INSPIRE
You take a moment to look up from your notes to scan the room. The vibe you instantly sense would give watching paint dry a run for its money.
What’s worse than sitting through a dull, pointless meeting? Leading one!
Yes, meetings get a bad rap. But for some good reasons.
Are you ready to stop the “meeting suck inertia?” Get ready with these meeting tips.
CONSTRUCT
1. ⚠️ Meeting Bloat
Are you inviting too many people to the too many meetings?
With good intentions, you may not be stopping the meeting treadmill long enough to ask, “Do we really need to meet?”
From the 2017 Harvard Business Review article titled “Stop the Meeting Madness,” they highlighted the growing problem of “meeting overload.” One of the key findings was that the average executive spends nearly 23 hours a week in meetings, which has increased from under 10 hours in the 1960s.
And then, to not offend others, you start adding people to the calendar invite. Its as if the increasing number of attendees will surely lead to a successful outcome.
✅ The Fix:
While meeting bloat is frustrating, let’s not throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water. We DO need to meet. Breaking down silos, increasing interdependence, and creating synergy are all paved through meaningful connections.
Adam Grant suggests there are four good reasons to meet: to connect, to learn, to decide, and to do. Anything else? Find an asynchronous method to communicate information or updates.
And worried others may be upset without an invite? Let them know you’re planning the meeting. Since you want to be mindful of their time, you’ll be happy to take their input ahead of time and keep them updated on the progress. They’ll be grateful for the gift of time.
2. ⚠️ Ineffective Purpose
Many meetings are either on autopilot (recurring meetings, anyone?) or thrown together without a clear, thoughtful justification.
✅ The Fix: Take a tip straight from Priya Parker‘s The Art of Gathering. Set the stage by creating a transparent, proactive reason. Formulating and communicating a clear AND compelling purpose will have attendees showing up with the right, motivated mindset.
Here is an example of the purpose for one of our team meetings:
Note the tie to our mission of, “We connect, grow, and serve our community of educators,” but also the inclusive, inspirational language that resonates with our core values.
3. ⚠️ Skipping the Human Element
Ready to get down to business? Not so fast.
Diving right into the content before creating space for meaning making and connection can undermine engagement, stifle collaboration, and lead to missed opportunities for deeper understanding and creativity.
✅ The Fix: Kick meetings off with an injection of humanity. We all have the need to see others and to be seen and the realness of all we bring into a meeting connects us. Taking time to build rapport and align on shared goals helps foster trust and ensure everyone is fully invested.
Brené Brown’s “Two-Word Check-In” is a great go-to strategy. Take turns sharing two words that describe how you’re feeling that day.
It’s honest, quick, connecting and gives a chance to circle back 1:1 when someone needs support.
4. ⚠️ Making It a One-Person Show
Project Aristotle, a 2012 Google venture, launched to understand what makes some teams more effective than others.
One of the findings determined that ineffective teams had a pattern of conversation domination, often by the perceived “leader”, while effective teams (over an extended period) demonstrated equal turn-taking in conversations.
Turns out, participation equity (and inequity) is a real thing.
✅ The Fix: Create an inclusive environment where all members can, and want to, contribute.
Developing norms and transparent structures guarantee everyone can have a voice and the ability to process and contribute.
5. ⚠️ Artificial Harmony
Have easy, peaceful meetings? Maybe too peaceful?
If no one is bringing up alternative views or perspectives, it may be a warning sign. There could be something else at play that is holding a meeting and the team back.
Diagnosed as fear of conflict, Patrick Lencioni named it one of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. When a team sees issues as “you versus me,” they are afraid of making waves. They can stay stagnant, or worse, breed resentment.
✅ The Fix: To help create an “us versus the problem” culture, try creating meeting agendas with questions. Not only can this foster curiosity and build commitment, if you send out the questions ahead of time, people can begin to process the issue at hand.
An added bonus? An easy way to tell when the meeting is over is when the questions are answered.
6. ⚠️ Choosing Efficiency OR Effectiveness
The “tyranny of OR” rears its ugly head when you try to choose between running an efficient meeting OR an effective one.
Being too tight with the agenda when something important unexpectedly arises or letting meetings drag on because you’re focused on not interrupting are both examples of this false dichotomy. Either results in unsuccessful meetings.
✅ The Fix: Do the right things, the right way. Embrace the “genius of AND” with an intentional, well-paced agenda that balances the loose and the tight.
You can be looser within the agenda, especially with important, human-centered items but tight with things light starting and ending times. Pair the people-focused pacing with collaborative, digital tools and you’ll see your efficiency AND effectiveness element soar.
7. ⚠️ Poor Follow-Up
Team members are present and engaged, important issues are brought up, ideas are contributed. Great!
And then nothing happens.
When there is no systematic way to follow through, implementation suffers.
✅ The Fix: Create a collaborative agenda where collectively the team decides who will do what by when. Clear action items added to the meeting agenda/notes in real time puts great follow-through on over-drive.
And while you’re at it, have the next meeting’s draft agenda prepared. This way, those items that need to be revisited can be added in the moment.
AMPLIFY
Do yourself a favor and do a meeting self-audit. Rate your meetings for each of these even characteristics on a scale of 1-1o. Is there a small action item that might help move your meetings more towards a 10? Commit to changing that one thing to build some quick momentum.
Even better, ask for your team members’ advice on what would move your meetings to a 10. And then act on the pattern you hear from their feedback.
Have a great meeting tip or a story of success? Connect with me and share! Alone we are smart, but together we are brilliant, so I’d love to connect! Share this post by tweeting and tagging me (@me1odystacy) or feel free to start a conversation by commenting below.
