How to have better internal meetings
Let’s be honest. Few things can be less exciting than the prospect of an internal meeting. You dread creating the request and sending the invitation, and those receiving it dread adding another meeting to their calendars. Meeting culture has become so pervasive that internal meetings are now the #1 barrier to productivity. One client told me that her company is looking to mandate one meeting-free day per week so that people can focus on their work! I don’t think that’s the solution to the problem either, because the problem is that most internal meetings are inefficient and unnecessary.
To have better internal meetings, let’s start with the key question: “Is this meeting necessary?” We’ve all seen the meme about I Survived Another Meeting That Could Have Been An Email. Sadly, this isn’t even satirical. Please don't hold a meeting if what you need to share could just as easily be distributed via email! Everyone will thank you for it. There are many common types of meetings that can likely be eliminated, including:
Weekly/semi-weekly status updates and “check-ins”
Brainstorming meetings
Any meeting without an agenda
Feedback meetings
Almost everyone will agree that 4 of these can go the way of the dodo. I realize I will take some flack for stating that brainstorming meetings should be trashed too, but hear me out. Brainstorming is, at its core, an exercise in thinking. How many brainstorming meetings have you been in where it’s been heavy on the “meeting” part but light on the “brainstorming” aspect? How does the construct of a meeting facilitate the creative free-flowing of ideas? In a brainstorming meeting, you have many things at play: groupthink, fear of judgment, and predictability. Most great ideas do not come to people in meetings. The guy who invented Velcro happened to notice that when he walked in the woods with his dog, the barbed, hook-like burrs of some plants stuck on his dog’s fur and his clothing. If you want to get the most out of your team’s creative arsenal, the best thing to do is engage the team members in ongoing conversations about their lives and observations. Do more listening and less talking.
What can you proactively do to make your meetings more impactful? First, have a plan. Never host a meeting without an agenda and then attempt to wing it in the moment. Think about your objective for having the meeting. What do you hope it will accomplish? Craft your agenda around that question. It’s also critical to think about who you’re inviting and to invite people judiciously. How many times have you been in a meeting and thought, “Why am I here?” Don’t do that to your coworkers! They will thank you. Stick to your schedule. When meetings run astray of time, people check out. Keep them engaged by staying on track. Lastly, manage the others in the room, whether a conference room or a virtual meeting room. Nothing derails a meeting faster than one person using it as his therapy session. Give equal time to everyone and don’t allow one person to take over.