The Art and Science of Doing Meetings Right

by Peter Economy, author, Wait, I’m the Boss?!?

In a survey some years ago, Microsoft found that people spend 5.6 hours a week in meetings and that 71 percent of American workers said that the meetings they participate in “aren’t very productive.”1 That’s a problem. Although many employees in meetings are anxiously thinking about that desk full of work they should be doing, others are daydreaming or checking their smartphones for messages.

There are many ways for meetings to go wrong. Despite this, they are a fundamental part of how teams get work done, and they are essential for any organization. The key is to have good meetings, not bad ones.

You might not realize it, but aside from mastering the basic skills of team management, it’s imperative that you do the same for meeting management. After all, the members of your team will communicate with each other and conduct business primarily in the meeting forum.

Common Meeting Problems to Avoid

Did you know there is a good chance most of the meetings held in your office have been largely unproductive? According to a study by Accountemps, approximately 25 percent of time spent in meetings is worthless and a waste of time. Couple this percentage with the fact that an estimated 21 percent of working hours are spent in meetings — with upper management spending even more time in them — and you start to see the value of learning and applying effective meeting skills.2

But why are so many meetings today going so wrong? Here are some possible reasons:

Meetings last too long: Many managers fill out the allotted meeting time with items irrelevant to the business at hand. Next thing you know, a meeting that could have been wrapped up in just twenty minutes turns into a sixty-minute meeting — simply because a sixty-minute meeting was on the schedule.

Too many meetings are being held: When you’re headed into a crunch time, you may need to have a lot of meetings to keep everyone in close communication. However, this is probably not the case when things aren’t so hectic. If you’re having a lot of meetings and not much is getting done, schedule fewer meetings, and see what happens.

Participants are unprepared: If meeting attendees are not adequately prepared beforehand, then they may very well be lost throughout its duration. Ensure that attendees have done their homework before the meeting starts — not after.

Meetings are unfocused: Meetings can lack focus if participants are not prepared and if managers fail to keep meetings on topic. From distractions to personal agendas, there are many ways a meeting can go off track.

Certain participants dominate meetings: Many meeting attendees can feel intimidated by any loud and opinionated team members (there are always one or two). When this happens, the team hears fewer perspectives and critical contributions can be stifled.

KEYS TO A GREAT MEETING

With so many ways for a meeting to go wrong, there are still many steps you can take to make sure the rest of your meetings can go right. Here’s how:

Be on time: Punctuality matters. Start and end meetings on time. This sets a good example for participants, it shows you are serious, and it demonstrates that you respect their time.

Focus less on exclusion: Instead of thinking about who you aren’t going to invite to participate in a meeting, think about who you are going to invite. However, make sure that those invited have a good reason to participate.

Be prepared: Don’t be that boss who wanders into a meeting unprepared — wasting your time and everyone else’s as you try to get up to speed. Be fully prepared before the meeting starts.

Create an agenda: The agenda is critical for a successful meeting. It gives team members advance notice about topics of discussion, providing them with the opportunity to prepare for the meeting ahead of time. This saves time and improves productivity.

Decrease the number of meetings you have: This is really a case where quality counts far more than quantity. Decrease the number of meetings you schedule, but increase the quality of the remaining meetings. Call meetings only when they’re necessary. No more, no less.

Document action items: Create a surefire system to document, summarize, and assign action items to individuals after meetings are completed. Flipcharts, apps, digital note-taking — these are just a few of the tools you can use to capture action items. If you want your meetings to have purpose and direction, you will have to create task assignments and follow-up actions. Spend less time merely talking and more time doing.

Acquire feedback: How do you know how effective your meetings are unless you hear thoughts from meeting attendees? Find out what you do right and what you need to improve in order to strengthen future meetings.

Don’t be afraid to use tools: In today’s world, there are so many resources and tools you can use to improve how meetings are held. These include project management tools or even websites that help craft agendas. Plus, if a key member of your team is working remotely, you can use internet voice and video call programs or apps to hold meetings with all invitees. Examples of these include Skype, Zoom, Google Hangouts, or any number of apps included on your iPhone or Android smartphone.

Adapted, and reprinted with permission from Career Press, an imprint of Red Wheel/Weiser LLC, Wait, I’m the Boss?!? by Peter Economy is available wherever books and ebooks are sold or directly from the publisher at www.redwheelweiser.com or 800–423–7087.