When was the last time you were in a meeting and thought, ‘This is great!’?
It happens, of course. There are a lot of meetings that are, in fact, great, largely due to facilitation that is intentional, organized, and skillful. Unfortunately, this is the exception when it should be the rule.
With the average manager having three meetings per day, and with more than half of these meetings being considered a waste of time, there are far too many meeting facilitators who are not running their meetings effectively and consequently, far too many meetings that are less than great, and in many cases, a giant waste of time.
This has enormous implications, as it has been shown that the effectiveness of an organization’s meetings is one of the strongest correlates to staff satisfaction. Because we spend so much time in meetings, the effectiveness of these meetings will largely determine how happy we are at work. Enormous implications, indeed.
Unfortunately, like many other important skills in the workplace (particularly those pertaining to management), most people are never shown, told, taught, or trained how to run effective meetings. Less than one-third in fact. Like many other important skills in the workplace, people are left to figure it out on their own, and unfortunately, many never do.
This is not due to a lack of trying or wanting to do well. It is not a slight on competence or leadership ability. Instead, it is the result of a combination of not having a model of how to do it well and never being trained to do it any better.
Those lucky few who do receive training on how to make meetings better almost always receive instruction and strategies on the actual facilitation of the meeting. This is important, of course, as effective meeting facilitation requires skills and knowledge. But the cause of so many bad meetings is what happens before and after the actual meeting and that is rarely the focus of what little support is out there, once again impacting just how much time we are wasting.
Like any task or performance in front of others, the preparation determines the execution. Knowing what needs to happen before the actual meeting will largely determine how effective the meeting will be. Necessarily included in this preparation is, or rather should be, a thoughtful process of whether the meeting should happen in the first place, and if so, how frequently and for how long.
For so many of us, we simply continue running the same meetings as the person who had the position before us without questioning why the meeting is happening and why it is happening at the length and duration with which it is happening. This results in unnecessary meetings continuing simply because they always have.
In addition, many of us have experienced meetings as the default for communication so we continue to make them the default, regardless of how effective or ineffective of a use of time this is. There are countless other platforms and mechanisms to share information yet most continue to operate as if meetings are the only way.
To make your meetings better, then, you need to figure out what meetings are necessary, who should be attending, and what the frequency and duration should be.
Audit your current meeting schedule. Make a list of your recurring meetings that happen daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually (and any other iteration that may be relevant to you.)
Next, make a note of the duration of each meeting and the frequency with which it currently occurs.
Then, look for ways to increase efficiency. Begin with necessity. Do any meetings jump out at you as easy ones to eliminate altogether? Or, perhaps, no longer necessary for you to attend? Start removing these from your calendar as a first step.
Next, consider time. Can your 60-minute meeting be just as effective as a 45-minute one? Have you left enough time in between meetings for people to recover? Have you tried different lengths to figure out which length is best?
Then, consider frequency. Can your weekly meeting yield the same results if it happens every two weeks? Do your one-on-ones need to have the same level of frequency for each staff member?
Finally, think about who is currently attending each of your meetings. Would that 10-person meeting be just as impactful if five people attended? Who needs to be there and who does not?
It is certainly possible that some of your meetings are perfect just the way they are in terms of length, frequency, and attendees, in which case, leave well enough alone. It is nearly impossible, however, that all of them are. With as many meetings as all of us have, there is undoubtedly some opportunity (and for some of us, many) to reduce meeting time in some combination of length, frequency, and attendance to increase effectiveness.
To help with this process, it is essential that you seek input and feedback from the people who are best equipped to evaluate the effectiveness of your current meetings- attendees themselves. Ask them in conversations, surveys, and one-on-one check-ins, how they would rate the value of the meeting and what suggestions they may have to make it better. Based on that feedback, you can start experimenting with different iterations of the meeting until you find one that really works. Is it every week for 45 minutes? Every other week for 90? Once a month with all staff? Twice a month with different departments?
To do this, it is essential that you determine what makes a meeting valuable. What are you trying to accomplish? Can you accomplish the same thing in less time? With fewer people? In a completely different format?
Learning how to manage what happens during a meeting is essential. Before that, though, you need to learn how to be strategic about when to hold a meeting and where, for how long, and with which attendees. Before you make your agenda- and make an agenda you must- you need to be thoughtful about the purpose and goals. Then, design your meeting logistics with a focus on those goals and the time you need to reach them.
