How to Run Effective Meetings, Part 1

Has anyone ever said, “I wish I could go to more meetings today”? 

—Matt Mullenweg

If you do an Internet search for “this meeting should have been an e-mail meme,” you’ll see thousands of images that convey frustration about being in meetings that are poorly run, waste your time, and are irritatingly ineffective. If that’s something you can’t relate to at all, congratulations: you’re in the 0.1 percent of the population that has never attended a terrible meeting! But if you find yourself thinking, “Been there, done that,” then here’s a chance for you to do something about those awful experiences. And you find yourself nodding in agreement and you are a leader or meeting facilitator, then pay attention, because it is absolutely imperative that you learn how to run effective meetings.

Why Leaders Should Care About Meetings

When leaders know how to lead great meetings, there's less time wasted and less frustration. We have more energy to do the work that matters, realize our full potential, and do great things.

— Justin Rosenstein

Given how much time people spend in meetings and how much money those meetings cost their organizations, you definitely want your managers and employees to be using their time (and company resources) well. Heck, you want to use your time in a productive manner too!

With that in mind, remember that “a company’s leaders set the tone that will be emulated throughout the organization.” When you’re a leader (either in title or in influence) within your organization, everyone will watch what you do and will follow suit. Rather than just tell people what you want to do, you get better results when you show them: “by modeling a few key behaviors, you can inspire your team to adopt those behaviors for themselves.” 

Second, remember that good communication is critical for strong leadership. Leadership involves many responsibilities, and nearly all of them require the ability to exchange information with others. If you’re sharing news about the organization, assigning and delegating tasks, providing feedback, working to resolve problems, coaching and mentoring employees, or doing pretty much anything that involves interacting with other people, you are communicating.

Whether they are in-person or virtual (or a mix!), meetings are one of the key communication arenas of the contemporary workplace. If you want to lead, you need to understand how to leverage this communication tool. E-mail, virtual collaboration tools (e.g., Slack, Teams), phone calls, and other forms of communication all have their uses. But meetings are unique in their ability to convey information to and draw together groups of people in synchronous activity.

Preparing to Run Effective Meetings

Always go into meetings or negotiations with a positive attitude. Tell yourself you're going to make this the best deal for all parties. 

—Natalie Massenet

Establishing ground rules

Now, if you’re organizing a standing meeting that will meet with some regularity (say, weekly, biweekly, or monthly), you’ll have more success at running an effective meeting if you get participants’ agreement up front on several issues, including:

• Ground rules for participation (including what it means to be a “good” meeting participant)
• The goals (both long-term and short-term) of the meeting 
• How discussions will be conducted
• How decisions will be made 
• Agendas (e.g., how to create them, when and how to distribute them, how much time to spend on each item)
• How to rotate notetaking and timekeeping responsibilities in order to create shared responsibility
• How the participants will hold each other accountable for following the meeting guidelines

Even for one-off meetings, though, I seek agreement on ground rules before everyone shows up in a Zoom room. I ask everyone to:

• Prioritize attendance.
• Maintain confidentiality (if applicable).
• Turn on their camera (don’t just participate via audio).
• Close down e-mail, IM, and other apps that send alerts.
• Shut off their phone(s).
• Come prepared.
• Listen to understand, not just to talk. 
• Offer ideas.
• Think in terms of “how to” rather than “why not.”
• Give their full and undivided attention. 
• Commit to being a good meeting attendee!

By sharing these expectations ahead of time, I’m setting the stage for an efficient use of everyone’s time (which at this point, is our most precious commodity!).

Identify the decision maker(s)

Meetings should have as few people as possible, but all the right people. 

—Charles W. Scharf

Many meetings are ineffective, because too much time is spent on trying to figure out who can or should make a decision. Assigning this critical role beforehand (and getting decision makers to agree to it) will result in a much more effective meeting, because you’ll actually get something done. 

To determine who the decision makers are, use the DAI model, which identifies three key roles in the decision-making process:

• Decision makers make the decision and are accountable for its impact on the business.
• Advice givers provide input, data, and advice based on their functional expertise and experience. They highlight issues and raise alternatives to help the decision maker do just that: make a decision.
• Informed stakeholders are notified after the decision has been made. They are either affected by the decision or expected to support the execution of the decision. 

Following this model, include only the Ds and the As in the meeting; don’t include the Is (even if they want to be invited). Keeping attendee numbers low helps with efficiency, because then you don’t have parties whose input is irrelevant (or not really being taken into consideration) weighing in.

How do we figure out who the Ds are in a meeting? Evaluate risk. Consider how much organizational risk is involved in the decision and align the process with the level of risk. The greater the risk, the higher up in the organization the decision maker should sit. As the risk increases, so should the title on the line.