Do you hate meetings? I feel your pain, because despite my energy and my optimism, I know too well that most meetings are inefficient at best, and more often than not, they seem to be deployed as a form of mental torture. In an ideal world, you would be able to invoke the Geneva Convention and expect international help.But since we live in a very imperfect world, I am giving you the second best thing, which is a guide on having meeting that do not suck.
Most meetings induce suffering because they don't achieve anything. They include too many people who have nothing to do with the topic being discussed. Or they don't include key people who are necessary to make a decision. They don't start on time, and then they drag on and on until victims collapse and beg for mercy. It doesn't have to be this way.
Your first line of defense when protecting yourself from mental torture is to identify what the meeting is trying to achieve. The only three possible options are:
- disseminate information;
- gather information;
- do work as a group, which includes reaching a decision.
A meeting can sometimes combine 1 and 2 back to back, but 3 is a special case that should never be mixed with the other two. If you schedule a meeting, be clear about your goals and publish an agenda ahead of time so that attendees can prepare and contribute something sensible. If you are invited to a meeting that is vague about its goals, your best strategy is to decline until a clear agenda is provided. We had the moto "no agenda, no meeting", which in action meant that recurring meetings were automatically cancelled unless an agenda was proposed 24h before the meeting time.
All meetings have to be run by exactly one person. The person in charge is typically the person who booked the meeting, but it can be someone else. For simplicity, I will call this person the Master of Ceremony (MC). The MC's job is to make the meeting progress at an adequate pace to ensure that all agenda points are covered. The MC has to cut people who are rambling off and probe silent attendees for their feedback. The MC may participate in the discussion, but he may also act as a moderator only. Some meetings are important enough to record the discussion as "minutes", a written summary of the meeting. In that case, a scribe has to be designated. The scribe can't be the MC, because being the MC takes one's full attention. If anyone on the original invite list can't attend, it's a good idea to record minutes by default. At the bare minimum, the minutes should be shared with everyone on the original invite list at th latest one hour after the meeting. Being timely is more valuable than being polished. Sometimes, a broader audience and a permanent record also make sense. Use common sense.
Since the scribe is accountable to record the discussion accurately, he or she has the right to inturpt anyone and ask them to repeat or clarify. Minutes do not have to be verbatim records of the conversation. Bullet points summaries are OK, with emphasis on conclusions when the meeting is about making a decision. All action items should be clearly highlighted with who is supposed to do what, and by when.
The list of attendees should make sense. If the meeting is about gathering information, everyone invited should have something to say. If the meeting is about reaching a decision, the person with the authority to enforce the decision should be present. Sometimes, the meeting organizer screws up. If you are invited and you don't see how you could possibly contribute, you have the duty to politely decline. If the meeting is about disseminating information, it's OK for you to decline and ask for the minutes instead. If you only notice that you should not be there after the meeting has started, it's OK to leave discreetly without disrupting the discussion.
Meetings should start on time. If people are missing, start without them; they can catch up by reading the minutes. It's a good idea for a team to agree on a friendly punishment for people who are late. Maybe they have to do push ups (one per minute you are late), or they have to get karak for everyone, or maybe they have to since a song. Keep it fun and don't be cruel, but highlight that being late screws up everyone who made an effort to be there on time.
If you have another meeting to attend right after the current one, there is no way around it, you need to leave before the first meeting is over. That's OK. Leave quietly without drawing unnecessary attention to your personal schedule. If the agenda has been covered, the meeting should end. It's OK for any attendee to ask for the meeting to adjourn if the agenda has been covered or if the discussing is spinning in circles.
If the meeting is about doing work as a group, having laptops and phones might make sense. Otherwise, leaving them behind is a better option. Unless you are presenting to a large audience, you don't need slides. Writing down points on a whiteboard is usually more attention grabbing, but if you feel particularly self-conscious about your handwriting, you can also write your points in a text file. Almost every time, you will achieve more engagement by spending more time rehearsing in front of a mirror rather than polishing slides. A time keeping device is a good thing to have, and so is a fresh supply of whiteboard markers. Post-it notes make it easy to restructure information and to enable concurrent contributions. For editing tasks, shared documents that everyone can modify at the same time with one master copy on a projector are very effective. Don't forget to increase your font size.
Every team works differently. Evaluate regularly if your meetings are achieving their goals. Try different schedules, different frequencies, change the duration, invite different people, or even cancel them. Accept that even after reading this guide, some of your meeting will still suck. Strive for excellence and they will eventually suck less. On a rare occasion, you may even hear someone thank you for a great meeting.
Channel your pain productively. Resist the temptation to zone out. When time seems to stop and that suffering is devouring your soul, look deep inside and ask yourself why it hurts. You are one step closer to a solution. Speak up.
- How to Run a Meeting by Michael Lopp (13 mins read) https://randsinrepose.com/archives/how-to-run-a-meeting/
- Death by Meeting by Patrick Lencioni (260 pages).
Credit should always be given where it's due, thank you for taking the lead on this, Yannick Gingras.