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Fix Broken Meetings Before They Begin

2/28/2023

2 Comments

 
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“Meetings are stuck in the Stone Age,” writes Rebecca Hinds, organizational physician and entrepreneur, noting that most executives view them as inefficient and unproductive.

At her Work Innovation Lab, Hinds and research colleagues wanted to understand whether we could predict bad meetings before they even started.  Based on their research, they identified three anticipatory questions that you can ask to assess whether a meeting could become dysfunctional:
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  1. Does your meeting have more than one purpose with different values for participants?  Having multiple purposes isn’t inherently bad, but if these purposes are unclear, or lack value to all attendees, that could be a red flag.
  2. Does your meeting have a problem-solving component? When we are faced with a meaningful, challenging, yet solvable, problem, it can trigger a new level of focus and a state of “flow.” And flow states are a key predictor of job satisfaction and productivity.
  3. Is there a strategy for after the meeting? Attendees should leave with a clear understanding of what’s next. Spend the last five minutes of the meeting outlining next steps and then Implement follow-up strategies.

​By asking these questions, says Hinds, you can head off bad meetings and reclaim control of your calendar. 

Looking at your calendar, can you spot any meetings that might be problematic? How might these 3 questions offer a more effective path forward? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.
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Learn more about creating a habit around masterful communication with our online learning courses awarded International Gold for Best Hybrid Learning of 2022. 


2 Comments
Greg Fitz-Gerald
2/28/2023 10:32:17 am

A key factor for me is knowing the purpose of the meeting. Many are simply show and tell where people report and little comment or critique is expected. The second major type is decision making meetings where lots of questions, critique and challenge is expected which should end with an agreed decision and task assignments.

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Susan and Peter Glaser
3/1/2023 06:59:20 am

Thanks for connecting about this, Greg. We’ve observed that the problem with some ‘show and tell’ meetings is that they can morph into people wanting to expand their time ‘showing and telling’ as a way of gaining stature and influence. (My area is so significant that it takes a long time to update on all we are accomplishing.) When that pattern takes hold, meetings can become excessively long and exhausting. Maybe this is a major reason that many are fed up with meetings.

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  • Courses
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