The Seven Sins of Deadly Meetings

Author: Eric Matson Presenter: Shamara Johnson Presentation Date: April, 11, 2007

Overview

• Importance of Meetings • What’s So Bad About Meetings? • Seven Sins and Techniques • Conclusion

Importance of Meetings

• Most universal part of business life.

• “More and more companies are team-based companies, and in team-based companies most work gets done in meetings.” -Jon Ryburg • William R. Daniels states "Meetings matter because that’s where an organization’s culture perpetuates itself.” “Meetings are how an organization says, 'You are a member.’ So if every day we go to boring meetings full of boring people, then we can’t help but think that this is a boring company.”

What’s So Bad About Meetings?

• “ We have the most ineffective meetings of any company I’ve ever seen.” -Naomi Chavez • “We realize our meetings are unproductive…” -Kevin Eassa • “Most people simply don’t view going to meetings as doing work.” -William Daniels

Sin #1

• People don’t take meetings seriously.

– arrive late, leave early, and spend most of their time doodling.

Salvation • Adopt Intel’s mind-set that meetings are real work.

– Posters – Course on effective meetings • Discuss about meeting discipline

Sin # 2

• Meetings are two long. Should accomplish twice as much in half the time.

– People don’t appreciate how expensive they are.

– Milwaukee Area Technical College spent $3 million per year on management-council meetings alone.

Salvation

• Time is money. – Track cost of meetings. – Use computer-enabled to simultaneity to make meetings more productive.

• Meeting Meter software developed by Bernard DeKoven • Ventana’s GroupSystems V meeting software – Benefits of electronic meetings: • More productive then traditional meetings • Discussions are not repetitive or redundant • Encourages people to discuss things a little more thoroughly • However, they are not always shorter

Sin #3

• People wander off the topic.

– Participants spend more time digressing than discussing.

Salvation

• Get serious about agendas.

– Store distractions in a “parking lot”, the starting point for all advice on productive meetings: stick to the agenda.

– However, sticking to the agenda is hard if none exist and meetings are decidedly agenda-free.

– Ex. Intel’s agenda “template”.

Sin # 4

• Nothing happens once the meeting ends. People don’t convert decisions into action.

– People have different views of what happened and what’s supposed to happen next.

– With different types of tools for organization and sharing ideas – whiteboards, flip charts, Post-it notes – capacity for misunderstanding is unlimited resulting in companies turning to computer technology.

Salvation

• Convert from “meeting” to “doing” and focus on common documents.

– “doing” focus on creation of shared documents leading to action.

– Technology can record comments, outline ideas, generate written proposals, project for entire group to view, print so people leave with real-time minutes.

Sin # 5

• People don’t tell the truth. There’s plenty of conversation, but not much candor.

– People are not open-minded.

– Sometimes the problem exist when the leader doesn’t solicit participation or a dominant personality intimidates the rest of the group.

– However, most of the time the problem is due to lack of trust which people don’t feel secure enough to say what they really think.

Salvation

• Embrace anonymity.

– Computer-based tools focus on anonymity – people able to express opinions and evaluate alternatives without having to divulge their identities.

• However, problems occur with anonymity.

– People feel shortchanged when they don’t get credit for their ideas.

– Opportunities for manipulation • Carol Anne Ogdin calls anonymity a “modest idea that’s been blown out of proportion” which she worries about gamesmanship .

Sin # 6

• Meetings are always missing important information, so they postpone critical decisions.

– Meetings are located in the middle of nowhere away from office life to help people “concentrate”. – However, this isolation leaves meeting rooms out of the information flow.

Salvation

• Get data, not just furniture, into meeting rooms.

– EDS’s high-tech facilities called Capture Labs.

• Self-contained information network – Allow enough space in meeting rooms to store materials.

Sin # 7

• Meetings never get better. – People make the same mistakes.

Salvation

• Practice makes perfect.

– Monitor what works and what doesn’t and hold people accountable – Charles Schwab & Co., • “Observer” creates a Plus/Delta list recording what went right and what went wrong, and gets included in the minutes • For specific meeting groups and for the company as a whole, the lists creates an agenda for change

Conclusion

• Meetings should be taken seriously.

• Meetings should be properly managed when considering the cost.

• Meetings are real work.

• There are lots of technology that can help meetings become productive, effective, and involve participation from others.

• Staying focus, having an enjoyable meeting environment, and creating agendas can promote good meetings instead of bad meetings.

Any Questions ????

Article website: www.fastcompany.com/magazine/02/meetings.html