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Effective Meetings: Making the Leap from Painful to Productive
- 1. Effective Meetings: Making the Leap from Painful to Productive Presented by: Cindy Leonard Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management at Robert Morris University For: September 2014
- 2. Cindy Leonard Consulting Team Leader Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management leonard@rmu.edu @cindy_leonard
- 4. Ice-Breaker What words come to mind when you think of this word? Meeting Write down a max of 3 words using separate post-it notes for each.
- 5. Rewards of Better Meetings Higher Morale Faster / Better Decisions Greater Results Engaged People
- 6. The 2 Big Problems with Meetings
- 7. Why Boring?
- 8. Why Boring?
- 9. Why Boring?
- 10. Why Ineffective?
- 11. Meeting Structures Daily Check-in Weekly Tactical Monthly Strategic Quarterly Off-site Review
- 12. Interlude Take a breakKeep going
- 13. Facilitation
- 14. Facilitation
- 15. Facilitation
- 16. Share Pairs Find a partner. Each person share an idea from this training that you plan to incorporate into the next meeting that you plan.
- 17. Final Q&A Q. A.
- 18. Get In Touch Anytime! Consulting Team Leader Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management leonard@rmu.edu @cindy_leonard
Editor's Notes
- Here’s a little bit about me: Cindy Leonard, Consulting Team Leader at the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management at Robert Morris University. Among other things, manage the technology and consulting programs there. Why I wanted to do this session: I have a general dislike of meetings. I don’t think I’m alone in this regard. It’s not that I dislike getting together with a group of people, I just dislike how most meetings are run. Nothing worse to me than sitting in a meeting where someone is reading info I have on a paper in front of me or that I could have received in another format.
- Agenda: Your management asked me to cover techniques for improving two kinds of meetings – Internal meetings, such as staff or project meetings External meetings, such as facilitated meetings with stakeholders
- Icebreaker – Word Association Write down a max of 3 words that you associate with the word “Meeting” on separate post-it notes. (Then go around and collect them, post on a wall in groupings.) Isn’t it ironic and a little sad that meetings, the center of activity for nearly every organization on earth are considered by most people to be painful, long, boring or seemingly pointless? The good news is – there’s nothing inherently bad about meetings themselves that makes them bad. It has to do with how they are structured and the content. In other words, it’s completely possible to organize meetings so they are compelling, productive and even fun!
- Though change is frequently difficult and trying something new can be a little scary, the rewards of improve your meetings are worth it. Even if there is discomfort at first.
- There are two big problems with most meetings. Most meetings are boring. Dull, tedious, dry, monotonous, tiresome, a yawnfest, a snooze-a-thon. You’d rather watch paint dry than sit through it. Most meetings are ineffective. Most either don’t contribute to the organization’s success (and if they do, you surely couldn’t tell). Additionally, it’s frustrating for your people to invest time and energy into any activity with such a seemingly low return on the investment. Particularly when they are thinking of all the work they could be getting done if they were sitting in this meeting. Img credits: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7pTJz8uvEIg/TK5bAPedJ8I/AAAAAAAAAEc/SSa42R_8Ew8/s1600/Screen+shot+2010-10-06+at+11.26.16+PM.png, http://marydavids.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/the-office-meeting.jpg, http://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/vulture/2013/02/08/08-the-office.o.jpg/a_560x375.jpg
- Lack of drama or conflict. Q: Would you rather sit through a 2 hour movie or a 2 hour meeting? (show of hands) Why is a movie more interesting than a meeting? (raise hands) In a movie, there is conflict. That’s what makes it interesting to watch – the conflict and how it gets resolved. I’m not saying we need to be fighting in meetings. That’s not the kind of conflict we’re talking about here. I’m talking about healthy conflict – discussion and debate about ideas. When a group of intelligent people get together, it is natural and productive for disagreement to occur. Unfortunately, most leaders go out of their way to minimize conflict and our organizational cultures develop along these lines – that if we have conflict, we must be in turmoil and that’s bad. Img sources: http://homewoodsuites3.hilton.com/resources/media/hw/en_US/img/shared/carousel/main/HG_meeting1_970x336_FitToBoxSmallDimension_Center.jpg, http://crispme.com/roundup-best-of-the-avengers-wallpapers/
- In actuality, conflict can be one of the best things to spur an organization forward. In the realm of meetings - Resolving disagreements about ideas is what makes for the most productive, engaging meetings. When issues are avoided during meetings, they don’t disappear. Instead, they manifest later in the form of personal conflict between staff member or office politics. Raise your hand if you’ve ever served on a board of directors. Keep your hand up if you’ve served on a board where the most interesting part of the meeting was the discussion in the parking lot afterwards. We need to be having those discussions at the meetings, not dealing with issues after. Img Source: http://www.globoacademia.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/english-lessons-in-kiev.jpg
- As meeting organizers, how do we do this? When leading a meeting, we must make it a priority to seek out and uncover important issues on which team members do not agree. We need to “mine for conflict” so to speak. Here’s the hard part, sometimes you have to force people to engage and speak their minds, even if it’s makes you temporarily unpopular. If you organization’s culture runs counter to open, ideological discussion and debate, there’s going to be discomfort at first. The person leading the meeting has to set the example, and “give permission” for conflict and disagreement to be expressed in a respectful way. Also, to let them know that attendees will not be penalized later for speaking their minds. By the same token, attendees have to be willing to take the risk of speaking openly and honestly. Img source: http://www.inc.com/uploaded_files/image/970x450/bad-speaker-1940x900_16963.jpg
- Even if you master #1, it’s still not enough. Meetings are largely ineffective because they lack context and structure. We tend to throw every type of issue needing discussion onto the same agenda. This is called “meeting stew” – where the meeting ends up being like a bad stew with too many random ingredients thrown into it. I used to work at an organization where we had a day-long staff meeting once a month and everyone had to attend. The agenda was an ongoing list of open projects and tasks going on agency-wide. Everything was discussed at every single meeting. It was horrible. You might get to speak a few times the entire day, but mostly just sat and listened to others give progress updates and the executive director give feedback or instructions. Img source: http://eggyskitchen.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/20121022_2036421.jpg
- The book Death by Meeting proposes 4 different meeting structures that an organization or project teams can use to have more effective meetings. (Pass out handout here – “Meetings Model”) Go over the handout – be sure to print their copies, plus an instructor copy with my annotations. Pass out weekly tactical meeting guide too.
- Any questions so far? Does anyone want a break? Show of thumbs up if want to keep going or thumbs down if would like a break. If mostly thumbs down, give 5 minute break. If thumbs up, do 60 second breathe and stretch break.
- Facilitated meetings are a slightly different animal than internal meetings. A facilitator’s job is to help a group of people to work well together in order to define a common vision, make decisions and achieve their goals. The facilitator has the responsibility for planning, guiding and managing these types of meetings. Img sources: http://thyblackman.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Black_Male_Thinking_Desk.jpg, https://www.techwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/2481.jpg, http://www.issseemblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Integrative-Law-Movement9.jpg
- The facilitator plans by designing the meeting process and choosing the tools that will be used to facilitate the meeting. Handout – Facilitation techniques Some of these techniques can be combined in a single meeting, in fact, you may noticed I’ve incorporating a few into this training. Some of them, like World Café, are complex enough that you’d want to use that as the sole technique. The facilitator guides the group by setting the tone and expectations surrounding the meeting up front. Then by encouraging participation and making sure everyone gets the opportunity to have their say. Note that a good facilitator must maintain neutrality!! If this is likely to be impossible, it’s a good idea to get a third-party facilitator to do the job. The facilitator manages the meeting by ensuring that the discussion and outcomes are properly recorded and that they are dealt with after the meeting. I’ve facilitated many meetings over the years and my best advice is be brave (there’s always the worry that the techniques you chose won’t work the way you expected), and practice makes perfect. Like many other skills, it gets easier the more you do it. Img source: http://api.ning.com/files/d6mbRlZePSTdjfgB9BX6PRjeFSd*fY9-LyiKZWnR29AHrdgbTGnBBsCNTDS0FwClqausdphkJX6hO6m8p0md0pUC-nqf7TYh/WorldcafaLocricityhall.jpg?width=737&height=489
- There are plenty of other facilitation techniques out there. If you want to search beyond this list, google “facilitation techniques” and you’ll get a bunch of ideas. Once you get more experienced, you may find yourself inventing techniques of your own. Give handout – What to Observe in a Group This guide is good to review before facilitating a meeting. Remember that when you facilitate, you are not only actively listening to what is being said, but noticing what is not being said. You also have to pay attention to body language and how the group interacts with each other.
- Share pairs for 5 minutes Ask several to share their inspirations with the rest of the group.
- Thank you for attending this session! Please feel free to get touch with me any time if you have any questions.