The ABCs of Better Meetings
How to make each one worthwhile
My calendar is so full that scheduling a meeting has now become a hassle.
I need to find slivers of time to meet with clients and the team or risk putting meetings off for weeks.
And to be honest, I don’t want to give up those slivers, because it’s my only chance to catch my breath, get a drink, and use the bathroom. Forget about my workload.
You’ve probably experienced this at some point. Hopefully, it didn’t last long for your sanity’s sake. It’s inevitably going to happen to anyone in business if they don’t take early precautions.
And while even the word “meetings” can feel exhausting, I want to talk about how you can make each meeting worthwhile. Because believe it or not, there’s a way to accomplish more, rather than being stuck in this perpetual cycle of getting nothing done.
Redesigning Your Approach to Meetings
Meetings, for a long time, were just a thing that had to be done. You set an agenda, you invite participants, and then you roll through the topic.
This has always felt limiting to me. The issue was that I wasn’t sure how to improve it.
I started by creating what (to me) was a new method for tracking what needed to happen.
I’d write the time, the meeting title, and then list the major agenda items I needed to be aware of. These could include tasks I needed to accomplish before the meeting or some I needed to direct special attention to.
This was fine, but ultimately no different than looking at the agenda and determining what I should do.
So I continued to refine.
Following the same format, I realized there were certain things that could take a meeting from good to great. Some of them were simple; others required additional effort. But the meetings I entered with the following items were noticeably more powerful than others. And so far, this planning has continued to deliver.
For simplicity, I mapped them out to follow the alphabet. No, there aren’t 26 items to check off, but I did list 10:
A: Attention
B: Backstory
C: Connection
D: Decision-Makers
E: Energy
F: Feelings
G: Goal
H: How
I: Include
J: Joy
I strongly encourage you to give this method a try. The structure works wonders, and if your schedule looks like mine, you’ll still end the day feeling accomplished rather than overwhelmed from meetings.
A: Attention
The first item involves attention. For a meeting to be of value, you need to spend at least some time focusing on it. This includes the preparation by working through this list, maintaining your focus on the topic during the actual meeting, and then running a brief After Action Review with yourself or team members to make it better for next time.
The importance of the meeting will dictate how much attention you need to pay, but you should always give yourself a set amount of time to ensure nothing is absent from this list.
I’ll list my meetings out in the morning and then focus special attention on the most important meeting, always ensuring I’ve left time to think over the first few on my calendar as well.
B: Backstory
Often, we fail to remember why we’re having a meeting in the first place. This is more true of daily or weekly meetings but can happen during longer client engagements as well.
Identifying the reason this meeting was scheduled helps you with planning the other steps in this structure. It also gives the meeting more purpose, so you don’t feel your time is wasted.
C: Connection
This one should go without saying, but I’ve been in meetings that demonstrated otherwise (surprisingly more prevalent when I was in the Army).
Is everyone who should attend the meeting aware of the time and location it’s being held? It’s such a simple step, but if neglected, destroys any purpose of having a meeting.
Do a quick check of the invitation. Look at who’s accepted it and who hasn’t. Reach out to people if you need to. Mention it in passing. Just whatever you do, help ensure everyone shows up to the right place at the right time.
D: Decision-Makers
Imagine having a meeting, deciding on the next steps, and getting to work. Then a decision-maker changes the plan, forcing you to restart.
If a meeting requires a decision-maker, you need to ensure they’re invited to the meeting. One missing decision-maker who has a different opinion than your team can cripple a project’s schedule.
It’s easier than you may think to explain this to a client, and when they realize a project could fall off track because of them, they become far more likely to attend the required meetings.
E: Energy
This one is focused more internally. How many times have you felt drained going into a meeting, only to feel worse coming out?
You need to show up to each meeting, feeling like you can conquer the world if you want next-level results. To do this, you need to monitor your energy levels to determine when the best time to meet is.
For example, did you know that quarterly earnings reports delivered in the morning fare better than those in the afternoon, even if the results are worse than planned? It’s because everyone’s energy is tapped come afternoon.
There are plenty of ways you can generate energy, which I won’t get into, but you should always ask yourself, “Will I be on my game for this meeting?”
F: Feeling
Another internal task that helps with maintaining your momentum.
How often have you asked yourself how you want a meeting to make you feel? If you’re like normal people, probably not often.
I’m recommending you start.
When you know what feeling you want, it helps you show up in a way to achieve it. So if you want to feel confident, you’re going to come in with your chest out. If you want to feel more aware of a situation, you’re going to ask more questions.
Deciding how you want to feel is a door to creating the behaviors you need.
G: Goal
What’s the desired outcome of the meeting?
Don’t confuse this with the backstory. Why you’re having the meeting can contribute to the goal, but they don’t necessarily need to be the same thing.
Let’s say the reason you’re meeting is to give the client an update on their project. But since the last meeting, your team has identified some items that will make the project 10x better…only you need decision maker approval because it changes the scope.
The goal in this instance is to earn buy-in from the right people.
Having your goal in mind allows you to backward plan for how you can get there. Which leads us into…
H: How
How can you reach this goal?
At a bare minimum, this should develop your agenda. You reach the goal by ensuring the topics you cover in the meeting build a case for goal achievement.
This should also include the prep work you do for the meeting. Do you need a specific slide deck created? Do you need to do some research to back up your claims?
The ‘How’ step is the meat of your meeting preparation. If you only have a limited amount of time, you need to get hyper-clear on the tasks here that can lead to you achieving your goal.
I: Include
Aside from decision-makers, who else should attend this meeting for it to be successful?
We often invite the normal group to meetings, but have you ever had a meeting that could have benefited from someone else joining? Maybe bringing one of your developers in so they could add a new perspective to a client on a project.
People will listen differently to experts. If a project is falling behind, but the CEO joins a meeting to assure the client everything will work out — doesn’t that have a larger impact than if their project manager tries to deliver the update?
Get creative. Think about whom you can invite to a meeting that could substantially help you achieve your goal.
When you do invite them, though, try not to make it a regular occurrence. I’m sure they have their own work to do. And don’t forget to arm them with whatever information they need to help you out.
J: Joy
This task can have a massive impact on future meetings if you put some time towards it.
Imagine if everyone left a meeting feeling energized and as if they accomplished something. How would your next meeting go? Probably better than if you did the opposite.
Meetings are a great place to build confidence across your team and with clients. The trick is to ensure everyone is clear on what the next steps are. One method I’ve found to work well is to break any tasks you’re assigning into smaller portions. If someone leaves the meeting with five tasks they can knock out quickly, they’ll feel better than if they have one massive task that’s going to take some effort.
Throw in some humor. Have some small talk if it lets people open up. You don’t want to waste people’s time, but if they’re feeling the burden of endless meetings, everyone will appreciate a short reprieve.
Changing Your Approach to Meetings
Since changing how I approach meetings, I’ve felt way better when staring down my schedule. In fact, I’ve started to look forward to them. Each meeting is another chance to achieve a set goal. My engagements are more focused and have been delivering better results.
It may not be for everyone, but the next time you see those meetings overflowing across your calendar, consider running through these ABC’s.
