A whole company meeting strategy I think everyone should use: Signature Meetings

Here is one super-obvious thing I think every organisation should be using to make meetings a much more genuinely useful modality (but almost no one is!)

I call it "Signature Meetings" and this is what I mean...

Ok, here's a trick pretty much every organisation is missing.

We already know we're in too many meetings. They are too long. We're not getting enough of of them. Certain voices always dominate.

We also know that changing All The Meetings is not an easy task for these these six reasons.

One GREAT option is: develop Signature Meetings.

A Signature Meeting is a value-driving meeting type that you design and perfect as an organisation.

Name it, design it and iterate it.

That way, wherever you go in the organisation, you know what to do in this particular Signature Meeting. There may be some variations that keep it fresh but everyone understands how to generate value in these meetings - for example, that in THIS meeting, it’s totally fine to be direct and candid.

There's some nice evidence for Signature Meetings too: “Develop a vocabulary for functions within meetings - this shared language leads to better synchrony” (Yu, Zhou, and Nakamura 2013).

You might already know this Signature Meeting

A good example that you might already have heard of (or indeed be hugely experienced at running!) is a Retrospective.

A Retrospective is meeting (or ceremony) from Agile ways of working. It's a way to reflect on and improve ways of working together.

In a Retrospective everyone understands:

- the core purpose of the session - to share what they have observed and experienced in service of helping the whole group improve

- the basis process of sharing those observations - on post its under three headings (what went well, what didn't go so well and what was a puzzle)

- it's ok to be honest and this will be handled safely

- it's NOT ok to blame or criticise others

- actions will be developed at the end and acted on

- that this marks the end of a cycle and helps everyone improve for the next cycle

As you will know, there are a number of other Agile ceremonies but this is the one that has spread furthest into the mainstream.

What Signature Meetings would transform your organisation?

We're trying to create a shared and helpful way to do a particular type of meeting really well - so it doesn't matter if you're in this department or that department, working on this project or that project, you know how to contribute really effectively in that meeting even if you're just dropping in from another area.

I always recommend clients find a meeting type that is very important, pervasive (most people have it in one form or another) and somewhat problematic! These are the high value opportunities to create some shared understanding and worthy of design and investment.

Good candidates might be:

• Regular project sync meetings (that often go on too long and don't actually make good progress)
• Team meetings (where teams are hybrid and these meetings are an important part of trust, clarity, connection etc)
• Project kick off meetings (to get it scoped, get everyone clear and start to build a dream team)

How to design a Signature Meeting

Every signature meeting needs:

- A clear and hugely valuable purpose

- A core framework which guides people through a logical flow

- Some scaffolds that help people work through this framework which can be improved and practiced over time

- A very clear guide to helpful, unhelpful and not accept behaviour in this meeting

- A vibe so people get what they are going to (and know whether to bring cake, data or a stopwatch!)

- Some variations that keep it fresh and interesting without losing the power of the session

Have you ever tried anything like this in your organisation? If not, might you give it a go? Message me on LinkedIn and I'm happy to share some lessons learnt on how to make this work in practice, if you're interested!