24

Meetings

“Meetings are places where minutes are kept, but hours are lost.”

 

–Unknown

Meetings consume a significant percentage of time for many individuals in an organization. Given the reality of globally distributed teams, not all meetings are in person; some of them are also video conferences. Whether the meeting is face-to-face or virtual (i.e., through conference calls), there are some unique challenges that meetings throw up. In this chapter, we will see some of these challenges and ways to overcome them effectively. We will start the chapter with some of the useful functions served by meetings and then take you through a step-by-step process for effective meeting management and to get the best out of any meeting. We will also look at some of the common complaints people have against meetings and how to address these complaints.

24.1 The Purpose of Meetings

Meetings provide an opportunity for the stakeholders to come to a common page: When all the stakeholders are brought to a common room, they can have a platform to share each others’ views, understand each others’ perspectives and hence, converge to a common understanding faster.

Meetings offer a forum for discussion: Meetings are necessarily synchronous communication vehicles and hence, as discussed in Chapter 13, they provide an opportunity to have healthy discussions and can throw up ideas and avenues that would not otherwise be considered.

 

 

Meetings move things forward: Meetings will review the results of past action items and generate a fresh crop of action items to be done following the meeting. In this sense, it helps the progress of a project or activity.

Meetings can help create rapport: Since almost every meeting has some ‘small talk’ component or at least provides access to useful cues like body language, vocal variety and so on, they can aid in building better rapport.

24.2 Steps for Getting the Best out of Meetings

An effective way for meeting management can be summarized by the acronym PROOF:

Planning for a meeting

Reaching out to the stakeholders

Organizing a meeting

Orchestrating a meeting

Following through after a meeting.

The first three steps pertain to what needs to be done before a meeting; the fourth step is about what needs to be done during a meeting and the last step is about what needs to be done after a meeting. We will see each of these steps in detail in the following sections.

24.3 P: Preparing for a Meeting

Meetings are the cogs in the wheel to keep the communication process going. Just as any communication needs preparation, so does a meeting. Preparing for a meeting requires getting some clarity on the following questions:

24.3.1 What Is the Purpose of a Meeting?

As we stated in Chapter 13 on the communication cycle, the first step is to know the objectives of communication. In meetings too, it is important to get clarity on the purpose of the meeting. There are different types of meetings serving different, specific purposes. Some of the common ones are:

• Status meeting: This is probably one where teams spend time on a regular basis. This type of meeting helps to get all the stakeholders on a common page and helps everyone to take stock of situation and assess the progress of a project. It also helps in arriving at action items to take the mission forward. Such meetings are usually scheduled to be at the same time every week/day.
• Brainstorming meeting: This type of meeting is held usually on demand or to address specific needs (such as problem-resolution, new product features and so on) rather than being held on a regular basis. The purpose of such a meeting is to generate a wide variety of ideas on how to approach a given problem or situation.
• Negotiation meeting: This type of meeting typically takes place internally within an organization to meet a project’s requirements as well as externally with customers to arrive at the project scope, cost and duration.

(Note that we are not going to talk about meetings where you are largely a spectator— such as an all-employee meeting.)

24.3.2 Who Should Be the Participants?

Two general thumb rules in deciding who the participants should be are:

• Call only those who can add value to the meeting and can contribute to it—and who participate in an activity discussed in that meeting.
• Try to keep the number of people to the bare minimum that you need. Carrying on a meeting with more than 15 people is likely to be less productive.

24.3.3 What Is Expected of Each of the Participants?

Most meetings become unproductive simply because the expectations are not properly formulated or communicated to the participants ahead of time. One way to guard against this is to formulate the agenda items for the meeting before approaching the participants and then getting it ratified by them (as discussed in the next section). Formulating the agenda items entails filling up a template like in Box 24.1.

While initially formulating the agenda items, keep in mind the following:

Achieve a balance between breadth and depth: Usually the time required for the number of agenda items far outweighs the time available. The dilemma is between covering all the items skimming the surface of each versus going into details of some of the items at the expense of other items. Neither approach is totally advisable. It is necessary to prioritize the items (hence, the serial number column) and make sure that the right items get discussed at the right level of depth.

Choose the most appropriate person to be assigned an agenda item: It is ideal to assign one individual for each agenda item. There may be agenda items that require several people to contribute. Even in this case, it is essential to reach out to the group of people, and yet, have them decide the one person who would be assigned initially to discuss this item.

Have a backup in case the chosen person is not available: If an agenda item is important and broad enough, it is essential to have a backup person who can handle this item in the event that the primary person is not available. Usually it is best to leave it to the primary person to nominate the proxy representative/substitute. It is important for this backup person to be sufficiently knowledgeable and empowered to articulate the views of, and take decisions on behalf of, the primary person. The idea is to have a discussion on the agenda item even if the owner of the item happens to be unavailable on a given day.

Provide reasonable time for discussions: The time allocated for the agenda item should not only give time for the owner of the item to present the facts and views, but also allow sufficient time for discussions and healthy debates. Again, there is a thin line between healthy debate and unnecessary digressions and the person conducting the meeting should use the time planned as a guideline to identify this thin line and make sure this is not crossed, when orchestrating the meeting.

From time to time, unscheduled but urgent agenda items may crop up and need attention right away. In such cases we should be flexible enough to change the meeting agenda on the fly. The point here is that while the agenda items act as guidelines for an orderly progress of the meeting to achieve its objectives, they should not always be cast in stone. There should be a balance between flexibility and discipline.

24.3.4 What Is the Estimated Time Duration for the Meeting?

Once we have the agenda items and the time required for each item, we can add these up to get an estimate of the total time needed for the meeting. If this time needed is substantially more than the time available for the meeting—constrained by availability of people, infrastructure or time difference between the locations—then we need to work backwards from the total time available and then scale down the time allocated for each item or even cut out some of the agenda items altogether. But one item that should never be compromised is the allocation of sufficient time for a proper closure of the meeting, which we will reiterate later in this chapter.

24.3.5 What are the Logistics Required for the Conduct of the Meeting?

After having worked out the details of the contents of the meeting, it is time to work out the logistics. A checklist for some of the logistical items for a meeting is given in Box 24.2. Please refer to also Section 16.4.

When all the initial planning has been done, it is time to go to the next stage of preparation—the reaching out stage.

24.4 R: Reaching Out

Having identified the objectives to be achieved in a meeting and ratified it with the stakeholders involved, the next step is to reach out to the stakeholders, ensure they are available for the meeting; that they understand their role and contribution to the meeting; and that they come prepared to maximize their contribution.

Make them know their roles: Discuss with the participants their role and value addition in the meeting candidly. Doing this before the meeting minimizes the risk of a participant not showing up for the meeting (or showing up unprepared).

Clearly state what data and other things they need to bring to the meeting: The participants may need to bring certain supporting data, models or prototypes to the meeting. They may also have to set up some demos. Ensure that they bring to the meeting whatever is needed.

Get their buy-in: Make sure you get their buy-in that they will come for the meeting prepared for the agenda items you would like them to take on.

Send them the agenda by e-mail to confirm their participation and role: This will ensure that they not only know their role, but also get to know the big picture.

24.5 O: Organizing for a Meeting

When the meeting has been planned and the participants have been identified, the next step is to carry out all the organizing needed to conduct the meeting. This entails:

Identifying the right place and time: Make sure the place is suited for the type of meeting. We discussed earlier that certain types of rooms are suitable for certain meetings. Take this into account before selecting the room (if possible). Also, make sure the room is easily accessible to the various participants. This consideration is especially important in organizations based out of cities like Bangalore. The various offices are spread several kilometres apart and moving from one office to another for a one-hour meeting could potentially waste the entire day in commute. Another factor to consider is the time of the meeting. When participants are distributed in different parts of the city, then the earlier part of the day would be ideal to beat the traffic. If the participants are in different time zones, then a mutually acceptable time should be chosen.

Get the right infrastructure ready: Make sure all the paraphernalia like flip charts, laptops, projection equipment, white board, markers and so on are all available. And, don’t forget to check that the markers do really write! Make sure that the projection equipment works correctly. Minutes are wasted during the meeting by trying to make the projection equipment work correctly, and this eats into valuable discussion time. If you are the designated repository of data from various participants–to be distributed to the others during the meeting–ensure that you get them in time and in the format you were looking for.

If needed, remind the participants just-in-time: It is a good idea to send the final agenda to all the participants the day before the meeting by e-mail. This can act as a reminder to attend the meeting. More than any electronic gizmo, simply walking into the cubicles of the meeting participants a few minutes before the meeting and rounding them up, always works!

24.6 O: Orchestrating the Meeting

Orchestrating the meeting refers to an orderly way of going through the actual meeting. Here are some tips for this, especially if you are the person who is managing the meeting.

Arrive early! Make sure you arrive early and ensure all the infrastructure is in order. If other participants require any other infrastructure, encourage and persuade them to set it up before the meeting starts to minimize any distraction.

Prepare the seating arrangement: If you need to have specific seating arrangements, make arrangements for them. This may apply to brainstorming meetings when you want people from different backgrounds to sit together at a table to focus on different issues. Sometimes, when you are running group meetings, you may observe that some participants go at the back of the room, doodling and SMS-ing; you might like to draw these back benchers forward to make them participate.

Allow time for small talk: Whether you like it or not, some time at the beginning of the meeting would invariably be lost in small talk. If you are early and if some people have also trickled in early, the small talk time would not eat substantially into the meeting time.

Always start on time, respecting people who come on time: A major mistake is ‘to wait for all others to come’. This is being unfair to the people who have been professional enough to come on time to the meeting.

Make sure the scribe is ready: Right at the beginning of the meeting, clearly identify a person who will take down detailed notes during the meeting. Some of the senior executives running a meeting would have their administrative assistant donning the scribe’s role. But then, this is not a rule. In the excitement of jumping headlong into the meeting, you don’t want to ignore taking down notes of the meeting to prepare the minutes. Hence, identifying or nominating someone to volunteer to be a scribe right at the beginning of a meeting is essential.

Review the agenda at the beginning: Start the meeting with a review of the agenda items. Some people have the habit of distributing the printout of the agenda and discussion items. While this may be necessary for formal meetings, you can consider replacing the hard copy with a soft copy projected on the screen and saving precious trees in the bargain.

State any protocol: Right after re-stating the agenda items and just before jumping into the items, it is a good idea to state any protocols you would like to follow during the meeting. These could include protocols for time management and how to signal and respect time-outs; how to take turns; when to interrupt a speaker; the roles to be played and so on.

Go sequentially as per the agenda: Assuming that you have put some thought into prioritizing the agenda items, going sequentially as per the circulated agenda will bring in order and predictability to the meeting. For each agenda item, try to stick to the allocated time; while doing this, provide a balance between flexibility and digression. Some amount of digression will necessarily happen and should be accommodated; trying to be a robot will not make a meeting conducive to effective decision making or information exchange.

Handle conflicts diplomatically yet firmly: As a facilitator of a meeting, when you allow discussions, conflicts are bound to spring up. It is your job to handle the conflicts effectively. While a very detailed treatment of conflict management is beyond the scope of this book, a few quick tips in managing conflicts in a meeting are:

• Allocate sufficient time for discussion so that it does not look like you are bulldozing or side stepping objections.
• Help the participants to articulate the nature of the conflict, making the conflict issue based rather than personality based.
• Acknowledge that you have understood what the different viewpoints are. Note that by this you are not accepting any one view point and are not taking sides.
• Impress that the goal is to arrive at a solution and not to finger point. To this end, paraphrase the problem and the various options available with the intent of arriving at a solution.
• When you (or the meeting) arrive at a solution, do not impose on people whose viewpoints are not agreed upon.
• If you find that it is not possible to arrive at a solution for an issue within the meeting, defer this agenda item (and any dependent agenda items) to a separate meeting focused on solving those unresolved issues. Ask the warring parties to bring extra supporting data to convince the skeptics.
• Eventually make sure that there is a shared ownership and interest in getting the problem(s) resolved. It should not simply be ‘your problem’. It should be ‘our problem’.

Allocate time for closing the meeting: Every meeting should have a formal close, wherein you recap what was discussed, what was agreed upon and what the action items are. When certain items take too long to discuss and when there is a lot of digression and tangential discussion or when the time is short, most often the time for closure gets the axe. Be conscious of this!

Cleaning up after the meeting: As a mark of courtesy for the people who will use the room next, make sure you leave the venue in a clean state. Wipe the white boards clean, remove any flip charts (these will also protect any confidentiality issues) and consign any remnants of food to the garbage can.

24.7 F: Following Through After the Meeting

Every meeting needs follow through for it to be effective. Some of the steps in following through are:

Sending MOM: The minutes of meeting (popularly known as MOM) is a written summary of what transpired, what was discussed and what was agreed upon during a meeting, highlighting any action items which may have been generated (more about this later). The MOM should be prepared with the help of the notes prepared by the scribe. The MOM should be distributed to all the participants of the meeting within a couple of days of the meeting when the memory of the meeting is still fresh in the participants’ minds. This will enable identifying any misunderstanding or omissions at the earliest. Should any participant identify any such anomalies in the MOM, they should be corrected after due discussion and a corrected MOM should be sent to all the participants. It is a good idea to also blast off a copy of the MOM to other stakeholders and interested parties who, for one reason or the other, could not make it to the meeting

Distinguishing between decisions and actions: Every meeting is likely to have discussions of various options as well as decisions on the chosen option (with the responsibilities duly allocated). It is important that the MOM clearly demarcates discussions and decisions. The emphasis should be on the decisions as they represent how to move forward.

Structuring the action items: The meeting should generate a bunch of action items. These action items should unambiguously identify the three Ws—What, Who, and When: What is the action item? Who is responsible and accountable for the action item? By when will the action item be completed and reported?

Given below, in Box 24.3, is a sample MOM format:

The next couple of points pertain to other actions beyond the MOM.

Following through for action items: Once the MOM goes out, the coordinator of the meeting should follow through on the execution of the action items with their respective owners. In the case of periodic status review meetings, discussion of the action items from the previous meetings should form the first agenda item of a given meeting.

Communicating the meeting decisions to other people who are not participants: During a meeting, there could be several arguments and pros and cons could be discussed. Different people may have different viewpoints. But eventually, when a decision is made in a meeting, it is a group decision and everyone in the meeting should speak with one voice outside the meeting. Any difference of opinion expressed during the meeting should not go out to people outside the meeting.

24.8 The Participant Perspective

Most of the discussions above take the perspective of someone running the meeting. In several meetings, you may just be a participant. Here are a few ground rules for such situations (also, see Snapshot 24.1):

• Do come prepared
• Do come on time
• Do follow through on the action items assigned to you
• Do not be silent when your agenda item or action item comes up
• Do not feel tempted to hog all the air time.

 

24.9 Common Perceptions/Pitfalls

Meetings are over, now let us get back to work: Meetings are often dreaded as a waste of time. This perception is primarily because unnecessary meetings are scheduled or unnecessary people are asked to participate in a meeting. One way to avoid such a complaint is to have a clear plan for the agenda and invite only those people who have direct stake and inputs in the agenda items. The key is to integrate meetings with work, by ensuring that important decisions are taken and communicated to stakeholders.

Having long meetings: In general longer meetings tend to drain out people and are unproductive. The mail withdrawal syndrome and the constant ringing in (even in silent mode!) of missed calls and text messages give people a sense of fear that they are missing out on something urgent. Ideally, meetings more than a couple of hours long should be discouraged and if you have to have longer meetings, split them into smaller meetings with focused agenda items. For example, if you have to hold a day long business planning meeting, split it into sessions for HR, deliveries, market expectations and so on. In such a case, also explore ‘break out sessions’ where each sub group meets for a shorter duration in a focused way.

Beating around the bush: Meeting duration typically increases because people don’t come directly to the point of discussion. Beating around the bush, getting digressed with side issues, getting into personal mudslinging all cause unnecessary delays. The person running the meeting should take care that such things don’t happen. Setting the right ground rules up front, allocating time slots and responsible people for each agenda items ensuring the rules and timeframes are adhered to are some of the ways in which the pitfalls can be avoided or minimized.

Postponing and procrastinating: Meetings become unproductive if people do not bring the right data to the meeting. In order to arrive at objective decisions, the correct substantiating data is required. If people don’t come with the required data, it becomes a convenient excuse to have pointless discussions that can add to the perception that meetings are time draining activities. The plan of getting concurrence on what to bring for the meeting ahead of time can minimize or avoid this pitfall.

Not closing the meeting effectively: This is perhaps the most common pitfall in meeting management. The participants get too engrossed in the nitty-gritties of one or two agenda items when someone finally notices ‘Ooops … it is 1 p.m. And time for my next meeting!’ or someone knocks on the conference room door and says ‘Excuse me, I have booked this room from 1 p.m.’ and then everybody picks up their stuff and runs out of the room. An abruptly ended meeting will not feel like a serious meeting and therefore, suitable controls must be in place to formally complete the meeting in the set time. Every meeting should have allocated time for an effective closure—key decisions are restated, key action items are emphasized and the plans for the next meeting is laid out. As mentioned earlier, when planning time for every meeting, these 5–10 minutes should be factored in.

24.10 In Summary

We will conclude this chapter with a summary of key points to be followed if you are organizing a meeting and if you are a participant in the meeting. These are in the realm of etiquette, but it is worthwhile to summarize them here as they are intricately tied to what we have discussed in this chapter.

If you are organizing a meeting, please remember:

• Choose the people who should attend the meeting with discretion.
• Choose a convenient time and place. Generally the location which is convenient to most people is the preferred location (The one exception is that if the big boss is to take part in the meeting, generally his office building would be the venue).
• Depending on the travel time, it may be a good idea to have the meeting towards the end of the day or beginning of the day so that remaining worktime is not eaten away by travel.
• If people have to be dialled in, make sure you get the contact numbers right (and the time right when it is in a different time zone). If some of them have to dial in themselves, make sure you provide them the appropriate information (phone number with country and area code, meeting ID, pass code, etc.).
• Allocate sufficient time to discuss all the important issues, but do not make it so long that people feel they are wasting time.
• If possible, segment the meeting into smaller parts, where each person, relevant to an agenda item being discussed, can come in just for that part.
• Inform people of the agenda ahead of time and get their consent for participation. If they cannot participate, ensure that a reasonable substitute, who is empowered enough, can participate.
• For important meetings, try to remind the participants on the day before the meeting.
• Book the meeting venue well ahead of time.
• If the meeting venue is not in your home base, get familiar with the location ahead of time and get to know how to access infrastructure (e.g., printers, coffee machine, etc.)—and most importantly, get to know the administrative assistant who is in charge of this location and its infrastructure.
• Arrive early to the meeting venue. If you have access to the meeting room before the meeting, ensure that the necessary infrastructure is available.
• Identify a scribe at the beginning of the meeting.
• Stick to the agenda–don’t let any one topic go tangential and steal the time from rest of the items.
• Handle conflicts delicately but firmly. Don’t let anyone bully you or rest of the participants. Take charge firmly yet politely.
• Look for the people who want to interrupt. Honour such interruptions on a case by case basis.
• Always allocate a few minutes at the end for summarizing the meeting and stating the follow-through plan.
• Send out the minutes of meeting the same day or at most the next day.
• Diligently follow through on the action items and let these feed into the next meeting.

If you are an invited participant, then certain etiquette applies to you as well:

• If you are given an agenda item (and have signed up for it), prepare well before you come for a meeting. Don’t have a shot gun approach to coming to the meeting and then thinking about the matter.
• Be punctual to the meeting. If your presence is required only for a portion of the meeting or if you can attend only part of the meeting, do inform the coordinator ahead of time and ensure that the time allotted for discussing your agenda item is appropriately specified.
• If you cannot attend a meeting after you have promised to (because of some unforeseen emergency), do get in touch with the coordinator as soon as possible and convey the message. Try to see if you can send someone who could substitute for you and who is also empowered and capable to commit to action items or participate in discussions meaningfully.
• Do not walk in and out of a meeting repeatedly.
• Do not use your cell phone for talking or messaging during the meeting. Never leave your cell phone in the loud ringing mode. Switch it off or at least leave it in silent or vibrating mode.
• Do not work on your laptop while attending the meeting.
• Stick to your allotted time for discussion. Don’t overshoot your allotted time as it will have a cascading effect on other agenda items.
• If there are other agenda items that you think you can add value, try to inform the coordinator ahead of time. If that is not possible, do not hesitate to contribute to the discussion on these items.
• Do not steal everyone else’s thunder.
• If you have to interrupt, do it gently. Don’t butt in abruptly or too often. Let whoever is talking come to some logical point (at least till end of the sentence).
• If certain action items are assigned to you, do what it takes to carry these to completion.
• Promptly report the status of assigned action items to the coordinator as soon as possible, at any rate not later than the next meeting.