1.
Phil…on Meetings
According to Phil Baldey (of www.strategicpulse.com ), there are several aspects
to meetings: when to have them, who to invite, what structure and format to take
and what type of meeting to run.
But first, why do we have meetings Phil?
“Meetings are an opportunity and framework to get resolution, reach conclusion,
share ideas and move forward - for those leading the meeting AND those
attending”.
1. When to have meetings?
Many organisations have meetings for the sake of meetings. To have less,
more effective and efficient meetings is better than having many meetings. In
saying that, I believe there are some meetings that should be regular,
whether they be weekly, monthly, fortnightly, even daily if required, depending
on what you are trying to achieve.
It is important that meetings happen when they are meant to happen. If a key
person is away for the meeting, the meeting goes on – even if it is the
meeting Chair who is missing - because the people who are part of that
meeting should be able to run the meeting themselves and get some
outcomes from it.
Regular team meetings should occur even if the Chair thinks there is nothing
to discuss. Though there may be nothing on the agenda, a regularly-
prescribed meeting offers an opportunity for other participants to bring up
agenda items. If you follow the process of “what’s working, what’s not” in a
short 10-minute round, it is likely to act as a prompt to the sorts of things that
should be discussed. Exhaust those opportunities rather than not have the
meeting. Often when there’s nothing on the agenda and people relax a bit,
that’s when some of the real gold comes out. So I encourage meetings to be
held irrespective of whether or not there is anything obvious to be said.
2. Who to invite?
Meetings need to be well conceived before they take place. Too often they
are called on an adhoc basis, then not all the appropriate people get invited.
Have a look at what you are trying to achieve and make sure that you have
people from within the organisation or even from outside the organisation who
can add value to the meeting.
I don’t believe in on-the-fly meetings, I believe they should be structured and
organised. The 5-minute chat is not a real meeting and can, in fact, detract
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2.
from another meeting’s purpose. Save the little things that seem important for
the next scheduled regular meeting.
3. Structure
All meetings should have an agenda. This is not being bureaucratic, nor
should each meeting necessarily have a new agenda, but there should be a
standing agenda for every meeting. I like a format that incorporates a catch-
up meeting – what’s good, what’s not so good, what needs to change and
ensure that everyone comments under those three headings. In this way, you
get to know what is happening with people. It also creates engagement.
Therefore, it is the role of the person chairing the meeting to ask for, or solicit,
engagement.
Establish the length of the meeting before it commences. Operational
meetings may go anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours, longer meetings may
be needed for strategic planning sessions, etc.
Q. Frequently, people do not arrive to a meeting on time. At what stage do
you start?
All meetings start on time irrespective of who is there. Once people know this,
it flows into the culture of the organisation. I appreciate that you might have to
do a catch-up for latecomers, but they need to understand that the collective
good of the organisation requires that the meeting starts on time. The cost of
not starting on time is huge if you add up the opportunity-cost or salaries of
people involved. Start on time, finish on time. I never send people out to find
people who are meant to be in a meeting because then you start to lose the
thread. Those who are there stay there and get on with the
meeting…because it is all about respect.
The expected outcome needs to be clearly defined as well – what are you
there to achieve? If it is a catch-up so be it, if it is a project meeting to work on
certain milestones or outcomes, then these need to be clearly spelt out at the
beginning. If there is pre-reading required, don’t assume people have read it
because they often haven’t. You don’t want to spend meeting time re-
covering what is in the reading material. You need to say “you were expected
to read this information, however I don’t want you to make decisions if you
haven’t. I need a declaration of who has and hasn’t read this information.” By
doing this, people start to change their behaviour and come to the meetings
prepared, having done their pre-read.
Through meetings you can change the culture of an organisation, stamp
leadership and set expectations, allowing people to take on responsibilities
through the process. Therefore if you are slack with your meetings, chances
are you will have less than appropriate performance from your management
team...because they don’t know where the boundaries are.
Structure a meeting into segments. For example, you may run a meeting from
9-11am; 9-10.30am could be the team catch-up, 10.30-11am include invited
knowledge experts to cover certain points that require their expertise. You
then have a timeframe to work to and focused use of the people that you
bring to the meeting.
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3.
If 75% of the people in the meeting are not engaged in a particular
discussion, then it is important to take that discussion ‘offline’ ie away from
that meeting. Even if the outcome is relevant to the majority, the discussion
may not be and the two parties need to come to agreement in another forum.
I ask for their commitment to resolution before the next meeting so that they
can report on the outcome at that meeting. This keeps things moving forward.
Recording meetings
Some meetings require formal minutes (eg AGMs); some need less formal
notice of actions, timelines and the owner, or person/s taking action. Notes do
not necessarily have to be published, everyone records the individual actions
applicable to them. What is important is that the ‘control’ notes are reviewed
at the beginning of the next meeting to ensure everything has been actioned.
Q. How do you stop that review taking over the next meeting?
At the beginning of the meeting, set out what you are trying to achieve. Whilst
you review what has happened previously, you still have some business to
get through in this meeting. Quickly check to see that everyone has done
what they were meant to do. It is also important to create an expectation that
once the new meeting comes around, last meeting’s jobs have been done.
Participants should not wait to see the recorded minutes before they take
action. What often derails meetings and consequentially organisations is that
people have not had a clear steer as to their ownership of a project or task
and timelines.
4. Format
Meetings can be formatted according to the purpose:
Stand-up meetings are simply that, meetings where seats are not provided.
They create a quickfire response and focus so that people are immediately
engaged.
Revolving-door meetings involve allocating an hour or so eg 4-5 pm on a
Friday afternoon with an open invitation for others to line up outside the door
for individual 5-minute meetings. Whilst it may seem archaic to have people
lining up outside the door awaiting their turn, it is a fantastic way of people
getting access to someone. They know they have just 5 minutes to get their
point across, often people in line with similar issues will work that out and
enter the door as a group. It is a fluid way of approaching meetings and an
effective use of one hour of key resource time.
Open meetings have an open invitation. It may be to share a key person’s
professional or project knowledge or to seek feedback from a range of
people.
Panel meetings allow you to speak to a number of experts or cross-
functionally across the organisation.
Choose what is appropriate for what you are trying to achieve
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4.
Q. Sometimes it seems as though there needs to be a social context to
meetings, eg provision of time for food, drink and small chat. Is this correct?
No, my focus is to conduct the business, the meeting is to get collective
minds working in the right environment, not to go off on tangents - to keep to
the point. There are times where there may be some social interaction, eg in
company-wide meetings food may be provided and individual stories shared.
Yes, we need to connect with people attending a meeting, but it is not a time
to catch up personally.
5. Types of meetings
What type of meeting will you run?
Senior Management Team (SMT) and Operational Management Team
meetings get teams together in their relevant areas of responsibility. I believe
that to move things forward in an organisation one needs to create projects,
therefore, regular Project Team meetings are important.
One-on-one meetings are often forgotten or ill-conceived, or left to the 6 or
12-monthly review periods defined by human resource processes. I believe
regular one-on-one meetings with your direct reports are very important.
Q. Is that different to a performance-review type of meeting?
It is not the formal performance review process but at the same time it can act
as a review of how that person is performing at that moment. It looks at work-
in-progress, attitudes and strategic inputs that a person can bring to the
organisation or project. The person running the meeting, commonly a direct
manager, asks the person they are managing what is working, what is not
working and areas they can see for improvement for themselves and the
organisation. It is a chance for someone to have self-disclosure and increase
confidence to speak with their manager. It is a great way for personal
development but also for the manager to find out what is happening within
their team. If a manager has up to eight direct reports - the maximum I
recommend – and a commitment to meeting with each monthly, then with
two-a-week meetings, they have met with the whole team personally each
month.
Q. How do you stop these one-on-one meetings becoming ‘tell-tale’
sessions?
There are some risks, but huge benefits as well. It is important for the
manager to handle disclosures delicately and to know how to utilise, manage
and support the person they are meeting with. It is not to chastise those who
have been talked about. At the same time, when the manager speaks to the
person who has been talked about, he can use this knowledge, solicit some
more information and then determine on balance whether it is true.
One-on-one meetings are a great way to manage people. Organisations that
have regular one-on-one meetings have the best relationships with their staff,
the closest understanding of what is happening in the organisation and can
see issues before they arise, thereby avoiding serious blow-ups.
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5.
Skip meetings skip a level or more within the organisation, eg a CEO
speaking to people at the coalface can find out what is happening at that
level. It should be done with the endorsement of the managers who are being
skipped.
Company-wide meetings are important to update company status and to find
out what is working or not. Commonly, the CEO and SMT chair these
meetings, they need to talk in the language of the lowest level of knowledge
in the organisation. Therefore, it is not the time to talk about EBITDA and
other high-level financial phrases that laypeople may not understand.
Typically newspapers are written at the literacy level of a 13-year old, I
suggest that these meetings are run at the same level with discussion of
things such as whether the company is making profit or not, the challenges
facing it and how is the company going to deal with them? Is there risk, what
does it mean to the individual, are jobs secure? These are the things people
need and want to know.
Q. Do the same issues apply to meetings with people who have a relationship
with the organisation eg suppliers?
The philosophy expressed here relates to external as well as internal
meetings. Its not so much a discussion of how to manage external
relationships, more about how to manage meetings. So if you are negotiating
with suppliers, the same principles apply as discussed above in relation to
structure - you need to be clear upfront as to what you are negotiating about
in the meeting, what are the negotiables, what are the non-negotiables, what
is your connectivity with that person; who else from your organisation needs
to be involved to gain a balanced viewpoint, what can you expect to achieve
out of the meeting. There may not be the same level of transparency with an
external party, but the more transparency that exists the better the result.
Finally, whilst I have said ‘less is more’, I am emphatic that SMT and Project
Teams meet regularly because it creates the momentum between each
meeting to get things done. Acknowledge achievement of tasks set at one
meeting at the next meeting; review lack of achievement or progress and set
expectations to take the project or issue forward. Through that expectation
you are more likely to get delivery between the meetings – and get resolution,
reach conclusion, share ideas and move forward – the reason meetings take
place to start with.
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