How effective are your meetings???

It is a Monday morning, and you open your calendar with great optimism (right!?) yet; until you realize some meetings are questionable in their existence or if you can even provide any value in them, but guess what? You accepted, or even worse, perhaps you are the one who sent them...(suspense music, please).??

The unfamous WTF-am-I-doing-in-this meeting?feeling ??.?

Many of us can recognize that feeling, yes, the?WTF-am-I-doing-in-this meeting?feeling. That mix of confusion, boredom, and awkwardness all together in a determined timeslot. This is a disease that spreads quickly in an organization’s culture, where individuals often find themselves in meetings where nothing gets done, 0 outcomes, null, where meetings without a clear purpose are not motive of rejection or even question… sound familiar??

As you can imagine, this has an impact on productivity. Meetings are a productivity tool, and as with any other tool, we need to learn how to use them effectively. The problem here is the big assumption that because we as humans can meet people (I mean, I meet people all the time, in the office, kitchen, in bars, parks, come on!) implies that we know how to use this tool. If you think about it, summoning all our peers in a meeting is the simplest thing to do, click, click send, and done! And you can even create a series??, for god sake, and yet, it is surprising how few bother to assess employee skill levels or keep track of the meeting culture.?

Within organizations, meetings play a key role in socialization, building relationships, and, most importantly, shaping the culture. We need to be aware that meetings are not for free; they cost people's time, and given the number of resources an organization spends on meetings, improving their effectiveness should be an important priority, don't you think ?????

How are meetings affect people in your organization?

Despite the fact that so much has been written about meetings efficiency, it is a constant problem organization face, and the conundrum here is rather the nature of the problem, which is based on human interactions. Therefore, any improvement requires a?systemic change; since meetings affect how people collaborate and how they get their own work done, a different approach has to be taken; as professor Scott from University of North Carolina mentioned on?the science and fiction of meetings,??we need to tackle three fronts, improve employees’ skills in meetings, improve managers’ skills in meetings, and implement best and innovative practices for running particular types of meetings.

Thus, it is crucial to start assessing our meeting cultures; in another study made by Harvard University stop the meeting madness, they came up with an interesting way of evaluating meeting culture in an organization based on whether meetings are too frequent, poorly timed, or badly run, then they ran a series of pulse checks to get a better picture of what is the sentiment of meetings but most importantly how people get affected by their inefficiency.

Rethinking how we meet.

As mentioned, checking the status quo of your meeting culture will give you an idea of where to start and perform the respective types of changes gradually; in the end, let's not forget that similar to the values of a company, having them in cool posters all over, has never made somebody follow them, is rather until the collective lives upon them. As you can imagine, systematic changes take time and are gradual changes in multiple parts of the organization involving both top-down and bottom-up initiatives.?

So let's rethink how we meet; here are four changes with some actions which I believe can make a substantial difference if you at least become more aware of them. Remember, change starts with oneself!

l.- Meetings must have a purpose ?? Why are we meeting?

?If you can't answer that simple question, you are in the wrong direction in accepting that meeting. Avoid meeting just for the sake of meeting or because it has become an unquestionable habit.

Check on:

• Clear agenda and expected outcome.
• Plan meetings in advance to maximize efficiency.
• Send out an agenda along with any relevant information beforehand.
• Attendees should be able to reject or ask for clarification if it is unclear.

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ll.- Meetings are not for free ?? Are we getting the expected value for the time we are investing?

We often ignore the fact that by saying yes to something, we say no to something else; poor meetings can drain productivity and, as a consequence, carry a big emotional toll.

• Invite wisely your peers (key players/support)
• Mostly 30 mins are enough. The longer, consider attention span and doing breaks.
• Keep it on time! And if you need more time, ask kindly if your peers can stay a bit longer.
• Get prepared before the meeting, write your questions and take notes. A meeting where somebody is utterly behind the topic often leads to waste.
• Ask for feedback on how did you perform, on what works and what does not!

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lll.- Meetings must have a driver ?? Who is leading this meeting?

This might sound pretty obvious, but believe me is not, especially when it comes to the responsibility of the driver, which is often neglected by the lack of training and feedback or simply cocky overconfidence. So if this is unclear, ask for clarification; if things are not moving because the driver is not playing the role, better to postpone and find somebody else can take on. Meetings without a driver have a tremendous impact on productivity, so if you are a driver in a meeting, stick to your role.

As a driver you should:Encourage participation and introductions, especially when the more senior in the meeting is monopolizing the whole conversation.

• Keep the conversation focus, many folks are unaware of how simply a meeting can be jeopardized by moving its focus or going in circles/nowhere.
• Manage cultural differences and resolve conflicts.
• Define roles .- take notes, explain the problem

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lV.- Meetings come in different types ?? What kind of meeting do I need/ am I attending?

Thirty minutes are often enough for clarification, information exchange, and even for decision-making if the right meeting type has been chosen. If you are organizing a meeting with your peers, think about what you want to achieve first (purpose!); if the purpose is to reflect on an incident or recent change, where everybody's opinions should be listened to carefully, you might need more than thirty minutes based upon the number of participants and prepared activities. In the same way, if you need to take a decision, avoid using big meetings; more than five often leads to?group thinking?or ends up being inefficient

• Based on your intention, choose the type of meeting that fits the most for example workshop, informative meeting, training, team-building, problem-solving, etc.
• For decision-making, keep it small and involve the rest by other means. Is more effective to think about the matter individually, and meet to just take the decision, than trying to figure the whole thing out in the meeting with multiple participants.
• Be creative, and explore different formats.
• Define standards, this enhances your meeting culture by having the same expectations of meetings and formats.

Final words...

Meetings should not be the annoying part of our jobs, we all want to focus and get sh*t done and sure sometimes we do not feel like talking to other humans, is enough dealing with oneself...I get it??, but what about aiming for meetings where we lift each other up and feel energized afterwards? What about meetings where we feel we accoplished a lot in less than thirty minutes? What about meetings where you feel listened and valued? What about meetings where people feel purpose? What about meetings where we exploit our collective synergies? Everything starts with a vision, its our choice to decide which meeting culture we want to live in, and maybe, just maybe the WTF-am-I doing-in-this meeting?feeling transforms to what-an-awesome-meeting feeling.

Thanks for reading ????!