Planning &

Execution

Planning &

Execution

Improving Meetings and

Productivity

Barry M Cole, Interim Executive and Organization Change Principal

StragilityBNS

Planning &

Execution Why Are Meetings A Productivity Issue?

In surveys to identify the biggest productivity killers,

meeting schedules are near the top of every list.

After many years guiding change in organizations

around the globe, I have often made the tongue in

cheek comment; “We live for meetings”. For many

leaders, this is an unfortunate truth.

Another unfortunate truth is that many meetings are

much less productive than they needed to be.

Planning &

Execution

Meeting Best Practice

Planning &

Execution Why Are We Having This Meeting?

Ask the simple question at the onset of the meeting, "What is the

objective of this meeting?"

This exercise will prove invaluable in terms of ensuring everyone

is on the same page and focused on keeping the meeting on point.

Otherwise meetings regularly devolve into endless distractions

unrelated to the matter immediately at hand.

A best practice approach is that:

The objective and expected outcome of each meeting should be

published and accepted by each invitee.

The cultural “ground rules” must permit each invited attendee to

question whether a conversation is consistent with the meeting

objectives and call that the discussion be tabled to a later time.

Planning &

Execution Who Is Driving?

Each meeting needs one person behind the wheel. If there is more

than one driver and it will be very difficult to keep the meeting on

track without an effective “wreck”.

• The primary role of this facilitator or point person is to ensure the

conversation remains relevant and that no one person (without regard

to position) ends up dominating the discussion.

• This person must have “permission” to ensure that any adjunct

discussions that arise during the course of the meeting are taken

offline.

Planning &

Execution Is There a Common Language?

Take the time to define semantics (and ground rules)…. After

many years facilitating meeting, it never ceases to amaze how

often meetings go off the rails by virtue of semantic differences.

Picture a multi-national gathering without a real-time translation

and you have the right mental picture.

• It is always worth investing time upfront to ensure everyone is on the same

page in terms of what certain keywords, phrases, and concepts mean to the

various constituencies around the table.

• For ongoing meetings, creating and maintaining a reference glossary is

recommended.

Planning &

Execution Why Do You Need a Scribe?

Assign someone other than the facilitator to take notes who is well

versed in the meeting's objectives and who has a clear

understanding of context.

• This person is appointed to capture only those most salient

points. These notes should not be a “word-for-word” account,

rather a high-level record of what was discussed and agreed to.

• The goal is to avoid multiple people recalling one event in

multiple ways. Send these notes out after the meetings with a

call for agreement, additions, or corrections.

• This practice can also be particularly valuable for invitees who

weren't able to make the meeting.

Planning &

Execution Is There A Best Way To End Meetings?

Summarize key action items, deliverables, and points of

accountability. Do not end a meeting without summarizing key

conclusions, stakeholder expectations, any external deliverables,

and next steps/action items with the points of accountability for

each.

• This summarization is most commonly the first thing to suffer if the

meeting has run up to the wire and people are starting running off to

their next scheduled event. It is however arguably the single most

important thing you'll do at the meeting (and may quintessentially be

considered the reason for the meeting to begin with).

• Work to allow the needed time and create the discipline a ensures

attendees sit tight and remain focused while next steps are being

discussed and agreed to.

Planning &

Execution Do Attendees Agree to the Meeting’s Value?

Ask what can done better….

Gather feedback at the end of meetings, particularly if it's a new

standing meeting, by asking whether or not the attendees found it

valuable and what can be done to improve it in the future.

1. Ascertain: “Is the meeting is structured appropriately or even

necessary?”

2. If it is not, either change the objective, format, and/or schedule, or

take it off the calendar.

Planning &

Execution A Typical Format for Agenda and

Minutes

Planning &

Execution

Addendum:

An Alternative Approach To

Improving Meeting Value

Attribution

The following information was synthesized from previously published materials

that offers real food for thought in making your meeting more productive. Specific

attribution is made to LinkedIn’s CEO Jeff Weiner, Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezo, and

materials published in Fortune Magazine.

Planning &

Execution

An Approach To Increasing the Value of Your Meetings

In addition to the best practices for meetings, I'd like share a relatively new practice with great effect in increasing the value of meetings.

At LinkedIn Corporation has essentially eliminated the meeting presentation. In lieu of that, materials that would typically have been presented during a meeting are sent out to participants at least 24 hours in advance to allow people to familiarize themselves with the content.

Managers at LinkedIn understand that just because the material has been sent doesn't mean it will be read. They have taken a page from the Amazon CEO Jeff Bezo's book… “His fondness for the written word drives one of his primary, and perhaps peculiar, tools for managing his company: Meetings of his senior executive "S-team" begin with participants quietly absorbing the written word.” Specifically, before any discussion begins, members of the team -- including Bezos -- consume six-page printed memos in total silence for as long as 30 minutes. They scribble notes in the margins while the authors of the memos wait for Bezos and his minions to finish reading.

Planning &

Execution This Sounds Odd

If the idea of kicking off a meeting with minutes of silence strikes you as odd, you're not alone. The first time you read about this practice it may immediately conjured up images of the last practices you would equate with meeting productivity. However, after the first few times you try it, not only won't it be awkward -- it will be welcome. This is particularly true when meetings end early with participants agreeing it was time well spent.

Executives at Amazon call these documents "narratives," and even Bezos realizes that for the uninitiated -- and fans of the PowerPoint presentation -- the process feels very odd. "For new employees, it's a strange initial experience," he tells Fortune magazine. "They're just not accustomed to sitting silently in a room and doing “study hall” with a bunch of executives." Bezos says the act of communal reading guarantees the group's undivided attention. Writing a memo is an even more important skill to master. "Full sentences are harder to write," he says: “They have verbs. The paragraphs have topic sentences.” The six-page, narratively structured memo without clear thinking is rare – The presentation intended to consume 60 minutes without clear thinking is not uncommon.

Planning &

Execution Adoption

LinkedIn executives adopted this practice beginning each meeting by providing attendees roughly 5-10 minutes to read through the document or prepared deck. If people have already read it, this gives them an opportunity to refresh their memory, identify areas they'd like to go deeper on, or even clarify the position that they intend to put forward.

Once folks have completed the reading, it's time to open it up for discussion. There is no presentation. It's important to stay vigilant on this point as most people who prepared the materials will reflexively begin presenting. If you are concerned about appearing insensitive by not allowing individuals who worked hard on the materials to have their moment, constructively remind the group this is a new practice that is being applied to the entire company and will benefit all meeting attendees, including the artist formerly known as The Presenter.

If the material has been well thought out and simply and intuitively articulated, chances are the need for clarifying questions will be kept to a minimum. In these situations, you may be pleasantly surprised to see a meeting that had been scheduled for an hour is actually over after 20-30 minutes.

Planning &

Execution Why This Works

Of course, even the best prepared material may reach a highly contentious recommendation or conclusion. However, the good news is meeting attendees will now be able to dig into the subject matter and share their real opinions rather than waste time listening to an endless re-hashing of points they're already familiar with, or worse still find irrelevant or redundant.

With the presentation eliminated, the meeting can now be exclusively focused on generating a valuable discourse: Providing shared context, diving deeper on particularly cogent data and insights, and perhaps most importantly, having a meaningful debate.