Meetings are often the bane of a staff officer’s existence. I’m pretty sure you could name a few meetings you’ve attended in the last month that were of no value to you or your unit. As organizational leaders we seek the opposite, to host meetings that effectively captivate the time and talents of the teams we work on. Leaders who run good meetings set a clear agenda, establish the conditions to meet it, encourage discourse, and clearly capture the outputs and way ahead. This article provides practical thoughts to set conditions for better meetings.
Photo Credit: Eric R. Lucero, U.S. Army South Public Affairs, Fort Sam Houston, Texas, May 3, 2012
Set a clear agenda. There is more to an effective group session than booking a room and sending an Outlook invite. Good organizational leaders establish conditions by creating a clear agenda including inputs, process for the meeting, and desired outputs. The organizer should provide participants with a clear understanding of why they are there and what is expected of them before the day of the meeting.
Before the meeting, think through the roles and responsibilities of participants. You may be a super staff officer, but will not be effective as the facilitator, primary note taker, slide flipper, briefer, and subject matter expert. As the meeting lead, focus on facilitating discussion between the subject matter experts you’ve assembled. Your job is to help the team function, not to get bogged down achieving one of the previously described functions. Think through these requirements on the front end and get some help.
Many meetings are ineffective because they lack discourse or discussion. Ever feel this way after a meeting?
If you don’t generate any discussion during a meeting, what was the point of bringing the group together? Leaders often steer clear of discourse in a meeting because it feels uncontrolled, messy, and sometimes confrontational. Though it may feel uncomfortable, introducing divergent opinions is a powerful way to make a plan stronger. Think through how you can introduce and manage discussion at your next meeting without it turning into an episode of Jerry Springer.
(Check out this HBR article on managing a debate in a meeting)
Finally, think through your method to capture the work occurring in a session. Many ineffective meetings simply do not have a plan to capture outputs, leaving participants to recreate the work when they return to their cube. This error leads to a loss in both time and fidelity of information. Other meetings rely on one individual to tediously update a product while the rest of the team watches on a big screen. There are numerous better methods, like using post-it notes or networking the room so participants can tap out their input to a shared product during the discussion. Successful methods to capture work require thought and preparation.
These are just a handful of ways to improve the meetings you host, increasing productivity and capitalizing on the talents of the teams you assemble. Leaders who run good meetings set a clear agenda, establish the conditions to meet it, and clearly capture the outputs and way ahead. Regardless of your approach, a good meeting requires preparation and thought from the individual who organizes it.