Create the expectation that a decision will be made during the meeting and drive for consensus.
falls short of how we know we should operate. Holding people accountable should be part of any set of ground rules for meetings. When you distribute the agenda in advance, state clearly the preparation that is expected of each member who will participate. Even when you reiterate expectations, there may still be people who don’t think they are the people who are supposed to be prepared. In a separate setting, the meeting leader or their manager needs to state the obvious:
Meetings are places where people report on their work, share information, etc. When members fail to do what they promised, they are being disrespectful of other people’s time - those who came to the meeting in order to participate and learn what progress had been made. Not only are they being rude to coworkers - they are also creating actual economic waste of organizational resources. 4. There is no closure for decision-making. Decisions are discussed but not decided. There is no agreement to support collective decisions once they are made and people continue to fight them, disavow them or bad- mouth them afterwards. A good business process gets essential activities done with a minimum of waste. A good meeting process requires decisions or a decision that the topic be continued to the next meeting. Create the expectation that a decision will be made during the meeting and drive for consensus. If a decision still can’t be made, the deci- sion may need to be kicked upstairs or assigned to a sub-group. Then, after everyone has their say and decisions are made, the decision needs to be supported by the entire group, even if some disagree. Otherwise the disagreements move underground and un- dermine the workings of all. There is one special exception: if the decision is illegal, immoral or dangerous. In such cases, dissent may be healthier for the organization in the long run than cooperating in the short run with bad decisions. 5. Meetings are dominated by a few talkers (not neces- sarily the leader) or there are knowledgeable people who never volunteer to speak up.
Facilitation can improve both the process and the outcome of meetings and having someone with training in meeting facilitation has the potential to improve most things. If that’s not an option, help the meeting leader develop some basic meeting facilitation skills that will help even out participation.
WWW.MIDWESTMEETINGS.COM
6. Meetings start and end late. Some people come late or leave before the end. Timeliness is a matter of integrity. Here we are using the word “integrity” in the sense of being unimpaired or sound. Consider the integrity of the steel beams in a building. If one or more was miss- ing or askew, wouldn’t the building sag or fall down? Similarly, the integrity of your work group or team is undermined when key peo- ple are missing during updates or decision-making times; it doesn’t matter why or how. They will inevitably miss important commu- nications, updates, reframing of the issues under discussion, and waste everyone else’s time when they have to be specially brought up to date. Because they missed the original sequence of events, they may also leave the meeting with an erroneous impression of what was discussed or agreed upon. Set the expectation for timeli- ness in advance and then start and end the meeting on time. If you respect peoples’ schedules, they will be more likely to respect the integrity of the meeting and its objectives. 7. People leave meetings tired, frustrated, angry or de- pressed. Your current meeting style might not be healthy for you. If your meetings include donuts, coffee, soft drinks and bagels, they may spike your blood sugar and then cause it to crash. Are your meet- ings longer than necessary or are they run without breaks? Or per- haps you are holding the wrong type of meeting for the particular time of day. Consider the logistics of the meeting to see if your meetings actually help or hinder the work of the organization.
With more than 30 years of management experience in the mainte- nance and engineering fields, Joel D. Levitt is a leading trainer of manu- facturing, operational and maintenance professionals - having trained more than 15,000 maintenance leaders from 3,000 organizations in 25 countries. Since 1980, Levitt has been the president of Springfield Resources, a management consulting firm servicing clients of all sizes on a wide range of maintenance issues, and is currently the Director of International Projects at Life Cycle Engineering. Mr. Levitt is the author of over 150 articles on maintenance management, as well as frequent speaker at related industry conferences. Mr. Levitt is the author of 10 popular books including 10 Minutes a
Week to Great Meetings and is available for interviews, features and speaking engagements. Learn more at
www.meetingdefender.com.
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