Just as young children thrive and flourish in an environment with clear and consistent expectations and boundaries, the success or failure of a meeting is also dependent on business guidelines and protocols that are clear, understandable and relevant to all. As participants, we all share responsibilities for both developing these guidelines and also adhering to them; in Part 4 the benefits of adopting these ground rules from an organisational viewpoint are outlined in more detail, but for now let us explore what differences we can make personally.
How often have you heard or uttered any of the following immortal phrases about meetings?
- ‘Yet another meeting about meetings.’
- ‘What a waste of time.’
- ‘That did not achieve a single thing.’
- ‘Death by meeting.’
- ‘Now I can get back to my real job.’
Think back to the bad meetings that made you feel this way. Was it because the meeting started late, because too much time was devoted to recapping previous meetings, or because the scheduled meeting time had elapsed without conclusions being reached or actions assigned?
We know that all these and many more frustrations with meetings are an everyday occurrence as we experience them for ourselves, and survey after survey confirms this.
‘Most professionals who meet on a regular basis admit that they do the following: daydream 91 per cent, miss meetings 96 per cent, miss parts of meetings 95 per cent, bring other work to meetings 73 per cent.’
Survey by MCI Conferencing
‘Workers spend an average of 5.6 hours per week in meetings and 69 per cent of responders felt that meetings are not productive.’
Microsoft survey tracking office productivity around the world
‘Biscuits are the key to a successful meeting’, according to a survey of 1,000 professionals. 80 per cent of respondents believe that the better the biscuit presented, the more successful the meeting.
Poll by Holiday Inn
‘49 per cent of participants considered unfocused meetings and projects as the biggest workplace time waster and the primary reason for unproductive workdays.’
An article in the Autumn 2006 issue of The Facilitator Newsletter
If you want to take an active role in transforming those ‘waste of my time’ meetings into productive and inspiring experiences, we challenge you to adopt the following ACTION PLAN for yourself, and ask your fellow participants to step up to the mark.
The Brilliant Meetings ACTION PLAN
Arrive on time, with relevant, well-prepared content
Choose your attitude (see Chapter 5 for more details)
Turn off all personal communication devices: phone, Blackberry™, laptop, etc.
Imagine your Chief Executive Officer (CEO) or Managing Director (MD) is present
Obey the agenda and stay until the end of the meeting
Never use jargon and avoid distracting side conversations
Participate actively – ‘silence is acceptance’
Learn what you do not know, share what you do know
Accept and fully support consensus decisions
Named actions must be completed
Let us take a look at each of these in turn.
Arrive on time, with relevant, well-prepared content
Your prompt arrival and preparation impacts on more people than just yourself – respect other people’s time as a valuable resource.
No one ever got fired for arriving early.
You are not in the meeting to make up numbers, so if you are late the meeting leader has a tough call to make. Postpone the start – thereby wasting the time of everyone else in the meeting and reducing the overall meeting time – or to proceed without you – thereby excluding your potentially valuable input. The same is also true when the meeting is late reconvening after a break.
Build in a buffer time for unexpected travel situations – aim to be there early. If you are already fully prepared, use any spare time effectively catching up on work, phone calls, networking, etc. Being early will also allow you to ‘choose your seat’ and being well prepared affords you the comfort of taking a position opposite the meeting leader and to be fully engaged in the meeting right from the start. (See Chapter 1.)
If the meeting you are scheduled to attend is a follow-on meeting, ensure that all of your previous actions have been completed. Prepare to brief the group on the results of your actions with either a formal presentation, verbal update, or a handout.
If you are presenting material, develop your presentation in a natural format for you. It does not have to be PowerPoint™, you can use handout sheets, a flip chart or dry erase board. All of these methods can be effective, as long as you spend time preparing all relevant material and rehearsing the delivery. For more suggestions see Chapter 4, Contributions and presentations.
If, during the meeting, you need to reference background material, ensure that this is circulated well in advance of the meeting.
Try to ‘second guess’ any questions that may arise as a result of your contribution and develop possible responses to these.
‘Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.’
Alexander Graham Bell
Choose your attitude
The ability to choose your attitude – is the glass half full or half empty? – is incredibly important to your participation in the meeting, and therefore the overall outcome. If, as you sit down, you have already determined it to be a waste of your time, then it probably will end up being just so.
However, if you believe that your contribution and participation will help to transform a potential ‘waste of time’ meeting into a productive, effective and inspiring experience for all, then choose your attitude accordingly and give the meeting a chance. This is expanded upon in Chapter 5.
If you follow our guidelines in Chapter 3 and accept the meeting invitation, you must then recognise the meeting as an essential part of your role, and not something that ‘takes you away from your job’.
Turn off all personal communication devices
Conference phones should be the only phones used in a meeting environment. They are a group device and should be used when all those present need to participate in the same conversation together.
Personal mobile phones should be turned off before you enter the meeting room. If it is important enough for you to be in the meeting, then it is important that you and the other participants are not interrupted. There will of course be exceptions to this rule: an expectant father, a production problem, financial issues, etc., and these will be handled on a case-by-case basis by the meeting leader.
It costs little or nothing to change your voicemail to let callers know, for example, that you are in a meeting until 2pm. This sets the expectation that they will not receive a call back until after this time, and alerts them not to call you again. The same is true with an automatic ‘out of office’ email responder message which details your availability.
Even those participants who have purposefully placed their phone on the desk in ‘silent’ mode will now be distracted by the same caller repeatedly trying to get hold of them. They may also be tempted to type a ‘quick’ text message or reply to an incoming text or Blackberry style email.
The culture around laptops in meetings requires a special mention as their use is really a symptom of a poor meeting rather than the cause. When laptops were still tethered to network cables, there was little else one could do with them in a meeting except take notes, or present with PowerPoint™. With the increase in wireless communications, on the pretext of taking notes, the reality is that email or other work is being undertaken.
Even if you are just taking notes, to the presenter in the meeting you are giving the impression of not fully listening, which can lead to resentment, but for most of us it probably means we are not paying full attention to either the email or the speaker alone. Now we are doing two jobs poorly instead of concentrating all our efforts on just one.
Imagine your CEO or MD is present
The truth is that when the CEO, MD or senior board members are present we do act differently, even where standards have not been published. We will not leave our phones on, we will not talk across someone else, we will be fully prepared, and we will be sure to arrive early. Because we know the CEO or MD will be sitting across the table we may also enter the meeting with a different mindset. This meeting now matters, and we have arrived with the right attitude that will see us making a difference.
This is exactly the mindset – which you can absolutely choose – that you should adopt for every single meeting.
Obey the agenda and stay until the end of the meeting
In general do not raise any issues that are not on the agenda unless they have become critical to the meeting. Even then, it should be the decision of the meeting leader to allow any deviation. Agenda quite literally means ‘things that have to be done’, a list of discussion/presentation topics drawn up by the meeting organiser in order to achieve the intended outcome within the allotted time.
Too frequently participants try to raise other issues as a deliberate spoiling tactic, especially if the decision being made does not suit them personally.
If you have been given a presentation slot in the meeting agenda, ensure that you keep the content relevant as well as keeping to your allotted time, remembering to factor in enough time for questions.
Never use jargon and avoid distracting side conversations
Avoid using jargon. Even if just one person does not follow what is being said, the impact of your input is reduced and you have left them feeling uncomfortable with their perceived lack of knowledge. When giving technical information, always pitch your presentation at the participant with the lowest perceived subject knowledge, taking care to explain fully any ‘buzz words’, acronyms or technical terms.
Having private conversations within a meeting promotes a very negative situation: those engaged in the conversation are not listening to the other participants fully. The other participants can easily make two assumptions. First, because the comments are not being made to the whole of the group, they must in some way be divisive. Second, that their contribution is not worthy of everyone’s full attention. This situation promotes distrust and should be avoided. If this situation arises during a presentation that you are delivering, either pause, waiting for the conversations to cease, or alternatively ask the participants to share their views with you and the rest of the group.
Participate actively – ‘silence is acceptance’
You must ask questions when anything is unclear, and usually the presenter will have announced at the outset how and when questions will be dealt with. Even if they have indicated that interruptions are welcome, they might ask you to ‘hold that thought’ until later. If you have a problem with any of the contributions or viewpoints being stated, you must bring it up during the meeting so that the group can hear your reservations and discuss accordingly.
Making notes also clearly illustrates that you are fully engaged, that you are taking the meeting seriously, and that you are actively listening and participating. If there is a designated note-taker, or pre-prepared notes are available as a handout, there is then a temptation to rely on those sources and not to take notes of your own. The trouble with this approach is twofold. Firstly, those notes might not contain the things that were of importance to you; after all, they are notes and not a verbatim transcript. Secondly, taking notes allows you to write down anything that is unclear to you, so that you can raise it at the appropriate moment.
Learn what you do not know, share what you do know
Consider every meeting as a great opportunity to learn what you need to, whilst simultaneously sharing what you know. This will increase knowledge transfer within the meeting, and add to its success.
Accept and fully support consensus decisions
There are many ways of reaching decisions and, whilst one based on consensus of opinion can take longer to achieve, it keeps groups on track and together, rather than creating divisions through an ‘either or’ vote. Consensus does not necessarily mean that all individuals think that the decision made is the best one possible or even that they are sure the decision reached will work. What it does mean is that, in coming to that decision, no one felt that their own position on the matter was misunderstood or that it was not given a proper hearing. The hope is that everyone together will think it is the best decision. In a process looking for a consensus decision, either the group achieves the required outcome, or no one does.
Remember, meetings are not social events; they are where business decisions are advanced primarily for the benefit of the organisation, not for the empire building of individuals or individual departments.
Named actions must be completed
Meeting actions resulting from your Brilliant Meeting should now be completed.
During the meeting, ensure complete understanding of any actions that you are partly or wholly responsible for. This should include how the action should be reported on and what timescales are attached to it, whilst making sure that you have the right resources in place to achieve the desired outcome.
Conclusion – ACTION PLAN
By adopting the ACTION PLAN you will enhance your meeting effectiveness and quickly earn the respect of your colleagues. Respect is hard to gain and easy to destroy, but essentially if you choose to be punctual, participate in a positive manner and complete your actions, your colleagues will naturally award you the respect you deserve.
