Can ALL meetings be effective? How?
A study done by The University of North Carolina showed that 71% of senior managers said meetings are
unproductive.
Highfive has also shared some interesting statistics on modern meetings and the way they're run: no more than 37% of meetings use agendas and 73% of people multitask in meetings!
Much has been written about unproductive meetings and consequences on teams and motivation.
But it doesn't have to be that way.
In an ideal world, all meetings can be effective, productive, and timely.
The thing about effective meetings is that they come down to good habits.
Setting up and running an effective meeting is a learned skill that is underrated in today's world.
A meeting organizer should know basic good meeting hygiene, and this starts even before the meeting begins.
The meeting invite is a dead giveaway of how effective the meeting will be
We all know this feeling of confusion when receiving a less-than-stellar invite. Here's an example:
Image credit: @theincumbentagency
There are some telltale signs that a meeting is not going to be effective:
1. The invite is sent out last minute.
This usually means that the organizer hasn't had enough time to properly plan. It also gives attendees less time to prepare their thoughts.
2. No objective
This usually means that the person organizing the meeting hasn't had enough time to properly plan it out and as a result, the meeting is likely not going to be very productive.
3. No expected outcome
This usually means that the person organizing the meeting hasn't had enough time to properly plan it out and as a result, the meeting is likely not going to be very productive.
4. No agenda (so crucial!)
No agenda = no time control. No time control = anyone can speak for however long they want. This is usually the main cause of meetings overrunning and going off-tangent. This is why an agenda is so important yet often left empty.
5. The whole village is invited
If 20 people are in an alignment meeting, you can be sure that no alignment will be made in that meeting. If it does, they probably come from a few stakeholders, In which case, is there a point in inviting 20 people?
Okay these are the bad signs. What good meeting habits should an organizer have then?
In my previous article, I talked about 3 hacks to make meetings more effective.
This applies to you whether you're an organizer or and attendee.
Now that we've covered the basics, let's take a look at home some of the world's top tech leaders do it.
How they conduct meetings reveals different sides of meeting management that could make or break a business.
How some of the world's best tech leaders do it
Jeff Bezos’ silent meetings
Silent meetings first started at Amazon.
To replace the traditional PowerPoint presentations, the leadership team introduced silent meetings.
It’s a new way to hold meetings starting with 30 minutes of silence.
Silent meetings are now commonly used in leading technology companies, where the majority of the agenda is spent reading and reflecting, before any actual conversation begins.
This format encourages active participation, which leads to more productive meetings.
Steve Jobs' Meeting Rule of 3s
Post COVID-19 modern workforce suffers from meeting overload and zoom fatigue.
Steve Jobs had a simple and effective approach to avoiding unnecessary meetings: The "Rule of 3".
This limits the meeting attendees to three to five people.
Jobs famously declined an invite from President Obama to a tech meeting because the guest list was too long.
Andy Grove’s approach to 1 on 1
Grove was a major proponent of 1 on 1s, and I'm a believer of it.
Done right, they are the most powerful investment leaders can make.
They can help you catch and fix problems before they snowball.
A productive 1:1 can help also help managers to develop their team members and gain valuable insights that can be learnings for the organization.
💡 If you want to know more details about how these leaders conduct their meetings, download our latest meeting playbook
About the author
CT Leong is the founder of EngageRocket, SaaS startup with a mission to turn digital connects into meaningful human connections at work. Before becoming an entrepreneur, he was a Regional Director of Gallup - one of the world's top HR advisories. He graduated with a degree in Economics at the University of Cambridge, and has an MA in Political Science from Columbia University.