'If I'm going to stand in a meeting and tell you stuff, why don't I just send a video?'
It’s a common refrain: Employees dread going to meetings.
The sentiment is echoed in a recent survey that found 71 per cent of respondents consider meetings unproductive.
On the other hand, 61 per cent believe meetings offer some benefits, finds the survey by LiveCareer of 1,033 respondents in July.
“There are good meetings, and there are bad meetings so to say that people just like meetings in general is an oversimplification because there are meetings we like, and then some meetings we don’t,” says Fahd Alhattab, founder of Unicorn Labs, a leadership training and team retreats company in Ottawa.
“I there are too many meetings, we don’t like it; and if there are no meetings, we feel lonely, so it’s definitely that cross-spectrum.”
Best practices for successful meetings
Deciding what type of meeting to have is always key, says another expert.
“The best use of a meeting is when the nature of whatever it is you’re talking about will benefit from having people combine and extend their ideas,” says Brock Hart, chief design officer at Overlap, a design consultancy and coaching firm in Kitchener, Ont.
But this doesn’t always happen, he says: “A lot of meetings tend to be a vehicle for communication, which is a silly way to use a meeting because that can all be done asynchronously.”
“If I’m going to stand in a meeting and tell you stuff, why don’t I just send a video?” says Hart.
It’s important to remember the goals of the organization, and to drill down to discover the meeting’s purpose, which will help to get everyone on the same page, he says.
“Why am I at this meeting? How am I supposed to contribute? And what are we doing with the information after? I think if people answer those questions for themselves, they’ll have more productive meetings and ‘Why are we spending this time?’”
After deciding about the goals for the meeting, a good agenda can definitely help keep participants on track.
“Instead of thinking of an agenda like ‘Oh my god, I have to make a formal agenda of introductions and then this and that,’ no, just ‘What is the goal of this meeting?’ and usually one goal for your meeting,” says Alhattab. “That sort of clarity makes it really easy for people.”
One of the biggest mistakes made by facilitators include favouring the same individuals based on their actions during the meeting, he says.
“As a facilitator, you’ve got to really make sure you’re not giving dominance to the loudest voice or letting the loudest voice win by really asking people pointed questions; getting them to engage and putting some boundaries around that individual who is oversharing and not giving people a chance. When the facilitator is so concerned with not cutting someone off, they end up ruining the whole the environment for the whole group.”
Use tech tools
Using collaboration tools such as whiteboards can enhance engagement in a meeting.
“[It’s about] ‘How do I really engage people thoughtfully?’ versus just ‘So what do you guys think?’ which often falls on deaf ears and doesn’t get the ball rolling,” says Alhattab.
“Getting everyone to participate… is a way to say, ‘I want you to write down your feedback; I want you to write down your ideas; and I’m capturing it, and everyone has to participate in it,’ [and] makes a big difference.”
And for the hybrid workplace, some adjustments are required.
“If everyone is in the office but a few people are missing, go online and make everyone online, sitting in their own office spaces,” he says, to eliminate the proximity bias that inevitably would arise.
Watch the times
Meeting timings are often too rigid in a lot of organizations, but in considering a shorter time, it can enhance creativity and engagement, according to Hart.
“Can I do that in 15 minutes? Or did I default to an hour because my calendar defaults to an hour?”
And remember to give people space between meetings, he says.
“We see lots of back-to-back-to-back in calendars because you don’t have to go anywhere, so can we make our meetings 50 minutes or 45… [giving a] 10- or 15-minute pause between the next thing.”
By actively editing the amount of meetings and not going to the same ones over and over, this can increase commitment, says Alhattab.
“If employees feel that the manager respects their time by cancelling certain meetings, cleaning them up, making them more asynchronous when possible, then they will [think], ‘When he is calling us for a meeting, it means a lot. And it’s important, and it’s something I should engage in.’”
Taking it outside
To help shake things up, take the meeting outside every once in a while, says Hart.
“Especially if we are just connecting or sharing information, you might do a one-on-one conversation with an employee that’s really nice to do over a walk, and then you’re active and you’re moving.”
“We actually created a walking meetings guide for our staff that gave them loops they could do and roughly how long it would take. So if it was meant to be a half-hour meeting, they know that they could do these two different loops,” he says.
