May I commend a book by Patrick Lencioni? It’s called: “Death By Meeting.” In it, the author argues that meetings should be more fun than going to the movies and shows why they typically aren’t. I’m sure you can find the book on Amazon.

Here’s what he says: “If I didn’t have to go to meetings, I’d like my job a lot more.”

“It’s a remark I’ve heard from many of the leaders I’ve worked with over the years. I used to think that it was understandable - even humorous - but I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s actually a sad comment on the state of our business culture.

“Imagine hearing a surgeon saying to a nurse before surgery, “If I didn’t have to operate on people, I might actually like this job.” Or a symphony conductor preparing for a performance: “If it weren’t for these concerts, I would enjoy my work more.” Or even a professional baseball player: “I’d love my job if I didn’t have to play in these games.”

“But there is hope. By taking a contrarian, nontraditional view of meetings, and following a few specific guidelines that have nothing to do with video-conferencing, interactive software or Robert’s Rules of Order, we can transform what is now painful and tedious into something productive, compelling, and even energizing. In the process, we can also differentiate ourselves from our competitors who continue to waste time, energy and enthusiasm lamenting the drudgery of meetings.”

Make Your Meetings…Better!…

Merlin, over at 43Folders, offers some no-nonsense advice for being able to add words like effective, necessary, and worthwhile, when describing your meetings. This is good stuff. He opens his post by saying……thought I’d share a few of my own…

[…] 9 tips for running more productive meetings | 43 Folders […]

I will have a stick near my place to hit someone’s hands. People seems to be against the whole “don’t bring cellphone” thing, and it’s really annoying. They even hide them on their hands or their clothes. Five minutes man, just five minutes.

Another good tip may be this: CLOSE your drinks, I hate when a guy comes to the office, sit on the meeting table with a bottled water and instead of closing the darn thing, this people just put it on the table. What’s next? well, they usually put it above a paper and when they move that paper to see the one below… well, you can hear me scream on my wet notes.

CLOSE YOUR DRINKS, that’s another one. Drink, close it, back to the table. Drink, close it, back to the table. I know it’s hard for some people! ;)

Annoyingly, the worst grazers at my company all have SVP in front of their titles—not much chance of convincing them to leave the crackberries on their desk. But I suspect they would be less inclined to check the damned things if something interesting was going on in the actual meeting.

9 tips for running more productive meetings…

9 tips for running more productive meetings - Merlinn Mann with some practical advice on keeping things running - a useful add-on to the old "Make everyone in the meeting drink 16 oz of water as the meeting begins. Conduct……

I worked for a guy who figured out the combined salary per minute of everyone in the room and announced it at the beginning of the meeting. He was trying to get a rule going with people having to report the salary costs of meetings they convened. Don’t know how far that got because I had left by then.

Video conference calls are deadly. You can’t knit or do other work during the parts that don’t concern you.

[…] 9 tips for running more productive meetings | 43 Folders By JHM Tips for running meetings - and in the comments I add to keep them short: 9 tips for running more productive meetings | 43 Folders […]

Great tips. I like the “No electronic grazing. Period.” point - but how do you convince people not to take their phones or laptops with them? People have embraced cellphones so tightly that even an ordinary phone call is — by default — important enough to break away from a meeting.

I’ve sensed that this breaks meetings, too, but have no idea of stopping it. People consider you to be rude if you complain about it. And trying to convince the head of the meetings is no good either - he is the one most dedicated to “electronic grazing”.

Adding to the mix, perhaps consider addressing agenda items first and putting non-agenda items brought up at the beginning of the meeting until last. A) you might answer the question during the meeting and B) It protects the meeting from sidetracking. After all, you came to address the agenda’s items.

Mislav- Perhaps try enforcing the rule in a slightly different manner. If you must answer your cell phone, do so, but you must leave the room and can’t come back in. Clearly, if the phone call is important enough, you can take it. If it isn’t, then you’re not likely to leave to answer it.

Good point to schedule Bio breaks. A few minutes to hit the bathroom, stretch, or get a cup of something is always appreciated. There’s no polite way to take a bathroom break as a junior employee…

Re-reading, I realize how much of this I picked up working at the feet of the master: Bryan Mason. Guy’s a genius at making a meeting fast, productive, and completely grazing-free. He should teach it at an AP workshop some time.

[…] 9 tips for running more productive meetings | 43 Folders […]

[…] Links / places in cyberspace: Freewebs for people who still want traditional webspace; Clipmarks - yet another social bookmarking site; Mac Annoyances (I love my Powerbook, really I do); Podbop - can we have a Kiwi version? (OK if I was really clever I’d start my own); How to become an early riser - get another 30 minutes a day / 3.5 hours a week / 182.5 hours a year; And 9 tips for running more productive meetings and avoiding vampire meetings - guess what’s on my aganda this week? Or which sites I subscribe to in my feedreader. […]

Definitely do not agree with Robert Mercer. If a meeting is important enough for him to attend, someone can deputise for him “back at the ranch” while he is at it. If it isn’t important enough, he need not attend. There is nothing worse than trying to make progress in a meeting (whether you are running it or attending it as a participant) than what RM says : “if you see one of your attendees thumbing their blackberry, then apparently your content is not terribly important, relevant, or interesting. You want me to stay off my email, then improve your meeting.” If attendees are doing this, then they are not concentrating and no progress will be made. If the meeting is not good enough, then instead of checking email, the participant can say “I think we are getting off track here/taking too long/can we move on” etc. Mentally switching off and doing something else while half-listening is not only rude it is a huge waste of collective time.

I have to totally disagree on “no cellphones, no blackberries, no electronic browsing..” for two reasons:

1) Yes, there are other priorities in my worklife than this meeting, even if the meeting is with the CEO. If there is an emergency back at my worksite, I have to be in touch. Yes, your meeting is very, very important, but why are you deciding that it is more important than any number of things that might come up in your attendees worklife? How do you know that?

1. We all promise to only use them when the content is irrelevant or boring… in other words, if you see one of your attendees thumbing their blackberry, then apparently your content is not terribly important, relevant, or interesting. You want me to stay off my email, then improve your meeting.

I love your post. I mean, really love it. I have linked to it on my weblog. My favourite part was the sentence about the Blackberries. Right on!

Productive meetings seems to be a hot topic in the blogosphere—37signals posted one, as did Lifehack.org. (I responded to both but no self promotion.)

This article is different—it suggests ways to ensure a meeting is successful, once it’s been decided that one is needed. My addition to the list would be that all of the recommendations are easier to follow if the meeting is short and if each participant (victim?) knows exactly why they’re there and what their role will be.

Great tips. I worked for a multinational for 11 years and put lots of them into practice. Creating and circulating an agenda is rightly placed at position 1.

John Cleese presents a video called “Meetings, Bloody Meetings” that you really should see if you want to run effective meetings. Although made in 1976 it provides excellent advice that is entirely relevant today.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0295434/ ISBN: 0906607019

[…] 9 tips for running more productive meetings | 43 Folders (tags: productivity meetings) […]

I am sorry that I am not familiar with this term, but what does it mean to “close ratholes” when running a meeting?

Great Tips! With project related meetings, I’m accustomed to throwing in a little GTD-related goodness:

Avoid taking minutes at all costs.

Instead, add spaces next to each agenda item for indicating “next actions”, “person(s) responsible”, and “deadline/expected completion date”.

Colleagues unaccustomed to this will appreciate the succint summary of the meeting’s outcome.

I am sorry that I am not familiar with this term, but what does it mean to “close ratholes” when running a meeting?

At my old job a rathole was any kind of tangent that could drain resources, demanding lots of manpower with relatively small yield — something that caused us to lose focus from our primary projects.

Specifically in the context of a meeting, a rathole was any sort of go-nowhere thread that either had little value to the main topic of conversation or was better addressed by a small sub-set of the group offline.

A key feature of any rathole is that you have no idea how deep it goes; it may never end unless you simply stop digging. :)

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Productive Meetings

Hm. No, it is not an oxymoron. You can have productive meetings. Merlin Mann from 43folders lists out 9 tips for effective meetings. Very concisely put. A must read for people who chair meetings.

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Great tips! Thanks for sharing :)

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Awesome tips. Thanks for helping make a meeting productive for a change.

I really like these tips. I have a few responses for some of the comments:

Mary: In regards to the “combined salary” idea, I think that HR would put a stop to that in a second now. That is a really risky practice. Now, using a “job grade” average for the position they are in does not seem like a bad idea though.

Sonia Simone: RE: SVP’s, I would say that most SVP’s would be more willing to leave the phones, blackberrys and laptops alone if they had a firm grasp of the goal and a roadmap for getting there. Perhaps a good idea would be to tackle meetings like Next Actions for a project. Break down a meeting that will take several hours into “mini-meetings” with each one equating to a next action. In today’s business world, I think it is important to remember that a laserbeam tight focus on the goal is not always the best. Sometimes you have to bounce it around a few obstacles first.

Brian Ellis: Re: Meetings should be as much fun as a movie? I am not sure about most, but to borrow from Scott Adams, I go to work because banks have locks, not due to any inherent joy in the office.

Finally, I think that all of this has to also take into consideration the difference between a meeting and a presentation. Are you working together on something or delivering information? Both of these, having different goals, are very different in nature.

[…] 9 tips for more productive meetings “Have a theme — Meetings shouldn’t be meandering tours of each participant’s frontal lobe. Make it clear why this meeting is happening, why each person is participating, and use your agenda to amplify how the theme will be explored or tackled in each section of the meeting.” […]

Great tips, but it failed to emphasise the most important factor. Make sure that all the participants understand the purpose of the meeting.

It is perfectly acceptable to hold a meeting to have an open brainstorming session. It is also acceptable to hold a meeting to reach a decision or plan a concrete course of action. What is not acceptable is if even one participant doesn’t know which type of meeting they are in.

When some people are thinking “out loud” and others are sharpening their swords, nothing productive can happen.