What We're Reading Now

Meetings Shouldn’t Be Miserable

9 June 2015

Allison read the HBR Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter and was glad to see a collection of basic meeting management skills summarized in a quick and easy-to-read booklet.

Tags: allison read, communication, meetings

When I teach our Effective Communication Skills course, I often include a section on meeting management. I begin by asking the participants, “How many of you go to meetings?” Everyone raises their hands. Then I ask, “How many of you love your meetings and wish you could go to more of them each week?” Almost all hands quickly come down and there is a lot of eye rolling. Then I ask people, "Do you like the meetings you run?" People sheepishly shrug. Then I ask, "Is it possible with all these raised hands that your meetings aren't all that good either?" There's a lot of nervous laughter, and then looks that implore me to do or say something to help them.

It’s a sad state of affairs that many of us go to a lot of meetings that feel like a waste of time. That’s why I’m so glad the Harvard Business Review published one of its Guides to Making Every Meeting Matter. “The Harvard Business Review Guides are for busy managers looking for quick answers to common challenges."

There’s nothing in Making Every Meeting Matter that’s particularly groundbreaking, but what it does do is gather together a lot of meeting basics (have clear objectives, start and end on time, establish clear ground rules, distribute meaningful agendas in advance, make sure the right people are in [and out] of the meeting, set up the room, and establish responsibility for following up). A variety of writers contribute to the HBR Guides, and I think that’s one of their selling points. Readers get a variety of different perspectives on the topic at hand.

In addition to covering the basics, this Guide also has some particularly good ideas I haven’t seen in other books. For example, there is an explanation of how 50-minute meetings can save time over the long haul and allow people some breathing room in between multiple meetings. There’s also a suggestion for taking the walking or standing meetings and making them into a dancing meeting (a bit odd, but definitely in the spirit of shaking up an old meeting and making it a little more fun and energizing.)

It also includes some of the best advice I’ve seen for how to make virtual and global meetings work. For example, if some members of the meeting are in the same building, don’t allow them to be in the same room. Everyone should be separated so that everyone has to work just as hard to pick up on non-verbal cues. This keeps side meetings from evolving in the locations where people are able to gather together in one room.

Additionally, the Guide has a section on how to handle disruptive behavior during a meeting including a pretty good script for talking with the individual one-on-one after the meeting. There are also interesting ideas for how to participate meaningfully in meetings and what to do when you’re “stuck in a meeting from hell.”

My advice to organizations would be to get a few copies of the guide and make it mandatory reading for individuals who attend meetings. Then facilitate a discussion about the Guide to figure out which of the tips would benefit the organization. The biggest problem I see with meetings is that no one actually thinks about what would make for a good meeting or if they do, they keep those thoughts to themselves or share the thoughts with just a few others when they're complaining about the latest miserable meeting. Discussing this Guide could lead to meaningful dialogue within your organization about how to improve your meetings, and that’s a goal everyone can agree would make a big difference in the quality of their days.

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