Mind Your Meetings
What are your meetings like? I mean, usually. Before you had to say “You’re on mute” or “Can you let me share my screen?”. Were they effective? Or did you feel like your time could be used much better than sitting in the same room just to have others check their email while you spoke?
Effective leaders lead effective meetings. Leadership is primarily about communication, and a lot of communication happens in meetings - for good or for bad. Large group meetings, small group meetings, 1-1 meetings - we meet with people so we can communicate. To communicate effectively, we need a good plan for our meeting structure, an easy way to capture what happened, and (in 2021) how to be mindful of the virtual attendees.
Let’s take a look at two great resources that have helped me frame my meetings and be mindful of those attending. The first is a meeting template from The Table Group based on Patrick Lencioni’s Death by Meeting and the second is a resource for the virtual meeting from Zoom.
Tactical Guidelines
In his book Death by Meeting, Patrick Lencioni relays a fable about the woes of ineffective and painful meetings. Through it, he offers a basic framework for different kinds of meetings and tools to make them effective. The first thing is figuring out what kind of meeting are you having - is it a daily standup? A Weekly Tactical meeting? Does it have a monthly impact and need more time? Or is it a strategic planning session?
Based on the answer, Lencioni outlines the time required for each and the purpose. He also shared the keys of success for each meeting type.
Death by Meeting - Summary - Patrick Lencioni
For me, most meetings fall into Weekly Tactical meetings. With my teams, I hold to a strict 1 hour meeting where we outline the goals for the next week and hold to the agenda. We are try to coordinate our activities together as a team and postpose larger discussions so that we can make sure we get to the most important things during our hour together.
To make sure that the team is working together and not just reporting back information from each silo, we adopted a standardized meeting format. We use the Tactical Meeting Guidelines below that provides a structured way to run and document the meeting. I created a template like this in OneNote so that I could link meeting details to the document and take attendance as well.
Each area serves a unique purpose that is outlined in the document. The first box is the Lightning Round. You go around the table and get the subject from each staff member. The second box is designed to take information from strategic meetings and bring those forward to the team each time. You may be able to score them red, yellow, green on a weekly basis. The third box is the actual agenda of the meeting. This is where the host takes items from the Lightning Round and the Scoreboard Review and sets the ordered agenda. The fourth box lays out a parking lot for future strategic topics for discussion. The fifth box records any decisions and actions that need to be recorded. Finally, the sixth box is a crucial opportunity to clarify what needs to be communicated from the meeting and what should not be communicated after the meeting. This helps make sure the team presents a consistent and clear message coming out of the meeting.
Tactical Meeting Guidelines - Death By Meeting - The Table Group
I have found that this meeting structure can feel a little stilted at first, but really helps team members collaborate together and discuss what is most important. It helps teams avoid excessive updates from things we can read in an email. And do not skip the last step. It is crucial!
Mindful Meetings of Zoom
With our increasing dependence on and access to video conferenced meetings, leaders have an opportunity to improve the lives of our staff members by improving virtual meetings.
Thankfully, Zoom put out a great Mindful Meetings Checklist to help us think about:
If the meeting is needed
What to do before the meeting
What to do during the meeting
What to do after the meeting
This first question is absolutely essential - “Is this meeting necessary?” Meetings are only necessary if you have a clear goal, if collaboration is helpful to achieving the goal, and if you need to discuss complex or sensitive information. As Zoom notes, if you answer ‘no’ to any of those questions, consider putting your information in writing and saving everyone else the time.
However, you can also use the questions to be more thoughtful about your meeting:
What is my goal? What do I need to get out of this meeting?
How can I incorporate the perspective of others to better achieve our goal?
What information can be shared beforehand and what is too sensitive or complex that may be reserved for the meeting?
When preparing for the meeting, remember preparation time helps make everyone better. Review your invite list and make sure everyone needs to be there. Make sure you have an agenda (like the one above) and have given information beforehand. Use the guide above to set the time, and get in the right mindset. For meeting leaders, we have to set the tone and feel for the meeting. Positive prepared energy goes a long way.
During the meeting remember to great everyone and start with some small talk. It is important for us to remind ourselves and everyone else that we are human and have lives outside of the screens. Encourage participation by using people’s names on Zoom or getting responses on chat. Stick to your agenda and watch the time, and make sure everyone can participate.
Finally, after the meeting is over, make sure everyone is clear on what to communicate and gets a copy of the minutes and action items. Take a moment to reflect and get feedback. Think about how you can make the meeting better next time.
Conclusion
Leaders who are effective lead effective meetings with clarity and mindfulness. Use standard tools like the Tactical Weekly Meeting template and Zoom’s Mindful Meetings Checklist to make you and your team better.