No such thing as a stupid question? Well…

The smartest people sometimes do the dumbest things, don’t they?

I have a colleague whose opinion on just about anything is worth gold to me. But one day not long ago I attended one of his meetings and there, alas, I witnessed a slight imperfection in this pillar of business wisdom.

My colleague, it turns out, is a dreadful meeting leader. He is one of those people who organizes his entire agenda around topics guaranteed to put even the Energizer Bunny straight to sleep.

During the meeting I attended, he called the session to order by announcing three discussion items: committee reports, budget updates, and business arising.

This type of agenda – generic reports – is absolutely the most mind-numbing, uninspiring way to run a meeting. For participants at these meetings, how easy it is to lapse into a hypnotic state, letting your thoughts wander to what’s for dinner while the person next to you drones on with their committee report, noting people contacted and emails sent as if you cared.

I know this scenario sounds familiar to you. And if you have led or somehow allowed this type of discussion to occur, then shame on you. You know better.

You can cover the same discussion ground but dig into the important stuff, drawing out the real issues, by dishing out a few well-prepared and targeted questions.

Let’s look at committee reports (or departmental reports, or team updates, whatever the right phrase is for your organization). Consider the power these questions might have to snap your meeting participants back to an alert state of mind and generate some healthy, productive discussion.

• “Since our last meeting, what progress has your team made towards increasing sales?”
• “What challenges are you currently facing that someone around this table could help you with?”
• “What aspects of your team’s work must be shared today because it impacts the work of others around this table?”

In her gem of a book called Making Questions Work (a bible for me in my life as a facilitator), Dorothy Strachan recommends paying close attention to the questions you ask at important meetings. The better the question, the more valuable the response.

Strachan even applies the rule to meeting openers. When you have a group of people who don’t know each other, make good use of round-table introductions. In addition to asking people to introduce themselves, for example, throw in a thought-provoking question that will set the tone for the meeting, such as “What will it take for this meeting to be a success for you?”

If you need to connect people on a new team, open a session with a fun, but insightful question, such as, “Tell us about your very first day of work.” Another possibility: “As we form our team, this is a good chance for you to share what makes you tick, and what ticks you off, as a team player.”

So for your next meeting, don’t overlook the power of good questions. They’ll generate productive conversations that will move your business forward.

Time for a team huddle?

Football players may have made them famous but sports teams of all types have adopted the huddle as an essential driver of team spirit.

Increasingly North American companies are creatively applying the same idea to the corporate environment. Walmart stores around the world gather their employees every morning to start the day with a motivational cheer; teams at 1-800-Got-Junk take it a little further and use the huddle to celebrate yesterday’s successes and get aligned for what’s next.

The huddle – or tailgate meeting, morning check-in, whatever you’d like to call it – has a few common characteristics regardless of the environment in which it’s used.

The first characteristic: It’s quick.

The huddle should do for a corporate team what it does for a sports team – give a short energetic cheer before everyone hits the battlefield. A huddle should be no more than 15 minutes, it should focus only on the needs of the moment, and it should absolutely not involve chairs.

And that’s characteristic #2: Hold the meeting in the busiest spot in your organization (avoid the meeting room) and make sure everyone is standing up. If you provide a quiet room with chairs, your meeting will extend well beyond the 15-minute timeframe.

The third characteristic of a strong team huddle is a strong leader. The leader must be assertive, perhaps even aggressive, in guiding the conversation. A good idea is to use two to three quick, simple questions, such as:

• What do we need to celebrate?
• What’s on for today?
• Is there anything getting in your way?

Finally, recognize that creating the right spirit and energy in your team huddle is going to take a consistent and dogged effort until everyone is on board with the idea. At first, they’ll think it’s foolish, then they’ll accept it as a passing fad, and then – and this may take months – they’ll come to rely on the huddle to charge their day.

In summary – keep your team huddles short, consistent (at least once or twice a week, if not daily), focused and standing. If you need a highly charged team, a huddle just might help you get there.

A firm hand

Ask any manager what their number one frustration is and they’ll quickly tell you: Meetings!

It’s surprising, really, how much people dislike them. Meetings provide an opportunity to join a group of peers, usually in a friendly place, usually with a free coffee and a muffin, and time out to talk about important business issues. But still, the story rarely changes: Managers cite too many meetings as the bane of their professional existence.

Often, the blame must rest with the meeting chair. Most have been pushed into the role unwillingly and then show their reluctance through weak management at the boardroom table. If you’ve ever attended a poorly managed meeting, you’ll likely agree – participants resent a weak chairperson. They rightfully expect tight control, focused discussions, clear results, and a firm handle on wayward participants.

To be effective, meeting chairpersons should:

a.    Take control from the beginning. Upon scheduling a meeting, send a calendar invitation, attach a detailed agenda, and contact anyone who will have a special role to play at the session.

b.    Firmly watch the clock. Start on time, end on time, and manage the minutes in between judiciously.

c.     Show flexibility. While prepared agendas are useful, important discussions can arise and as the meeting chair, you must be wise enough to recognize when it’s necessary to stray from the prescribed format.

d.    Deter side-trackers. Participants who talk too much, interrupt too much, joke too much, or distract others, need to understand (and be told) the value of everyone’s time and the need for progress.

e.    Follow up. The measure of a good meeting is the progress that emerges from it.   Participants need to be reminded of the actions required of them and should be held responsible for getting them done – on time.

If you chair meetings and you’ve noticed participation and energy in your recent sessions declining, reflect on your effectiveness as chair.  A little shake-up on your end might be the only adjustment you need. For advice on your next meeting, contact gina@myxmeetings.com.

How green are your meetings?

The topic of environmentalism is creeping into more and more business conversations, with leaders puzzling over how to do their bit to save the planet.

The Newfoundland Association of Environmental Industries’ recent conference, aptly titled “Green is the New Black,” gave over 100 business people from this province much food for thought on the topic.

The presenters, all Canadian leaders on environmental issues, were loud and clear in their view that making the environment a priority is no longer just a nice thought, it’s a must-do for every business. Cleaning up the mess we’ve made and changing the way we live to ensure there is a planet for future generations, is the right thing to do and it’s also worth billions of dollars globally. One speaker gave this merging of capitalism and environmentalism its own name: Environomics.

So, as businesses it seems we are faced with big responsibilities and big opportunities. And it could start with bringing the topic into the meeting room. Here’s how:

1. When you strategize, factor in sustainability. Learn from the example of companies like Mountain Equipment Coop, Canada’s most environmentally-responsible retailer. In planning exercises, they regularly ask things like:

• Are our packaging and distribution channels making the best use of energy?
• Are our raw materials sustainable and responsible?
• Are we wisely using water resources?
• Could our heating and cooling systems be more efficient?
• Do our products help the environment?

2. Consider: Are you encouraging the right practices among employees? Research shows employees like working for companies that are environmentally conscious. How can you meet with staff to set goals and to seek continuous improvements that help make your company “green”?

3. Start simple. Use the meeting room to take small steps towards big improvements.

• Set a rule – no paper. Email documents and ask people to take notes on laptops.
• Use real mugs instead of paper coffee cups.
• Eliminate plastic water bottles. (David Suzuki says every person living in Canada has access to clean drinking water from the tap. At Myx, we’ve re-purposed wine bottles as water bottles – it’s smart and it also makes a good conversation piece. )
• Turn off the lights in the meeting room when it’s empty.
• Recycle flipchart paper.

The environment is a big issue and there’s no doubt it will increasingly dominate meeting agendas. For more ideas on how to go green in your business, visit www.davidsuzuki.org or www.mec.ca.

Drive results with a clear agenda

We’ve all been to bad meetings. You can point to several potential causes when a bad meeting strikes but there’s one area that should always be examined. The agenda.

One of the most common mistakes meeting leaders make is resorting to a list of reports as their meeting agenda. Fifteen minutes for finance, 15 for marketing, 15 for sales, 15 for HR, five minutes for other business – sound familiar? There never seems to be enough time to get through the long-winded reports and running into overtime happens all too often.

Using a list of reports as your agenda is never a good idea. Meetings gather people to move things forward, by making a decision, detailing an idea or planning an action. Gathering to hear a list of reports is a waste of everyone’s time.  If your meeting is one hour long, allow 15 minutes for all reports (yes, all of them) and the other 45 minutes to drive new business.

Most meetings have multiple objectives, but you should rarely have more than one or two big topics on an agenda. Take this approach and you’ll find people will give generously to those discussions. Go beyond one or two main ideas and you’ll notice distraction settling in.

The third tip relates to time management. Everyone respects a meeting that starts and ends on time. If you need an extra five minutes, ask permission and then work hard to wrap things up. If you need more than five, your group might stick around but they won’t be happy. In their eyes, you’ve just shown a lack of skill in running the session and, worse, a lack of respect for their time.

In planning your next meeting, create an outcomes-focused agenda, stick to one or two main topics, and start and end on time. These are the little things that will make a big difference.