Elizabeth Grace Saunders has a wonderful post in HBR titled “Break your addiction to meetings“.
She contrasts the traditional definition of a Manager, with the modern-day definition, defined by Elizabeth as follows:
An individual who races through the halls in a frantic attempt to make the next meeting on time while also answering e-mails on his or her mobile device.
The issue Elizabeth is attempting to tackle is the endless and back-to-back meetings most managers need to endure during their day at the office.
What I liked the most in the post is the following decision tree, relevant to all managers (including project managers):
Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Think about it!
I’m not a fan of this flowchart as its too “Me” centric, I much prefer having a organisation wide approach or set of rules. A great example from Urban Airship is mentined in this blog: http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2013/01/urban-airship-meeting-rules.html
This forces everyone in an organisation to think about their meetings and any meeting that they are part of.
Fantastic observation Andy and thanks for sharing this link. I guess the two methods can be reconciled as follows: While an organisation wide policy is a much better proposition, when such policy is missing an individual policy is probably the next second best thing.
Cheers, Shim.
I have a friend who was a senior VP at a fiber long haul carrier here in Denver. He had come there is add “adult supervsion” to the management team. He came from a very mature telecom firm in the midwest. His advice on meetings at the typical “big company” processes was to have every one entering the room be prepared to say why they were there, what they were going to contribute and what they expected to get out of the meeting. No obsevers, no “learners.”
We started using that advice, when he became our external mentor for Balanced Score and the endless meetings around developing the BSC. That turned into the “plan of the week,” and then the “plan of the day.”
This structure approach defines up front what the outcome of the meeting is, including brain storming meeting. It’s like an agenda on steroids, but keeps everyone focused.
Glen B. Alleman recently posted..Pi Day
Thanks Glen. Not many are fortunate enough to operate with or around real leaders. This is seen not just in the explosion of meetings and attendees but also in the ever growing lists to whom e-mails are being sent. The need for self preservation ignites in most people the need to invite more people and submit e-mails to more people, with the hope that this will stand them in good light should issues arise at a later stage. What a sorry state of affairs it is.
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