Tell me where your meeting hurts
This is the first in a series of posts to help you get any meeting back on track when you identify meeting sprawl, stalemate or disengagement.
The person who has never attended a soul-sucking meeting has never attended a meeting.
Do not misunderstand me: I am not a meeting hater.
If you’re like me, you despise meetings that infect participants with boredom. You cannot abide meetings that are unnecessary wastes of time. When given a choice between smashing your toe with a hammer and sitting through a series of meaningless monologues, you wink at the hammer and raise your eyebrow as if to ask, “Have you met my toe?”
I contend with every fiber of my being that it does not have to be like this. Never again do you have to
- Feel hostage to a crappy standing meeting
- Attend a multi-day workshop or conference where participants feel no traction in accomplishing their goals
- Participate in an ill-prepared last-minute meeting that ends up creating more problems than it solves
- Waste your time in a synchronous capacity (everyone online or in-person @ the same time) for information that can be shared asynchronously (through email or other modes of communication)
- Sit through a call where you listen to people repeat out loud what they’ve communicated through other channels already.
You should demand more.
(Warning Label: Demanding more requires that you accept the possible discomfort that results from agitating.)
High ideals
Let’s start with what you should expect from a meeting.
The goal for any meeting, from a 3-minute call to a multi-day conference, should be that participants leave feeling engaged, informed and energized. Bored, confused and drained won’t cut it — if this is the outcome, the organizer or facilitator has messed up somewhere.
Meetings: purest essence
A meeting is an assemblage of 2 or more people by chance or arrangement. For our purposes, we will assume the assemblage is by arrangement.
ALL MEETING ACTIVITIES CONFORM TO THESE CATEGORIES
- Expand: brainstorm, innovate, develop
- Distill: decide, plan, evaluate, problem solve
- Exchange: learn, share, enroll
Any time the meeting members and leaders are not operating in chorus to expand, distill or exchange, you may feel as if the meeting has been derailed. (Exceptions include teams who work in psychologically safe environments where chaos and disruption may provide a contribution to successful group process, as opposed to presenting an obstacle.)
Meeting sprawl example: the innocent ad-hoc check-in — what went wrong?
You set up a quick ten-minute check-in to quickly inform a colleague about the progress of a crucial project or conversation. You quickly share updates (exchange information) about what the status is and, in real time, discuss options (expanded thinking) and zero in on next steps (distill plans / eliminate options).
Suddenly your well-intentioned 10-minute check-in has turned into 42-minute slog with no end in sight. Your meeting has effectively sprawled. What went wrong?
Did one of you get stuck in information exchange?
This can happen with people who tend to be indecisive or suffer from analysis paralysis. Start with the definitive question for the check-in: what are the 1–3 most crucial pieces of information we need to share with each other right now?
Did one or both of you remain in the expanded phase and never fully transition to distilling?
If you know that one or both of you are more attracted to possibilities and options than problem solving, consider inviting a 3rd person to thought partner with you during the distilling phase of your meeting. If you work with a natural problem solver (it doesn’t matter if she is not a subject matter expert from your group), this person can lead with questions that may help you both eliminate options and narrow your focus.
PRO TIP: Did you use a timer for the check-in?
Always set a timer for short check-ins. The less time you have, the higher the burden to be concise and efficient. Ideally, set time for each phase of the check-in — 90-sec each for exchanging information, 4 minutes for expanded thinking, 3 for distillation. If you resist the timer, you either need to be more responsible about bringing organized thinking to a check-in or you need to ask yourself if 10 minutes is enough.
That’s all fine for the retrospective, but now what?
The most powerful thing you can do is start noticing activities through this lens in your meetings: exchanging, expanding, distilling. Are meeting members working in chorus in these realms? Are some stuck in one realm (expanding) while others have moved to another (distilling)?
To derail it, you need to name it. Thirty minutes into a 45-minute meeting with no tangible results in sight, you may have identified a possible stalemate. Naming the meeting failure might sound like this:
Hey — I’d like to make an observation. It seems like Sylvia, Raj and Naomi are still exploring possibilities, but Sven, Katherine and Leah are zeroing in on a plan. How important is it to be on the same page during our meeting time? Does it make sense to break this up into smaller work groups and reconvene later?
If you’re not comfortable naming what’s happening in the room (presuming you did not organize the meeting), you could share the observation with the meeting organizer at a later time.
In the next post, we’ll look at recurring meeting infections and how to inoculate against them.
Where do your meetings hurt?