Let's meet...

Meetings are real work! I sincerely hope so, since we spend so much of our time in meetings! I have been pondering this meeting thing for a while. In the last few months we have had occasion to talk about meetings and assess their effectiveness, and our individual effectiveness in either participating or running meetings.

How often does someone comment, in passing or specifically, about the time we "waste" in meetings?

Meetings are often ineffective because the meeting style is not in line with its objectives.

Meetings are an extremely relevant topic in this era of knowledge workers. Increasingly we are working in teams to get "work" done and increasingly that work involves knowledge sharing. This is the very fuel of the information economy. Besides this, humans are social by nature and effectiveness in the work environment benefits greatly from interaction.

So if they have an important role to play, what goes wrong with meetings? Why is there a general negativity about them?

Part of the answer lies in our understanding and our due diligence when it comes to preparing for, setting the objectives and agenda for, and then finally running the meetings. If meetings are real work then they require real preparation.

It was quite interesting to find an article on meetings by Michael Begeman in the April edition of Fast Company. I quite liked his statement: "We work - therefore we meet". He also posed the question: "But why then do so few meetings meet our expectations?" He shared some relevant and pragmatic ideas about meetings and how to run them more efficiently.

In thinking about meetings I also feel we are too set in our ways. We actually do not know how to think about meetings in anything less than at least one-hourly slots. How often have you reached the meeting objective in the first half an hour and then allowed the meeting to waffle on for the remaining half-hour? A colleague of mine offered a really fine idea: Set aside an hour in your diary and allow 10-minute meeting slots to deal with things that can be handled quickly.

The insight for me is that often our expectations for meetings are not met because they are not properly agreed and understood. Meetings are often ineffective because the meeting style is not in line with its objectives. For example, if the purpose is to "brainstorm" then rigour and formality will kill it. On the other hand, if a meeting is set to agree a specific outcome and set of actions, then the rigour, agenda and style needs to be different in order to allow this to happen. So for example, a budgeting meeting is probably a call for action, whereas a strategy meeting is to look for possibilities. How often do we mix styles and then find ourselves surprised when everyone feels uneasy that their expectations were not met?

In addition to making ourselves much more effective in formal meeting situations, we have to find different ways to deal with the demands of different types of communication requirements. Increasingly with the speed at which organisations are growing, including buyouts and mergers, there is a constant stream of communication that needs to be disseminated.

So how do you do it? Digital plays a role but face-to-face is better. Make it fun, make it different, and make it short. I love the example of the American ad agency that has constructed its office environment to accommodate its "stairwell" communications. It crosses the physical boundaries between the floors and allows the CEO to quickly address the troops in the stairwell at a moment's notice. So whenever something happens, good or bad, it gets communicated immediately.

Try different things. Often the location itself has a lot to do with the effectiveness of the meeting. I think the traditional "bosberaad" needs a rethink, but the idea of creating a different setting to encourage the flow of possibilities and creative thinking is very valid.

The key issue, however, is that if meetings are real work then we have to get real good at doing them. Meetings can either drain our energy and time or be a huge contributor to our business effectiveness. All it requires is that we take it seriously. That we examine the time and quality of the meetings, acknowledge that it is not a one-size-fits-all approach and understand that we should drive a process of innovation to radically improve this aspect of our work.