Finding a New Way to Meet

It’s Friday afternoon, and your team is filing into the conference room, mumbling and grumbling as they take their seats for yet another meeting. An hour passes and the meeting comes to a much-anticipated end, leaving everyone involved wondering why the meeting was held in the first place. After all, the usual suspects dominated the discussion, and the same ideas that came up in last week’s meeting were once again batted around. No one seemed to write anything down, and no one agreed to put anything discussed into action.

If this kind of ineffective meeting sounds familiar, you’re not alone, says Kimberly Douglas. It’s a problem that plagues many organizations—but it’s also one, she adds, that can be remedied.

“In these tough economic times, every second of the work day is valuable,” says Douglas, author of “The Firefly Effect: Build Teams That Capture Creativity and Catapult Results (Wiley, 2009, ISBN: 978-0-470-43832-9). “None of it should be wasted in meetings that seem to go nowhere or that are plagued by conflict or lack of participation. If leaders know how to conduct better meetings, those meetings can actually become time well-spent—time that increases employee productivity, participation, and innovation.”

The question of productivity is a huge issue when it comes to meetings. According to a Microsoft survey of over 38,000 employees, almost 70 percent felt that the average 5.6 hours they spend each week in meetings are unproductive. Another survey conducted by OfficeTeam had 28 percent of its 150 senior executives responding that meetings are a waste of time. Furthermore, 45 percent of respondents said they believed their employees could be more productive if meetings were banned at least one day a week.

“In too many companies, meetings have become a way for leaders and their employees to simply go through the motions,” says Douglas. “If a new initiative is being implemented or new product ideas are needed, the feeling from management is often, ‘Well, let’s have a meeting. At least it will seem like we are doing something.’ Unfortunately, not enough thought goes into how to conduct those meetings. Having a meeting, in and of itself, is not a bad idea. In fact, meetings can be the most engaging and thought-provoking times of the day for leaders and team members alike. The key is avoiding those pitfalls that sink a meeting’s productivity.”

If it’s time for a meetings overhaul at your organization, consider these questions

What’s the point? A common problem with many meetings is that they’re scheduled with seemingly no clear objective in mind. “Being clear about the meeting’s objectives will ensure a greater likelihood of it being effective than anything else you can do,” says Douglas. “Simply answering, ‘So why are we meeting?’ before everyone is gathered in the conference room will help you ensure meetings are productive for everyone and will also help you avoid lost opportunity cost and draining employee motivation.”

Where’s the agenda? Remember the last time you actually received an agenda in advance of a meeting? Likely, you immediately had a higher perception of whether that meeting was going to be a waste of time or not. Once you know who will be attending the meeting, you need to finalize the agenda.

Conference room overcrowding. Would you attend a meeting if you didn’t know why the meeting was being held and why you, in particular, were invited? Often, too many people who don’t have a clear understanding of what role they are supposed to play are invited to meetings. Those in attendance need to know if you want them to be an expert, an influencer, or a decider.

The meeting becomes a free-for-all. Anyone who’s ever attended a meeting or led a meeting knows that it doesn’t take long for things to get off track. The best way to avoid losing control of the conversation and the meeting as a whole is to set some conversational ground rules right away. “Always ask for the input of the group,” says Douglas. “They may think a rule will hinder the productivity of the meeting, or they may have a suggestion that will help to keep everyone on topic. The bottom line is: create rules that will help everyone stay focused on the meeting’s goals. Do that consistently, and your meetings will be the better for it.”

When the meeting is over, don’t forget to evaluate what occurred and how productive the process was for the team. This evaluation allows you and meeting attendees to assess what worked well in the meeting (the plus) and what could be improved for the next one (the delta,) Douglas adds. “Don’t look at meeting evaluations as a throwaway step. They are key to ensuring that your meetings are consistently well-organized and productive.”