Make Meetings Hard to Get into And Great To Be in, in 4 Steps

Nathalie straddles dual C-suite roles at a manufacturing company, overseeing marketing and acquisitions. Living on the West Coast of the United States and working with teams that span the East Coast, Germany, and India, on her slowest days she’s on calls from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.

After ten months with this organization, Nathalie had a strong bench of vice presidents she could delegate to. However, the company was making a strategic pivot, demanding many conversations with peers and her own team alike. During this transformation, Nathalie’s role required her to step back to assess the industry landscape, contemplate the bigger picture, and?drive thought leadership?on the executive team. The problem? She needed 90-minute to two-hour blocks of time to make substantive progress on complex tasks, but Nathalie’s meetings left scarce time to eat lunch, never mind any time to think—an activity less easily squeezed into the chance 15 minutes she might find free.

As we analyzed scheduling patterns in Nathalie’s organization, we discovered it was too easy to add meetings to her calendar. The clear antidote was to have her time play hard to get. If your schedule doesn’t allow you to block time for thinking freely, here are four ways to reduce your meeting tax.

1.??????Rename calendar blocks.??Nathalie’s boss is the CEO. His executive assistant, who could see Nathalie’s calendar details, would routinely stomp over time slots that were marked as work time, think time, or simply blocked. If you’ve blocked your calendar for a legitimate reason,?give the time blocks less obvious names. Oases of time are less likely to be hijacked if they sound important or seem to involve other participants. These time blocks are vital to the business’ future success, so don’t be shy about titling them strategic plan, CEO advisory committee, or board discussion. Lest someone break your naming code, come up with half a dozen different labels you can rotate instead of sticking to just one. Change them up depending on timely, cyclical business such as budgets, performance reviews, and investor meetings. By naming our time blocks strategically, we retain control of space for thought, and reduce our complaints about overindulging short-term demands.

2.??????Elevate the price of admission.?With meetings packed closer than sardines in a can, it’s no wonder that many have purposes and outcomes that are defined on the fly. This leads to?wasted time?for all attendees, the absence of the right people in the room and lack of essential data or adequate preparation. When someone wants to meet with you, do not schedule a meeting until they provide you with its purpose, specific outcomes, and what they want from you during the discussion. Establishing these entrance criteria forces the requester to better prepare to optimize everyone’s time. This useful exercise will make some excess engagements evaporate as identifying this much information proves sufficient in many circumstances.?

3.??????Have a plan for reading materials.?Decide how you will tackle reading materials. Amazon is known for requiring a document that everyone reads for 10 to 20 minutes before discussions begin so that all participants?review the same document simultaneously. Some firms require a packet of materials be shared at least 24 hours before they are to be discussed. Cancel a meeting if study materials are not available for review in the agreed-upon time window.

4.??????Claim at the beginning of the meeting.?After entering a meeting, the exit door remains ajar in the first half. Right out of the gate, ask people to follow the?Claim process?for each meeting: context, goal, outcomes, role of the audience, and a poll for any additional items. This information might reveal that you’re not required at this discussion. If you decide to stay, you might still leave less than halfway through if you notice other attendees are not as up to speed as you, further discussion is needed before coming to you as a decision maker or there are too many open items to successfully achieve the meeting’s stated outcomes. While you might hesitate to leave earlier, you’re likely to be ruder if your frustration mounts or you start to multi-task. Politely extract yourself by saying something like, “This is a much-needed discussion on understanding the market conditions before we decide on X. Because you and I have already discussed the market conditions, I will leave this meeting so everyone can benefit from the same information and we can schedule a follow up once we’re ready to make a decision.”

Once you emplace your hard-to-get measure, be sure to communicate the new parameters to your team, so that everyone understands the new process is sponsored by you. Those who schedule your meetings will have an easier job and safety from criticism as they defend your time. When we make our time harder to get, we improve the quality of meetings and liberate space to do the rest of our jobs—the work that gets done outside conference rooms and within the confines of our brains.

This article first appeared on Forbes in January 2021.?https://www.forbes.com/sites/sabinanawaz/2021/01/11/make-meetings-hard-to-get-into-and-great-to-be-in-in-4-steps/?sh=4e8ca7071b39

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