One of the toughest meetings to get right is the weekly meeting, which too often is a boring recitation of the status of various projects, with enthusiasm only shown by the person currently talking about their project. Some organizations have eliminated these sessions, but there is a value to a team – be it of managers, salespeople or the core group of a start-up – gathering weekly to co-ordinate and build a collegial spirit. So if we seek to improve our meetings, the issue becomes: How to get this critical and frequent one right?
Mike Figliuolo, managing director of the thoughtLEADERS consultancy, believes a good starting point is to share information ahead of time. Send documents out well in advance and make it clear that the information must be reviewed before people enter the room. Hold them to that standard by asking directly when they congregate: “Has everybody reviewed the information that was sent out?” If not enough have, he argues you should adjourn the meeting and reschedule.
He also urges you to apply the 80/20 rule to meetings. “There are only a few metrics or a few projects that really matter and are going to drive your results, and you should spend the vast majority of your time on that small number of projects,” he writes on his blog. Weekly status meetings try to cover the gamut but usually a few items dominate. Are they the right ones – the 10 to 20 per cent that are driving results? Too often, not. Indeed, they can be picayune, tarnishing the whole meeting as a waste of time.
Another question to ask about your weekly meetings is are they inspiring? That’s not the word that normally comes to mind. Necessary, tolerable, dreary, obligatory, lacklustre and excruciating are more typical descriptions. But diversity consultant Sam Basu insists the meetings should – and can be – inspiring.
Part of the problem, she notes, is that we begin to take them for granted. When we arrive, eager to be leaving, we jump into the weeds of current status updates and upcoming action items. “We can make these meetings more inspiring by setting big-picture context at the onset and conclusion of the meetings: Iterating the project vision, long-term goals and outcomes (and why they are exciting),” she writes in Entrepreneur. Also, keep encouraging input from everyone, rather than just having recitation, and welcome innovative ideas, even wacky one.
Consultant David Burkus says work is teamwork these days and the weekly meetings are where that team comes together to “work out loud” and communicate not just their status update but where they need help and any project pivots they’ve had to undertake.
The first item on the agenda should be wins – giving individuals a chance to share recent successes they have had and for the team to celebrate milestones and recent progress. “Starting with wins accomplishes two things. First, it puts everyone in the right frame of mind to start the meeting. Second, it gives other people the opportunity to share praise and gratitude to their teammates for their help achieving this win. That helps start the meeting with everyone feeling like they’re making a contribution, and that their contribution is noticed and appreciated,” he writes on his blog.
It also flows neatly into the second agenda item, status updates. Here it’s vital that people share any decisions they had to make and any pivots they undertook. That way when they actually finish their task down the road, no one should be surprised that it looks different than originally intended. This is also a place where people can learn how their individual tasks flow into the teamwide objectives.
Now focus on priorities, the agenda’s third item. You know where everyone is on their previous objectives and can look at what new objectives and tasks have arisen as a result of the previous week’s work. Delineate the new objectives and tasks and rank them in order of priority. “Too many individuals and teams fall prey to the tyranny of the urgent when new tasks get added to the list. So, reviewing and updating the list of priorities helps everyone stay focused and avoids anyone feeling overwhelmed,” Mr. Burkus says.
Item four: Roadblocks. Members of the team probably have mentioned these a bit in the status update section; now is the time to zoom in on these roadblocks or anticipated challenges. “Having a dedicated moment in the meeting to discuss them helps your people tell you what they need and helps them opt in to helping each other, which enhances collaboration and productivity,” he says.
The final agenda item should be purpose. The leader needs to connect the work you’ve just discussed to the organization’s larger mission and vision. Who is served by the work you do? It can be a good time to share feedback from customers or colleagues in other departments who have benefitted from the team’s work. You’re ending on a high note and giving people a chance to look ahead more fondly to next week’s get together.
Cannonballs
- To help meetings end on time, Calgary consultant Mike Kerr suggests when 10 minutes from the scheduled closing time have everyone stand while completing the session. Like magic, discussion will speed up.
- Are your ads porcupines or rhinoceroses? Ad maestro Roy H. Williams says a weak ad attempts to make too many points, and none of them very powerfully. A weak ad is therefore a bloated little porcupine. A powerful ad drives a single point through one side of your house and out the other with all the momentum of a charging rhinoceros. “The world is covered in porcupine ads,” he warns.
- Calibration meetings, attempts to improve performance reviews fairness by having leaders across departments meet to compare results, eliminate the tendency of supervisors to be too lenient with their team but are introducing other biases, research shows. They tend to exacerbate the tendency to rank employees more toward the middle of the scale, failing to differentiate between high, average and low performers. They also reinforce gender and racial stereotypes about who’s valuable.
Harvey Schachter is a Kingston-based writer specializing in management issues. He, along with Sheelagh Whittaker, former CEO of both EDS Canada and Cancom, are the authors of When Harvey Didn’t Meet Sheelagh: Emails on Leadership.
Harvey Schachter