So how did your virtual meeting go? Do they create valuable new insights for the business, or are they a series of multitasking monologues? Are they productive conversations about critical business issues, or are they a rehash of the same tactical stuff you’ve been talking about for months? Are your meetings getting better or worse?
Answer these five sample questions from the Strategy Meeting Assessment for meetings you typically attend:
1. Send relevant messages before the meeting to avoid one-way introductions during the meeting
Meeting. whether
2. The meeting starts at the scheduled time. whether
3. People are preoccupied and don’t multitask (e.g. check their phones).
whether
4. People leave meetings with a clear understanding of who is doing what and when.
whether
5. I will decline a meeting invitation if the purpose and/or agenda have not been communicated.
whether
In this brief example, three or more “no” scores represent an opportunity to significantly improve the efficiency and productivity of the meeting. You can take the full assessment and receive scores on: https://www.strategyskills.com/meetings-quiz/
A meeting can be defined as a gathering of two or more people characterized by collective interaction and participation to make progress toward a goal through dialogue. Note the use of the words “interaction” and “conversation” in the definition. If you find yourself regularly participating in meetings, especially conference calls that take the form of mostly one-way presentations, there are ample opportunities to improve your situation.
Studies show that meetings consume approximately 40% of managers’ working time, with some estimates that this number is nearly double in a remote work environment. Key data points to consider in your research:
· Up to half of the content in a meeting is either irrelevant to participants or can be delivered outside of the meeting.
· 20% of meeting participants should not be present.
· 40% of meeting time is spent on messages that could be delivered before the meeting.
· 50% of meetings attended by senior executives were rated as “ineffective” or “very ineffective.”
You can follow five steps to help your organization take a more strategic approach to meetings and conference calls:
1. Conduct meeting review. Before doctors prescribe medicine, they must first diagnose the patient’s condition. In the same spirit, before developing new meeting guidelines, it can be helpful to first establish a baseline of what happened today. Look at factors like the types of meetings you attend, frequency and length of meetings. Then determine why these meetings exist and whether any are unnecessary. Once the review is complete, it provides a wealth of useful information to shape the future state of the meeting.
2. Find errors in the current meeting. Meeting errors occur in three stages: before the meeting, during the meeting, and after the meeting. They can also be classified as leader or participant errors. For example, a common mistake leaders make in meetings is failing to control conversations that go off the rails. A common mistake attendees make in meetings is to multitask, which shows a lack of interest in the topic and/or a lack of respect for the person speaking at the time. There are approximately twenty-five bugs to look for in these three phases to ensure that the team does not sabotage its own improvement efforts.
3. Educate managers on what is good. Begin this step by gathering best practices currently used by managers within your organization. Then look outside and see what principles and guidelines other organizations within and outside your industry are using as they relate to meetings. Examples of best practice principles include “Determine the decisions to be made in the meeting” and “Create a virtual participant list for the conference call.” Use these best practices to compile a new list of meeting standards.
4. Use conferencing tools: One of the keys to leading effective and efficient meetings is to align the meeting goals with the appropriate tools and processes to achieve them. For example, if you’re hosting a strategy meeting, you can choose from more than 100 different strategy tools to help your team with strategic thinking and planning. The key is to select the few tools that make the most sense based on your team’s context, business goals, competitive landscape, and more.
5. Create a meeting list. Social science research on habits shows that in order to effectively change people’s behavior, it is helpful to provide physical or environmental triggers. A very effective trigger is to use a meeting checklist. These physical reminders ensure teams across the organization understand basic meeting principles, techniques and tools to optimize meeting time. However, checklists are only valuable if you have the discipline to use them consistently.
Effective meetings can be dynamic forums that help your team set direction, make decisions, and come together as a team. Ineffective meetings can overwhelm people with irrelevant information, didactic presentations, and unclear priorities. What type of activity did you attend today? Do you think tomorrow will be different?
