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Amy Gallo
December 20, 2013
There s nothing more annoying than a meeting that goes on and on and on. As a
manager, it s your job to make sure people don t go off on tangents or give
endless speeches. But how can you keep people focused without being a
taskmaster or squashing creativity?
What the Experts Say
The good news is that meeting management isn t rocket science; you probably
already know what you should be doing. The bad news is that keeping your
meeting on track takes discipline, and few people make the effort to get it
right. The fact is people haven t thought about how to run a good meeting, or
they ve never been trained, or they re simply too busy, says Bob Pozen, a
senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, senior fellow at Brookings
Institute, and author of Extreme Productivity. Organizations are moving faster
and faster these days and few managers have time to think through their
meetings in advance, says Roger Schwarz, an organizational psychologist and
author of Smart Leaders, Smarter Teams. But rushing now is only going to cost
you more time later. So whether you re getting ready for a weekly team meeting
or convening a larger group to discuss your division s strategy, it s important
to put in the effort. Here s how to make your next meeting your most productive
one yet.
Make the purpose clear
You can head off a lot of problems by stating the reason for getting together
right up front. Schwarz recalls seeing a sign in a conference room at Intel s
headquarters that read: If you don t know the purpose of your meeting, you are
prohibited from starting. This is a wise rule. Send an agenda and any
background materials ahead of time so people know what you ll cover. Consider
sending a list of things that won t be discussed in the meeting as well.
Schwarz suggests that you list agenda items as a question rather than
Discuss video schedule write When will videos be completed? to show what
outcome you have in mind. Next to each item, you can also indicate participants
roles are they sharing information, contributing ideas, or making a
decision?
Control the size
Meetings can get out of control if there are too many people in the room.
Chances are they won t be attentive or take responsibility for what s
happening, says Pozen. But with too few people, you may not have enough
diversity of opinion. Only include those who are critical to the meeting. Don
t feel you have to invite everyone who ever thought about the problem, he
says. If you think someone might be offended, you can send out a memo and loop
back with them afterward so they know what s happening.
Set the right tone
As a manager, it s up to you to ensure that people feel comfortable enough to
contribute. You re there to be a steward of all the ideas in the room, says
Schwarz. Set the right tone by modeling a learning mindset. Instead of using
the time to convince people of your viewpoint, be open to hearing other s
perspectives. Explain that you don t have all the answers, nor does anyone else
in the room. Be willing to be wrong. Schwarz says you want participants to see
the team meeting as a puzzle their role is to get the pieces out on the table
and figure out how they fit together.
Manage ramblers
People often give speeches instead of asking questions, says Pozen. It s
tough to cut a rambler off, but sometimes it s necessary. Schwarz suggests
saying, OK, Bob, you re absolutely right and is it ok if we talk about that
later? Getting his buy-in will ensure that he doesn t return to his speech at
the next opportunity. For someone who is prone to long-windedness, talk with
her ahead of time or during a break, and ask that she keep her comments to a
minimum to allow others to be heard.
Control tangents
Sometimes it s not that an individual goes on too long but he raises extraneous
points. If two or three people bring up things that are contiguous but not
really related, the meeting can degenerate, says Pozen. Try to refocus them on
the stated agenda. On occasion, someone may intentionally go on a tangent.
Maybe he feels territorial about a decision you re making or is unhappy with
the direction you re taking the conversation. Rather than accuse the person of
trying to derail your meeting, ask what s going on. Pozen suggests you say
something like, You ve diverted us several times. Is there something s that
bothering you? Addressing the underlying issue head on can help appease the
dissenter and get your meeting back on topic.
Make careful transitions
Typically leaders go from topic to topic, moving ahead when they re ready to,
says Schwarz. But people don t always move with you and they may get stuck in
the past. Before you transition from one agenda item to another, ask if
everyone is finished with the current topic. You need to give people enough
air time, says Pozen. This will help keep the conversation focused.
End the meeting well
A productive meeting needs to end on the right note to set the stage for the
work to continue. Pozen suggests you ask participants, What do we see as the
next steps? Who should take responsibility for them? And what should the
timeframe be? Record the answers and send out an email so that everyone is on
the same page. This helps with accountability, too. No one can say they re not
sure what really happened, says Pozen.
Principles to Remember
Do:
Make the meeting purpose clear and send an agenda out ahead of time
Talk to anyone who might monopolize meeting time before you get in the room and
ask him to keep comments to a minimum
Send out a follow-up email after the meeting that lists next steps, who s
responsible for them, and when they ll get done
Don t:
Feel obliged to invite lots of people only include those who are critical to
making progress
Move on to a new topic until everyone feels they ve been heard
Let the group get distracted by tangents ask if you can address unrelated
topics another time
Case study #1: Let everyone be heard
As the vice president of maintenance, repair, and overhaul at American
Airlines, Bill Collins was tasked with improving the company s relationship
with unionized workers. To help facilitate conversation, Bill set up town
hall-style meetings with Tulsa operation s 6,500 employees. He quickly realized
that these gatherings weren t efficient or productive. There hadn t been
town-hall meetings in 15 years and people had a lot of pent up anxiety that
they wanted to get off their chests. They wanted to hang me, he says. The
meetings were scheduled for one hour but often lasted two.
Bill decided to make some changes. First, he made the meetings smaller by
dividing them up by business and shift so that each only had about 250 people.
They still wanted to hang me but as least the conversation was manageable, he
says. Second, he changed the tone of the meeting by opening with a proposed
agenda and asking for input. I d say, Here s what we want to discuss. What do
you want to discuss?' And if someone wanted to talk about something that wasn
t on the agenda, Bill would respond, We ll go to any level of detail you d
like on that topic during the Q&A. Is that OK? He d then wait for at least a
head nod before moving on.
When Bill first described this approach to his fellow executives, many
expressed concern that the meetings would take even longer if everyone had the
chance to be heard. But he was invested in making it work. The natural
tendency for the workforce is to not trust management, he says. This process
builds trust. And, after the first of these newly revamped meetings, he had
the proof he needed. There were no raised voices, he says. It was calm,
cordial, and it ended well. Leaders of the local union said it was the best
meeting they d been to.
Case study #2: Actively manage disrupters
When Betsy Stubblefield Loucks took over as executive director of HealthRIght,
a nonprofit focused on healthcare policy in Rhode Island, one of her
responsibilities was to convene a monthly meeting with 20 people from various
organizations with a stake in healthcare reform, such as labor, hospitals,
insurers, and consumer advocates. The goal was to problem-solve and reach
agreement about how the organization should approach different aspects of
reform. In the past, the meetings were structured around specific topics but
they didn t have stated outcomes or a process for reaching resolution. As a
result, participants would often just talk about issues they cared most about.
People had hot button issues and would make speeches about them, she says.
Betsy decided to do something different with the agenda; she put the desired
outcomes for each meeting at the top. This helped focus the conversation. She
also made an effort to build relationships with people who tended to dominate
the conversation. Health care reform is a very broad and deeply sensitive
topic. Our members are very passionate about their issues, and some people
would have the same debates over and over because they didn t feel heard, she
says. She set up meetings with these participants in advance of the monthly
coalition meeting to let them vent to her personally and check her
understanding of their perspective. Then when the group was together, she would
represent that person s opinion with their permission in a more concise
way.
For particularly difficult people, she would assign someone to actively manage
them during the meeting. There was one person who would give the same stump
speech over and over, she says. So she asked a member of her executive
committee to sit next to him, and when he started going on, to interrupt him.
The executive committee member did this respectfully saying, I think you re
making a great point, and then would summarize his perspective. This helped
the rambler feel like his point had been understood. It also helped Betsy keep
focused on the meeting. That way I wasn t the only one playing traffic cop and
he didn t have to get mad at me, she says.
Betsy uses these same approaches in smaller meetings as well. Anytime I meet
with more than one other person, I use these tactics. When I have the right
people in the room, send out a clear agenda, and talk to any difficult people
in advance, my meetings go much more smoothly, she says.
Amy Gallo is a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review and the author of
the HBR Guide to Managing Conflict at Work. She writes and speaks about
workplace dynamics. Follow her on Twitter at @amyegallo.