Managing Meetings

‘Meetings’ are the most common and visible activity in any organization. Almost every task is identified, debated, planned, executed, tracked and improved through meetings. It doesn’t matter if the meeting is of two individuals or a large group. They are all pervasive.

In my experience, there are only two kinds of meetings – productive and non-productive. The latter type has the maximum share!! Productive meetings are fewer and amongst these; ‘productive and efficient’ are an even rarer lot. This may sound an extreme or cynical view. However there is enough data and anecdotal evidence to prove that ‘most meetings are managed poorly and are often unproductive’.

Again, there are enough guidelines and recommendation for managing meetings better, such as –circulating agenda in advance, controlling the participation to the most relevant/essential members, assigning roles, having a timer, focusing on action items, circulating the meeting notes soon after the meeting and many others. Several books have mentioned all these and more.

Let me share few insights which I have gathered through personal experience and reading:

A. As Stephan Covey has mentioned about one of the habits of effective people, they ‘begin with the end in mind’. I find that asking this question with reference to a meeting – What do I wish to gain from this meeting? or What is a desired outcome? does help shape not only the agenda, but the meeting discussions as well.

B. Another relevant question to ask, almost literally as Covey’s question – ‘What time will the meeting end’. Often, while scheduling a meeting, we decide the start time and the duration. However, at times the awareness/consciousness about the duration is a little loose or less stringent. At least, I have felt so. We are all very conscious and particular about starting the meeting in time and may even quote duration in the agenda. Yet we allow leeway for the discussions to determine the end point. If the discussion is good, interesting or enjoyable and occasionally in case of very serious issues, the meetings do tend to open a lot more topics, issues or ideas than planned and hence gets longer and longer. Identifying the end time of the meeting should increase the consciousness of the limited time for achieving the pre-identified agenda.

C. Another very useful insight presented by James P. Lewis in his book titled ‘Project Planning, Scheduling and Control’ is about four reasons for which meetings are held - to 1) give information, 2) get information, 3) make a decision and 4) solve a problem. Lewis recommends that a meeting should not have more than two of these agendas.

D. In my observation, one of the major causes for poor meetings is a lack of enough practice in conducting effective meetings. The training programs, posters, templates or processes; though effective, have limited impact overtime. As they say, ‘habits die hard’. People tend to imbibe the behavior of their superiors or their colleagues or the organization culture in general. Hence, despite attending training programs on ‘time management’ or ‘managing meetings’; people fall back to their old habits. One of the only places which I have found for getting a regular practice for conducting meetings is at a ‘Toastmasters Forum’. Toastmasters Club meetings are very well structured and organized. Sustained exposure to such meeting should give individuals enough practice to conduct effective meetings.

However, like all other best practices and recommendations, even these suggestions are easier said than done. Yet Awareness is the starting point and Practice is driver.

So, shall we meet to discuss this? !!