Paradox of Meetings

As part of our professional lives, we have submitted to endure the drudgery of business meetings.  Patrick Lencioni, in his fable “Death by Meeting”, argues for the need to rethink on the effectiveness of meetings and recommends a process for organizations to benefit from the group swing.  This paper expounds and extends Lencioni’s proposition based on my exposure to India’s business culture.

The Paradox of Meetings

There are two realities associated with business meetings.  First - that they are a necessary evil of organizational life.  Second - that they are tedious and unproductive.  Business meetings, nevertheless, are a reflection of the leadership team and representative of the gap between potential and actual performance.  

Death By Meeting

As I sat through many monthly review meetings with senior management teams across companies, I constantly pondered what strategy would emerge from the directionless discussions and off-the-cuff remarks.  The participants would confess to having lost interest during the course of the discussions.  While many would be passive spectators, responding only to any direct questions asked, some would have tuned out completely.  Open laptops, mobile phone activity, side discussions and walking in and out of the meetings became accepted realities over a period of time.  What is it with meetings that actually dishearten the team into their void?

An unstated objective of the monthly meetings is to establish alignment and resolve inter-functional issues.  This clarity should enable streamlined functional operations and minimize conflicts.  Nevertheless, what we find is that the functional head is expending most of his time in resolving conflicts and establishing clarity of roles and responsibilities as part of his daily activities.  While physically present in the monthly meetings, his mind is engaged in resolving the pending issues and activities of his team.  Why does he find it more productive to resolve ‘real’ problems in his function rather than actively participate in the monthly meeting?

Senior management meetings do not achieve the unstated commitment of functional alignment and singular focus.  Between setting the agenda and executing the meeting, this primary objective gets lost.  The result is prevalent confusion and disheartening outcomes – in other words, ineffective use of senior management resources and efforts.  The outcome of these meetings form the organization’s activity plan for the next month.  Such ineffective senior management meetings are a representation of poor organizational effectiveness.   

 A Melting Pot of Ideas

Meetings are run without verbalized and agreed upon objectives and context.  Implicit expectations are developed by each member.  As these expectations are not met, each member leaves the meeting disheartened – though for different reasons.  One will be upset that his agenda item did not get the time and energy required for discussion.  Another found the meeting too administrative without focus on important strategic direction.  Yet another thought that there was too much discussion without decisions for immediate actions.  The leader of the organization remains disturbed by the fact that his senior team is unhappy about so many different things.  Who is right? Everybody – and that is the point!

Having an engaging discussion on business strategy is important.  At the same time, having a tactical discussion for immediate decision making is equally important.  When both are intermixed in the same meeting, the required relevance for discussion and decision making is lost.  It’s like switching on the TV to watch a half-hour episode of the sitcom ‘Friends’ but finding a ‘Star Wars’ movie playing instead.

Context for each meeting will drive the behaviour and expectations of the team.  Lack of context will lead to random outcomes.  Most meetings lack context and, thus, become a melting pot of ideas – where all discussion points are invited and no decision is achieved.    

Movies are Entertaining

A comparison between a movie and a two-hour senior management meeting reveals some underlying realities.  A movie is a passive activity, while meetings require our active participation.  A movie is not directly relevant to us, whereas the decisions made in a meeting should theoretically impact how and where we spend our time and energy.  Thus, it remains a mystery why we are fully engaged in a movie, while disconnected in our meetings.

Figure 1: Movies vs Meetings - A Quick Comparison

Movies have two important elements that hold us glued to the seats – The Beginning and The Conflict.  The first ten minutes of the movie sets the stage to keep the audience immersed.  Thereafter, the movie establishes, elaborates and resolves the conflict.  Most meetings start without defining the objective, leading to implicit concern of where and how the meeting is progressing.  Additionally, for fear of confrontation, conflicts are preferred to be veiled instead of mined.  This results in detached participation and lack of buy-in of the decisions.  Organizational meetings are dry and boring, while movies are engaging and stimulating, while logically it should be the reverse!

Figure 2: Structure of Movies for Extrapolation to Meetings

Contextual Structure

Organizations that can make the leap from painful to productive meetings will benefit from better decisions, engaged employees, high morale and improved results.  The road to success is to invite drama within the defined context of the meeting.  These are senior management meetings with the objective of streamlining business processes and enabling information exchange.  Each meeting should have a purpose, which will define the structure and establish the context.  It is imperative to have distinct meetings to discuss tactical performance vs. strategic intent. 

The Weekly Tactical

This is a 60 – 90 minute meeting to be held weekly.  The objective of this meeting is to discuss tactical issues of immediate concern.  It should achieve the following: (i) resolve issues, (ii) check business progress based on a set of metrics and (iii) reinforce alignment and clarity.  This meeting should be executed with a sense of discipline and structural consistency.  Few critical elements to include:

a.  Check-In: Quick reporting by each member of their two-three priorities.  Each member should take no more than one minute to check-in.  This gives a sense of business priorities and can set the tone for the rest of the meeting.

b. Lead-Lag Performance Review: Reviewing a set of metrics to determine performance and evaluating progress.  Lag measures and Lead measures should be reviewed and discussed.  This gives an indication whether the organization is moving in the right direction.  It is important to complete this within 20-25 minutes, and avoid lengthy discussion on underlying issues.  Additional action points will emerge based on performance and progress. 

c.  Action Point Discussion: Review the action points discussed and commitments made in the previous week’s interaction.  Status update and next steps for each action point should be discussed and captured.  Additional points that may have emerged from the Check-In or Performance Review should be added to the agenda for discussion and resolution. 

The meeting minutes captured in the 3W1H format (What-Who-By When-How) should be circulated at the end of the meeting, as preparation for the following week’s interaction.

Maintaining the necessary discipline in this meeting is essential.  Temptation to take the discussion out of context and dwell on any additional elaborations should be contained.  The following points should be observed:

·    Adherence to the one-minute update, and not expound in detail;

·    The temptation to skip some action points should be avoided;

·  As issues of strategic importance arise, and they will, park them for future discussion.

Getting into detailing too early can lead to loss of interest of members and makes it difficult to identify the relevant topics for discussion.  The leader must manage the discipline of the meetings. 

Figure 3: Weekly Tactical Meeting

Monthly Strategic

The objective of this meeting is to rally around strategic issues to defeat competition by acting timely and effectively.  The weekly interactions and other forums will surface prioritized issues for discussion.  The ingredients for a productive strategic interaction are the following:

a. Time Allocation: Each meeting should table no more than three issues (preferably two) for debate, allocating no less than two hours per issue.  A quality interaction around the most critical issues cannot be emphasized enough.  The monthly frequency is necessary for determining strategic direction, and as a comfort to the team when strategic issues are parked during the weekly tactical. 

b. Unprejudiced Decision Making: Research and preparation ahead of time is essential for a quality discussion and objective decisions, leading to effective actions.  The member taking the lead on the issue should circulate a short note outlining the issue, its significance and his perspective ahead of time.  This will enable the other members to think through and do the necessary preparation.  It is advisable for some of the members to prepare against the recommendation - as a devil’s advocate - such that a fuller analysis of the issue is undertaken.  

c.  The Hook: Initiating with the larger business perspective before delving into the particular details will allow the members to realize what is at stake.  This will more likely keep the members engaged and hooked to the discussion.  It may be helpful to dramatize the opening comments, thus setting the stage for the forthcoming discussions.

d.  Conflict: Mining for opposing views is essential for a productive and passionate ideological debate.  This will call for participation from each member and lead to efficacious decision making that aligns with the team’s objectives.  Many leaders try to avoid conflict, but this only leads to poor decisions, lack of alignment and problems in execution. 

Figure 4: Effective Drive of Monthly Strategic Discussions

Strategic interactions should result in alignment of the senior team.  Consensus is not a necessity.  Even if there is disagreement, it is imperative that the selected decision and direction is adhered to.  The significance of the senior team’s alignment to the business direction is comparable to the ‘swing’ of the professional rowing team.  The time and effort of each swing is aligned to perfection.  A measure of the effectiveness of the strategic interactions is the ‘swing’ factor achieved or improved.

Meetings are the veins through which the blood of discussions and debate run to keep the organizational body healthy and competitive! Poor meetings take a significant toll on the organization and all the members.  It leads to confusion, anger, lethargy and cynicism.  This has an impact on the organization as well as the human lives associated with the organization.  It is, therefore, of utmost urgency that leaders establish effective meetings.  Leaders have the opportunity to impact their organization by following the above recommendations.  This will stimulate the performance of the organization coupled with positive impact on the lives of the people involved.