Meetings are necessary to facilitate collaboration and create greater outcomes. Yet, most meetings fail to deliver the desired return on investment, thereby leaving the attendees disappointed and often bored and disillusioned!
To drive better meetings, I suggest implementing the following 3-step system:
1. Schedule sufficient time to do a “learning loop” at the end of the meeting or at strategic checkpoints, for long meetings.
You can’t improve what you don’t measure. So to get better, it is critical to set aside sufficient time to review the effectiveness and efficiency of the meeting, with a view to diagnose any issues and generate ideas to get better; whether it’s in the moment or for the next meeting.
2. Facilitate an honest and constructive dialogue around the following key questions:
- On a scale of 1 (poor) to 10 (outstanding), how would we rate the meeting?
- To what extent was everyone fully aligned on the purpose of the meeting?
- Did we talk about the right things?
- Did we talk about these things in the right sequence and for the right length?
- Did we have the necessary constructive conflict?
- Did we adapt and adjust the agenda as necessary?
- Did we make important decisions?
- If we had to do this meeting all over again, but 50% better, what are the 1 to 3 things we would change?
3. Make some decisions to make the next meeting better
On the back end of the above discussion, make some decisions about what to do differently for the next segment/meeting.
