Death by meeting and its prevention

 "I just hate meetings," a CEO told us recently. "There are too many and it seems like nothing ever happens. I'd rather focus on top priorities, or on sales." This CEO is not alone. Death by meeting is the demise of engagement, brought about by too much talking and not enough doing. When you account for the salaries sitting around the table, it's also expensive. Fortunately, it's preventable.

Why meetings go wrong

• No agenda and no specific goal - This leads to wandering conversation with no beneficial outcome. Waste. Of. Time. Meetings can be updates, informative/training, brainstorming, problem solving, planning.
• Undefined or ill defined decision making process - Does the Boss defer some or all of the decision making to the team in the meeting? Is he looking for input but reserving the decision making for himself? The actual process used is less important than it is to communicate what the decision process is going to be, and then to follow through. Note, though, that if the leader is doing all of the decision making there may be more efficient ways to communicate the decisions than pulling everyone together into a room.
• Lack of tools for effective meeting - This year a lot of the business world moved to videoconferencing for meetings. Bad connections or uneven distribution of tools make it difficult to meet in this way. Beyond that, good interaction requires more than just talking. Wipe boards, charts, sticky notes, etc. help to communicate.  
• Unprepared participants - Some people think out loud, before their thoughts are fully formed. While that can be energizing for them, it also consumes meeting time. Some participants need time to think before they contribute. When the meeting topic catches them flatfooted they can't offer their full brainpower.
• Minimizer management behavior - There are intentional and unintentional behaviors that managers engage in that squash contribution by team members in meetings. If only one person's opinions matter, why meet? If attendees are not contributing, why divert their time (and incur the expense) to include them in the session?
• Hidden agendas - Not everybody in every team is up front about what he or she wants. Or sometimes they are at cross-purposes with the goal of the meeting, intent on squashing whatever initiative is being discussed.

Meetings that support your business's growth

• Start with the really big goals and branch from there - Your Core Purpose, Core Values, 3- and 1-year goals form the context for meeting agendas.
• Meeting rhythms support execution - Each has its own function and agenda.
• Annually - reaffirm your core ideology, revisit your strategy, and select priorities that will be your focus for the upcoming year.
• Quarterly - update your progress on your plan, and set targets for next quarter.
• Monthly - Discuss strategic issues, train your team.
• Weekly - Departments identify and resolve execution problems.
• Daily - 10-minute communication huddle to share today's priorities, identify issues that need attention outside the huddle.
• Use a facilitator -  This is particularly important for the bigger meetings. One person should be primarily responsible for the process. This person should not be the person also responsible for the output or the decisions. A facilitator invites, even nudges all team members to be fully engaged in the discussion. The facilitator knows what outputs need to be generated from the meeting, and her role includes the management, distribution and pacing of the discussion.
• Tools and metrics - Without widely-known and followed metrics, progress can only be measured by "how I'm thinking and feeling today." And that can shift for reasons far removed from actual progress. Engagement increases when people can readily track their own progress. And management can better determine where resources need to be allocated to achieve company goals.
• Who What When - Nothing changes if nothing changes. The facilitator or other designated individual needs to be responsible for documenting tasks identified during the meeting, along with due dates and who is assigned to get it done. Sending out the WWW after the meeting, the team can more readily follow up. This might be the simplest and most important preventative of all.