Meetings: Now Available in Productive Format!

     Given the amount of time people spend in meetings, organizations expend shockingly little effort to ensure that these meetings have value.  Rarely is an employee – much less a volunteer – provided any formal instruction on leading or participating in meetings; most of us learn by observing the behavior of others.  The low probability that those around us have been trained in optimal meeting practices renders this exercise equivalent to “the blind leading the blind.”  The nature of these meetings is more likely to demonstrate the power structure of the organization than proper protocols.
     Typical meetings suffer from a raft of problems that render them inefficient or ineffective.  That is, they range from a moderate waste of time, while accomplishing something, to a total waste of time that accomplishes nothing.  This need not be the case, however.  Though an immediate overhaul may be an unrealistic expectation, incremental changes can be made to the way meetings are conducted, progressively increasing their value and developing a more efficient organization.

Common Meeting Problems
     The following treatment of meeting deficiencies is by no means comprehensive, but it does capture a range of problems that seem to be nearly universal.  If you recognize any of them in the meetings you attend or lead, your organization exhibits potential for significant improvement.

• Lack of direction or purpose:  A cohesive discussion of relevant issues is difficult – no, impossible – if there is no shared understanding of the scope and purpose of the meeting.  The conversation will inevitably drift off-topic to unrelated issues and pet peeves, or even degrade into an airing of grievances.
• Attendance:  Meetings held without critical individuals in attendance can achieve little.  Attendees that are not involved with the matter at hand can distract others from important discussions.  In either case, attendees’ time could be spent more productively if appropriate attendance had been realized.
• Participation:  If an individual’s attendance is appropriate, their participation in the proceedings is as well.  If an attendee is not participating, the gathering is less productive than it could be.  At the opposite extreme, an attendee that tends to dominate the discussion also limits the value of the group.  If equal opportunity is not afforded each attendee to express ideas or share information, the value of the meeting to the organization suffers.
  
• Personality conflicts may lead participants to quibble about inconsequential details, delaying the proceedings.  Tensions may escalate to the point that one or more of the participants becomes uncooperative, stalling the group’s progress.
• Groupthink:  A desire for group harmony may encourage members to engage in less critical thinking and become overly cooperative.  Quickly accepting the first idea expressed, without thoughtful consideration and healthy debate, is unlikely to yield the best possible results.
• Nonconducive environments:  Meeting in places that are excessively noisy, cluttered, or otherwise difficult to work in inhibits high performance.  The group is less likely to thoroughly discuss issues, generate creative solutions, or even follow standard procedures.  Focus often shifts to minimizing the time spent in the unfavorable environment to the detriment of group progress and objective attainment.
• “Jumping to Solutions:”  A problem-solving meeting should follow a logical progression that includes problem definition, analysis, alternative solution generation, evaluation, and selection.  Too often, groups will overestimate their understanding of a problem and its required solution.  Foregoing proper definition, analysis, and evaluation of alternatives, the group focuses on the “default” solution.  Levels of success vary, but this approach will rarely (dare I say “never?”) yield the best result, and risk is always at its maximum.
• Abuse of authority:  A manager leading a meeting is in the position to guide discussion in the direction of his/her choosing to arrive at a foregone conclusion.  This tactic is often used to substantiate a report of consensus, though none was truly reached.  Leveraging any of the previously discussed meeting deficiencies to advantage a chosen outcome is the purview of the most abusive of managers.  Motivations for employing such unscrupulous tactics may vary, but it can be assumed that the manager has a vested interest in the chosen outcome.

     Organizations will experience these problems with varying consistency and severity.  Without conscious effort to prevent them, however, each problem discussed, as well as various others, are likely to haunt an organization in perpetuity.
 
Productive Formats
     The most productive format for your meetings depends on the type of organization you work in, the purpose of the meeting, and the makeup of the group in attendance.  It is the responsibility of the meeting leader to choose the format – experiment as needed – and communicate to attendees the expectations for the meeting.  Attendees should be advised how the meeting will be conducted, what topics will be open for discussion, time limits, and other procedural details.  Doing so in advance is ideal; if this is not possible, declaring this information before conducting other business will facilitate a successful meeting.
     Adhering to Robert’s Rules of Order, or similar guide, is a popular choice for meetings of administrative or regulatory groups, particularly when proceedings are open to the public.  Without the structure afforded by established rules of order – compulsory for all in attendance – boisterous participants could derail the proceedings.  Many city councils, zoning boards, public utilities, and various other administrative and legislative bodies conduct their meetings according to established rules of order to ensure that the necessary business is conducted in full.
     Stipulations included in typical rules of order include:

• An appointed or elected chairperson is in charge of the proceedings.
• An appointed or elected secretary is responsible for recording and reading meeting minutes for approval.
• The process for replacing an absent or incapacitated officer.
• The motions available to the assembly.
• When motions can be made and by whom.
• The precedence, or priority, of motions.
• Which motions require a second to be considered.
• Which motions are open to debate, amendment, or reconsideration.
• How such debate will be conducted.
• The voting requirements for advancing a motion, accepting a resolution, etc.

     The preceding list is a small sample.  It is intended only to introduce those unfamiliar with parliamentary procedure to the level of detail prescribed for the structure of meetings in typical rules of order.
     Meetings in other contexts – business, collaborative groups, training sessions, etc. – may not benefit from the hierarchical structure of Robert’s Rules of Order.  For meetings of a team, the Interaction Method is usually more appropriate.  This meeting format was presented by Michael Doyle and David Straus in How to Make Meetings Work.  Central to the Interaction Method are four roles of meeting-goers:  facilitator, recorder, manager, and member.  Each role is described below:
Facilitator:  One individual is responsible for moving the meeting according to its agenda, diffusing conflict, encouraging creativity, emboldening the quiet, and quieting the bold.  One part coach, one part referee, one part timekeeper, one part traffic cop.  The facilitator is expected to remain neutral, guiding the discussion, but not its content or conclusions.
Recorder:  One individual is responsible for creating a “group memory” by recording the information shared, ideas generated, etc.  In some cases, multiple recorders may be needed.  For example, when recordable statements are made faster than a person can write, such as during an energetic brainstorming session, multiple recorders sharing the responsibility ensures that all information is captured.  Also recorders may alternate during long sessions, allowing each periods to rest and massage their writer’s cramp.  The recorder is expected to remain neutral, assuring accurate documentation of information or ideas without judgment or revision.
Manager:  The “highest-ranking” individual in the group retains the authority to make a decision or resolve an impasse.  Until such time that the manager’s authority is required to proceed, s/he participates as an equal member of the group, deferring to the facilitator to advance the agenda.
Member:  All other participants are equal group members.  Each is free to offer ideas and information, engage in debate, and participate in all activities appropriate to the meeting agenda.  Members are expected to be engaged and to follow the facilitator’s guidance to ensure a productive meeting.
     Defining these four roles has some obvious benefits, chief among them being that the expectations and responsibilities of each person attending a meeting is clear.  However, it may not be desirable to conduct every meeting, or the entirety of a single meeting, in this way.  If a meeting has both information-sharing (one-way communication) and collaborative components, it may be most effective to switch formats during the meeting.  For example, a manager may act as “chair” to make announcements and receive status reports before relinquishing authority, deferring to a facilitator to lead a problem-solving exercise.
     Of greater concern is that maintaining the four roles is not realistic in today’s cost-cutting environment.  What organization is sufficiently staffed to assign two neutral parties to attend each meeting?  A more realistic approach is to accept that meeting attendees will fill multiple roles and focus on teaching your organization how to do so effectively.
 
Let’s Be Realistic
     To be clear from the outset, implementing this proposal successfully is no mean feat; to do so is exceptional.  The cost, however, is surprisingly low, especially from an ROI or break-even perspective.  No capital expenditure is required in most cases; the payback period is extremely short.
     Research suggests that 30 – 40% of meeting time is unproductive.  To put it another way, for every 1-hour meeting, nothing is accomplished during 18 – 24 minutes of it!  Multiply that by the number of attendees to get a sense of how much productive time is lost to meetings in your organization.

     Most organizations are highly inertial and most of all when it comes to topics as mundane as how meetings should be conducted.  Many think it is simply not worth their attention.  Therefore, a rapid transformation should not be expected.  Critical mass may not be attained quickly, but every incremental reduction in wasted meeting time is a direct contributor to productivity.  Considering how almost everyone feels about meetings, the resulting improvement in morale may have a multiplier effect on productivity!
 
     In many cases, a manager will fill all four roles; each role may be assumed intermittently or simultaneously.  This is the most difficult situation, requiring the highest degree of self-discipline and communication skill.  The manager must be disciplined enough to exert authority only when appropriate, maintaining the neutrality of a facilitator when required.
      Superb communication skills are necessary to ensure that all participants understand the role the manager is playing at any time.  The manager must declare, clearly and unequivocally, when switching from a member or facilitator role to the manager role.  All in attendance must know when s/he is assuming a position of authority.
     Creating an accurate record of a discussion, while guiding it and participating in it, can be extremely difficult.  Thus, the role of recorder is often the first to be delegated.  More often, every member is also a recorder; discrepancies in understanding are resolved by comparing notes.  Individual records may be flawed, but a composite of them usually offers a fair accounting of the group’s discussion and outcomes.
 
     For meetings to be consistently successful with role-switching participants, the organization must embrace open feedback, humility, and integrity.  Bias toward one role can cause members to neglect responsibilities of other roles; generous feedback is invaluable.  Developing a culture in which any team member can remind any other member of the bounds of their current role without fear of reprisal is paramount; members will not sustain the effort to improve meeting productivity and group performance if doing so puts them in peril.  Role-switching managers are the greatest threat to success; abuse of authority, whether deliberate or unconscious, will doom the organization to perpetually unproductive meetings, poor decision quality, and low morale.
 
Guidelines for Productive Meetings
     Conducting a successful, productive meeting begins long before participants gather.  Likewise, it doesn’t end when they disperse.  Key elements of productive meetings are summarized in the points below.  These guidelines can be used as a checklist for evaluating your organization’s progress in developing the leanest meetings possible.

• Include an agenda in the meeting invitation.  If a detailed agenda cannot be provided, include, at a minimum, a statement of purpose.  Doyle and Straus describe five meeting types that may be helpful here:  problem-solving, decision-making, planning, reporting, and reacting (feedback).  Multiple meeting types may be combined in a single session.
• Limit attendance to required participants to maintain group agility.  Others can be informed of progress, decisions, etc. by sharing the meeting record.
• If the meeting invitation is forwarded to others, ask the forwarder to justify the new invitees’ attendance.  Disinvite any that are not necessary for the success of the meeting.  In the proper organizational culture, a disinvitation will be viewed as a blessing, not an affront.
• Reschedule the meeting if critical participants are unable to attend at the proposed time.
• Schedule only the amount of time required to accomplish the meeting’s objectives.  “Extra” time permits a loss of focus, the illusion of multitasking, and the subsequent loss of productivity.
• Schedule meetings to start and end at “odd” times.  Curiosity alone may inspire punctuality and engagement in a meeting scheduled from 10:08 to 10:47!
• Include in the meeting invitation information on the “what” and “how” of the meeting.  Topics to be discussed, framed as questions to be answered (content) and the process to be followed (meeting type, rules of order, etc.) should be clearly defined.  It is best to include this detail in the agenda, when possible, to minimize confusion.
• Adhere to the agenda and maintain focus by eliminating chit-chat, sidebar conversations, and other distractions.  Off-topic conversations may help team members bond, but this should take place outside the meeting, lest other participants resent the intrusion.  There is a special case that warrants mention:  dispersed teams.  Teams that include members from various sites, especially remote (i.e. at-home) workers, may benefit from the opportunity to reacquaint and “catch up” with colleagues.  In this case, time should be planned for this purpose, preventing a time overrun.
• Ensure that the meeting location, and communication technology, if applicable, are conducive to the business to be conducted.  Any material, furniture, and equipment needs should be addressed in advance.
• Start each meeting – on time – with a restatement of its purpose and a brief reminder of the process to be followed, if necessary.  Use of “is not” statements may also be helpful in providing clarity.
• End each meeting – on time – with a brief review that includes key points for participants to remember:  decisions made, responsibilities assigned, deadlines, etc.
• Compile an accurate record of the meeting.  Distribute to participants, requesting review and correction, as necessary, and other stakeholders.
• Elicit constant feedback to improve individual and group performance.
• Audit meetings periodically to evaluate the format’s development.  Audits should verify that managers are not abusing authority, that generous feedback is offered and accepted, and that discussions and debates exhibit “healthy conflict.”  Auditors should provide feedback to participants and leaders to encourage continuous improvement of the meeting format and organizational culture.
• Consider standing meetings for brief gatherings.  An upright posture helps participants remain alert and engaged, facilitating rapid achievement of objectives.
  
• Consider providing refreshments at longer meetings.  These should be simple, not extravagant.  They are intended to help participants maintain their energy levels and stay engaged; avoid creating another distraction.  If a meeting is scheduled during participants’ “lunch hour,” it is assumed that the meeting organizer is providing lunch; include the menu in the meeting invitation!

 
     It is important to remember that creating a productive meeting format is a journey.  Taking an entire organization on any journey is a monumental task; it requires patience and passion.  When to emphasize each cannot be explained here; it requires judgment and insight that can only be developed from within.  Enjoy the journey; the stops along the way are inspiring and the final destination is glorious!
 
     If your organization is ready to begin its journey toward productive meetings, feel free to contact JayWink Solutions to make an appointment.  We can provide your organization any level of assistance required, from assessment and road-mapping to full-scale training and facilitation.
 
References
[Link] Robert, Henry M.  Robert’s Rules of Order Revised; Scott, Foresman and Company, 1915, 1943.
[Link] Doyle, Michael and Straus, David.  How to Make Meetings Work; Jove, 1982.
[Link] “How to Run a Meeting Without Talking Too Much,” Art Markman.  Harvard Business Review, May 3, 2018.
[Link] “Meetings Aren’t Meant to Make People Crazy,” Liane Davey.  IndustryWeek, April 19, 2019.
[Link] “Why Your Meetings Stink – and What to Do About It,” Steven G. Rogelberg.  Harvard Business Review, January-February, 2019.
[Link] “Why Meetings Go Wrong (And How to Fix Them).” HBR Ideacast, November 5, 2019.
[Link] “How to Make Meetings Less Terrible.” Freakanomics Radio, September 18, 2019.
[Link] Cushing, Luther S.  Rules of Proceeding and Debate in Deliberative Assemblies; William J. Reynolds & Co., 1854.

Jody W. Phelps, MSc, PMP®, MBA
Principal Consultant
JayWink Solutions, LLC
jody@jaywink.com