On meetings and their efficiency

“How many meetings that we daily hold in our organization would our clients be willing to reimburse?” This was the question by one of the participants at the communication skills trainings I delivered quite a while ago. The question cut through my brain and not only stayed there but reproduced into a series of new baby questions with similar genome. Such as: If I invest my resources into an activity, what’s the market for that? What reimbursement, if any, would I get? 

If this sounds a bit simplified, let’s get it off the table fast. Yes, it is simplified. And no, not everything we do in our lives should be put into context of reimbursability. Still… Having this check-up question on hand helped protect me from being overwhelmed when time was scarce, and opportunities were abundant. Let’s assume that the corona virus will be suppressed, and we will once again face the challenge of multitasking, prioritizing and, being efficient. Let’s take the time in between to think about how to have better, more efficient meetings. 

To structure my thoughts, I will refer to the answers that I get from clients when I ask them a simple question: why are your meetings not efficient enough? The answers usually revolve around focus. 

Keeping the focus of your meeting product

Well begun is half done. Meetings are called on a daily, sometimes hourly basis, and many times their only purpose is for the meeting organizer to pass a little bit of accountability to others. The rationale is this: “If I invite more people into the game, they will have something to contribute, and that gives me an excuse to ask them to elaborate and contribute even more. Ha! Now it is not only my responsibility anymore.” Responsibility spreads, but so do the time and the resources to complete something. 

How to go around this?

• Think of what the outcome of your meeting will be. What will the discussion of meeting attendants produce? What do you need to agree on? Seems simple, but think about how many of the meetings you attended ended up with the decision … to have one more meeting? Many of the meetings I attended had rather vague definition of the meeting outcome. The vaguer the definition, the bigger the meeting participants list.
• When you define the meeting outcome (let’s assume that the meeting is about redefining a process in your department) think two steps ahead. How will this help your organization? And how will it help your customers (or other stakeholders)?
• Before you send the invite, think how much you can complete before the meeting. Maybe a series of one-on-one conversations on the phone that take 5 minutes each are more productive than having 5 people discussing a topic at the meeting for an hour. 
• Select meeting participants wisely. Bring in only those that are key for the buy-in, decision-making and discussion quality. 

Keeping the focus on meeting topic

You did a great job at defining the meeting product, you had all those preliminary discussions, and in the preparation process you even got to some unique and valuable insights. You sent out the invite and the expectations for the meeting, along with detailed instructions for others on how to prepare. 

Five minutes into the conversation, one of the participants, let’s call him “Mike”, starts sharing the experience with a customer from three months ago. And he certainly is taking his time. You sense a little bit of eye rolling from other participants, some are impatiently looking at their phones, and you would love to redirect the focus, but… Mike is very senior, he’s been working for your organization much longer than you did plus he is one of the most successful sellers around. 

As meeting facilitator, it is not your job to be popular, but to be efficient and mindful of everyone’s time. It is also not your job to be rude, aggressive and impatient. How to stop “Mike” and keep him engaged and committed?

• Call “Mike” by his name to stop him. Think of the tone of your voice. The name shouldn’t sound threatening but inviting. Like you would call a child when you want them to come and look for this secret treasure (candy) you hid somewhere in the kitchen. 
• When you have a split second of silence, summarize. “I see two things in what you’re saying, Mike, let’s hear from Eileen on how this affects her department.” When someone starts talking too much and drifts away from the topic, this is not because they are mean people who want to ruin the meeting, but because they feel they have something important to say. And they want to be heard. Are they heard when they ramble? Not necessarily, because others are too engaged with eye rolling and phone checking. By summarizing, you give Mike two important signals: a) I heard you, and b) I want to make sure everyone else did, too. 
• If what Mike is talking about is relevant, but not for the meeting topic, ask him to park this topic: elaborate on it and come back with more content. Be very specific in what he needs to prepare. 

Keeping the focus of meeting participants

How much do the meeting participants own the meeting topic? That correlates with the engagement they are about to show. I have been to so many meetings where the only thing expected from me was to report on something, or, worse, listen to something. And it is so easy to tune out of meetings these days. You just pretend that there is something highly important in your mailbox. Or nod attentively, having your mind somewhere else, just like we learned in elementary school. 

How to help the meeting participants to own the topic more? 

• Start with something engaging, that will help interest your participants in the topic from the first second onward. Starting with questions, statistics, quotes, stories is much better than the usual “Thanks for coming, this is what we will talk about” intro.
• Make it a discussion. Asking short open questions helps. Even though you have the job to facilitate the meeting, it is not your job to know everything. If you shift your perspective from “I am responsible for great content” to “I am responsible for great dialogue” it will be much easier for others to own your topic. If Mike was talking about how your new process will affect the sales, as meeting facilitator, you can ask all others to talk about how this will affect their area of work. Be specific with the questions. “Give me one benefit and one obstacle this will bring to your department” is much better than “What do you think about it?”
• Have quick check-ups throughout the presentation in the form of body poll. How relevant has this been so far (thumbs up for very relevant, thumbs down for not relevant at all, and anywhere in between)? On a scale of 0 to 10 how much will it help to speed up our delivery? Raise your hand if you have at least one customer who feels the same way. 

The selection of the assorted tips above is not a universal recipe for meeting success. Thinking ahead and investing some time in preparation and skill building is. 

Martina Merslavic is the Coach and Adriatic Region Lead at Own The Room. Own The Room provides interactive, intensive and fun trainings on various communication skills, including leading effective meetings. Martina believes that everyone has the ability and the responsibility to raise the communication standards.