#43 - Getting More From Your Meetings

Common pitfalls of disappointing meetings + how to lead breakthrough-generating meetings

How many meetings do you have per day? Per week?

How many meetings have you left feeling motivated…inspired… energized? Probably not too many…Which leads me to a proclamation: meetings do not have to suck!

When done right, a well-prepared-and-run meeting can completely change the trajectory of a relationship… project… business… and even industry.

Given the potential held up in these hallmarks of modern corporate life, it makes sense that we would at least try to be excellent at meetings (both as a meeting leader and participant).

So to help here, I’m going to write out some ideas on how to avoid having crappy meetings as well as some specific tactics to help empower excellent, game-changing meetings. These lists are NOT anywhere near exhaustive, but they are some of the things that are top of mind.

…And full disclosure: we’re all still working on this. I’ve been particularly inconsistent about at least two of the points below lately.

Eight Characteristics of Ineffective Meetings

Below are some things to avoid and strive for, respectively, as you pursue your own personal… apex of effectiveness (man I love the word “apex”) in meetings. :-)

1. No objective or goal for the time is defined

   1. Alternative wording: vaguely defined problem statement / improvement opportunity

2. The amount of time scheduled lacks intention

   1. Example: just scheduling 60 minutes without thinking through how exactly the time will be used

3. Stakeholders not managing their air time (see #42 Managing Your Air Time, published last month)

4. No clear leader to help keep the group focused + engaged

5. Lack of a pre-read or preview of sorts

   1. Full disclosure: these days I am horrible about this. A bit difficult when you have a really heavy meeting schedule, but it’s still a very good practice for meetings that require a big decision to be made and/or a touch point with someone who is particularly high-up in a company

6. Lack of attention to meeting attendee selection (take the time to make sure every stakeholder either adds and/or receives high value from the time)

7. Ambiguity around the nature of the meeting — is it a brainstorming meeting? An information-sharing meeting? Is it a decision-making meeting? Depending on the goal, the way you set an agenda could be radically different

   1. Example Brainstorm Meeting Agenda

      1. 5 minutes: intro and quiet reading time on pre-read materials

      2. 15 minutes: developing questions to answer and/or known dependencies

      3. 30 minutes: on concept ideation

      4. 5 minutes: next steps

   2. Example Decision-Making Meeting Agenda

      1. 3 minutes: intro and quiet reading time

      2. 5 minutes: overview of strategic options

      3. 15 minutes: focused discussion for option 1

      4. 15 minutes: focused discussion for option 2

      5. 5 minutes: preliminary ranking of each option’s support

      6. Remaining time: aligning on a decision + next step development

8. Being excessively beholden to an agenda

   1. What would happen if your car’s GPS told you to turn left, only for you to discover that said turn no longer exists and is now a wall. Do you drive into it?

   2. Just like you respond to changes in your environment every day, you should also be prepared to respond to changes in how a meeting is evolving

   3. Maybe your decision-making meeting reveals that there’s a whole other third or fourth option that was previously uncovered? If that’s the case, perhaps you pivot the time to exploring alternative options + setting up next steps instead of just charging ahead for the “sake of our timeline…for the sake of our plan” (in the words of a former manager of mine)

(Don’t be this person)

Seven Advanced Meeting Management Tactics

Avoiding the above pitfalls are not, by themselves, ways to create great meetings. But here are some things I’ve seen lead to wonderfully effective meetings. Some of these may seem obvious, but I think putting this all into practice is where it can become more complex.

1. De-risk disagreement. If you set the expectation that every meeting has to go smoothly, you’ll never experience the messiness that oftentimes comes from great ideation & decision making. Create a safe space for more intense discussion and disagreement

   1. To take advantage of this, you need to have invested time into culture building, and ideally your team/org values touch on this. For example, our team at Ally.io had this thing called “challenge culture” where it was expected that you would openly (and politely) speak up when you had a position counter to someone else’s

2. Use technology to maximize inclusion / engagement. Example: if you have a word doc or powerpoint / g slides presentation, build in time during your meetings for people to quietly read and leave comments live in the doc. It helps make sure EVERYONE has time to orient around a topic and that everyone has an opportunity to CONTRIBUTE

3. Be clear about timeline to reinforce urgency. You know your company is marching towards its death when you stop moving with a sense of urgency. One way to always reinforce reasonably-fast action is to make sure to reiterate WHEN the outcome of your meeting(s) must become tangible

   1. Example: “This project is intended to run for 4 weeks, with X outcome. We are targeting seeing this implemented to customers within 8 weeks, and I know there are some concerns about how to move so quickly. Let’s talk about those concerns today.”

4. “Anchor Back” to the Strategy. Never lose sight of the overarching goals your team / working group is trying to drive. And every meeting you have should at least briefly draw the connection back to what you’re hoping to accomplish.

   1. Example: “Our top goal is to drive faster customer conversion this month, and the goal of this time is for us to refine the 5 tactics XY team has developed to help drive this goal”

   2. Doing this will help you keep everyone focused when they suggest things that may go off topic or not be timely

5. Embrace “one-slide overviews” — people don’t typically like sitting through 20-slide presentations. Reducing things to the absolute minimum # of slides / amount of content will allow people to retain more. Retention —> Understanding —> Application. Supporting retention will help you optimize for the downstream factors of Understanding (how well someone understands a topic), and Application (someone’s ability to utilize understanding to create new things or make other valuable contributions to a project / conversation)

6. Before you hold a meeting, if possible try to get 1-1 time with every attendee first. Having a relationship with folks around the table gives you a deeper understanding around how to balance their perspectives and needs. Hell, it will help you make sure you allow them to bring their best selves to the meeting

   1. Sometimes this isn’t feasible. When it isn’t, make sure you have it with whoever the key stakeholders are

7. Lastly, manage your tone carefully. Your tone is probably the single most powerful factor in how others around you will feel. Authenticity is a very powerful thing, and there are also times when that means being vulnerable. …But be careful to let high vulnerability be confused for lack of balance or self-control. I’ll probably write a letter at some point about leaders I’ve seen do a wonderful job navigating organizations through very difficult times… We’re certainly living through some right now (wars, pandemic, economic uncertainty, a new wave of technological disruption)

This is one of those topics that could literally have a book written about it, and there’s so much I did not cover above, but if you’re looking for ways to level-up your performance in meetings, hopefully the above points help you get even 1% better.

As a reminder, Exonomist is written in raw form, usually in one, timed session. Expect typos, incomplete ideas, sometimes-redundant writing, etc. This is basically a form of “building in public.”