How to Run Effective Meetings

What are the best ways to ensure that your meetings are productive and short...

A recent study estimated that 40% of a manager’s time is spent in meetings. As we all know, many are badly run, unproductive and ultimately expensive. A friend of mine worked for Rolls Royce, where every meeting room had a timer and an employee rate card. Each discussion was costed out. Meetings at the company were refreshingly short! So apart from using a stopwatch and a calculator what other ways can you use to improve your meetings? Here are five top tips:

1.)Have a chairperson who keeps people to the agenda. Appoint someone else to capture any actions decided and agree them with the relevant people at the end.

2.)Keep meetings short by having a “stand-up”, a regular time to update each other on progress, communicate problems and work out solutions. Everyone stands round in a circle and the meeting is kept to say 15 to 20 minutes.

3.)Try Edward de Bono’s six thinking hats idea. With this approach a different coloured imaginary hat is used to represent a style of thinking that people might use in a meeting:

a.People wearing a “White Hat” think about the facts, e.g. “Last year a similar project cost £1million.”

b.With the “Red Hat” on people think emotionally or use gut reactions, e.g.” I don’t feel confident about using that supplier.”

c.“Black Hat” thinking is all about negative and critical judgements, e.g. “John is not going to sign this off.”

d.The “Yellow Hat” is for thinking positively about benefits, e.g. “This project is going to produce productivity gains of 50%.”

e.“Green Hat” thinking is about creating alternative solutions and ideas, e.g. “What if we used technology X instead.”

f.And finally people with a “Blue Hat” think about the thinking! E.g.. “What thinking hats are we using now?”

In Western Cultures we tend to have a critical Black Hat on too much of the time, so make sure the other hats are being used in your meetings as well. Also try getting everyone to use the same style at the same time, to avoid conflict.

4.)Stop meetings being dominated by one or two individuals. Ask one person to time how long each person talks and let everyone know the results at the end. By using this feedback, people will tend to adapt their behaviour and meeting participation becomes more even.

5.)Try to avoid too many telephone conference calls; much of what we communicate is through facial expressions, body language and gestures. This is lost over the phone. Try and intersperse telephone calls with face-to-face meetings or instead use a web conference provider like Skype.

Good luck and may your meetings be brief and productive!

© 2008 David Hinde