Stop Wasting People’s Time with Meetings

Meeting give people a chance to investigate issues, explore new avenues, and agree on actions. Leadership skills, interests, and managerial styles can be highlighted. Many fall short of this promise. Ask yourself how much you get back from your involvement in the meetings, especially the board and executive meetings. How much time do you have left to think, imagine, and communicate?

Some organizations are trying to get a grip on wasteful meetings, introducing no-meeting days, empowering people to make their own decisions, and improving the way meetings are planned and facilitation. Meeting are inclusive of the people who actually need to be there, and they areParticipatory.

Some leaders don't pay much attention to their own contributions to meetings. Mark, an executive I worked with, listened attentively in meetings. He was bored of playing the same role and worried his lack of enthusiasm was damaging his personal brand.

In a world where there is more focus on the quality of meetings, it is important to showcase your best self to your colleagues and make the most of your own time and energy. Five strategies should help.

Articulate Your Ambition Clearly

It's not clear what a meeting is supposed to accomplish. The chair starts the meeting with pleasantries before rattling through the agenda.

The CEO of the studio uses a different approach. The strategic priorities are the focus of the discussion. He starts meetings by reminding people what to do. He encourages everyone to speak, noting that it may take longer to make a decision, but it is faster to make better decisions.

If you want to establish a clearer ambition for your meeting, take the following actions.

• Invite clarification beforehand. Avoid assuming that everyone agrees with the agenda. Encourage people to call out clarifications or disagreements before the meeting. Doing so increases the quality of discussion and buy-in of the group.
• Explain why the meeting matters. During the meeting, describe the relevance, materiality, and urgency of the discussion in relation to the organization’s strategy and journey. Be explicit about what you’d like to achieve, using statements like, “I’d like this meeting to move us closer to…” and, “We have an important decision to make in relation to…”
• Convey your belief in the group. If you’re looking to tackle complex issues (as meetings should; otherwise, let people get on with it themselves), you’ll need everyone to share their best thinking. Put them in a positive frame of mind by signaling your belief in their abilities, for example, by recalling past successes. Use a statement like, “remember when we had a great discussion about…”
• Work out how you want to show up. Don’t forget to develop your own ambition. What do you want others to think, feel, and do because of your contribution? What lessons can you learn from your impact in previous meetings?

Decide What Roles You Want to Play

Many executives adopt roles in meetings based on what they have done before. A CFO will lead on finance-related discussions. Doing this can limit your sphere of influence. By deliberately shaping the role you want to play, you can quickly uncover new information, invalidate long-held assumptions, and test scenarios that may initially seem implausible. There are a few roles to try out.

• Catalyst. Initiate a discussion and stimulate fresh thinking through analogies, stories, or precedents.
• Custodian. Ask how a decision will play out in the organization and what it would take for it to land well.
• Challenger. Question the logic, coherence, and validity of an argument with data, experience, and/or intuition.
• Convener. Encourage full participation by inviting others to join the discussion, making connections (“bridging”) between points and the people involved.
• Decision-maker. Frame the topic clearly, invite discussion of the issues and options, and make a decision in the meeting (avoiding taking it “offline” whenever possible).

If you want to encourage others to follow suit, you should be open about the role you're adopting. When faced with a tricky issue, the CEO I worked with liked to allocate roles. It's fine if it doesn't become like performance theater, where participants act out a conversation as if they are reading from a script.

If you are left to your devices, choose a role that the discussion requires and that you enjoy playing. When a CEO realized they needed to split their role of running the meeting and providing input, their decisions became more actionable, clearer, and the group felt more committed to the outcomes. Help others understand this by saying, "I'm changing thinking hats here, so I'm going to focus on the facts."

Work Out Your Most Distinctive Contribution

When the subject matter is complex, an effective meeting requires a range of perspectives, experiences, and styles. The challenge is to be a good team player while demonstrating your best self.

Molly talked a lot in meetings. Her feedback indicated that her colleagues were not sure of the value of her work. I helped her focus on the quality of her contributions. It took more preparation and discipline to choose when to speak and when to listen.

If you want to make a more distinctive contribution, you need to work out where your strengths can best address the topics of the meeting. This could be from you.

• Credibility, or license to contribute from prior successes.
• Subject matter knowledge.
• Ability to problem solve or reframe, for example, using scenarios.
• Insights from other organizations, industries, or ecosystems facing similar issues.

Profiles of other meeting participants in the same way you might for your customers are what you're going to create. They have interests, perspectives, questions, and historical contributions. This can help you identify.

• White space. Topics where you might have more to contribute than others given your expertise and experience.
• Complements. Allies who share a common interest, experience, or background with you.
• Conflicts. Colleagues who have an opposing view to yours.

This insight can be used to anticipate the perspectives, contributions, and reactions of others. If appropriate, influence people in advance. Don't go too far. Being distinctive isn't about winning or losing, it's about using your strengths to set yourself apart. It shouldn't make you inflexible or dogmatic, loaded with limiting assumptions that may not prove to be true.

If you are on an established team, think about the capabilities you need to develop to make a distinctive contribution. If you are dealing with sensitive topics frequently, you will need to fully understand the perspectives of others before exploring options. If you are tackling a crisis, use problem-solving skills. Work out the best way to enhance these capabilities, from observing others who have them to creating your own personal learning cloud of online courses and tools using an external coach.

Use Signals Wisely

Meeting are full of signals as to interests and intentions. Many executives don't take the chance to be intentional with their own signals because of a lack of preparation. They don't capture what was said in the meeting.

The person on autopilot has their mind elsewhere as they replay what happened in the previous meeting or plan the next one. Over time, their colleagues get frustrated with their contributions.

Sarah thought about how she came across in the meeting and what she wanted to say in the meeting. That meant using her words, voice, facial expressions, and body posture.

• Interest in the topic.
• Determination to solve a pressing problem.
• Creativity in developing new ideas.
• Ability to listen, recognize, and respond to perspectives of different people.
• Confidence in high-stakes situations.
• Positivity in challenging circumstances.

The summary of actions and key points from the meeting only captured a fraction of the richness of the discussion. She used what she learned during the meeting to assess her team.

• Ability to meet performance goals.
• Alignment in the execution of the strategy.
• Capacity to take on new initiatives.
• Interactions
• Overall mood, heath, and well-being.

She wrote down the questions she wanted to ask and the hypotheses she wanted to test before the meeting. She was able to start the meeting with more intentionality. Immediately after and a few days later, she scheduled proper reflection time.

Manage Yourself in the Moment

Big characters and pressurized circumstances can make meetings emotional. A comment, suggestion, or implication from a team member can cause a strong reaction.

The challenge is to think clearly and communicate effectively. Avoid an overreaction that can linger in people's memories and erase their positive contributions.

You can make decisions about how to manage yourself.

• Being clear about where you should focus. If you’re clear about the topics you truly care about — and think the group should care about — you’ll be more selective about which battles to fight and which ones to steer clear of.
• Anticipating the triggers. Write down a list of topics (“We must do something about our customer service”), events (“Whenever we’ve tried to launch a new product, it’s gone wrong”), or people (“Whenever they interrupt me”) that will trigger an emotional response in you. Then develop a list of more constructive responses (“That’s the past, we’re a different organization now,” “I’ll come to you after I’ve finished my point, if I may”).
• Labelling your reaction. When you feel an emotional response, label it (in your head) as if you were a dispassionate third party. Pay attention to where you’re focusing and how you’re feeling while recognizing your limitations (so-called “meta-awareness”). Create some distance, even in the moment — look out the window, have a glass of water, control your breath, or center yourself physically (feet square to the floor, sit up straight).
• Refocusing your attention. Remind yourself of your ambition and focus, then look to reframe the discussion by refocusing attention on different ways to address the issues at hand.

Being self-absorbed or ultra-competitive is not the goal of becoming more strategic in meetings. It isn't about over-planning to the point that you become rigid in the meeting. These five strategies will help you be more intentional with your actions and bring your best self to the discussion.