Are You Kidding Me? More Meetings?!!!
by edavis on 06/08/09 at 6:19 pm
Like most people, I dread the weekly status meeting. I sit there and ask myself “Why am I here?”, “What is the purpose of this meeting?”, and “What real work could I be doing instead of this meeting?”. And to make matters worse, I am the one who runs this meeting! If I’m feeling this way, I can only imagine what my team must be thinking.
But since these are my meetings, I decided I wanted to do something about it. I wanted to find a way to make my meetings more productive, interactive, and engaging. I wanted to use these meetings as THE preferred way to plan strategy; to discuss tactics, issues, and solutions; and truly use our collective knowledge and wisdom to take our projects and work to the next level. And to accomplish these goals, I knew that our meetings had to change.
So, I started researching, reading, and learning more about running effective meetings. Luckily, one of the books I came across was Patrick Lencioni’s Death By Meeting. When I first read the title of this book, I immediately thought he would offer advice on how to cut down on the number of meetings we have or how to write and stick to a planned agenda, etc. This couldn’t be further from the truth! In fact, Lencioni advocates having more meetings. But the catch is, each meeting has its own unique purpose and style.
In essence, he recommends four distinct types of meetings:
Daily Check-in. This is a daily meeting that lasts approximately 5 minutes. The purpose of this meeting is for team members to share their daily activities. This meeting helps to ensure that “nothing falls through the cracks”. The challenge is keeping these meetings to last ~ 5 minutes and only focusing on the daily administrative activities.
Weekly Tactical. This is the type of meeting most of us are accustomed to attending. This meeting typically lasts 45 – 90 minutes and is focused on discussing the tactical issues of immediate concern. However, Lencioni adds a new twist to these types of meetings. The first twist is the structure of these meetings. Rather than come in with a predetermined agenda, each team member would spend ~ 1 minute describing the top 2-3 priorities he or she is working on. Next, after each team member participates in this “lightning round”, the meeting leader spends the next 5 minutes reviewing progress as it relates to key metrics. Lastly, the leader sets the agenda for the remainder of the meeting and then the team proceeds to discuss the pertinent issues for that week. The largest challenges are keeping the 1 meeting debriefs to 1 minute and not discussing long-term strategic issues. Those strategic issues should be saved for the monthly strategic meetings.
Monthly Strategic. This is the meeting where the key team members come together and talk strategy. This is where the team talks about where they are, where they want to go, how they will get there, and who they need to watch out for. According to Lencioni, the most critical challenge teams face during this type of meeting is “the failure to schedule enough time for them”. To keep them focused, he recommends only focusing on one or two critical issues.
Quarterly Off-Site Review. This is your standard meeting where the key team members take a step back and conduct a comprehensive review and analysis of the corporate strategy, team, personnel, competitors, and the industry. Lencioni recommends not to overstructure or overburden the schedule for these meetings.
After reading this book, my ideas about how to run effective meetings has been challenged. However, I know that reading and doing are two entirely different things. So, I am going to give this approach a legitimate shot. I am going to commit to this approach for the short-term and report on what I find that works and doesn’t work for me and my team. Stay tuned!
And if you have any advice on how to make meetings more effective, please share!
