Managing Meetings Better

We have all felt the meme-ified sentence "this meeting could have been an email". We all sit in a bunch of meetings every day and all know the feeling of only being able to get concentrated work done after 6.00 PM.

I think there are some really simple best practices which can make a difference in making meetings better. These are the aspects that I keep track of, and they will often sound like (and actually are) common sense, no-brainer things. The stuff that makes a great meeting great are uncommonly practiced common sense practices.

Structuring meetings around your purpose

We really have 3 types of meetings:

• decision-making meetings
• creative/coordination meetings
• information sharing meetings

The intent of the meeting should be clear and the lines between deciding, discussing, and sharing should not blur. You should be clear on your role in a meeting. Are you there to contribute a perspective that will inform a healthy debate and lead to a more informed decision? Or are you there to spectate and be a sponge?

It's especially decision meetings that I see running against walls. Most meetings are inherently designed to not make a decision. You get a bunch of people in a room talking about stuff. The job of presenting the stuff has been delegated to an individual or a team. They come in and they present their stuff. But they haven’t actually made explicit who ends up having to make a decision at the end. And there’s this unarticulated assumption that either the most senior person in the room decides or that everybody gets a vote. And oftentimes the seniors don’t make a call (which isn't necessarily bad since they usually dont have all the information anyway). Clear up roles and the modus operandi of decision-making before a meeting takes place.

It's fine to have a meeting where you present stuff to one another. You can question the value of it, but the objective of information sharing is a legitimate one. But let's be clear on this then: We're not making a decision, we're just showing each other stuff. When you have a clear decision that needs making, you can orchestrate the structure of the meeting around that decision.

Jeff Bezos is famous for the phrase "disagree and commit", which I think is a fantastic principle. Meetings may end in decisions, but the other participants don't commit and their "yes" slows devolves into a "maybe" over the next few days. These are low-commitment decisions where everyone agrees in principle, but nothing happens. Everybody shakes and nods their heads during the meeting and when out in the hallway we are already having backdoor discussions on why we shouldn't be doing what was just decided.

Keep a handle on the size of meetings

For some reason, omitting to invite someone to a meeting is often interpreted as "keeping someone out of the loop" or "not being transparent". There is a big willingness to invite people to a meeting who are very peripherally affected because of the - admittedly well intentioned - attempt of involving everyone and not offending by excluding anyone. The flip side is that productivity and speed suffers when meetings become bloated. These stakeholders will eventually be involved downstream, but are they really necessary inside the decision-making process? Inviting everyone i not a automatic benefit, and it also does not mean you are being collaborative. This is really prevalent in big corporations, where meetings can suddently mutate to a dozen people when invitations start getting forwarded everywhere.

The difficulty of virtual meetings

Meetings weren't always needed to exchange single pieces of information. This has changed with an increased amount of virtual meetings, where the in-person process of poking your head into an office to talk along with a wrapper conversation is lost. Some final impulses to consider in future meetings:

1. Well-intentioned cold calling. Virtual conversations can be stunted due to technical details such as latency issues but more frequently because there is sometimes uncertainty in when it is one's turn to speak. As a moderator you want to keep an eye on body language (leaning in = a indicator for wanting to say something) and more subtle signs (someone preemptively unmutes themselves).
2. Shorter and purpose-driven meetings. There are limits in the stamina and attention in virtual environments. Have empathy: Even if you have no problems with 4 hour workshops, others - and the results of the workshop - may appreciate multiple smaller sessions.
3. Meeting necessity and/or recurrence. To neatly tie the bow to the beginning: Should we be having this meeting at all? If yes, is it a one-off meeting and if we need a frequent sync, what is appropriate interval? In most cases a biweekly or monthly meeting suffices for everyone not a direct team member or priority 1 stakeholder.