uplIft: Feb 10, 2022

Perspective

Experience

“It feels to me sometimes that we are going through the same experience through one situation after the other. It’s as if Life is trying to teach us something, and Life refuses to settle till we get it.

We don’t get wise with Experience. We get wise by reflecting on our Experiences.”

Career Conundrum

How to run an effective meeting?

As per a study by Bain & Company ~15% of an organization’s time is spent in meetings, with the number going up to 35% for mid managers and over 50% for senior leaders. It’s surprising then to see how often meetings are run ineffectively, without optimal preparation.

5 things help in running effective meetings

1.     Have an agenda and a pre-read document that’s shared at least 48 hrs before the meeting. Don’t spend time during the meeting going through things that attendees could have read before. Further, the agenda should clearly call out to the group the purpose of the meeting i.e. define what constitutes a successful meeting.

2.     The meeting needs to have 3 parts, like a good story

a.     The Beginning – share context, and set expectation from the meeting. For instance, decide next steps on something.

b.     The Middle – where you discuss the real meat of the conversation, understand different perspectives, options on the table, etc.

c.     The End – Where you summarize the next steps. If you haven’t managed to wrap-up or get aligned on the subject of discussion, agree on the next step on how you will take the required decision.

3.     Parking lot – have a parking lot for detailing important but not directly relevant ideas to the subject being discussed. These need to be parked with an owner to evaluate & take it forward.

4.     MOM – Send minutes of the meeting with agreed action items and their responsible owners, within 24 hrs of the meeting.

Pro tip 1: Schedule meetings based on the time needed for the discussion, and not in default blocks of 30 mn, 60 mns or 90 mns. If something takes 15 mns, block 15 mns.

Pro tip 2: Meetings are for a discussion, and seldom useful for information dissemination. Use email and/or other collaboration tools like Google Currents or Slack for information sharing.

Pro tip 3: Everyone invited to the meeting needs to have a defined role, apart from being an observer. It’s useful to pen down (for yourself) what roles we expect different participants to play in the meeting. Some illustrative roles could be of a decision maker, key stakeholder, executor, budget holder, gate keeper, the devil’s advocate etc. Mapping these role ensures there are no freeloaders in the meeting, and equips you as the organizer for likely perspectives that may emerge.

POint to POnder

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy? What’s your play? Have you been playing lately?