7

When you want to have better, quicker meetings and conference calls

In theory, all meetings should help you do your job better.

In theory, they should help you make better decisions.

In theory, they should speed things up.

The reality is, of course, very different. In fact, just as we’ve all heard the phrase “Death by PowerPoint”, I’m surprised there isn’t a similar one: “Inertia by meetings”.

When you think about it, meetings should be like pit-stops in a Formula One race:

  • They help you win.
  • They’re fast and energetic.
  • Everyone who’s there needs to be there.
  • Lots of pre-work means the meeting is hyper-efficient.
  • They’re action/improvement-focused.
  • Things would be worse if you didn’t have them.

c7-fig-5002

Instead, they’re often more like being forced to have Huge Sandwich Breaks while you’re busy:

  • They interrupt what you’d prefer to be doing instead.
  • They’re big and bloating.
  • There’s only so many you can have before you start to work with less energy and focus.
  • You didn’t choose them. In fact, you’d choose not to have them.
  • 99% of them are totally forgettable, even though they were expensive.
  • Worst of all: they make your day worse.

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And do you know the weirdest thing of all? You know these meetings that people hate? Well, they organize some of them themselves.

One way to ensure your meetings are shorter and more interesting is to agree a set of guidelines that you’ll all follow. If you want universal buy-in, the key word here is “agree”, not “impose” (though you might end up with better guidelines if you suggest something and invite comment).

Examples I’ve seen work well include:

Meeting guidelines
1. Our meetings are short pit-stops (energized refuels that help us win), not sandwich breaks (bloating interruptions that slow us down).
2. The meeting is more important than you. If you can’t contribute, haven’t done the preparation or the agenda isn’t a priority for you, please don’t come.
3. When you’re the decision’s owner, only call a meeting if you need one. Wherever possible, make the decision yourself or through 121 discussions.
4. If you do need to hold a meeting:
Formulate your ideas, and circulate to all attendees beforehand, telling us exactly what you want us to do with them. In other words, don’t come unprepared, expecting us to “create by committee”.
Be open to people’s suggestions for improvement to your pre-reads.
Review all presentations/material that people want to bring before the meeting. It’s your responsibility to ensure they’re interesting/appropriate to discuss at your meeting.
Only invite people who can contribute. Don’t waste others’ time.
Only book the time you need for the decision. Don’t just insert a standard 30- or 60- minute time slot.
And, if in doubt, make it shorter.
5. If you’ve been invited to a meeting, but can only contribute to part of the agenda, and ask in advance for your items to be discussed first. Then, after we’ve discussed them, please feel free to leave.
6. For meetings that are under 10 minutes long, stand up don’t sit down.

Good points, yes? So, either use them all or – if it’s too many for people to remember – choose a few, and then make them memorable, say by making their initial letters spell a word, like PALM (see chapter 9).

As long as they improve your meeting, everyone agrees with them and – critically – follows them, guidelines are essential in ensuring consistently high standards.

All the above guidelines work well. They’re so useful that I’m going to expand on a few of them in the next couple of chapters. I’ll start by addressing the biggest time-waster of all: how to get out of meetings you don’t want to go to.

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