“The Seven Sins of Deadly Meetings” By: Eric Matson From: Issue 02 April/May 1996 Presented by: Michael Hammel

Introduction  What is an ineffective meeting?  Discuss the seven sins of meetings  Discuss the seven salvations that correspond with each of the sins  Conclusion

Ineffective Meetings  Kevin Eassa says “Everything done is unproductive”  Richard Collard says “when people meet and meet but never seem to get anything done”  They are ineffective because they are universally despised

Result of a bad meeting  Bad meetings make bad companies according to William R. Daniels, senior consultant at American Consulting & Training of Mill Valley.  Boring meetings give the sense that the company is boring.  Bad meetings are negative messages about the company and employees.

Present day business  The business world is faster, tougher, leaner, and more downsized than ever  More teamwork is needed, and fewer people are around to do the work, therefore meetings must be more prominent  Companies are now more team-based and in these types of companies most of the work gets done in meetings

Sin # 1  People do not take meetings seriously  People come late, leave early, and spend too much of their time just doodling  People think that meetings are not really work and they just go through the motions

Salvation to Sin # 1  First employee’s must take the mindset that meetings are real work  Some companies punish latecomers with a penalty fee or reprimand them in the minutes of the meeting  “Make the meetings uptime rather than downtime” says William Daniels  “Do the basics well: structured agendas, clear goals, paths that you are going to follow. These things make a huge difference” says Michael Fors

Salvation to Sin #1 cont.  In the workplace have a poster up with all simple questions about the meetings that take place;  Do you know the purpose of the meeting?  Do you have an agenda?  Do you know your role?  Do you follow the rules for good minutes?

Sin #2  Meetings are too long  They should accomplish twice as much in half the time

Salvation to Sin #2  In business time is money so track the cost of your meetings with use of a computer to make them more productive  Bernard DeKoven developed software called the Meeting Meter; this allows the company to calculate how much their meetings cost; This is a very important tool because the cost of meetings are a big deal. More importantly bad meetings lead to more meetings causing money to be lost because of ineffective meetings

Salvation to Sin #2 cont.  Technology can keep meetings shorter  Technology can increase productivity; it can help to generate more ideas and decisions per minute  With technology you no longer have to wait your turn to speak; it is all entered into a computer and then everyone’s ideas are displayed on a monitor  Technology makes simultaneity possible and allows dramatic gains in the companies productivity

Sin # 3  People wander off the topic  Employees involved in the meeting spend more time digressing than discussing

Salvation for Sin # 3  Stick to the agenda; take it seriously  Use an agenda “template” for key topics:  Who will lead which parts of the discussion?  How long each segment will take  What are the expected outcomes?  Distinguish among four approaches to decisions:  Authoritative: the leader has full responsibility  Consultative: the leader makes a decision after group input  Voting  Consensus

Sin # 4  Nothing happens after the meeting is over  People do not convert decisions into action

Salvation to Sin # 4  Convert from “meeting” to “doing”  Use computer technology to limit misunderstanding  Focus on the documents that will essentially lead to an action  Record comments, outline ideas, generate written proposals, put them on a big monitor and print them out for the employee’s to leave with

Salvation to Sin # 4 cont.  The medium is the meeting, meaning that computers are preferred to flip charts and whiteboards according to Bernard DeKovan  With a computer you never run out of space for ideas and you can always edit  Copies can be made for everyone at the meeting to ensure everyone understands what needs to be done

Sin # 5  People do not tell the truth  There is plenty of conversation, but not much candor

Salvation to Sin # 5  Embrace anonymity  Leader of the group must make participation necessary  Computers are used for people to express their opinions and evaluate the alternatives without knowing who gave the information  Use anonymous voting and anonymous group conversations

Sin # 6  “Meetings are always missing important information, so they postpone critical decisions”

Salvation to Sin # 6  Get all needed data into the meeting rooms and don’t worry about the aesthetics  The Capture Lab “is a self-contained information network,” says Michael Bauer  This way the group can get any information that they need from the web, put it up on a screen, and talk about it.  Make meeting rooms large enough to store materials needed for meetings; this way it will always be there and there is no need to worry about forgetting something

Sin # 7  “Meetings never get better. People make the same mistakes.”

Salvation to Sin # 7  Practice makes perfect  Things will get better if you commit to it  Figure out what does and does not work and hold people accountable for what they do, good or bad  Appoint a person to be an “observer” and record what went right and what went wrong

Conclusion  There is always an improvement to be made. The only way to improve is to make mistakes so learn from them and that will make the company grow.  Bernard DeKoven ends this article well by saying this:  “People don’t have good meetings because they don’t know what good meetings are like. Good meetings aren’t just about work. They’re about fun – keeping people charged up. It’s more than collaboration, it’s ‘coliberation’ – people freeing each other up to think more creatively.”

Any Questions?