The art of effective meetings

Communications / 01 July 2010

With hours of each week dedicated to meetings, why do so many fail to achieve their objectives? Robert Munro looks at ways to improve results and reduce the boredom threshold to make your daily schedule as productive as possible

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dave Barry probably echoed the thoughts of many when he remarked: “If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved – and never will achieve – its full potential, that word would be meetings.”

The meeting – a universally loathed activity that gets in the way of real work or a vital component in promoting effective teamwork and the free flow of ideas? Your choice of definition probably depends on the organisation you work for and your position in it, but far too many people consider the former to be more accurate.

 

Speak like a normal person. That means talking in everyday language, not a torrent of corporate gobbledygook. We’ve all heard the collective sigh as someone launches into a barrage of quasi-intellectual corporate guff

Neil Taylor, creative director, The Writer

So what makes meetings such a problem and what can be done to remedy the situation?

“There is recognition, in both the private and public sectors, that an excessive amount of time is wasted in pointless meetings that have no outcome other than a date for another meeting,” says Zara Seager, consultant at business psychology practice ER Consultants.

Seager suggests a three point plan to counter the culture of pointless meetings.

“Select a suitable and convenient place for the meeting, and set a start and finishing time. Circulate the agenda in advance so everyone knows why the meeting has been called, why they need to be there, and what they are expected to contribute,” she says.

Then there’s a requirement for strong leadership.

“The chair must have sufficient presence and authority to command respect, keep the meeting focused, deal with any confusion or conflict, and assign actions to individuals. An outsider [to the group] may prove to be a better facilitator if properly briefed.”

Forward planning

Fiona Dent, director of executive education, and Cath Redman, e-learning consultant at Ashridge Business School say that the secret
to successful meetings is in the planning. In their e-learning guide to meetings, they stress the importance of getting the right people to the meeting at the right time. 

“Good planning is the best way to make sure that your meeting runs well and an important first step is to fix the list of invitees. Remember that the most productive meetings are usually those with the fewest number of people attending, so try to limit the numbers,” says Dent.

 “These will be people directly involved in the decisions that need to be taken during the meeting, those significantly affected by those actions, or those who have some specific knowledge to contribute. If the agenda is lengthy and covers a variety of issues, consider asking people to drop in and out when their relevant section comes up.”

They add that managers spend around 40% of their time in meetings and it is estimated that around two out of three fail to meet their goals.

Neil Taylor, creative director of The Writer, a UK language consultancy, says many of the obstacles to effective meetings stem from inappropriate use of language.

“The problem is boardroom lingo,” he says. “Agendas and presentations drowning in buzzwords get in the way of real debate, because when there’s too much corporate speak, people either tune out or get distracted or amused by it. Either way people stop listening to the content of what you’re saying.”

Taylor singles out the tendency to indulge in ‘MBA-speak’ instead of straightforward language. “Speak like a normal person. That means talking in everyday language, not a torrent of corporate gobbledygook.

We’ve all heard the collective sigh as someone launches into a barrage of quasi-intellectual corporate guff. We think it makes us sound clever, but usually everyone else in the meeting switches off. It takes real confidence to be judged by the quality of your ideas and arguments, not how you dress them up in strategy-speak.”

If everyone speaks in easily understandable language, Taylor says, “people end up discussing what really matters, understanding where they disagree, and probably spend only half the time doing it.”

Apart from planning and making sure everybody understands each other, the structure and process of a meeting is also important.
Having a clear agenda and sticking to it may sound obvious, but it’s surprising how many meetings meander into vagueness.

An agenda means you talk about only what needs to be covered and is a great tool to ward off mission creep. Having a clear, measurable objective is vital and everything that happens in the meeting should further that objective. If it does not, ditch it pronto. You want, and need, to walk out with a plan and a roadmap to achieving your objective.

Agreement, or at least majority consent, is another important part of successful outcomes. Attempts to impose one person’s will can lead to sabotage later down the road.

Role play

When it comes to planning meetings, there are some interesting theories about the structure and dynamics. Seager explains: “There are a number of models that can be used such as Meredith Belbin’s nine roles and Edward de Bono’s thinking hats to name a few. Belbin identifies nine [team] roles and suggests that the best results come when a group has a diverse mix of preferences, rather than a group which is weighted towards just a few of the nine.

“De Bono identifies six ways of thinking, each characterised by a different coloured hat. He proposes that a group should consider any given issue by ‘wearing’ a sequence of hats that look at an issue from different angles – factual, emotional, critical, positive – in order to tackle it from a variety of perspectives. This encourages the team to make better decisions by pushing them to move outside their habitual thinking preference, helping them understand the full complexity of a decision, and spot risks and opportunities.”

Another potential pitfall is the multitasker, constantly distracted in meetings by their incoming calls and text messages. They may think they are being super-efficient but the fact that they are reading emails is not only irritating everyone else but slows things down significantly.

“Meetings get longer as the multitaskers reluctantly tear themselves from their BlackBerrys to focus on the discussion,” says Dave Crenshaw, American author of The Myth of Multitasking. “Everyone else must pause while the distracted multitasker is brought up to speed.”

Sometimes, whatever strategy you adopt to make your meetings more effective, things just don’t work out. But then, if you want to keep things as they are, this might not be a bad idea. As JK Galbraith once said, ‘Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything’.