How to Lead Meetings People Love to Attend and Get Work Done at the Same Time
Unproductive meetings drive productive people nuts.
If organizational culture is the way we treat each other while we work,
Meetings are culture building activities.
10 reasons the meeting sucked:
- Bloviators.
- Texting under the table.
- No agenda.
- We covered that last time.
- Irrelevant attendees.
- Pretending to take notes, but really sending email.
- Ignored or disengaged remote participants.
- Rabbit chasing.
- Could we please do something?
- It should have been an email.
10 ways to lead productive meetings:
#1. Once a quarter work on the meeting. Ask attendees to prepare one suggestion for improving the meeting. Test drive one suggestion a month.
#2. Everyone participates. No drifters allowed.
The number one thing you can do to lead meetings people love to attend is facilitate everyone’s participation.
#3. Prepare people to participate.
- Send an agenda. Prepare it together, when appropriate.
- Identify participants with special contributions to the meeting.
- Send background information and questions ahead of time.
#4. Take breaks every hour.
People can’t pay attention if they’re thinking about the restroom.
#5. Address rabbit chasers with curiosity. (You may be uncomfortable confronting them.)
“I’m not making the connection. What brought this to mind at this point in our meeting?” If it’s off topic, “Could we save that for another conversation? I’d really like to stick with our agenda.”
#6. Begin on a positive note. Constant negatives drain energy.
- What’s working?
- What are you learning about (insert topic)?
- With management or leadership in mind, complete this sentence. “I used to (insert behavior), now I (insert behavior).”
#7. Have participants respond to a question before the meeting. Read the responses in the meeting. Ask everyone to guess who wrote the response.
#8. Choose shorter meeting lengths over longer. Be bold. Try 30 minutes instead of 60.
#9. Fewer attendees cause higher ownership.
#10. Ask yourself, “Is this going to make a difference?” if not, cut it.
What drives you nuts in meetings?
How might meetings be improved?
Thanks for the useful ideas, Dan. Will try it with my team and see if they work!
Thanks Albert, best for the journey.
I introduced weekly leadership team meetings 3 weeks ago. Here is what we do in 90 minutes: Same agenda every week same time every week.
Reporting is short and we go over the good personal and company news, company scorecard, employee/customer headlines, priorities on track or not, weekly “to do’s” done or not.
We also have an issues list which is the bulk of the meeting. The secret sauce recipe is: no discussion during reporting to keep it short, prioritize the top three issues, then we IDS (Identify the real issue, Discuss options, the Solve the issue) the top issue and move on to the next. Solving an issue involves putting one or more weekly “to do” items on someones plate that will be reported on at the next meeting. We continue to solve and prioritize the next three until its time to conclude by making sure everyone has their to do’s and then we rate the meeting from 1-10.
What do you think?
I like the concept, just wondering how you get people there for 90 minutes a week and stay fresh?
Start with good news keep reporting short never go off on a tangent during reporting if somebody has an issue that’s raised during reporting it gets dropped down to the issues list and then the issues aren’t just talked about they’re identified to find the root cause of the issue they’re discussed to find possible options and then they’re solved with action steps for the week and somebody’s name attached to the action steps. So far it’s very good!
Thanks nine. I love your approach. When I read your last activitiy… rate the meeting. KaPow!! I’m heading to an organization this Friday. I’m using the rating at the end. Powerful
Tolerance of tardiness sets the tone of failure from the start. It tells all the attendees their time is less important in the mind of the one who is tardy.
So true Scott Creech!
Thanks Scott. Absolutely
Absolutely, this one really gets on my nerves! Again, this is a leadership issue. Whoever is facilitating the meeting is responsible for starting on time AND addressing those who arrive late afterward.
I’m a new manager and my team of highly technical experts that often work on independent projects has expressed an interest in doing some team building. I am going to try the exercise where everyone answers a question and they have to guess who answered it at one of our team meetings. Thanks!
Thanks wagov. Let me know how it works for you, if you get a chance.
Our organization has started a practice of doing team check-in meetings standing up and often huddled in our work area rather than in a conference room. People tend to keep things brief and stick to the agenda when they are on their feet. We do a round table where you share what you worked on last week, what your working on this week, and any barriers you encountered. Its a great way to keep up with what others are doing and make connections with someone who can help you overcome the barrier.
Hi wagov the stand up meeting is used in the scrum software development methodology. Each member of the team gets a couple of minutes to inform the team of what they did yesterday, what they intend to do today and list any blockers. As the meeting is daily it’s a terrific way to ensure maximum focus and minimum time lost to faffing about or digressing!
Item one – do you NEED a meeting? Sometimes a meeting looks like the best way to do something, but meetings are a relatively expensive way of accomplishing things – group time isn’t cheap, after all. Sometimes intranet-accessible briefing sheets are an easier fix. Second, “birdtable” meetings, using a wall-mounted screen you stand around – it focuses people and gets people to engage quicker.
Thanks for the post and also the comments. I like the idea of rating the meeting and then give ideas for improvement. If you grade it low you must be willing to say what would have made it better. Often its down to your own engagement.
I think that leaders must be up for hearing the feedback and that their team must trust them enough to give that feedback especially if it is a low score.
People love it when you end a meeting early. However, my pet peeve is “I’m going to give you 10 minutes back of your time.” This is the mentality that you have fill all the booked time. We’re setting aside X minutes to cover topics and we all have an understanding that we won’t go over that time. However going under time isn’t some holy holiday you have bestowed upon me.
I try to honor the guidelines of good meeting planning, for those of which I’m responsible. I don’t always get it right but I do think that people appreciate organization, advanced agendas, knowing who the other participants are, and what decisions we may need to make during the meeting. When provided those who chose to prepare are obvious. I find that keeping a meeting fast paced and interactive keeps the texting and emailing from happening. If I see someone with their computer open, typing or reading, I act like I’m excited that they are taking notes and then ask them to share with everyone after the meeting.
I have empowered my team to have weekly meetings by themselves to keep each other up to date on major topics and to identify any issues. They barnstorm together to develop solutions and set base agendas for the next meeting. I only join the team meeting once a month at which time the team have had time to identify the 2 or 3 most important issues to present to me together with their suggested solutions. As my team is spread across the region and in different time zones I find that this approach empowers them to collaborate and focus on the key issues without going off track or wasting time. All of the team contributes and they learn from each other as they work together to identify solutions. Adopting this method has enabled me to remain more strategic in my thinking and empowered my team to take responsibility for the more tactical issues. I have also found that the meetings have been reduced to about 30 minutes as apposed to the 45 to 60 minutes previously as the team is now laser focused on outcomes and results.
1. No agenda prior to the meeting.
2. No project plan.
3. No follow-up.
4. All fluff & lies.
5. NO honest communication.
Here are a few things that identify poor leadership in meetings (to me): Starting late, no agenda, going past the scheduled time to end, and ending with zero action points for anyone to follow up with. To improve meetings, have a portion of the schedule ‘off line,’ all mobile devices put away and laptops closed. Only pen/paper allowed. Also, providing simple beverages and lights snacks can help a meeting feel much better.
Great Piece to reflect on.