Of all the people in the human race who have ever held a job, only a very few could honestly say that they’ve never experienced a bad meeting. Meetings have become a baleful bugbear of organisational life. Countless leaders have tried to crack the riddle of how to make them more interesting and effective, before throwing their hands up in defeat and simply ploughing on with the time-worn formula of yanking team members into rooms at short notice for overlong, meandering snooze-fests, in which the loudest voices routinely crush quieter staff with better ideas. Indeed, there is startling evidence to suggest that scores of meetings could be axed entirely, to the significant financial benefit of UK plc.
Here are three tips for how leaders can conjure up more vibrant and impactful meetings cultures – followed by four further tips for what team members can do to maximise their impact once everyone is in the room…
An employee of digital payments firm Square took to the Medium blogging platform to share the company’s approach to meetings, as set out by its seller-facing products lead Alyssa Henry. Under Henry’s direction, all of Square’s team meetings begin with 30 minutes of complete silence, during which the assembled staff view a series of amendable Google docs containing notes on the project, idea or strategy up for discussion. Attendees patiently make their way through the docs, typing any comments or questions they may have onto their pages as they go, with everyone moving at the same pace. Only once that process has ended does anyone speak – and because everyone has already absorbed the relevant information, the conversation part tends to be short and focused. Outlining her rationale behind the policy, Henry wrote: “Lots of research says that minorities, women, remote employees and introverts are talked over in meetings and/or have trouble getting their voice heard in traditional meetings culture.” However unintentional, this is regrettable for all concerned – the significant group of people disempowered by the traditional approach, those that tend to talk over others or shut down conversations, and certainly for leaders who want to hear the best ideas but can’t. She added: “I want to build a culture where thoughts can be voiced (or written as the case may be) without worrying about someone talking over you. I want a culture where it’s not the loudest voice heard, or the most politically adept, or the most local to SF, but the most right. I want a breadth of thought – and debate.”
Do meetings really have to take place in the same old room with a huge table and a clutter of chairs every time? According to Steven Rogelberg meetings make a great opportunity for people to stretch their legs. “Standing-up meetings produce the same quality of outcomes as a sitting-down meeting, but in half as much time,” he says. “And then there’s a walking meeting. Walking meetings are really terrific when it’s just you and one other person, or you and a couple of folks. They can create focus. Obviously, it gets people out of their office. People can get outside. People get steps on their Fitbits. There are lots of positives that can emerge from it.” He advises: “First of all, you have to keep that meeting size really small. Two, people need to know in advance that you’re having a walking meeting. That way, we make sure that everyone has the right shoes, which is relevant. “And three, you actually want to think about where you’re walking. As funny as it sounds, you want to make sure you’re walking in a circle, so you wind up back where you started, and it didn’t take you long.”
Now, this is a bit of a genius notion: in a late-2017 column for Inc.com, US scaling-up coach Bruce Eckfeldt urged leaders to make just one simple change to pep up their firm’s attitude to meetings: Make every single meeting optional. Once you have done that, Eckfeldt noted, it will unleash a series of further, positive changes: i) meetings with little to no value will be cancelled; ii) meeting makers will think twice before arranging get-togethers in the first place – and, if they do so, they will work harder to sell them to the relevant audience; iii) agendas will focus more clearly upon creating value; and iv) meeting times will shorten. “I've seen hour-long meetings shortened to half-hour meetings and half-hour meetings shortened to 10-minute stand-ups,” Eckfeldt wrote of this policy’s effects. Saving 10 people half an hour each, he pointed out, rescues five hours of found time for the company: “That's not chump change.”
Anyone who gets a dry mouth and clammy hands just before a meeting, nervous that their thoughts are about to get blitzed at the hands of their more alpha-type colleagues, would do well to check out health psychologist Kelly McGonigal’s TED talk How to Make Stress Your Friend. In her spiel McGonigal advises workers to plug into the reservoir of adrenaline that lurks behind their stress symptoms and use the stuff as rocket fuel to propel themselves to prominence. This will help staff of a quieter disposition to make an impact in the very sorts of group settings they find so off-putting – on the proviso that they also keep tabs on their body language to ensure the results are not actively overpowering their colleagues. For McGonigal, stress is a sign that your body and mind are readying themselves for action, and you can bend its effects to serve you – rather than suffer a lifetime of experiencing the relationship the other way around.
With all that adrenaline pinging around your system – hopefully under the vigilant watch of your internal Composure Management System – why consign yourself to waiting your turn, or looking for a gap to hop into as the discussion deepens? Far better, surely, to pounce out of the traps somewhere around the beginning. Not only will this provide you with an outlet for the energy you have carried into the room – it will also give you a means of stamping your personality onto proceedings. The major risk with the ‘sit back and wait’ approach, particularly if you are a baseline shy or reluctant contributor, is that the longer you leave it, the longer you will be inclined to leave it… and before you know it, it’s time to go back to your desk and you must veritably unpeel yourself from the room, because you’ve just spent the past hour turning into wallpaper.
While you’re in the midst of liberating your voice and being tremendously articulate, don’t forget to let your hands join the party. As quoted in a Business Insider piece, Michigan State University psychiatry professor John B Molidor advises staff to use open-palmed hand movements during meetings to provide additional emphasis and clarity of expression. The open-palmed rule is important, he says, because each motion will be interpreted as “a gesture of trust through which sincerity can flow”. During your more pensive moments, Molidor recommends making triangular steeples of your fingers to convey that you are giving the relevant points serious consideration and listening intently to what your colleagues are saying.
Ah, yes – the Phantom Phone Tapper: a perennial scourge of the meetings experience. The neon-lit rudeness of people who use their phones to stay half-in and half-out of staff meetings is often underappreciated. Indeed, there’s a strong argument to be made that this type of phone activity is the new doodling – but without the creativity.
For additional thoughts on body language, read The Treasurer piece ‘How to be an effective people person’.
Matt Packer is a freelance business, finance and leadership journalist