Join the Meeting Police

I am and have been for many years a card-carrying member of the “meeting police”. We meet every Monday morning at 9:00AM. (Joking! We never meet.)

We work tirelessly to eliminate unneeded and unwanted meetings. And to reduce the time spent in meetings we do attend.

Our job is to cajole, nudge, and hold accountable every person who calls for a meeting we’re asked to attend. And we need more people to join our cause.

We believe our work “saves lives”. It saves productive work time for our best people. That reduces their frustration. And it leads to better results. When your best people are more productive, you could make the case that saves the lives (jobs) of everyone in the organization.

We take our jobs in the meeting police seriously. We even have our own “rulebook”. Here’s a sampling:

(1.) Meetings should be the last resort and not the first option. For example, update meetings should become update documents sent to those who need to know. You should only have an update meeting if something needs to be discussed.

(2.) Every meeting needs to have an agenda. And that agenda needs to be sent out  ahead of the meeting. The agenda should be specific, not general. An only include items that need to be there. Not a hodgepodge of “While I’ve got you all here, let’s talk about…”

(3.) Every meeting needs an objective. Something needs to be accomplished beyond presenting some information. This too should be part of the meeting agenda sent ahead of time so it’s crystal clear why we’re there.

(4.) We believe in hard starts and hard stops. A meeting starts on time and ends on time (or early). Deadlines focus the mind. There’s no time for wandering into rabbit hole discussions. And hard stops prevent next event tardiness, where everyone in the meeting is late to their next task, causing a ripple effect of late starts for everyone else they come in contact with downstream.

(5.) We believe in shorter meetings. Less is more. Could a 60-minute meeting be done in 45-minutes? And video meetings need to be even shorter than on-site meetings because our attention spans are shorter looking at a screen.

(6.) We believe in fewer meetings. Could weekly meetings go to every two weeks or monthly? Or even better, eliminated completely?

(7.) Meetings should require participation. And preparation. If you don’t need to participate, you shouldn’t be attending the meeting. Ask to have meeting notes sent to you. If you need to attend and participate, then prepare like you’re making a sales call.

Just a few things from our handbook. Sound interesting? Then join us, won’t you? We need your help.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Bob

P.S. If you’re considering a job change (same type of job in a different industry) or career change (a different kind of job inside or outside your industry) and you’d like some help in landing a great offer, I’ll be providing a class in January, with personal coaching on how to do that, step-by-step. It’s specifically designed for experienced professionals who want to try something different, in their field or outside of it. Reach out to me if you’re thinking about this right now and don’t want to wait until January.