Howdy ,
During a recent discussion with a US based C-Level executive, she said “I am tired of the many meetings I am always asked to attend.”
Most of the meetings didn’t require her high rate per hour. Folks at work just figured she needed to be “in the know” of happenings.
She is not the only one on that boat. You might probably be living it too. Meetings - practical alternative to working.
Most organisations don’t realise how much trouble these gremlins are causing.
Let me paint the picture.
For every meeting that people are a part of, the company is “investing” the cumulative cost of their salary in that meeting. That means if the meeting does not provide a value that exceeds this cost in new revenue or cost savings, the cost of that meeting is not recovered.
The number stacks up. According to Harvard Business Review, an estimated $37 billion annually in the US goes down the drain annually due to unproductive meetings.
How much do you think it is costing your joint?
Most people set up meetings because they hope that collaboration will happen. Wishful thinking without a plan.
Meetings are not the same thing as collaboration. Collaboration is one of the magic sauce for multiplying time - a conversation for another day. For now, let’s have a nice chat about making your meetings better.
We might not be able to get everyone to run better meetings, but you can start a little revolution at your space by running better meetings.
No, you will not be drinking from a fire hose version, you’ll get the cliff note version.
You can improve the meetings you lead by a mile if you practice these 3 things:
1 - Define what the meeting should achieve: Very important. Make sure it’s only one objective. More than one and it’s make the next step complicated.
2 - Identify how you will deliver the meeting objective: The agenda are the steps you take to deliver the meeting objective. Each agenda item must be unique so that it is a chain in lead up to meeting the meeting objective.
3 - Select meeting attendees based on the agenda: Don’t choose anyone who doesn’t help you solve for agenda items.
Start with these and you are on your way to leading better meetings.
People will respect your meeting invites knowing you selected them because they will add value to the meetings. Not to make the numbers or burn their clock.
And it works for routine meetings.
For example, I have two meetings with the team leads that report to me. The first is a weekly all-team leaders meeting with one objective - Provide accountability for team goals and gain support to drive teams’ success.
The agenda is pretty simple.
- What were the items that your team achieved last week.
- List out the 3 goals your team would like to achieve in the new week.
- Indicate what support you need from me or other teams to help your team achieve its goals.
This is completed in 30 minutes or less.
The second meeting is a 15-minute one-on-one with each team lead. The objective here is this: Provide support to the team lead in their leadership of their team.
There is an agenda but it’s not rigid. Because the meeting is “for the team lead”, they decide on what they want to discuss every week.
The agenda is this:
- Team dynamics & well-being (wins the team has not been recognised for, areas their team needs support, concerns about team morale or workload etc)
- Development & Growth (learning areas that need to be addressed, team members they need to expand their portfolio to motivate them, things they are struggling with as a team leader etc)
- Any other matters they may choose.
My team leaders know that they own these one-on-one meetings. It’s their meeting not mine. That’s why they can decide “we don’t need to meet this week because I don’t have matters to discuss.”
This ensures that we only meet because they need the meeting not because the meeting is on the calendar.
Bottom line, you can improve your meetings by introducing the 3 things I wrote about earlier.
Any meetings
Even the routine weekly meetings
Here is to your success.
Tola Akinsulire
I am a Workplace Multiplier
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