Your Follow-Up Sucks

My message here can be stated quickly: Be accountable for your stated actions and do what you say you are going to do.

Wouldn't it be a perfect world if this happened every time? Hold on … let me just sit in peace and dream about that for a moment. Aah … can you feel the excuses, lack of organization, missed priorities, deadlines, and responsibilities gently floating away?

No? Me neither!

Perhaps it's written somewhere that it's against the rules to live in a utopian world of people doing what they promise every time, on time.

Considering that basic meeting preparation is frequently an after thought, what are the chances of departing attendees actually taking action on all the items discussed? It can happen, don't get me wrong. But it sure can be difficult if you don't build an environment that's conducive to holding people accountable.

The solution? Implement a simple process that enables you to:

• Document the meeting decisions, action items, or responsibilities.
• Assign people, teams, or resources to those items.
• Set deadlines or milestones for their completion.
• Have all this information readily available to those who need it.
• Identify a method to confirm items that have been completed.

That's it. A few simple steps to help people stop “talking the talk” and start “walking the walk” instead of leaving empty promises on the conference room table.

While you can't babysit people to get things done, the following SRDs may help facilitate the process.

Facilitator SRDs

• Identify who will document the meeting or keep minutes at the start of the meeting or before. Keep in mind that recording minutes is a skill itself; if you assign someone who has poor note-taking skills, you'll have notes that suck. (Hmmm. “Meeting Minutes Suck.” That's for the next edition of Boring Meetings Suck.) Having more than one note taker is great; sometimes all attendees will take their own notes. Fabulous!
• Create a Meeting Minutes Map for your team by establishing a consistent method of taking notes no matter who the scribe is. Create a basic template and distribute it so everyone has it and understands it.
• Color-code the notes. Develop a map legend on a shared server, or use whatever template is available. The map legend identifies common symbols, formatting, colors, or highlighting for specific functions. They should be used by all note takers. Color coding can save a tremendous amount of time when skimming the notes later. It keeps a consistent feel to your minutes and alleviates hardships over discerning what was typed or what meaning was intended.
• Keep the legend simple so it's easy to use. Try this:
  • Put action items in bold or red text.
  • Name those responsible after the action items (in parentheses).
  • Underline decisions that are made.
  • Put items discarded for another time in blue.
  • Identify other common themes or elements in your meeting.
• During the wrap-up, confirm that everyone heard and agreed to the same thing.
• Plan time in the agenda for the wrap-up—a key component. Review all action items, due dates, and assignments, along with any planned next steps or milestones for the group. Don't send people away feeling confused about their responsibilities or about when to report their findings. Not all attendees hear a discussion in the same way, and it can lead to everyone feeling frustrated. That's why doing a recap is critical.
• Distribute or post minutes as quickly as possible following the meeting. Out of sight means out of mind.
• Make minutes from past meetings readily available. They'll be easy to understand because you used your Meeting Minutes Map and corresponding map legend.

Attendee SRDs

• As part of the Bore No More! movement, don't allow any meeting to wrap up without a firm understanding of what was accomplished—even if the answer is nothing, and no follow-up tasks were determined. If the facilitator at any meeting you attend doesn't confirm the progress toward the meeting's goal, then it's your job to speak up and take charge. Who would go against you when you say something like this: “Before we bail, based on my notes, I'm confirming that David is responsible for meeting with Facilities to allow access to the building at that time. Sue has the caterer and menu, and I'm in charge of contacting our meeting planner about the decor and entertainment. We'll confirm all logistics next week, same time, for a final confirmation. Anything I missed?”
• Always document your own action items so you can confirm what is presented at the wrap-up. Otherwise, you may be on the hook for more than you thought!
• Afraid someone isn't taking notes? Ask the facilitator at the beginning where the notes will be posted following the meeting. By doing so, you may also be volunteering for the job, but then at least you know it will get done.
• If you come away with action items from the meeting, do them! (“Just do it.”) If you won't have them finished in time or to the extent you'd initially planned, communicate that to the stakeholders in a timely way—not at the last minute.

No doubt you're faced with an ever-increasing medley of items on your to-do list in both your professional and personal lives. Prioritizing schedules to accomplish what's in your own hierarchy of needs is up to you. However, if you're running or attending a meeting, at least be willing to establish a process for identifying items that require follow-up, and state who is accountable for them. And as far as getting it all done—good luck with that! I just hope you don't have too many other meetings in line for the day.