About Meetings
Published on September 28, 2023.
Key Points
- Regularly examining and reevaluating routine meetings helps to ensure they remain relevant and valuable.
- Shortening meetings when possible respects participants' time and keeps the focus sharp.
- Establishing a clear purpose and framing agenda items as questions promotes engagement and problem-solving.
- Discussing roles and reaffirming norms and ground rules fosters a collaborative and respectful meeting environment.
- Finally, addressing action items and seeking feedback for improvement not only ensures accountability but also demonstrates a commitment to continuous enhancement. There is no perfect meeting, but by implementing these strategies, you can make the meetings worthwhile.
September is wrapping up, and many of us are settling into new routines at home, school, and work. In an earlier issue this year, we explored retreat-type team gatherings, however, we often receive questions on how to maximize the value of standing meetings, those recurring weekly or monthly meetings that, depending on your role, make up a significant part of how managers spend their workweek.
We explored the topic of meetings in a recent supervisory development event and found the following takeaways and recommendations particularly helpful.
Strategies to improve meetings
Research has shown that seven or more hours of video meetings a week is linked to emotional exhaustion. So whether you want to meet less, increase purpose, or boost meeting effectiveness, consider these key strategies.
Before you meet
- Reconsider Meetings—A high volume of meetings can contribute to burnout and decrease chances for the deep work needed for cognitively demanding tasks. Leadership Insights Issue: Could This Meeting Be an Email, outlines criteria to identify if a topic warrants a meeting or could be more effectively addressed via email. Reducing meetings doesn’t always involve deleting meetings from your calendar, it can also include reducing the length of time and frequency of a meeting.
- Who’s invited—While the ideal size varies depending on the task, a gathering of 10 or more people becomes harder to both coordinate and manage. Groups this large require excessive effort to coordinate and communicate within the group compared to the results produced by the group. Being intentional about who is invited and how/what they contribute will help keep the people engaged during the meeting and can improve psychological safety.
- Meeting Roles—Just because you’re the supervisor doesn’t mean you have to facilitate the conversation. Defining roles in advance can help answer questions such as:
- Who begins the discussion?
- Who will challenge existing ideas by asking "what if?"
- Who makes the final decision?
- Who is allowed to invite people into the conversation?
- Purpose and Agendas—Soliciting agenda items from attendees creates buy-in and engagement. Once you get that feedback, structure the meeting agenda around a set of questions to be answered. Instead of a general “process improvement” topic, ask specific questions like “What went well in this presentation? What can be improved?” Even during relational meetings, instead of a “getting to know you” question consider asking, “What was the highlight of your week at work and why?”
During meetings
Revising your 1:1 meetings—Ongoing check-in meetings are often on autopilot due to their recurring frequency. While status updates are important, these meetings are a great opportunity to coach your direct reports and move the work forward. Consider Career Conversations or a 2+2 coaching as alternative approaches or periodic additions to your regular meetings.
Psychological safety—The most productive teams have one thing in common—members feel they can express their views, raise questions or concerns, and be open and honest with each other without fearing ridicule or disrespect. This is called psychological safety. For guidance on norms that foster psychological safety, review our quick guides on Building Trust and Establishing Norms and Expectations.
Consider separating discussion from decision—When you have complex topics, instead of planning a longer meeting, break it into several smaller ones. Create separation between discussing options and making decisions. For example, you might discuss the options at an all-team roundtable, then follow up in 1:1s for psychological safety, and then plan a meeting to make a decision. This gives you and your team a chance to reflect.
Homework—We tend to send “homework” documents, slides, or notes to read before the meeting, and the truth is that people are busy and often you might find yourself spending a good portion of the meeting bringing people up to speed. Consider spending the first 5 to 20 minutes of the meeting reviewing the documents. While this might seem like it would add meeting time, it actually helps give the meeting purpose and direction by setting context and gives you the chance to reflect on the purpose of the meeting.
Brainwriting—Ask people to write down the ideas instead of voicing them aloud to the group. “Brainwriting” results in more creative thinking than brainstorming. Allowing people time to quietly reflect and then write their ideas helps minimize groupthink. You can do this during the meeting with a tool like Jamboard or asynchronously before the meeting.
Finishing strong—Everyone loves it when a meeting ends early! If you’ve gone through the agenda items and agreed on follow-through, end early! Note: Don’t end meetings with big news—use one-on-ones and regular team meetings for introducing big changes.
Solicit feedback—When leaders assume that their meetings are going well, they are less likely to solicit feedback about how to improve. Ending a meeting with what went well or what can be improved for next time, or spending a few minutes during your 1:1s to debrief how the meeting went, can provide valuable insight and help improve future meetings.