There’s way too many meetings. At the office, remote or hybrid. To the point of physical and emotional exhaustion.
Meetings are a symptom of bad organization, the fewer the better — Peter Drucker
As a scrum master I am in weekly recurring team meetings. These meetings take hard work to get the results we need. When the world went remote most people took the existing in-office meeting format and used it as is for online meetings. Nothing changed in how we tackled online meetings and there’s a vast difference in the way we tackle online vs in-person. To get the outcomes we need, some meetings require prep beforehand and follow up. When this doesn’t happen, I seek ways to help improve. I even bought a book called How to fix meetings. A friend recommended it to me. The title sounds cheesy and perhaps too simple, but I picked up good tips. Some new. Some old…
- Do less meetings and do them well. Preparation is key
- Have at least 1 meeting free day
- Be ruthless with decision-making. Say no to the stuff that gets in the way
- Don't get distracted by shiny tools. Use things that make your life easier
- Our ability to hold our focus and think clearly is critical in work. Practice and protect deep work
- Have a set number of meeting hours per week. The scarcity of the commodity would make everyone think more carefully about meetings
- Clarify actions at the end of a meeting. Who What and When
- Change meeting culture. Where a meeting is rare. Where meetings are small and focused vs large and disorganized
- Remember the 40 [prep]–20 [during]–40 [after]continuum. Use your roles effectively in these and follow up
- Most people’s focus is almost 100% on the meeting itself with little regard for prep and the design of the meeting or follow through to make it happen. This often leads to long winded meetings that produce little results
- The quality of a meeting depends on the quality of its preparation and input
- 4Ps
Purpose — the goal
Plan — how meeting will flow
Protocol — ground rules
People- the right people - Use some of the time at end of meeting to action any quick actions before leaving
- Provide as much info before so you can use your time together to create- not update!
- Online meetings is your responsibility to put aside distractions
- Remove constraints when thinking up ideas/ brainstorming
Going to someone else’s meeting isn't like going to the cinema, where we turn up to relax, switch off and expect to be entertained. Instead, think of accepting the invitation as joining a team of people working towards a common goal. Everyone has their part to play. That includes you — even if you have no specific role assigned. You engage and be a productive participant. Sometimes that's harder than it sounds.
Wikipedia meaning of meetings
A meeting is when two or more people come together to discuss one or more topics, often in a formal or business setting, but meetings also occur in a variety of other environments. Meetings can be used as a form of group decision making.
Seth Godin Wrote a blog post on meetings. This is from 2007. Still relevant today.
I especially like…
People who don’t speak up on a regular basis should not be invited back. It’s obvious they are good at some other function in the office, so you’re wasting their time if they sit there.
Hire someone to come in and videotape a few of your standard meetings. Watch what happens.
Nowadays in online meetings I’m not sure people are aware or care when a meeting gets recorded. Those that watch it afterwards — what else do you notice other than get the info you need?
Listening
I recently done a team retrospective on listening. Julian Treasure, expert on sound and communications speaks about 5 ways to listen better. Meetings require engagement and listening plays an important role. In online meetings when camera’s are off, we have no idea who is listening and who is not. Hard to facilitate. Hard to get engagement. Julian speaks about an acronym called RASA which stands for :
Receive
Appreciate
Summarize
Ask
This helps us to listen better and clarify what we heard in our own words. Checkout his video. There’s also this. How to speak so that people want to listen to you. Sometimes we need to introspect and look at ways of improving how we speak so that others want to listen.
Visuals
Meeting organizers and facilitators can help set the stage and provide a platform for engagement and focus. Your input in a meeting contributes to the output. When last were you in a meeting that was productive, valuable, ended on time, fun and engaging? What's your most memorable meeting and why?
Here’s a post I wrote about Visualization with Doodling and how it helps us to remember and process complex work.
Physical, remote or hybrid — regardless of how a meeting is held, there are core principles in steering meetings into valuable spaces where people are engaged and we get what we need from it.
Synchronous and Asynchronous
There’s different ways to communicate. Not everything needs a meeting. Depending on the goal or purpose – decisions can be made asynchronously.
Synchronous = happens at the same time. With synchronous learning, participants can receive immediate feedback.
Asynchronous = doesn’t happen at the same time. With asynchronous learning, the participants can learn at their own pace.
So next time you asked to read a document and provide input asynchronously— do it. One less meeting to make a decision, is a Win in anyone’s calendar.
Back-to-back meetings! Aargh!
Burnout. A frequent term heard these days. We know the pitfalls. We know how this makes us feel at the end of the work day [if your work day has an end]. There’s more disadvantages to back-to-back meeting than advantages. Why we keep doing this is unfathomable.
There’s a reason why we have three options when a meeting invite is sent. USE IT. Encourage your team the same. Do it responsibly and respectfully.
So how do we reduce meetings? Its up to each person who attends, participates or facilitates a meeting. Our brains and bodies were not built for sitting at a desk all day long. Not enough breaks. Its psychologically and physically draining.
Pick one small change you want to see different and start doing it. Learn from others who do it well. Form healthy meeting habits. Stop fueling the bad ones.
There’s a great post by Gapingvoid on “nothing happens until somebody FEELS something”. Use the pain of bad meeting culture to bring positive change. It starts with you. One meeting at a time.
