Your Preparation Sucks

No doubt you've stepped into a meeting and quickly learned (as if you couldn't tell by the communication you received) that it has no structure or stated goal to accomplish. It's one of those “I-just-thought-we-could-all-talk-about-it” proceedings, or it's a meeting that leads to scheduling another meeting. On top of it all, you stew while the meeting host fumbles to gather everyone's attention, then loses control to Comic Carl and Sidewinder Sam, who bring up crazy ideas and delay the inevitable break from this monolithic meeting style.

It's the type of meeting you don't have to prepare for and can show up for anytime you want. For those people who don't care about their time or productivity, it actually provides welcome intrusions to their busy week. What a great way to burn away productive hours! Of course, if enabling team members to engage socially is the intended result, well then carry on.

So much of the value of any meeting, though, can be achieved before the meeting event starts. It's up to the facilitators to plan and prepare a meeting or to pay the price of what can happen when they don't. Chances are, you can relate to occurrences like these:

• Attendees become disgruntled because of lack of focus and process.
• Attendees resolve they won't come back to this facilitator's meetings.
• Attendees bring nothing to the table in terms of ideas, content, or questions … and don't participate in any way.
• Attendees vote with their feet. (Yup, they just walk out.)
• The facilitator is forced to schedule future meetings because this one has accomplished nothing.
• Everyone's time is completely wasted (and time costs money).
• Meetings run away in multiple directions, but no resolutions are reached.

How can you avoid all this suckiness? By planning. Anything worth attending is worth taking time to prepare for. If you're the meeting organizer, know that even taking one minute to review key things before the start of an impromptu or ad hoc meeting can prove invaluable in your overall feeling of accomplishment.

What's the most important prep activity? Clearly stating the goal for the meeting, writing it down, and sharing it with others. Don't forget the other parts—like arriving early to check the meeting location and confirm you have everything you need (and that what you have is in working condition). This can prevent embarrassing, time-wasting recovery actions like looking for markers that mark or replacing a broken speakerphone at the last minute.

If you think preparation relates only to the meeting organizer, think again. All attendees must prepare, too. If you complain about a poorly run meeting and do nothing to change it, then shame on you. Be sure to add your talent and intelligence to the discussion at hand. Get beyond your own purpose for being there and contribute to the group discussion so you help everyone to be more productive with his or her time. Show up prepared and you can finish faster than planned. And who knows? Maybe the goals attained at this meeting will surpass everyone's expectations.

Sound simple? It is. The suggested Suckification Reduction Devices (SRDs) that follow shouldn't come as a surprise to you.

Still, why do so many people avoid the basic concept of planning when its absence contributes greatly to frustration and lost productivity? Maybe it's human nature to be lazy about it. Maybe it's simply not knowing what they don't know. If laziness describes you, stop messing with everyone else's time and do some prep work! If you simply don't know how, then beef up on what to do; most preparation isn't difficult and can be done quickly.

The following core activities can save you the embarrassment of an ill-prepared meeting and its lack of productivity. More important, they'll prepare you to conduct a focused, goal-oriented, and productive meeting.