Marvellous Meetings
Listen now (5 mins):
If there’s one thing that can impact the look and feel of a business more than anything else it’s the meeting culture. When I run diagnostics for companies so many of the examples of what works and what doesn’t come from meetings. It’s why so many leadership and business consultants insist on observing meetings before they will advise on what needs to change.
I was once part of a huge full-scale team transformation process that took 2 years - the official bit - the work is never ‘done’. We looked at every aspect of this overlooked team to understand how to raise it’s profile and bring it front and centre in a business that really needed it to lead. We looked at individuals, at structures and processes, at tools and skills. All of this made an enormous impact on how the team performed but the last piece in the jigsaw, the piece that brought the whole thing together and made things work REALLY WELL, was getting the meeting structure right.
It’s not enough to have the right meetings in place. Those meetings need to work brilliantly too. If I tried to write a blog about how to have the right meetings in place it might turn into a book. It’s a big piece of work that takes time to get right. But you can make a some big shifts in how your meetings, and in turn, your business runs with some relatively small changes. And it’s those changes I wanted to share with you today.
Flags:
Labelling the different sections of your meetings based on the desired outcomes will ensure that everyone in the room has the same understanding of what they are required to do. Making sure that people know the role they need to play will drive the right input, create the right energy and remove friction.
Let’s say for example that a product launch is being presented. It’s finalised, gone to print, sold in to customers and ready for production. The team that are presenting it fail to flag the stage it’s at and everyone piles in with their opinions on the price point, artwork and marketing strategy. It’s too late for all of that, it causes massive frustration on both sides and creates a really bad energy around the product. We’ve all been there!
What if, instead, the team presenting this flagged at the start of the presentation that this was an information sharing exercise, with no input needed. If everyone was signed up to the same understanding of what that meant, the meeting would go a totally different way.
Label the sections of your meeting with metaphorical flags. Here’s some ideas:
Information sharing - Sharing a decision or completed project. No input needed. Information only so that the attendees are informed.
Decision needed - Sharing scenarios or information in order to reach a group decision or gather more information that might be relevant.
Input/co-creation welcomed - A group discussion with multiple elements aimed at expanding or enriching the existing idea
Actions:
Meetings take up an enormous amount of time in your business. It’s better if you make them count! I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve worked with recently who are in meetings their entire working day. There is nothing more demoralising than getting to the end of the week and realising you don’t know whether any of those meetings achieved anything.
- Make sure that you drive a bias to action in every meeting. Always ask the question ‘so what?’. What needs to happen next? Who does what?
- Review actions taken at the end of the meeting. Are they going to get us closer to where we want to be?
- Review your own actions and honestly ask yourself ‘am I going to do this?’ - if not, why not. Be open with the people in the meeting. Do you need to delegate, reframe, change the timing?
- Think about what help is needed to achieve those actions. Get commitment in the meeting.
A total ban on parrots
Ever been in a meeting where the same point is made concurrently by three people, or more. It’s incredibly draining for everyone apart from the people who are sat back in their chairs pleased that they had their say. I genuinely believe that most meetings would be half the length they are now if businesses were brave enough to ban parrots.
The mandate goes like this:
- ‘so someone made your point, good for them, and you - someone agrees with you! But don’t waste everyone’s time telling them again in your own words’
Listening
I’ve observed lots of meetings over the years. Both as a member of the team and as a coach. And in this list I’ve saved the best observation til last. Meetings where people listen, rather than waiting to speak, are the best ones going.
Hear all, see all, say nowt.
Use the mantra WAIT - why am I talking?
Change the ratio of speaking to listening.
Ask good questions and listen to the answers.
You will find out your team know a lot more than you think, are more mature than you think and have a lot more respect for you as a listener than a speaker.
If you’d like to chat about how I can help you run better meetings, drop me a line on rebecca@rebeccamorley.co.uk
