Solutions For Better Meetings

It is often said that in big organizations, the executives know for certain that 30% of the team are non-productive drags on the optimal functioning of the organization, but that they just don’t know which 30% are the non-productive! I would point to the folks who hold the most meetings as a first shot across the bow in determining where the unproductivity lies. "Busy work" like attending poorly-organized meetings is wasteful and demoralizing for those who really do have things to do.

The number of times I have been invited or summoned to attend a pointless meeting that could have been easily pre-empted with a quick phone call or email is astounding. People rambling. People chattering about unrelated topics. Half the attendees staring endlessly at their phone or tapping away at their laptops. No one taking notes. No one knowing the true point of the meeting. It's even worse with online meetings, particularly group meetings. There, you see people focussed on useless things like adjusting their background or playing with effects. Half the time, they are looking 45 degrees to the left or right and you just know they are looking at another screen, not present to the discussion at hand... but can you blame them?

My top recommendation is simple: Just say no to meetings. Push back on every single invite til people know that it is more trouble to invite you than to just update you afterwards if something important actually comes out of the discussion. I mean - don't YOU have something to do with your time already? Don't YOU have an agenda of tasks and projects and goals you are working toward? Take back the power in every way you can. Take back your time!

Or, be a bit more polite and say "sure, I'll attend - please forward the agenda so I can be properly prepared". The trick here is to force THEM to actually get organized to HAVE an agenda.

Elon Musk suggests that if a meeting only requires 17 minutes, do not run the full 60 minutes that were originally allocated. And, that no, it is “not rude to leave a meeting” if one’s personal attendance no longer is needed or relevant. He says: “It’s actually rude to stay” under that circumstance.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, has emphasized the importance of structured, narrative-style memos in meetings. He requires that meetings begin with attendees reading a six-page memo in silence, ensuring everyone is fully informed before discussion begins. Bezos believes that this approach leads to more thoughtful and productive meetings, as it encourages clear thinking and thorough preparation.

In his own words:

"No PowerPoint gets used. Instead, somebody for the meeting prepares a six-page, narratively structured memo. It’s real sentences, not just bullet points."

This method reflects Bezos's commitment to deep thinking and effective communication within his teams.

I suggest that if you are in charge of a group of people, beware the activity that makes people feel they have done something when in fact, nothing has been done. Talking about a project is not doing the project. Making plans about a project is not doing the project. Scheduling meetings to discuss the project is not doing the project. Only doing the project is doing the project. This is not to say that strategically-run meetings aren’t crucial for getting folks on the same page and assigning tasks - but if the project becomes more about the meetings than the project, you can guess what’s not getting done anytime soon: the project.

Too many meetings fall into the category of "busy work" designed to create visibility for people whose contributions are otherwise light and unnoticeable. These folks are the ones in the 30% of the team who really aren't pulling an oar to drive the company forward, but they need to "look" like they are important and useful. Meetings give off the illusion they need. You know you might be dealing with such people and that you are in the danger zone when too many meetings are called with no clear intent, no clear agenda, and no actionable outcomes.

I am not speaking of the type of meeting where someone makes a presentation or teaches an important new practice in the organization. Rather, I am referring to those often-daily meetups and standups that pull good people away from deep productive work and drag them into the monotony and tedium of listening to others who often DO NOT have deep productive work to do. It has always been my secret suspicion that the majority of people at a meeting who are doing the talking literally justify their paycheck and their raison d’etre in the company as the ones who “bring people together”. This would actually be noble if some basic meeting requirements were outlined and agreed upon by everyone. In this post, I outline my vision for how organizations should run better meetings.

It all starts with calling a meeting for the right "reason". There are basically only three reasons:

1. Decision-Making - To discuss and make decisions on a well-conceived list of directions up for consideration. There should be a proposed direction, discussion, then the familiar "all in favour?" and "opposed?", followed by the hammer on the gauntlet: Decided!


2. Updates and Presentations - For situations where someone needs to present:
   
   - an update on something important that requires presentation tools or
   - if there is a new idea/design or
   - to provide training, these can justify a meeting.
   All relevant materials and/or the purpose of the meeting should be conveyed in advance.


3. Brainstorming - Bouncing ideas off of other people can be very stimulating toward coming to some new idea for the company. Again, let people know in advance so their creative juices can flow ahead of time.

• Only call a meeting if there is a clearly defined purpose that cannot be solved by asymmetric communications such as Slack or Email.
• The person calling a meeting should be someone who deeply understands the tangible and intangible costs of corralling our best minds for a chunk of their day. An intangible cost would be "the opportunity cost" of what could otherwise have been done more productively by these same people. This matters because a thousand small holes can sink a ship (or to use another analogy: "death can come by a thousand paper cuts").
• Whoever calls the meeting should create and share the agenda well in advance so people can prepare quite specifically to contribute during the meeting.
• Whoever calls the meeting should also be the meeting leader OR they should request/assign someone to function in this important role.
• Whoever calls the meeting should either take notes or request/assign someone to take notes.
• The list of topics on the agenda should be constrained to a narrow focus that can fit the valuable time of those in attendance.
• Only invite participants if they are essential to the purpose of the meeting (i.e., they are an expert who can bring needed perspective that ONLY they can bring). It may feel important to call a big meeting. It may even have some usefulness to call a big meeting, but the cost of all of those participants can very rapidly negate any cost savings they are discussing. For example, does it make sense to call a 1-hour meeting of 5 people to discuss how the company might save $2,000 this year on some questionable service provider? NO. Whoever is in charge of that vendor can poll one or two people by email or Slack and then that person should be empowered to either re-negotiate the vendor, find a new one, or find an alternative service.
• Only invite participants who would be needed to make contributions and help decide outcomes. It is a waste of human resources, and therefore a waste of company cash, if we involve people in a meeting only to have them distracted because the meeting "doesn't really apply to me" or who are merely just listening in without offering insights.

• Unless there are unusual extenuating circumstances making someone late who is essential to the meeting, then, at the appointed start time, START with whoever is present! It's important not to waste company time and out of the last 30 meetings I have participated in, I would bet a dollar that EVERY single one of those meetings was delayed waiting for others to arrive. All that delay does is train people that our company ignores timing and that we indulge wiggle room AND that we do not respect the financial well-being of our company.
• Designate a facilitator to keep the meeting on track, a note-taker to document key points and decisions, and a timekeeper to ensure adherence to the agenda. Then, if someone slips off topic, the meeting leader should bring the focus back as soon as possible.
• If the topics needing discussion only need 23 minutes but the meeting was scheduled for 30 minutes, end the meeting at the 23 minute mark.
• If someone is not contributing, they should be reached out to by the meeting leader for their input. Sometimes the best input is inside of a person who is too shy to interject or who does not feel they have an opportunity to speak because someone else is dominating things.
• If someone is dominating the meeting unfairly, the meeting leader should address this in a private message in real-time or post-meeting in a private one-to-one.
• When an agenda item is done being discussed, ACTUALLY DECIDE something. This can be done with an informal vote i.e., "Is anyone opposed to us proceeding in X direction with this?" OR it can be set to formal vote or other. But, one thing for sure, decisions should be made.
• At the end of the meeting, recap the main takeaways, decisions made, and any action items. Ensure everyone is clear on next steps. A meeting whose only outcome is to "set the next meeting" is 19 times out of 20, a FAILED meeting.
• Follow up with meeting notes to all who attended asking if the notes represent a fair report of what was discussed and decided AND what is actionable and by whom.
• Any follow-up meeting should be subjected to the exact same criteria laid out above and should NOT be viewed as just a continuation of the current meeting.

• Speak last (This was a technique made famous by Nelson Mandela as it gave him the full perspectives of all attendees before he he revealed his own).
• Invite the shy and introverted people to voice their thoughts. Sometimes they just need a but of urging and they may possess amazing insights..
• Have a clear agenda and STICK TO IT.
• Keep returning to summing up each discussion point as to how it will be reflected in some "actionable" mandate after the meeting.

• Politely, decline if possible. Instead, ask that the "minutes" be sent after the meeting as this is a gentle reminder that "minutes" should be written.
• Respond to the meeting invite asking which of your vitally important tasks should be put on hold to make time for your attendance
• If you are fairly sure you won't be making a verbal contribution at the meeting, ask if you can have an AI transcript of the meeting instead
• Best yet, ask if the matter might better be worked out via email or some other online tool.
• If saying no is not possible, request the meeting "agenda" in advance. This solves two matters:
  
  1. it compels the meeting organizer to actually draft the agenda and
  2. it empowers you to ascertain the relevance for your attendance

Overall, make productive work your default setting and make sure people know this about you. Be "so good that no one can ignore your vital contributions to the organization". Save the meetings for contentious decisions that require lively discussion, full participation and action-oriented outcomes.

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