Research: 75 pages, 7 hours and countless bad meetings over years.
Meetings are one specific way of conversations. If you are in the lead, it is your job to create a good meeting.
With everything being virtual, this has become a tad more difficult for some. (0) However, the fundamentals do not change.
Quick Summary
Keep it short (20min is sufficient)
Keep it concise (have a plan, follow it)
Add only the necessarily needed people (Time = $$$ )
Be clear and brutally honest
Let people hold themselves accountable
I decided to cut the intro, let's jump right in.
The only reason for a meeting is to hear peoples opinions to focus and progress on the common goal. If that is not the goal, then you can send an email because it is a piece of one-way information. (1)
If you don’t need everyone in the same room either, ask the person directly and leave the others out. Thus, you only do a meeting when your directives are required so that people keep going forward. (2)
There has to be a clear plan for what you want to achieve. A set maximum time (e.g. 20 minutes, no one is concentrated afterwards anyway) and the time for you to sum up the meeting in the end with the call to action. (3)
Rule of thumb: A meeting will always fill the time-slot that you set it to be. (4) Thus, make the 45 minutes meeting fifteen minutes shorter, and the same will be achieved - just less chatter and off-topic discussions. Allow them to leave as soon as their points of interest are discussed. Structure it in a way that the most of them are needed in the beginning, and only the ones for specific details stay longer.
The Continuous Meeting Room
I go even a step further and have a constant, virtual meeting room. I schedule every meeting so that they overlap a bit with the previous and following meeting in the same room. The topic needing the most attendees is always first. Then they are free to go.
The ones that stay to the end will be joined by others from the next meeting who join in silently to the end of the meeting. Everybody is allowed to speak up. This creates transparency, they are more up to date on various topics that are not really part of their core-work, but they get insight so they understand who does what better. Further, they see each other more frequently and never feel like they have to stay, but rather, that they can stay as long as they hear value and are needed. If they have personal things to discuss, they just open a private convo and continue there.
With this all are happy because the main meeting they were scheduled for is faster. It is more exciting to attend one in the first place because there is an output that brings actual value (5). And if you calculate the cost of a meeting, you realise how expensive a long session is, so better make them quick. (6)
Regarding physical meetings, I am a fan of stand up meetings. Also, everyone sits all day, so standing up for a bit is gold. (7) In other words, my favourite meetings are while standing and are 5-15 minutes max in the morning to check-in for the day. Everything that takes longer can be discussed with the person directly.
Balancing Brutal Honesty
Now you want a meeting to be a place where people can honestly talk to each other and have good conflict. Good conflict means that the conflict is not about opinions or in favour/ against other people, but about searching the best possible outcome together.
Suppose the people do not trust the others working towards the best outcome. In that case, they will probably manipulate each other to win with their point of view, instead of being open to other ideas.
You have to have trust in the team, and the team needs to trust others.
To achieve that you have a functioning team, you surely want to favour balanced conversations. Balancing means that different participants have similar weight in the discussion. Your attention should be about equal. If you sense a party taking over and dominating over the rest, it might be of interest to summarise their talking, and then redirect to another participant. (8)
"Bob, you just said a lot of important things here, which is a lot to absorb. Jonathan, what do you think about this suggestion?"
If someone keeps coming back to a point repeatedly, there is something that might need to be discussed. But maybe not now with all people present. Yet, it has to be pointed out, postponed and then resolved before the next meeting.
Now where there is trust is betrayal.
If you read Dante's inferno, he thought that the lowest bottom of hell before the very centre belongs to treachery, betrayal. To betray someone means that you need to have them to trust you first. And trust is a moral virtue.
Getting betrayed is like the knife in the heart - through the back.
If you are a startup, this will unlikely be the case. I suppose you build a team that is invested towards the same cause. In that case, they have the same plan as you do: Growing, making money, having a good time, feeling good and being heard, having influence, being fulfilled in what they do.
However, if you move up the ladder, trust becomes more important. You will meet with more teams that you see less often and have projects you have only a little knowledge of - but you will need to decide anyway. As there will be a more people that want your seat and will work against you. (9)
We are not able to avoid malicious intent entirely. However, having challenging and earnest conversations with people helps to pick up intentions. If you have brutally honest team meetings, you will hear their thinking, what their ideas are, you listen to what they say and how they act afterwards. And they will be honest with each other. This creates a peer-accountability, and the more accountable all of the team holds each other, the shorter the lag if you face a problem until it will be addressed. (10)
To build this, you have to ask your co-workers and people you are responsible for their opinions. Listen and remember it and you start to pick up which people always just agree with you, which disagree, which of these do a good job, which say yes but do otherwise. You will hear why things matter to them, who actively participates and tells their opinion and who does not, when they change their minds and to what reasons. And then, you can address it.
Pursuing a path of brutal honesty an accountability always pays out in the long run.
If you have questions or if I can help you, let me know.
That's it, no sales pitch.
Cheers
Notes:
(0) A few things to think about to make a virtual meeting successful.
Make sure your equipment works. (test it)
Use a platform all can work with and that is stable. E.g. if you need a google doc where all can write in simultaneously, then a free version of whereby.com or so will not work.
Have a good lighting and a proper micro. Set the Laptop high enough so it looks natural.
Use the video function, so people see each other, the interactions are more natural.
Don't mute people.
Forbes has a few interesting thoughts about this too, I do not agree on all points. https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamvanderbloemen/2020/03/15/8-cardinal-rules-of-running-a-virtual-meeting/?sh=6cd350c94e1d
(1) The necessity of a meeting, the people involved and having an agenda are the most often mentioned parts. Check out untio blog with a great overview on meeting tips people mentioned all around in the internet: https://unito.io/blog/running-effective-meetings-tips/
(2) Calendly has a nice list on finding out who is necessary for a meeting. https://calendly.com/blog/effective-meetings/#minimum-participants
Those with the relevant expertise
Decision makers or those with direct responsibility and authority over the topic of discussion
Those that are crucial to the implementation
Those most affected by the problem being addressed or their representative
Those with direct responsibility and authority over the topic of discussion
Those with the required knowledge to contribute meaningfully that is unavailable elsewhere
(3) The time is often mentioned to be crucial and several pages and speakers suggest to keep meetings around a 20 minutes mark in most cases. There are, of course exceptions. Read more also here. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140313205730-5711504-the-science-behind-ted-s-18-minute-rule/
(4) This is my reinterpretation of parkinsons law, which goes: "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion"
(5) There are a variety of great articles on making meetings more excited. Three here are mostly short reads and pretty good.
(6) There are several meeting calculators, like this https://meetingking.com/meeting-cost-calculator/
(7) The effects of standing up, in case you want a more academic read. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1948550614538463
(8) Summarising techniques are super practical. https://www.softskillnation.com/post/rewording-techniques
(9) Nice read on women climbing the ladderhttps://www.thepeoplespace.com/ideas/articles/climbing-leadership-ladder-challenges-women-must-overcome
(10) There is not too much literature on per accountability, the harvard business review introduces it quite in a simple manner. https://hbr.org/2014/05/the-best-teams-hold-themselves-accountable Another great read is https://hbr.org/2020/11/disagreement-doesnt-have-to-be-divisive