Last week I spent 18 hours in meetings
How many hours do you spend per week in meetings? I guarantee it’s more than necessary, most because the effectiveness of meetings has eroded.
First, let’s define meeting:
Meeting /ˈmēdiNG/ noun
- an assembly of people, especially the members of a society or committee, for discussion or entertainment.
- a coming together of two or more people, by chance or arrangement.
Great, so now that we have all these people in a room, what’s next?
The most underrated skill is running an effective meeting. For some reason we like to hear ourselves talk but the purpose gets buried under all the BS. How many times have you left a meeting wondering, “what was the point of that?” Or left without clarity on if a decision had been made or what the next steps were?
It’s such a problem that the Harvard Business Review, New York Times, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fast Company and oh, HBR again, have advice on it. I’ve simplified it down to 3 things to do before, during and after meetings.
It can get better!
All it requires is a bit of planning and follow up.
Once the need for a meeting has been identified, do these 3 things:
- Identify the goal of the meeting
Finish this sentence: by the end of this meeting we will have accomplished … - Figure out who needs to be there (and invite them)
Make sure you have the right decision-makers and stakeholders present - Send any relevant materials ahead of time with an ask
Goal, agenda, presentations, informative docs, articles, data
This should ensure that everyone comes to the meeting ready to learn, discuss, debate or decide, depending on the purpose. If you haven’t been doing these already and you start, you’ll wonder how you ever did it before.
Meeting time is here, now what? Again, just 3 simple things:
- Appoint a note-taker
Track: key decisions, new contextual info, open questions, action items - Actually follow the agenda!
If tangents start, consider scheduling a separate discussion - Push for specifics and clarity
There’s a major difference between “I’ll work on the presentation this week” vs. “I’ll have an outline of the presentation for review by Friday.”
Phew, you did it! But you’re not done quite yet. 3 more little things:
- Send that recap!
Tag in any action items with respective owners and due dates - Ask for confirmation that the recap was read and right
Even a simple emoji reaction in Slack works great - Follow up on any open questions + action items
Otherwise, what even was the point???
💥 boom! 💥
That’s an effective meeting. Now, listen. I’d be lying if I said that I did all these things for every meeting I ever lead. Every step also isn’t always necessary. Just use your judgement.
Pro-tip: Schedule meetings for a little less time than you think you’ll need — this forces people to stay on track and get to point quickly.
