Dan Marbes

Time.   It’s that one mystical, magical resource that almost everyone says they never have enough of at some point.  It’s a funny statement since everyone is given the same 24 hours in each day and the same number of days in each week, month and year.  It’s what we DO with this time that we can control.

I think that an adequate discussion of time efficiency (using one’s allocated time in the most effective manner) will take several posts but I think that the topic is incredibly important.  With that, I would like to dive into one of my biggest corporate pet peeves, the meeting.

Let’s talk about meetings for a moment.  My experience in corporate culture is that meetings are the great black hole of resource allocation.  Time and money are poured in and very often light itself cannot escape.  I’m sure everyone can think of a meeting (and likely many more than one) they attended which started late, ran long, was disorganized, and in the end didn’t get much accomplished.  I respectfully submit the following tips for consideration for dramatically improved meeting results.

1) Understand whether the meeting is needed at all.

This is huge.  In corporate culture we have this tendency to set up recurring meetings for projects and staff teams that run for many weeks.  As the meeting organizer, understand the difference between items that can be resolved on an individual basis versus those needing group discussion.   It is perfectly acceptable to cancel an occurrence of a standing meeting if there’s nothing to discuss.  If there’s some non-critical information, maybe distributing that via email is more efficient.  People will appreciate not having their time wasted.

2) Invite the right people and only the right people.

Again in many project meetings, the organizer may invite 20 or more people who represent a variety of interests in the company.  It is unlikely in many meetings that topics which pertain to all of these individuals will be discussed.  If we value the time of those on our teams, we will not ask them to attend meetings simply for the sake of attending.

Conversely, if the necessary resources are not present when needed for a specific discussion point, this section of the meeting will be ineffective.  For each discussion topic, know which resources are needed and be prepared to table a topic if the required attendees are not present.

3) Set an agenda.

This ties in with the first two points.  Have a detailed agenda for the meeting and send it out at least one day in advance so people can review it to determine whether they need to attend.  This allows for some margin of error in understanding which resources exactly need to attend.  Allowing attendees to review the information and potentially provide feedback in advance may allow the actual meeting to run more efficiently.

4) Start on time.

This is my single largest frustration in the workplace.  If you schedule a meeting that starts at 11AM, you owe it to the attendees to be in the room or on the phone prior to that time with all of your materials prepared.  To me nothing says “I place no value on your time” more than a meeting organizer who doesn’t arrive until 7 minutes after the hour which means it’s 10-12 minutes after the hour before things get rolling.  By starting things on time, you communicate professionalism.

5) End early.

This is the partner to the point above.  Many of us who work in corporate environments get back-to-back-to-back meeting invites and if the first meeting in that chain runs over it throws our schedules into chaos.  In addition to allowing others to get to their later appointments on time, ending a few minutes early may allow attendees to take a bathroom break, get a drink of water, catch up on email or simply prepare for the next scheduled meeting.  At the very least, aim to end 5 minutes prior to the scheduled end time.  In an environment with shared meeting rooms, this will allow the organizer of the next meeting to get in and set up so his/her meeting can begin on time.

6) Avoid distractions.

This is really tough to do in our world of constant interruption by email, IM, Blackberry, iPhone, and myriad other technology.  While this is enough of an issue in itself, we must be as diligent as practical about sticking to the meeting agenda.  While free-form discussions are often a great creative outlet, as a meeting leader you have to have a sense about when it is appropriate to rein in a discussion that’s going off the rails.  The new topic may have significant value, but it may be occurring in the wrong forum.  There’s nothing inherently evil about tabling a discussion and resuming it at some point in the future with the appropriate resources.

An additional point on this topic, and I hope it doesn’t come off as being cold.  I think generally most people care about the welfare of their co-workers, but in these meetings it’s not appropriate to spend time talking about someone’s vacation or pet cobra.  Stick to the agenda and have those discussions at lunch.  Especially in larger meetings, some of these “detours” will cause attendees to mentally disconnect and they may miss something important.

Lastly, I think that when possible meetings should be conducted face-to-face.  While dial-in technology is wonderful and can bridge geographic divides cost effectively, the risk of distraction for attending members is high.  I’m as guilty of this as anyone else when attending meetings by phone and have had to force myself to either close my email or even lock my computer to keep focus on the task at hand.

7) Be consistent.

The key to driving change and building new habits is consistency.  If we commit to scheduling the right meetings with the right people and running them efficiently, we can drive positive change and show our co-workers that we value their time.  Old habits die hard, though, so it is imperative that each meeting adheres to “best practices”.

I don’t think of myself as a time management expert, but I hope these ideas will allow you to run better meetings and get more out of them.  Along the way, hopefully we empower those we lead to make better choices with respect to their own time management.

This entry was posted on March 13, 2011 at 10:26 pm and is filed under Leadership, Meeting Etiquette, Time efficiency. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.