Meetings…from Sigh to Hi!

I recently stumbled into Adam Grant’s ReThinking Podcast. Specifically, an episode with the compelling title, “Why Meetings Suck & How to Fix Them.”

In this particular episode, he and Steven Rogelberg explore a variety of concepts surrounding meetings including reasons for meeting. I first learned about the four reasons for meeting from my good friend, Kristi Otten who saw a post from Adam Grant on this topic many months ago. As a result, Kristi will often label meeting agenda items according to the purpose. This is a nice way to manage participant expectations too. If people show up expecting to act and decide and no one tells them there will be bonding and learning, that can lead to negative emotions. While the “let’s just decide and do” people may still be annoyed by bonding and learning meetings, knowing what to expect in advance along with when they can expect decisions to be made can temper those emotions. And of course, we often learn by doing and often bond over doing great work together too, so there is some reciprocity between these items. It’s most essential that we are thinking critically about why we need to meet. And if we don’t have one of the four main reasons for meeting, should we be meeting? Perhaps that meeting should be a well-crafted email. 🙂

REASONS TO MEET: Examples of each can be found in my upcoming book.

BOND: Build our sense of connection, community, and deepen the psychological safety necessary for high levels of collaboration.

LEARN: Gain insights or a deeper understanding about something from each other, from professional voices, or perhaps both.

DO: Get something done!

DECIDE: Run a decision-making protocol or by other means, confirm a decision.

AGENDAS

Another compelling thought from the podcast was related to meeting agendas. People often think that by setting meeting agendas and sharing those in advance, this will lead to high levels of engagement and productivity in meetings. However, much like anything else, it’s the quality of the agenda and the facilitation that make the biggest impact. One suggestion that stuck with me was that instead of labeling agendas with topics for discussion, label them with questions to be answered. In doing so, you create more energy around items along with the need to meet and inspire participants to be thinking about those questions in advance, so they show up ready to contribute in meaningful ways.

TIME FRAMES

Finally, many meetings are set for standard windows of time such as 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 or an hour. However, over the course of conversation, Grant and Rogelberg uncover that if you know a meeting will take exactly 18 minutes and no longer, then schedule it for that exact amount of time. Not a minute longer. Doing so shows great respect for everyone’s schedule.

I would also add that it’s a real culture killer to have meetings consistently run over. Making a habit of this inadvertently sends the message to people that you don’t think their time is important. Similarly, ensure there is equity of voice in your meetings. If one person does most of the talking, it sends the message that voice matters most. It’s no secret that I love round tables. As I mention in my upcoming book, Legacy of Learning, if you can meet at a round table, do it! With no power structure, all people have equal place in the conversation. Circles help foster a sense that we are truly in this together.

Meetings can fuel our sense of connection, can expand our learning, and can move important work forward. There is some art and science to it but if we commit ourselves to growing our meeting facilitation skills, it can do wonders for how we work together, our happiness levels, and ultimately, what we achieve.