Different Behavior Means Better Meetings

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In our last blog post on this topic, we talked about the difference between a meeting that is organized around an agenda and one that is oriented around outcomes. In today’s post, we further explore this topic by looking at the impact each type of meeting has on team behavior.

The fundamental difference between an agenda-driven vs. a results-driven meeting is that they elicit two very distinct types of behaviors from team members.

When a meeting is oriented around topics and an agenda, it brings about a greater degree of opinion swapping. For example: Someone expresses his or her point of view on a new product, provoking someone else to state his or hers. That then reminds someone else of something tangential which they share, and soon these conversations begin to resemble a yo-yo.

But a meeting that is oriented around outcomes provokes conversations that focus people on saying something that has to do with achieving a result. It cuts back on the tangents and encourages team members to put forth offers, recommendations and commitments that move the action forward.

Some simple ways to make sure your meetings are ‘result vs. agenda’ oriented include:

  • Declare the meeting objectives at the beginning of the meeting, rather than by the amount of time allocated to each topic. Encourage spending as much time as needed on each item to achieve the stated objective(s) of the meeting.
  • Invite people to the meeting who will gain from or contribute to the realization of the stated objectives of the meeting. Don’t invite spectators or people for political reasons.
  • Complete the meeting by summarizing the commitments made, not the topics discussed. Too often, the minutes of a meeting reflect what was talked about, not the promises made.
  • Don’t tolerate conversations that don’t directly forward the outcomes you want to achieve.

By focusing on these guidelines, your next off-site or team meeting can go from drowning in conversation to being infused with commitment.

How do you make your meetings effective? I would love to hear your comments.

Appreciation and Employee Engagement

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Managers often think that the source of employee engagement is providing staff with material rewards and privileges such as more money, bonuses, stock incentives, promotions, titles, etc… While these things are important, their impact tends to be overestimated.

A huge dimension in employee engagement is the quality of relationship that exists between management and staff. Employees feeling they are known, accepted, appreciated, valued and trusted goes a long way toward getting employees on board with a company’s vision and strategy.

Many of the leaders we encounter seem either blind to this point — or worse —simply don’t care. By not listening to and recognizing employees which is a critical part of their job, managers are missing out on the opportunity to create a highly motivated, loyal and engaged team.

According to the Employee Engagement Report 2011 from BlessingWhite, engaged employees plan to stay where they are currently working for what they give; the disengaged stay for what they get.

The same report found that employees worldwide view opportunities to apply their talents, career development and training as top drivers of job satisfaction.

An even more telling find of the study was that when engagement surveys were conducted in companies, without visible follow-up action, engagement could actually be decreased. As the report states, “Organizations should think twice before flipping the switch on measurement without 100% commitment for action planning based on the results.”

All of this points to what we see every day in our consulting work. When managers are willing to go the extra mile with staff, loyalty goes sky high. Managers who acknowledge team members and show they care end up with employees who not only work smarter but harder and happier.

What have you done lately to show appreciation for your staff? I would love to hear your comments.

Six Steps To Make Your Meetings More Effective

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In this week’s post, I offer six approaches you should consider in making your meetings more commitment driven.

1. Before planning an agenda, ask yourself the key questions that will allow you to make your meeting meaningful.

  • What do we want to accomplish?
  • Who should attend the meeting in order to accomplish what we intend?
  • What do we want people to leave the meeting with?
  • What could we do during the meeting to achieve the desired objectives?
  • How much time do we need in order to achieve the objectives?

2. If appropriate, include a cross-section of individuals who will be attending the meeting in the agenda-planning phase. Getting these folks involved from the start will ensure important input up front and gain buy-in for outcomes ahead of time.

3. At the beginning of the meeting, review the intended outcomes and ensure people are there to achieve those objectives. If appropriate — and only if there is flexibility in the schedule and the willingness to do so — ask people whether there are other objectives that would make a difference, and include those if possible.

4. Once the meeting starts, manage toward outcomes, not time allocations. If 30 minutes is allocated to come to agreement for how the team members are going to implement Project X, and the members are agreed in 20 minutes, move on to the next topic. If the conversation is not complete in 30 minutes, but good progress is being made, allocate another few minutes and get closure. Completing the topic will create energy and momentum to address the next item on the agenda.

5. Keep the discussion focused. If the conversation wanders to another topic, and that topic is not part of the intended outcome of the meeting, ask people whether the objective this topic addresses should preempt one of the topics agreed upon at the outset of the meeting. If not, park it. If yes, move forward and pursue the new conversation.

6. At the end of the meeting, review the commitments made — who will do what, and by when? These commitments should be what the minutes of the meeting capture, rather than detailing all the topics discussed.

Why Agenda Driven Meetings Don’t Work

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A key principle of generating total alignment and engagement is ensuring that you are always working backward from a deliberate, desired future — rather than merely extrapolating or perpetrating business as usual. When it comes to meetings — which consume enormous amounts of most managers’ time — this principle can make the difference between meetings that make a big impact, and those that waste valuable time.

To begin with, most meetings are designed backwards. The agenda planning starts with the questions:
How much time do we have? and What do people think we should talk about?

The reason we say these meetings are designed backwards is because the time allocated for the meeting should be determined instead by answers to the more useful questions:

  • What do we want to accomplish?
  • What do we want people to leave the meeting with?
  • What could we do during the meeting to achieve the desired objectives?

The answers to these questions will determine whether the meeting is worth having, who should attend, what should be covered and how much time it should take.

Once the purpose and agenda are agreed upon, and the meeting commences, the agenda should also be managed to produce the agreed outcomes, rather than having success determined by whether the planned schedule was adhered to. We have repeatedly seen meaningful, productive conversations interrupted by a timekeeper who thought his or her job was to play the role of the agenda police.

This orientation around time rather than outcomes means discussions that may have served their purpose might be extended unnecessarily, while other conversations that are yielding unexpected fruits might be shut down once the time allocated to them has been exceeded.