Running Meetings

Lead with confidence, Move your projects forward, Manage Conflicts

(Harvard Business Review - 20 Minute Manager Series)

Contents

  1. Preview
  2. Introduction
  3. Preparing for Your Meeting
  4. Leading Your Meeting
  5. The Day After: Making Your Meeting Stick
  6. Running Specific Types of Meetings
  7. When Good Meetings Go Bad and How to Fix Them
  8. Learn More

1. Preview

Running a meeting can be an excellent way to

  • make a decision
  • gather ideas
  • inspire a team
  • demonstrate your skills
    • organizational
    • motivational
    • collaborative
    • leadership

Basics of productive meetings

  1. Setting the right agenda
  2. Picking the right people for the meeting - and making sure they attend
  3. Executing your plan
  4. Energizing your team
  5. Hosting virtual participants successfully
  6. Managing conflict
  7. Making decisions
  8. Ensuring effective follow-through on tasks after the meeting

2. Introduction

Unproductive meetings are frustrating for everyone because they waste time. Thoughtful preparation, active meeting management skills, and strong follow-up can make the difference between a rewarding, enjoyable, and invigorating session and one in which everyone doodles and avoids eye contact.

The discipline and time you invest before, during, and after will pay off for your team and for you: In the meeting you’ll be able to communicate, build consensus, and get things done — and you’ll earn a reputation as a productive meeting leader in your organization as well.

Running effective meetings is a skill that is critical all the way up to the C-suite level.

3. Preparing for Your Meeting

14-point meeting preparation checklist

  1. Identified the specific purpose of the meeting?
  2. Made sure you need a meeting at all?
  3. Developed a preliminary agenda?
  4. Selected the right participants and assigned roles?
  5. Decided where and when to hold the meeting and confirmed availability of the space?
  6. Sent the invitation, notifying participants when and where the meeting will be held?
  7. Sent the preliminary agenda to key participants and other key stakeholders?
  8. Sent any reports or items needing advance preparation to participants?
  9. Followed up with invitees in person, if appropriate?
  10. Identified, if appropriate, the decision-making process that will be used in the meeting?
  11. Identified, arranged for, and tested any required equipment?
  12. Finalized the agenda and distributed it to all participants?
  13. Verified that all key participants will attend and know their roles?
  14. Prepared yourself?

Think of running a meeting as a discipline.
If you take the time to run through the basics of good preparation each time, you’ll

  • know what to expect on the actual day
  • develop a natural sense of how much groundwork is appropriate for each type of gathering in the future
  • reap the rewards of a smooth session

Identify the specific purpose of the meeting (Why are you meeting?)

  • Fundamental step. Drives all the other elements.
  • Be as specific as possible as you think through what the gathering needs to accomplish. You’ll be far more likely to include just the individuals who specifically need to be there, and in turn, they’ll be on hand to give their feedback about options and to endorse the decision as it is made.
  • If your purpose is vague, like “discuss the Special Revenue-Generating project” instead of something specific like “reprioritize workload”, “get a status update” or “brainstorm ways to speed up the timetable”, you and your attendees will all come into the room with totally different ideas of what you’ll get out of the meeting and leave everyone frustrated and dissatisfied.

Make sure your need a meeting at all

As you plan, keep asking yourself whether the meeting is really necessary. If there is another better way to accomplish your goal, go for it.

It’s better not to hold a meeting if:

  1. You don’t have time to prepare for the meeting.
  2. Another method of communicating—email, phone, text message—would work as well or better.
  3. The subject isn’t worth everyone’s time.
  4. Your group members are upset over a conflict or other problem and need time apart before being ready and able to address the situation.
  5. The subject is a personnel issue that’s better handled one-on-one, such as gathering information from others about an employee’s poor performance.
  6. You need to solicit a number of individuals’ opinions.

Develop a preliminary agenda

8. Learn More

Quick Hits

  1. Ashkenas, Ron. “Why We Secretly Love Meetings: The Status and Social Drive Beyond the Agenda.” Harvard Business Review Blog Network, October 5, 2010.
  2. Silverman, David. “The 50-Minute Meeting.” Harvard Business Review Blog Network, August 6, 2009.
  3. Trapani, Gina. “Extreme Ways to Shorten and Reduce Meetings.” Harvard Business Review Blog Network, July 20, 2009.

Books

  1. Dunne, Patrick. Running Board Meetings (3rd Edition): How to Get the Most from Them. London: Kogan Page Ltd., 2005.
  2. Hass, Kathleen B., and Alice Zavala. The Art and Power of Facilitation: Running Powerful Meetings (Business Analysis Essential Library). Vienna, VA: Management Concepts, Inc ,2007.
  3. Pittampalli, Al. Read This Before Our Next Meeting: The Modern Meeting Standard for Successful Organizations. Do You Zoom, Inc./The Domino Project Powered by Amazon, 2011.

Classics

  1. Doyle, Michael, and David Strauss. How to Make Meetings Work. New York: Berkeley Publishing Group, 1993.