running meetings thoughtfully
A few tweaks, tricks, and practices
Hey everyone,
Short and sweet this week. Let’s talk about … meetings.
We seem to hate them, but we continue to fill our calendars with them. Sad!
My work calendar is brimming lately with meetings. Which poses a challenge to protecting my time so that I can keep working on Overlay.
Here are three interventions that I’ve seen work extremely well at past gigs. I’m hoping to use some combo of these to get a grip on meeting madness.
The Minimalist Agenda
The Quiet Reflection Ritual
Facilitating and Decision-Making
The Minimalist Agenda
Every meeting needs an agenda. Participants need to know:
What the single goal of the meeting is
What needs to be discussed in order to achieve that goal
What relevant documents would help aid the discussion
An agenda does not replace a project planner. It is not the place to brainstorm or track who is doing what.
Having any ol’ agenda is better than not having one. I’ve been in a lot of meetings with some vague purpose like “Brainstorm.” Which typically ends up with a lot of words said but nothing meaningful communicated.
The Quiet Reflection Ritual
At a previous gig, people entered meetings stressed, distracted, and 5-10 minutes late from another meeting.
As a result, our meetings became monologues. One person would talk for a while until it was someone else’s turn. Everyone else would tune out and do other work while on the call. Until it was their turn to talk.
Imagine being in meetings all day like this. They’re so dysfunctional that you think it’s a better use of time to try and get your actual work done during it. But you can’t really, because your mind is split between doing your work and pretending to pay attention.
So this is what we tried to fix this for meetings that involved our team:
Put the meeting agenda and any relevant documents in a Google Doc.
Everyone takes the first 10-15min of the meeting to quietly read.
Everyone comments, ideas, and questions in areas that they have something to share.
Everyone reply to other comments.
No one speaks. All conversation happens in the Google Doc. Maybe put on some music.
A neat thing tends to happen at the end of the 15 minutes. The team is engaged, focused, and ready to discuss. The document is filled with thoughts from teammates that tend to stay quiet. The loudest voice in the room does not drown out the rest.
With the discussion pump primed, we’re ready for a productive meeting.
Facilitating and Decision-Making
Each call should have a facilitator whose job is to make sure the agenda gets covered and important discussion points aren’t buried.
Each call should also have a decision maker who ideally isn’t also the facilitator. They are ultimately on the hook for making decisions related to the goal of the meeting.
This clarity in roles frees up the team to engage deeply and listen openly.
Am I here to make sure the meeting is run smoothly?
Am I here to evaluate, consider, and decide?
Am I here to lend my expertise and perspective?
If it’s hard to decide on these roles, it’s probably a sign of one of the following:
Too many cooks in the kitchen
One person having too much power over too many things
Try these out and let me know how they work for you! The unexpected effect is that unnecessary meetings get canceled. GCal can breathe easy.
Fingers crossed my calendar returns to sanity. See you next week.
Ammar