Set meeting action plans and you’ll see things get done
A few weeks ago I met with a business associate who has become a good friend. In leading the meeting he stated more than once, “In respect for your time,” and then moved the discussion along. Later I ran into him in a social setting and mentioned his tactic to get people off one subject and onto another. Even though I saw right through it, his gentle manner of taking control worked. And frankly it was more effective than saying, “All right, already! We need to move on before half the attendees fall asleep!”
Later that same week we held a half-day staff retreat on “The Ethics of Achievement.” We spent an afternoon talking about effectiveness and process change; like any organization, the BBB is ever-changing. One of the out-of-state BBB staffers mentioned just how darn many meetings we have and commented that distraction did not contribute to effectiveness or achievement. I immediately defended our number of meetings and explained to her that we do hold more all-staff meetings than normal when our distance staff come to Spokane. But later she got me thinking about meetings.
A meeting is different from a training session; the goals and purposes are dissimilar. Let’s just focus on meetings.
We have too many meetings that do not include everyone who should be there. How many times do we meet about processes, procedures or products and forget to bring in frontline staff who might be talking to customers about the products, staff who will implement the procedure, or the group that will use the new form you and your managers create?
A classic example is management coming up with a check sheet for use in cross-department communication. Design, revision and instruction take three meetings. Then implementation brings to light all sorts of flaws and confusion, and that prompts one more meeting. But when in this process should the end users be involved? Oh, duh, right from the start. So what else can we do as leaders to make sure meeting time, which eats away at productivity and efficiency, achieves what it needs to?
•Set goals for outcome-based meetings on a written agenda with timelines.
If everyone knows what is expected, you’re more likely to achieve your goal. Stick to the timelines, and if a topic or challenge derails the meeting, make a choice to continue or set aside the derailer. Don’t let it just take over and delay decisions or actions.
•Make sure the right people are in the room.
Take a look at who your project affects, who the stakeholders are, who you need buy-in from and which group will use the outcome. Include them from the beginning, and have the representative from the user group head implementation as the expert.
•Before everyone leaves the room at the end of a meeting, write and assign action steps with due dates.
There are few things more frustrating than a meeting that solves a whole bunch of things and then nobody taking on the responsibility to make it happen or take the next steps. For managers, this action step list is a clear and definite tool to hold your fellow managers or staff accountable for deliverables.
•If you have a tough issue, tackle it first on your agenda.
We can all relate to the elephant in the room analogy. It is counterproductive to hold a meeting about rearranging the deck chairs as the Titanic sinks. One of the challenges in meetings when big change can affect someone’s job, income or area of control is facing those demons and then moving to solutions. Acknowledge that there will be loss and move to the goal.
•Encourage the unpopular or politically incorrect questions.
One of my staff members often prefaces his comments with “Let me play the devil’s advocate” and then moves on to ask that unpopular question. He makes us all stop and think. When you get a room full of people nodding their heads, that is often the best time to be the contrarian and look at the question from a different place.
And remember, you can always use the “respect for the attendees’ time” comment to get people moving on. Just wink when you say it.