Hello! We completed Week 3 of our four-week “bootcamp” focusing today on RunningProductive Meetings.
Today’s session assumes our companies aren’t in a state of what a recent Harvard Business Review article calls “meeting madness” and assumes psychological safety exists among team members, as Google discovered in their quest to build the perfect team.
Of course, unproductive meetings are still common, wasting time and money. Here are some tips to make your meetings more productive:
- Be sure everyone knows the reason(s) you’re meeting beforehand—the more specific the better
- Good agendas include not only what, but who, how and when
- Send your agenda 2 to 3 days beforehand and seek input
- Make agenda items time-based, so attendees know how long the team will discuss any particular item
- Never wrap up your meeting without confirming action items—specific post meeting tasks that include clear direction on who does what by when.
- After the meeting, reinforce follow through by emailing a simple Action Plan to keep people on track
Here’s this week’s homework assignment. Feel free to do it and let me know how it goes:
• Reformat at least one new or standing meeting using the “Before, During, After” framework
• Record what you learn
If you need more details on the “Before, During, After” framework, please visit my earlier blog on this subject.
If you’re interested in joining our next “bootcamp” in September, or have any questions about this one, please contact me at frank.rowe@cecondopinion.com.
Stay tuned for next week’s final recap of Week 4, Organizational Alignment.
