Meetings

Purpose:

· The most important rule of thumb is: Always be clear about the purpose for having a meeting.

· If you aren’t sure about the purpose, consider not holding the meeting.

· A meeting’s purpose should be directly connected to the goals of the organization and the objectives of the people in the room

Why Have Meetings:

All of the meeting rationales below have one thing in common: they require collaboration. If collaboration of the right people is not required for a given purpose or objective, then you probably don’t need a meeting:

· Decision Making - Decisions that require either input, some measure of consensus, or require key people for implementation may merit a meeting.

· Thinking - When more heads, perspectives, or ideas are better than one, a meeting might be necessary. This may be a brainstorming session, passionate debate about a key issue, confronting a serious problem or threat, etc. Ask yourself: Does the collective thinking require creativity and collaboration or just input. If it’s the former, a meeting may be the right thing, if it’s the latter, consider a different method.

· Strategy – When key people need to have input and share thinking about the direction of the organization, such as selecting overarching goals and objectives. This may merit a longer meeting or an off-site.

· Tactics – Frequently these are the more regular weekly or bi-weekly staff meetings when group members report out on their work towards the organizational or team goals as they relate to and are critical to the work of other people in the meeting. These meetings are particularly important when the goals require inter-related work. BEWARE: These are the meetings that can easily become rote, procedural and informational… See “pitfalls” below.

· Updates – Share information about individual priorities for the day or week. Consider having these as a daily huddle in a “lightning round format” as opposed to long meetings.

· Team Building – A key component of building teams is that they spend significant structured and unstructured time together. HOWEVER, unless teambuilding is combined with one of the above reasons, consider having unstructured time instead of a regular meeting (i.e. Team walk, Lunch, Coffee Break, Goof off in the park for an hour, etc.)

· Professional Development/Skill Building – Meetings designed to build selected people’s capacities or expand staff’s knowledge base are also important. BEWARE: If you are having a skill-building meeting, think about HOW PEOPLE LEARN. Avoid didactic, lecture-oriented strategies in favor of experiential practices, reflection on practice, goal setting, etc.

Decision Making:

Always be very clear about decision-making. Roughly speaking, there are three types of decisions:

· Leader Decisions: Decisions made by the project leader, organizational leader, or board that need to be implemented. These types of decisions may merit time in meetings to understand, discuss implementation, or identify resistance.

· Leader Decisions with Input: Decisions made by the project or organizational leader that require input and expertise from team members. These kinds of decisions may require a meeting in order for there to be maximum input and/or debate. It is critical that the final decision be communicated to all those the decision affects, whether in the meeting or later.

· Decisions made by the Team: Decisions that require maximum buy in and therefore merit co-creation. These kinds of decisions require the meeting to actually make the decision. It is critical that a clear decision making process be identified (i.e. Vote, 2/3 Vote, Gradients of Agreement, Consensus, etc. NOTE: Be very cautious about using a consensus model).

Meeting Pitfalls:

· Boring – Death by Meeting! Why should a group of people, all committed to their work and a common cause, be bored? If they are, you are probably not having the right meeting. Cures for boredom: Fun, passionate debate, meaningful decision making, information that is urgent and vital to people’s immediate work, tangible learning, personal connection.

· Right People Aren’t in the Room – When key staff are not in the room (They might be key because they have pieces of vital information, they are critical to a decision, or they are critical to implementation of a decision) the meeting can quickly become a series of updates as opposed to a real collaboration. How can you move forward if you are missing a key voice?

· Wrong People Are In the Room – Sometimes leaders have the impulse to include people in meetings for the sake of inclusion and not because they are vital to the purpose of the meeting. While leaders might rightly hesitate to exclude people from meetings, they still might need to resist the impulse to require non-essential staff to be there. When people are asking themselves: “Why am I here? What does this have to do with me?” it saps the life out of meetings.

· Formulaic or Routine – “Because it is our regular meeting time” is perhaps the worst reason to have a meeting. There may be lots of purposes that necessitate regular or standing meetings. However, when a meeting becomes rote as opposed to meaningfully connected to a collaborative purpose, it’s time to shake it up or consider not holding the meeting anymore.

· Facilitator vs. Participant – A challenge for organizational leaders who are leading meetings is the need to balance facilitation of a meeting, which requires attention to process, flexibility, and a measure of distance AND meaningful input and leadership on critical issues. Either try to hold this tension, and be as explicit as possible, or consider rotating meeting facilitating.

Some Strategies:

· Purpose: If any given group, or the organization, have common goals or objectives, to which all members of a group are committed, and which require inter-dependence, then there will be a clear collaborative purpose for a meeting. As much as possible, tie meetings to these clear goals.

· Rituals: Check In, Acknowledgements, Evaluation. Rituals establish a tone and remind people that they are shifting in or out of “collaboration time”

· Lightning Round: To avoid lengthy updates, make a habit of going around and having every member share their priorities or work that most directly relates to the groups shared goals. INSIST that updates be not more than 2 minutes.

· Responsive Agenda: Consider not creating agendas before meetings (the horror…) This allows the facilitator to create an agenda following a lightning round to ensure that the meeting meets an immediate and relevant purpose based on what group members express in the “lightning round.”

· Flexible Agenda: If you do set an agenda, a few rules of thumb:

o Most Important Items First – Putting the most important and immediate issues first ensures that the items that need the most attention will get the most attention, communicates priorities, and encourages people to be on time.

o Depth over Coverage – Fewer items, meaningfully discussed, debated, decided is preferable to going over lots of stuff quickly

o Highlight Decision – Highlight at the beginning what key decisions need to be made and how they will be made

· Fun – Create a spirit of creativity, energy, and joy at being together, even when you are working on tough problems.

· Start on Time, End on Time – Respect people’s time.

References:

An interesting book on meetings is:

Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable. Patrick Lencioni.

Lencioni, P. (2004). Death by meeting: A leadership fable. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Also see:

Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making. Sam Kaner

Kaner, S., Lind, L., Toldi, C., & Fisk, S. (2007). Facilitator’s guide to participatory decision-making. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass