How to have a productive meeting at work

Escape, waste of time, excuse not to work — we’ve got to stop meeting like this, says Susannah Butter
20 January 2014

A grand total of 9,315. That’s how many face-to-face meetings the average Briton attends in their lifetime.

But for something we do so often, they’re not popular. Despite recent attempts at rebranding them as focus groups, huddles, or even, desperately, creativity gyms, meetings are seen by a third of people as a waste of time. Nearly half those interviewed in a study by conference call provider Powwownow saw meetings as a “nice escape”, and one person in five admitted they use them as an excuse to do less work.

So, do we have to keep meeting this way? How is London coming together and can this part of work life ever be bearable?

A quick straw poll suggests that even though meetings can be a drag, they are essential — and not just because it’s quite nice to have a break for tea and biscuits. Alan H Palmer, author of Talk Lean: Shorter Meetings. Quicker Results. Better Relations, says: “Most meetings are incredibly unproductive. But as a concept they are indispensable. You can’t form relationships just by email or over the phone.”

Even Buzzfeed, which has shunned all tradition with its new form of list-based journalism, still has meetings every morning. But it keeps them to no more than 15 minutes. “I think short meetings are great,” says Scott Bryan, a writer at the organisation. “The time pressure makes everyone get straight to the point instead of talking to fill up time.”

Net-a-Porter has standing meetings for the same reason. If people are comfortable in their seats the risk is that the whole thing becomes a jolly break from work.

“We could not have meetings at all,” says Bryan. “We contact each other by email and Instant Messenger all the time but a face-to-face at the start of the day is always welcome. I find I work better the moment after the meeting ends.” But it is Buzzfeed’s policy that no meeting is mandatory — so they never cripple creativity or get in the way of a deadline.

There is a way to save the work rendezvous, Palmer believes. “Meetings have this bad reputation as unproductive because of a lack of clarity and discipline. People feel they have to make a choice between being direct and being polite. Direct gets things achieved but can be brutal. Polite involves being vague, so not much gets done. To get around this, you must have a goal.”

Palmer uses the analogy of a production process. “You wouldn’t start making something without a goal and a plan of how to achieve it. An effective meeting requires the same things. Often people worry about seeming pushy. But as long as you’re straightforward it should work. And it should mean fewer meetings because the ones you do have are more efficient.”

This requires a bit of forward thought, something a boss I speak to wishes there was more of. “You want everyone to be a bit prepared — it’s pretty disheartening when people fail to turn up mentally or appear surprised that a scheduled event is actually taking place.”

And you’ll look better if you’ve got a game plan. Research suggests we are less intelligent in groups than on our own, so meetings can make you look brain dead. Get around the fear of being caught out by deciding what you want and how to achieve it. A study by the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute found when we are with others we think are cleverer than us, we respond by becoming less sharp. But if you’re aware of this it doesn’t necessarily have to be the case.

Knowing what you want out of the whole thing helps with being direct. Palmer says: “If you skirt around the goal people will be suspicious and defensive because they’re waiting to hear what you want. I’ve found that you can say anything to anybody as long as you respect the following rules: talk from the ‘I’ viewpoint rather than ‘you are’ — it’s legitimate to say ‘I disagree’ but not ‘you’re wrong’ — say how you feel about saying it, and talk about the future not the past. Be candid but courteous.”

Palmer used to work in advertising and says: “I spent three years in meetings talking about who did what to whom and it achieved nothing. It’s always better making a request for the future rather than a reproach about the past.”

Other things to watch out for are inviting too many people and not listening. Palmer says: “When defining your goal, work out who you need to be there. If you’re clear, no one should be offended.”

At Buzzfeed, Bryan says: “What works is that we’re all given time to speak one at a time. It makes everyone feel valued.” If there’s a time limit, don’t be afraid to gently make people aware if they are going on.

Give it a go, you might find yourself looking forward to your next meet.

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