Peter Honey explains how you can share in his appreciation of that much maligned work format
Oh dear, I see yet another survey gives the thumbs down to meetings. Apparently, one in three office workers have seen colleagues fall asleep in boring meetings that failed to encourage ideas and collaboration.
I have spent hours of my life in meetings – either as a participant or as an observer (yes, people used to pay me to watch their meetings). I may be the only person in the world who loves meetings; intriguing events where people come together and use their behaviour (verbal and non-verbal) to influence each other. Most of the problems with meetings are easy to fix. Here are a couple of examples.
Most meetings suffer from too much time bogged down in information. Briefing people is of course important but not to the detriment of time spent on more challenging things such as problem solving and decision making. From a behavioural point of view, information items are rather dull; basically people are either giving information or receiving it. By contrast, problem solving items call for a greater range of behaviours; making suggestions, building on suggestions, expressing doubts and concerns, reaching a consensus, agreeing a course of action. These are far ‘juicier’ behaviours than those required for information sharing.
Bringing people together is an expensive business – the participants’ salaries, travelling expenses, the venue costs. In fact, if you calculated the cost per hour of meetings it would be a scary figure (which is why no one ever does it). Time spent sharing information fails to capitalise sufficiently on the collective expertise of the participants. By contrast, finding good solutions to problems utilises participants’ expertise and ensures a worthwhile return on the investment.
How do you cut down on information sharing? Simple. People can read; send them the information they need in advance of the meeting and then (and this is vital) run the meeting on the assumption that everyone has read it. To do otherwise rewards people who don’t prepare for meetings and punishes those who do. The reason why so many people don’t bother to prepare for meetings is because experience has taught them that they don’t need to.
Another common problem with meetings is that information items tend to be scheduled first, with consultative/decision items following on afterwards. This lulls people into a relatively passive listening mode and makes it difficult for them to switch to the cut and thrust of idea-having. The answer is to reverse the normal state of affairs and schedule the ‘juicy’ items first, followed (if you must) by boring information items.
The chairperson is usually the scapegoat when a meeting is humdrum and often this is fair enough. The biggest handicap to chairing a meeting well is that the chairperson knows more about the topic, or has a greater vested interest in the outcome, than any of the other participants. Quite understandably, this means they focus more on the task and less on the process. This is the reverse of what needs to happen. The whole point of chairing is to look after the processes of the meeting. This includes timekeeping, ensuring the participant’s are clear about the desired outcomes, and managing behaviour. If some participants hog the discussion, or are unduly negative, or go off at tangents (I could give many other examples of unhelpful behaviour) the chairperson is failing to manage the processes of the meeting.
What to do? Have the person who knows least about the topic under discussion chair that part of the meeting. There is no reason why a meeting, with different topics, should be chaired by one person. Passing the chairing batten is much more interesting and provides people with a wonderful learning opportunity.
My final suggestion is to schedule a review of the meeting as the last agenda item. It only takes 15 minutes to identify what went well and what went less well and to have an action plan to improve things next time round.
See why I love meetings?