{"id":397,"date":"2018-06-28T22:55:45","date_gmt":"2018-06-28T22:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centropycoaching.com\/?p=397"},"modified":"2020-07-13T17:36:49","modified_gmt":"2020-07-13T17:36:49","slug":"effective-meetings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centropycoaching.com\/effective-meetings\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Ways To Run Effective Meetings and Avoid Death By Meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In our work as coaches to closely-held businesses, we\u2019re always surprised at how few leaders use productive, regularly held staff meetings in their companies. We believe that they are missing a big opportunity to not only avoid the dreaded “death by meeting,” but help them achieve bigger goals, resolve and even prevent unhealthy conflict, and promote good teamwork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are some of the more common reasons (excuses) we hear when we ask our clients why they don\u2019t hold regular staff meetings:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Meetings are boring!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 We\u2019re too busy putting out fires!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Nothing ever gets accomplished!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Nobody wants to come!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 The last time we had one someone stormed out!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 They\u2019re too much work!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, we hear more about bad meeting experiences than good ones. While everyone has sat through their share of bad meetings (and, if we\u2019re honest, we might even admit that we\u2019ve led a few ones ourselves), we don\u2019t often hear about what makes a good meeting.Here are some of the elements that make for constructive meetings that people actually enjoy attending, versus dreading. They can prevent some of those \u201cfires\u201d mentioned earlier from forming. Most importantly, they help you build a stronger, more productive and professionally run company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Sense of Purpose<\/strong>. Is there an agenda and has it been distributed beforehand? Suggestion: when you create your agenda, put in three columns for each item: time frame, name of the agenda item, and most importantly, what is the expected outcome. If you can\u2019t think of an expected outcome for something you want to include on your agenda, maybe you need to re-think whether it belongs on the agenda. When you put together an agenda, you can always have recurring items in place (such as financial and performance goals) for updates, then add new items and solicit items from your staff members beforehand. Be sure to leave time for discussions and issues that come up during the meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Two-Way Flow<\/strong>. Is it a meeting, or do you just want to pass along information? If the discussion is only going to flow one way, that\u2019s not a meeting! Do it another way (email, phone, or?) Or, my personal favorite, are you calling a meeting of the whole team to discipline a few people without naming anyone specifically? Don\u2019t\u2019 do it! The guilty party(ies) will assume you\u2019re talking about someone else and the non-guilty will be annoyed that their time is being wasted. Share your feedback directly with the individuals you need to give it to on a one-on-one meeting and don\u2019t waste the others\u2019 time.In summary, use team meetings for debating and decision making on important issues vs simply transferring information or disciplining individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Good Drama<\/strong><\/a>. Not the door slamming, storming out of the room, shouting kind of drama, but the drama that results in people passionately debating their positions on a particular issue. Bad meetings lack this type of productive conflict. Patrick Lencioni, in his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, names fear of any kind of conflict as one of the major dysfunctions of a team. It\u2019s because without healthy conflict, people are afraid to share their opinions. When they can\u2019t share their opinions, they can\u2019t commit to an outcome and they avoid controversial topics. This, in turn, leads to environments where back-channel politics and personal attacks thrive. Ironically, lack of healthy conflict leads to the unhealthy kind. Good meetings have lively discussions and create a safe environment in which people are able to share their strong views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Good leadership<\/strong>. Good leaders model good behavior and have good conflict management skills, which can often include letting sometimes \u201cmessy\u201d discussions about uncomfortable topics run their course (see point #3 above). Good meeting leadership also includes setting and enforcing ground rules to create and maintain safe environments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Balance<\/strong>. We\u2019ve all been in meetings that drag on forever, with lots of discussions that are so far off the original topic that no one even remembers what it was. At the same time, we all know that some of the best ideas arise from impromptu discussions. The trick is to strike a good balance. One suggestion: assign one person (ideally more of your Type A personality) to serve as the \u201cknocker.\u201d The knocker is charged with actually rapping on the table when they sense the discussion is starting to go \u201coff topic.\u201d While your knocker doesn\u2019t get to unilaterally stop the discussion, they do get to bring it to the group\u2019s attention for a vote: should we carry on with topic, save it for later or drop it altogether?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. Good Timing<\/strong>. Is your agenda neither too full and nor too light? It\u2019s tempting to try to pile a million tasks and topics into a short time period. Or, as one of my colleague says, \u201cavoid trying to put 10 lbs of #### in a one pound bag syndrome\u201d. You run the risk of burning people out and losing valuable energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7. Participation<\/strong>. Everyone participates and talks, not just the leader. Don\u2019t be afraid to directly solicit opinions from participants. As in \u201cJohn, what do you think?\u201d As the leader, do you dominate? Are you always first to give your opinion? It\u2019s a sure fire way to dampen discussion. Hold back. Make them beg you for you opinion. Go for the question: \u201cWhat do you think boss?\u201d and answer only after others have weighed in.Also, give people some time to respond. As we tell clients: \u201cLet silence do the heavy lifting.\u201d You are not hosting a radio show. You don\u2019t need to fill every minute with your pearls of wisdom. It\u2019s OK to have dead air. Sometimes people need time to form their thoughts before they commit to speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8. Accountability<\/strong>. Many people hate meetings because nothing gets resolved or acted upon. Are your action items tracked and brought forward to the next meeting? Are action items clearly articulated? Do you create SMART goals? (Specific, Measurable, Accountable, with a Timeline?) Assign someone to record not meeting minutes but these SMART action items. Then start your next meeting with a review of this list of action items for a status report. You\u2019ll be surprised at how productive people can be when they know they\u2019ll be held accountable in front of their peers. If they haven\u2019t made progress, use this time to figure out why and help them remove obstacles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9. Regularity<\/strong>. For example, weekly staff meetings should be just that. Get it scheduled for a regular time and day of the week. If you are not going to be in the office that day, assign a backup leader. Or, have meeting leaders rotate (either way it\u2019s good for staff development.) If it ends up only taking 5 minutes to go through your regular agenda items (including an update of action items in progress), great! Dismiss everyone and send them on their way. Your team will love you for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10. Continuous Improvement<\/strong>. Do a \u201cPlus\/Delta\u201d at the end of the meeting. Ask participants what worked (Pluses), and what could have been done better (Deltas).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Want more ideas for running better meetings?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you suffer from dread by meeting? 10 ways to run effective\u00a0meetings\u00a0to create opportunities for engagement, productivity, and team building.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/centropycoaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/centropycoaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/centropycoaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centropycoaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centropycoaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/centropycoaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centropycoaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/centropycoaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centropycoaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centropycoaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}