Good meetings exist!

Here are the rules.

Photo by Carrie Borden on Unsplash

How many meetings have I attended that have dragged on, chaired with all the charisma of a muddy puddle, achieving nothing? More of these than those colored uncomfortable by unvoiced conflicts and power-struggles, but there’ve been a fair few of those, too. Unhelpful meeting customs take on a life of their own, and meeting well is a skill no-one teaches. Yet it’s not hard to hold meetings that people leave saying “Well, that was constructive!”. Here (written from a chairing-the-meeting perspective) is how.

a)    Meet only when a meeting is the best next step.

Merely having a meeting in the calendar is no reason to meet.

b)    Invite people whose attendance matters, and no-one else.

This may mean inviting people who aren’t normally invited, perhaps including some from outside of your team—and letting others know that, this time, you can free up their time.

c)    Plan a sensible agenda, considering what can realistically be covered and what order makes sense, allowing that discussion is unpredictable.

A long list of topics to be discussed is rarely a sensible use of people’s time. The best agendas often consist of a small number of questions, typically one to five, and nothing else.

You can have a rule that no document for the meeting should be longer than one side of a sheet of paper. With practice, most things (including all sensible agendas) can fit one side of a sheet of paper.

d)    Circulate a short agenda in advance.

Some people need time to collect their thoughts, especially those who are less confident about speaking, or who want to consult their colleagues.

e)    Start on time.

Not to do so is disrespectful to those who’ve shown up punctually, and trains people that they needn’t be on time when you’re chairing.

f)    Set the right tone.

The chair determines the atmosphere. Aim for respectful, constructive, warm and relaxed.

g)    If everyone doesn’t know everyone, ask everyone to introduce themselves.

h)      Welcome newcomers.

Your responsibility is to involve everyone, especially the quiet folk and the newcomers.

i)    Cut the bureaucracy.

Declaring meetings open and closed, formally adopting the minutes of the last meeting, seeking a proposer and a seconder for anything that’s decided: this is bullshit, wastes time, and alienates newcomers. Let it go.

j)    Some people are more comfortable being invited to speak.

“Sarah, did you have any comments on this?” (But some may be thrown by this if they don’t know it’s coming, so “Sarah, I’m conscious you haven’t had a chance to speak yet—I’ll check with you in a moment.”)

This is at least as important in video meetings as it is when face-to-face.

k)      Recognize when people need to have their perspective heard or chew the cud with colleagues, even when it’s not leading to a decision.

Sometimes this is what’s needed.

l)      Keep it moving, and moving towards a decision.

Make sure everything important is ventilated, allowing for people’s need to be heard and to chew the cud. Then turn to the decision.

Meetings of teams that score higher on ‘kind’ than on ‘businesslike’ have a tendency to go around in a circle two or three times and then defer decisions that it would be better made.

Often it would be better to have the decision made, because it’s not important enough to spend more time agonizing over.

m)    Keep discussions proportionate to the importance of the subject-matter

… remembering that views about the importance of the topic will differ.

n)      Encourage healthy conflict.

Disagreements aren’t things to be navigated around: they’re the point of a meeting. Teams that avoid discord are dysfunctional workplaces. Working through them constructively allows perspectives to be shared, makes for better decisions, and is a marker of a healthy team.¹ It brings people together, even if they disagree. You don’t have to reach a consensus (which we’ll come to in a moment): you just have to ensure that people are heard and that differing opinions are genuinely reflected upon.

o)   Everyone’s equal in a meeting.

It’s a clause in the unspoken contract of effective meetings that, no matter where people fit into an organizational hierarchy, when you’re in a meeting, you’re all equal.

Make sure that’s how it truly is. Permit no power games. Allow no-one to control the meeting.

p)    Call people out when their manner isn’t helping.

You can do it nicely, but it has to be done. “Joel, Polly, Ash, hold on a moment: there’s a risk of this conversation becoming dominated by people with tenure, but we need to hear from everyone on this. I’m going to ask some of the others what they think now.”

q)    Help the group make the decision.

Find points of agreement and room for compromise.

r)    If you’re chairing, it’s your job to set aside your own biases.

As the meeting’s chair, you’ve accepted responsibility for helping your colleagues have effective conversations and make decisions well, whether or not you agree with what’s said or with any decisions made. Nothing wrong with voicing your opinion but, if the topic is something about which you care strongly, you may be better off getting someone else to chair the meeting, or the relevant part of it.

s)    Aim for consensus. But don’t insist upon it.

If you can’t get there, and the meeting contains—or is sufficiently representative of—everyone with an interest in whatever’s being decided, sometimes it takes a vote. Kind people struggle with the idea of anyone feeling they’ve lost. But decisions do sometimes need to be made.

t)     Every decision needs a plan.

And all plans need to be (sorry!) SMART —specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timed.

Decisions such as “Next year, we’ll review the budget earlier in the year” feel good and are immediately forgotten.

u)    In recurring meetings, consider reviewing plans made at the last meeting.

This may be the Measurable and the Timed of SMART. (But do Cut the bureaucracy, above—see (i) above)

v)      Keep a careful eye on the time.

Don’t let important decisions become rushed when, at the end of a meeting, concentration’s waning and minds have shifted to whatever people are doing next.

w)    Few meetings should last more than fifty minutes.

And thirty’s usually better. Much longer and they become rambling and less effective and, if there are to be more, similar meetings, people are less likely to return.

x)    Minutes should be lists of action plans, not narratives of who said what.

No-one’s interested. And the important stuff gets lost.

y)   Ensure that decisions are communicated to everyone with a legitimate interest in them.

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Next week: Know thyself.

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1. See Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002).