Why some meetings stay mediocre - and a simple, simple way to improve one... 

 

First let's reflect why they have resisted change for so long(1).

1. Everyone’s at capacity - there is no spare time to improve meetings.

But more than that. Improving meetings isn't really a Thing, partly because...

 

2. No one owns meeting practices.

It’s not on a budget line item or in anyone’s job description. There’s no picture of what a ‘good’ meeting looks like. And even if it was...

3. Every change to a meeting is done in public

And it requires other people to change something too. Changing a habit is difficult. Changing other people’s habits is 🤯

And if that wasn’t enough...

 

4. Meetings are a systems problem. No single invention 'works'

You need to figure out how to influence the system - not just impose a set of isolated interventions that take a lot of corporate willpower.

 

Question for you to ponder when you get a moment. Why don’t meetings change and improve in your organisation? 

 

OK back to it.

When meetings need to change but won’t, here’s where to start: run a safe experiment.

Studies show that experimentation in meetings creates novelty and develops better practices (2).

Here's how.

 

Get some kind of mandate to try something 

Ask people how they are finding meetings (or this meeting). Or use the FewerFasterBolder’s “Three questions”. Or get some data from your employee feedback survey. Or capture what people have said to you in the past.

Then use the formula: “You told me that meetings are X which is causing problem Y. So let’s try Z. How does that sound?”

Now you have everyone’s permission to change something.

~

This might be the only step you need 

Just highlighting that "you told me that we all talk for way too long in our updates" might be enough to change behaviour.

After all, "awareness is the greatest agent for change".(3) 

~ 

If you need more than this, here are the next two steps.

 

 

Design an experiment people are ready for

What would address what they told you? Find a change that is simple but significant; obviously different and obviously useful. Tell people “We’re going to try something and see how it goes”.

You might…

• Encourage people to set themselves a weekly meeting budget for four weeks.
• Put the salary cost of the meeting in the meeting invitation.
• Start and finish with rounds.
• Make a one hour meeting half an hour and rejig the content.
• Ask people to do jot down their points in silence during the meeting (brainwriting).
• Use the Capture Canvas.
• Use the Totally Clear and Engaging meeting invitation template.
• Have the meeting via async chat (or do this every other time)
• Whatever you choose, do it at least 3 times before you review it.

 

What worked and what didn’t?

Ask people again - how are you finding this meeting?

Repeat the “Three Questions”.

Formally or informally, find out what worked… and what didn’t.

Share these findings and invite people to suggest a next step. They’ve had an experience. Let them design the next even more useful experience.

Then introduce another experiment. And now you’re off. You've created a value for experimenting and showed people you're only interested in what works for them.

Keep notes on what you tried and what people said. When new team members join, you can give them a mini induction on how you do meetings, based on this "what we found works" document. When you need another rethink, you can show the team “Here’s why we decided to do it this way. What are we ready to change?”

Tempting as it is to use an 'off-the-shelf' meeting idea you've read about in Harvard Business Review, experimenting with the team's blessing is usually much more effective...

 

 

References

1. Helen Schwartzman in The Meeting: Gatherings in Organizations and Communities: “There is something about meetings that makes people want to change them but something that makes them resist change.”
2. Lortie, C., Allen, J. A., Darling, H., Walshe, A., Abrahams, M., & Wharton, S. (2019, November 15). Ten simple rules for meaningful meetings. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/ethrg
3. This quote is from Eckhart Tolle