Earlier this week, I read that AOL CEO Tim Armstrong is ‘on a quest to cut back on meetings’.

http://qz.com/571436/tim-armstrong-is-on-a-quest-to-cut-back-on-meetings-at-aol/

The article talks about Tim’s efforts to ‘boost company culture and efficiency by discouraging unnecessary – and unnecessarily long – internal meetings’. Armstrong has proposed that meetings should default to 30 minutes instead of an hour and that employees should limit ‘15% of their time in meetings leaving the rest open for strategic work’.

The article was shared on LinkedIn and generated a number of comments, which were in favour of cutting back on meetings

So I pose the question…

Why do so many of us dislike meetings? Why do we spend so much time in them yet we feel that they don’t add any value? Are they a necessary evil of the workplace?

I believe that meetings have developed a bad name largely because they are poorly planned and managed.

Bad meetings are a symptom of poor management. Tim Armstrong will not fix this by imposing an arbitrary cap. He needs to look deeper and understand why so many people are spending so much of their time in meetings.

‘Bad meeting syndrome’ is easily cured with a combination of process and discipline. In this short article, I will describe ‘what good looks like’ and provide you with the detailed steps to get there.

A Good Example

A Commando Group HQ will meet weekly to pass on the Commanding Officer’s (CO) direction and share information that needs to be passed throughout the organisation. It takes around 20 people, less than 45 minutes to cover everything that they need to.

This will then be followed by Company Group meetings and then Troop meetings. In the space of three hours, usually on a Friday morning, everyone in the organisation (c.600-700 people) will have the information that was passed out by the CO and his leadership team.

This is what good information sharing looks like.

It means that everyone gets the maximum amount of information in the shortest amount of time. It is extremely efficient and because the information is relevant to everyone in the room – no one ‘drifts off’ and looses focus.

How does it work?

Firstly, the weekly meeting was held in the same place and at the same time every week. This allowed people to plan around it.

Secondly, attendees from every part of the organisation are expected to attend. Usually the Company Commanders and the Company Sergeant Majors. If one/both can’t attend, they are to send a representative. There should be the same number of people in the room every time with every department represented.

The meeting started on time. We never waited for anyone. You were late if you arrived after the CO who walked in at precisely the right time. If you were late or missed the meeting, there would be consequences – usually a ‘one way performance conversation’. There were no valid excuses.

There was a clear agenda that remained the same and worked through the military system. I won’t bore people with the details of G1-9 but basically; we covered everything we needed to using a brief system.

The meeting was managed by the Unit Second-in-Command. This allowed the CO to take a step back and listen to what people were saying rather than worry about the agenda or interject if someone was taking too long to make a point. This kept the meeting ‘sharp’ – if people waffled, they were told not to.

It created an environment where you had to prepare what you were going to say.

We covered everything we needed to inside about 45 minutes and I am yet to see anything like it outside the military. Excessively long meetings are wasteful as people get distracted and loose focus. They’re also expensive. How many of us are aware of the cost of an hour of our time and therefore the cost of a meeting in terms of attendees’ time?

The following steps will help you create a successful meeting structure that will help you significantly improve the quality of your meetings.

Before the Meeting

When you ‘invite’ people to a meeting, it should be absolutely clear why they have been invited and what you are going to discuss. This allows them to decide whether or not they attend.

You should ‘request’ that they join.

If you demand that they attend, you’re enforcing compliance – you might want to do this for extremely important issues but use it sparingly as when you enforce compliance, you erode the ability for people to make decisions.

In your request, make it clear that you have planned the meeting and thought about whether or not you believe that they should attend. Your intent is to make it clear that you need and value their input.

State the purpose of the meeting clearly and the expected outcomes. Your invitation should state why you are having the meeting and what you expect to achieve by doing this. These points should be supported with an outline agenda. Plan for 45mins allowing you to use an hour if you need to.

During the Meeting

Stick to the plan. This is the biggest reason that meetings fail to complete on time or drag on indefinitely. Stick to the agenda and interrupt people if they are taking a long time to make a point. You might think that this is rude but it is in the interests of the group – people will secretly be thanking you for it!

It is a judgement call as to when you do this but have in your mind – ‘is this relevant to everyone here?’ – and you won’t go far wrong.

If you fail to control the meeting, it will drift and is likely to over run.

If you sense that an action needs to be taken, stop and clarify it. I used to use the expression, ‘it sounded like there was an action there – can I just get some clarity on what it was, who needs to do it and by when?’

This made sure that we were clear on actions that needed to be delivered as a result of the meeting and clarified who was doing them and by when.

After the Meeting

After the meeting, it might be worth following up with any actions and key decisions that were taken. Most people won’t bother reading any minutes so if you have to keep them (sometimes a legal requirement), then make them short and to the point.

The meetings you have are a direct reflection of your management. If they always over run or don’t ‘improve the situation’ for people then chances are they could do with some improvement.

It might be a good idea to clarify what a good meeting looks like. Write a checklist with some questions and get someone in the room to ‘tick/cross’ depending on whether you achieved these aims.

For example…

  • Did we start on time? – Y/N
  • Was the purpose and expected outcomes clearly stated in the invitation – Y/N
  • Did everyone need to attend the meeting – Y/N
  • Have we missed anyone that we feel should be here? Y/N (Useful to follow up with)
  • Did we stick to the agenda? Y/N
  • Were actions clear, with owners and due dates? Y/N
  • Did we finish on time? Y/N

This makes the performance of your meetings clear allowing you to move forward and improve them. If your meetings are a direct reflection of your management – wouldn’t you want to improve them?

If you’ve enjoyed this article and found it useful – please like and share, you’ll be doing me a huge favour!

Equally, if you’re struggling with ‘bad meeting syndrome’ or you’d like an example of a ‘good meeting template’, please feel free to get in touch.