How to ATTEND Meetings
Bill Jensen
Seasoned Strategist and Proven Problem Solver: Expert in strategy, leading complex, tech-driven, global, enterprise-wide transformations and change programs.
3 Amazing Rules No One Talks About
Meetings are among the most powerful constructive/destructive paradoxes at work today. Can’t live without ‘em, and... Arrrrrgh... Can’t live with ‘em.
So why is it that — while most of us spend most of our time attending meetings, not running them — almost all the billions of words of advice are about how to run a meeting?
Time to change that. From decades of my studying awesome workarounds and non-sanctioned best practices, here are three amazing rules for attending meetings.
1. Never Ever Reply ‘Yes’
Most every meeting today is initiated through an electronic invitation. Email and other e-returns provide three possible responses: Yes, No, and Maybe. (AKA: Tentative Yes.)
For meetings where you are not the principle organizer and with more than two-to-three people: Never ever reply Yes. No matter how enthusiastically you want to attend. No matter how much a Yes will make you look good to the Powers That Be.
Always respond Tentative Yes. Then wait for the agenda or more details about why your attendance is crucial. (I’ve done three decades of research on this: More than 80% of us go to meetings without knowing why our attendance is crucial or what value we’ll be getting or giving with our attendance. And most agendas are useless! While they may give you the topics to be discussed, and maybe the intended business outcome, they almost never help you understand why YOUR attendance is crucial.)
As often as possible, blow off as many meetings as possible! Then: Buttonhole the meeting leader afterward. “Gee, Jeff, so sorry I missed that meeting, I was double booked. (White lie). Can you gimme the 30-second recap?” If that meeting was an hour long, you just saved yourself 59 minutes and 30 seconds!
(For meetings you do attend, apply 2. and 3.)
2. Never Go to a Meeting Without Personal Goals
Not team or business goals. Personal goals. Know why YOU are going, what value YOU are there to give, and what value YOU are there to get.
The best/fastest personal goal-setting revolves around Know, Feel, Do…
Know: “What’s the one thing I need to learn, understand, or think about, that I could only accomplish by attending this meeting?”
Feel: “What experience must I have [e.g., engaged, interactive, a chance to be heard], or what am I passionate about that must be addressed in this meeting?”
Do: “What action or Next Step must I get from this meeting, or must be decided at this meeting?”
Now comes the hardest part: Act on your goals! If your personal goals are not being met during the meeting, whose responsibility is that? Not the meeting leader’s. Yours! Actively participate in the meeting to achieve your Know, Feel, Do goals. If you leave the meeting without those goals being met, don’t blame the meeting leader or the meeting structure. You alone own that.
3. Never Leave a Meeting Without Getting Three Questions Answered
1. (Know) “What’s the one thing you want us to take away from this meeting?”
2. (Feel) “How do we best engage and share this information and these insights with those who weren’t here?”
3. (Do) “What’s the one thing I/we need to do immediately after this meeting?”
If the meeting leader is not proactively answering those questions, you know whose responsibility it is to get those answers! (See above.)
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Bill Jensen Site, Twitter, FB. Bill has been researching how work gets done for over three decade — over 1,000,000 people interviewed and surveyed. (Much of what he’s found horrifies him.) Bill’s latest book, Future Strong, is about the five deeply personal choices each of us must make to be ready for all the disruptive tomorrows heading our way.