t invite the person. If you’ve the answer, document it against that person’s name so that he/she comes prepared. Conversely, if you’re being called for a meeting, check beforehand what would be your role and do your homework before the meeting. Make your meeting a value add for all the participants. If you can’t add value, politely excuse yourself from the meeting.

I’m blessed to have a boss who wants to be called only where he is required and who doesn’t want to be a participant to all the calls or meetings. I hope you too have a boss like that. Do have this conversation with your boss. It would do good to both of you. If you’re the boss, I request you to start and nurture the right meeting culture within your team. Let’s make the difference wherever we can.

#meetings #corproate #effectiveness #timemanagement?#culture