INTRODUCTION

The Problems with Meetings We Will Solve

If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be meetings.

—DAVE BARRY

I remember the first business meeting I attended. Fresh out of naturopathic medical school, I was a new resident at the school clinic. We had a clinic conference meeting once a week with all the doctors. I thought the purpose was to be informed of anything we needed to know, discuss any issues we had, and, most of all, have an opportunity to ask the senior doctors questions about our cases. We sat in a circle in an uncomfortably small room. The clinic director began to talk. Nothing he was saying had anything to do with why I thought we were there. Then he free associated from one topic to another . . . I’m sure you get the picture. I counted the people in the room, since I thought we all were supposed to have a chance to speak, and I noticed the number of minutes left on the clock. It was simple math to see that there was no way that was going to happen. Then I tuned back in to the clinic director, who was droning on in a hypnotic monotone. That day I vowed, once I had my own practice, never to let myself get into meetings that I could not control.

Have you ever been in a meeting that was a complete waste of time? Or listened to someone go on and on, wondering, “What’s the point?” Have you experienced conflicts at a meeting in which some people were trying to bully others to get their way? Or perhaps you have been with people who shoot down any idea. And then there are those who just don’t participate. You never hear from them, and they don’t contribute to decisions, but they are always happy to complain about those decisions later. Perhaps you’ve been at meetings that easily could have been accomplished in half the time. Maybe you’ve even experienced one in which you weren’t sure why you were meeting at all.

I have good news and bad news. First the bad news: meetings are a necessity. But the good news is this: most people hate meetings. Therefore, even if you don’t run the meetings, if you suggest to the person in charge, “Would you like to try a process that makes our meetings more focused, shorter, and more effective?” it’s a rare human being who will respond with, “No, we wouldn’t want that!”

According to a study by the Wharton Center for Applied Research, senior executives spend an average of 23 hours per week in meetings, and middle managers 11 hours. And according to senior and middle managers, 44 percent of these meetings are unproductive.¹

Harvard Business Review found that 15 percent of an organization’s total collective time is spent in meetings and that percentage has increased every year since 2008.²

A 2015 Harris Poll survey found that the number one obstacle to getting work done is having to attend meetings!³

In the software provider Lucid Meetings’ 2015 review of the literature on meetings, it was estimated that there were 36 to 56 million meetings held each day in the United States alone. It was estimated that the cost of unnecessary and unproductive meetings was between $70 and $283 billion a year!⁴

Keep in mind that those figures do not factor in the value of the thousand other important things you should be doing but are not doing because you are in a meeting.

THE FOUR CATEGORIES OF PROBLEMS AT MEETINGS

I have been teaching communication for over 30 years, and in my research I have found the problems at meetings tend to consistently fall into four categories: preparation, people, process, and time. What follows are some of the greatest hits of issues, the Top 40, if you will, that I have heard over the years. See how many you’ve experienced and what others you’re aware of that fall into these categories.

Preparation

•   No clear agenda or purpose

•   A poorly written agenda

•   Starting with “Any other business,” thereby opening up the agenda

•   Personal agendas

•   Items on the agenda that don’t relate to everyone

•   Regular meetings, whether or not they are necessary

•   Not having the right people at the meeting

•   Having too many people there

People

•   People competing to speak

•   People who dominate

•   People who are unprepared

•   People who don’t say anything

•   People who waffle

•   People who are always negative

•   People who go on and on to hear themselves talk

•   People who don’t listen to others

•   People who are know-it-alls

•   Personality clashes

•   People not showing up

Process

•   No clear process

•   Catching people up who are late

•   Unproductive debate over what can’t be controlled

•   Boring

•   Mobile phones

•   Stray comments

•   Sarcastic comments, sniping

•   Side conversations

•   Multitasking

•   Tangents

•   No order to speak

•   Not focused on priorities

•   Not focused on action

Time

•   People arriving late

•   Not starting on time

•   Insufficient time planned for topics, as well as the meeting

•   Not ending on time

•   Too long

•   Poor timekeeping

•   Meetings that overlap so that there is no journey time to the next meeting

•   Too many meetings

Do any of these sound familiar? But like it or not, business needs to be conducted via meetings.

That is why I developed the Meeting Jet process. Think of people at meetings as passengers on a plane. They are trapped together in a contained space for a period of time. The flight or meeting may be delayed and may not start on time. The flight or meeting can go off course or even be hijacked. The flight or meeting may end late and cause the passengers or meeting participants to miss other connections or meetings. The flight or meeting can be uncomfortable or seem like a waste of time. And on contentious issues, people can bring too much baggage.

This is Dr. Rick, your pilot, speaking. I have good news. It doesn’t take very long to transform a meeting because my method addresses all the problems of preparation, people, process, and time. I will show you how to apply the Meeting Jet process to all types of meetings, and it can be adapted depending on the number of people, the formality, and whether the meeting is virtual or face-to-face.

When people have a meeting process that works, meetings can actually be exciting and energizing events because people become part of something greater than themselves. The Meeting Jet process consistently accomplishes this. I’m going to make it easy for you. Over the last 20 years, I have done a lot of the observing for you. I have experimented, tried, failed, succeeded, and found what consistently works when it comes to meetings.

Your meeting can go from distracted to focused, from too long to just right. And when it does, you’ll see people’s behaviors magically transform from bullying, negative, or withdrawn to enlivened and contributing. It’s really amazing.

It is to you and your sanity that this book is dedicated, because I know you have better things to do. And because you have better things to do, this book is written in a straightforward, focused, specific style, with actionable items—just the way all meetings should be.

I advise that you read this book in the order it is written. Each part of the Meeting Jet process builds on the last and supports the next. Ultimately, everyone involved in your meetings will need a copy of this book so that they can not only understand the process but also be “keepers of the process.”

At the end of each chapter is a section titled “Great Moments in Meetings.” These are stories my clients have shared or things I’ve experienced at meetings. After putting in practice the techniques you’ll learn, I would love to hear from you, about your own great moments in meetings.

Right now, it begins with you. Are you ready to transform your meetings into focused, productive uses of time? Buckle up and enjoy the flight.

One Is the Loneliest Number

We have biweekly team meetings to go over the schedules, near-term actions, and open issues. These are held in a large conference room with a long table running down the center. People sit in chairs on both sides of the conference table, as well as in chairs along each side of the room. At each meeting I stand at the front of the room from where I give a high-level program update and then go around the room, asking for updates and roadblocks.

One day, I noticed a team member sitting against the wall, taking notes on his tablet. As I walked around the table, I discovered he was not taking notes but playing solitaire. I grabbed his tablet, plugged it into the projector, and asked the entire team to help him finish the game. Then I ended the meeting.

Little did I know that this action would turn into a meeting urban legend that was repeatedly shared.

—Program manager, Consumer technology company