According to the personality tests out there – I have clear Introverted tendencies. A good day for me is a day with a lot of alone time. I think I’m pretty good company. For just me.

Despite this, I like meetings. In fact, I love them.

The reason I love meetings is because I:

• Have a purpose for the meetings I go to.
• Have (or look for) opportunities to give value at meetings.
• Get value out of the meetings I go to.

If there is no purpose or value in a meeting, and it is regularly scheduled, I’ll stop going.

In the rare circumstance that I can’t stop going, I’ll most likely try to change how it is run – usually by asking questions to flesh out some level of purpose or value. That is often successful, and if done with the right attitude, is usually received well.

A Secret About Meetings

One of the most heavily-used tools in my tool bag is that of a meeting facilitator. I often help plan, organize and facilitate meetings of all kinds.

Many years ago, when I first started, I bought a lot of books on “How To” facilitate a good meeting.

Many of the books talk about things like icebreakers, exercises, games you can play, etc.

But here is what I learned:

The only people who want those kinds of things in their meetings are the people who are:

• Forced to go to a meeting but don’t understand why they are there (or don’t care.)
• Aren’t sure how they’ll give or receive value from the meeting.

What I found is that people want to be productive, feel like their time is being used well and are engaged in the conversation. They like this better than icebreakers, stage shows, and trust falls.

Everyone hates trust falls.

The Secret: Only have meetings about things that matter and with the people that they matter to.

What if that isn’t enough? As it turns out having meetings about important things with the right people still doesn’t ensure meeting success.

Lots of those meetings are miserable too. Sit through a meeting at your local assembly or a community planning committee sometime and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

The POP Principle to Make Every Meeting an Awesome Meeting

Only three things are needed to run awesome meetings. If your meeting isn’t awesome it’s because one or more of these is off:

• Purpose: Every meaning should have a clear purpose. Whether it is a team accountability check-in to make sure everyone is on track, an ad hoc meeting to plan a birthday party or an executive meeting to address a risk management issue – your meeting should have a purpose.

You should never have a regular “Monday Manager’s Meeting” where no one has anything to talk about and/or nothing needs to be discussed. Never default to agendas comprised of reports that no one listens to and making announcements that could be communicated through a memo or e-mail.

Application: Answer these questions, “How does this meeting serve the larger purpose of answering our “Why?”  “How does this meeting help us take tangible steps forward towards fulfilling our Values, living out our Vision and accomplishing our Focus or Mission?”

If your answers aren’t compelling, then the meeting probably shouldn’t exist, or it should be changed to focus on its purpose.

• Outcome: Every meeting should answer a question. Every meeting should produce a result. Most meetings can’t handle a lot of questions or produce a lot of results. So, there should be at least one clear question and one desired result.

This could look like: “Is everyone on track to be successful today?” to “How should our company respond to this changing technology?” to “What should our compensation philosophy be?”

When those questions engage the right people, you have a productive meeting.

You should walk into the meeting with one result or outcome the meeting needs to produce. If you accomplish that result, and it makes sense, go on to the next one.

Meetings that are about dozens of things are usually meetings that accomplish very little. Don’t confuse a packed agenda with a productive one.

Application: Answer these questions, “What does this meeting need to accomplish?” “How will we know that we accomplished it?”

• Process: Different meetings require different processes.

It hurts me, on the inside, when I watch someone pull a small group together for an informal meeting, and then use Robert’s Rules of Order.

Robert’s Rules of Order (or any other form of parliamentary procedure) is designed to manage the discussion of a large group of people who may not want to work together well and tend to get off-track. It’s a highly controlled process designed to mitigate or guide conflict and move towards decisions. It has a role.

It doesn’t work well for exploring ideas, engaging broad input or connecting with a wide audience.

Designing and leaders an effective process is a skill, a science and an art. More than what an article can do justice on.

If you struggle with creating an effective process, here are four resources (I get nothing from this) that can help you improve your meeting processes.

• No Fail Meetings by Michael Hyatt
• Death by Meeting by Patrick Lencioni
• Harvard Business Review Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter
• Facilitating with Ease! By Ingrid Bens (For more advanced skill development)

Additionally, for important or complicated meetings, it frequently makes the most sense to bring in someone skilled in the ability to facilitate.

Application: What process will best serve the Purpose and produce the Outcomes needed at your meeting? If you don’t know – who can you ask?

Wrap Up

The purpose of the POP approach is to make sure that your meetings produce results.

Why go through all the effort and cost to bring people together if you aren’t going to achieve a meaningful result?

Never have meetings that aren’t producing results. Cut out sections of meeting or agenda items that don’t appear to contribute to results.

The more focused and valuable your meetings are – the more awesome they will be. And people will tell you so.

Take good care,

Christian

Coaching Opportunity

Are you a new leader? Are you an experienced leader facing a new, unfamiliar situation or role?

I help successful leaders (and leaders who want to be successful) quickly identify their focus, engage their teams and build their vision.

I primarily work with:

• Senior leaders who want to successfully drive a change in their culture.
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