Three Simple Ground Rules For Effective Meetings

Meetings are a persistent source of complaints.  We complain there are too many of them, that they are not productive and that they waste our time. Many teams have tried to create ground rules for effective meetings in an attempt to make things better. These include things like starting on time and always having an agenda. Yet those seemingly tried and true ground rules don’t seem to help enough to transform the meeting experience.

While giving a talk recently titled Leading Made Simple I let the phrase “meetings suck” slip out of my mouth.  I don’t usually say it so crassly. But the sea of nodding heads seemed to indicate I had hit on an unfortunate “truth”:

Meetings all too often suck our time, our energy, our productivity, and our enthusiasm. But the cost of ineffective, poorly planned, poorly run meetings goes way beyond the personal cost and pain we have all experienced as individuals.

The Cost of Unproductive Meetings is Staggering

According to Doodle’s 2019 State of Meetings report, the cost of poorly organized meetings will reach $399 billion in the U.S. alone. Add another $58 billion in the U.K., $73 billion in Germany, and $33 billion in Switzerland and the cost is well over over half a trillion dollars for these four countries alone.

However, consider that where there is a big problem, there is also a big opportunity for your leadership.

Meetings Are a Phenomenal Opportunity For You To Be Leader

Every time you intervene in a meeting that is not productive, you can quite literally save time and money. Every time you design, facilitate and/or contribute to a meeting that results in meaningful conversation and satisfaction progress, you have also lifted people’s energy and added value to them and your organization.

How You Can Be a Leader in Any Meeting

To help you identify opportunities to lead, either as a participant or a facilitator, consider adopting the following ground rules for effective meetings. In working with thousands of people from around the world, I’ve found these rules to most consistently support meeting success.

Most of all these Meeting Ground Rules will help you to facilitate progress – the very reason you are meeting to begin with!

Three Ground Rules for Effective Meetings

Follow these three very simple ground rules and you can provide leadership in any meeting you attend.  Enroll a group of people in embracing them, and you can together transform every meeting you have together.

Meeting Ground Rule #1: Stay in One Conversation

There is a natural tendency for people to have conversations on the side.  It’s one of those things we know we shouldn’t do, but we can’t seem to help ourselves.  The larger the group, the more likely this is to happen. We can also allow ourselves to be distracted by texting or checking/sending email. This is especially challenging in a virtual meeting setting.

Consider these behaviors are a sign that there is an opportunity for you to commit an act of leadership. Here are a few ways you can put this into practice:

Refocus your attention to the conversation you are in when you notice you are distracted.

This is a great way to take personal responsibility for the success of any conversation. This applies even when it’s just you and one other person talking. Have you ever been talking with someone and realize you are not really listening? When you catch yourself not listening, consciously return your attention to the conversation at hand.  You may even own up to it. That way you can both refocus and show respect by taking responsibility for being distracted.

Step up by defining success for every meeting you lead.

Prepare the agenda for meetings you will lead by asking yourself “how would I know this meeting was successful?”. You can then design your agenda so that every topic you cover is relevant to delivering on that definition of success.

By implementing and rigorously adhering to this ground rule in your own meetings people will begin to see the benefits. No longer will you feel like you are calling out individuals for bad behavior. Instead you will simply be able to point to the ground rule, and ask people to please “stay in one conversation”.

I have been amazed at how positively people respond to and quickly adjust their behavior to adhere to this one rule for effective meetings. That’s because they see the difference it makes.

Meeting Groundrule #2: Listen for the Gold

There are two dimensions to the practice of listening for the gold: listen for the contribution and listen to empower others. This applies whether you want to be a great facilitator or a productive contributor.

Listen for the Contribution

This requires that you actively listen for the things people say that contribute to the intended outcomes of the conversation. For example, if the goal is to understand why a decision has been made, then you could listen for what is clear and not clear to people about that decision.

As a participant you can ask questions both to increase your own clarity and to draw out where others may not be clear. The most important point is to keep your focus on the objective of the conversation. This focus will help you to engage to ensure the outcome is produced whether you are the facilitator or a participant.

Listen to Empower Others

Ask yourself: do you listen, I mean really listen, to what people have to say?  Listening can be hard.  However, consider that giving someone your full attention is one of the best ways to empower them.  If you think you know what someone is going to say, try actively listening for something new.  Ask questions.  And be mindful of the tendency to be think about what you are going to say next, rather than listening to what others are saying.

When you actively listen for the gold in what someone has said, they experience being heard. They feel valued which empowers them to keep on contributing. As their confidence increases, so too will the value they add to future conversations.

One way to provide leadership in any conversation is to repeat back what you heard that is valuable and relevant. This helps everyone stay focused on the conversation you are in. An added bonus that that this is also a great practice for inclusion.

Meeting Ground Rule #3: Speak to Make a Difference

There are a lot of reasons you may speak at a meeting. You could speak to answer a question, to offer your expertise or opinion, to make a point, to defend your point of view, to build political capital, etc.

But if your ultimate intention is to maximize the productivity and progress of any meeting or conversation consider this: will saying it now contribute to or distract from the objective of the conversation you are in at this moment?

A good rule of thumb is to speak ONLY when you can forward the conversation you are having now.

No matter what you may want to say, consider these things before you speak.

Will what I have to say contribute meaningfull given the purpose of THIS conversation? Is it relevant now? Will it contribute to progress or take us on a detour distracting us from our purpose?

So before you speak ask yourself:

Will what I am about to say contribute to the intention or intended outcome of THIS conversation?

If you want to help others speak to make a difference, try this:

Speak up to direct the conversation back to the purpose of the meeting.

You can do this by asking a question such as: is this conversation essential to the purpose of the meeting now or can we table it for later? Or when someone begins a meeting without clarifying the overall purpose of the meeting, ask them to do so.

Whether you tend to speak more or speak less, you can still speak to make a difference.

If you are someone who speaks often in meetings then your challenge will be to be more disciplined and strategic. Consider that everything you say uses up a most precious commodity – both your time and the time of those you are with. Ask yourself: are you using that time wisely with what you have to say?

If you are someone who rarely speaks or is afraid to speak, then your challenge will be listen for where your insight or expertise can make a difference. Your voice matters so focus on mustering the courage to speak up in those moments when you have a contribution to make. You are there for a reason so ask yourself often: what can I say to make a difference in this conversation?

Speak up whether what you have to say is “positive” or “negative”.

It is far easier to say the smart, insightful, positive thing in any conversation, than it is to say the thing that can be hard to hear, that can make people uncomfortable, or be perceived as negative.

But remember that the point of speaking is to move things forward – to contribute to progress. And sometimes negative feedback can make a positive difference.  There are times when the bad news is what needs to be shared to actually move things forward.

It takes courage to challenge the status quo by saying the thing that many are thinking, but few are willing to say. Yes, it could be risky and it could get messy, but consider the cost if you don’t speak up: the endless hours spent in meetings continuing to talk around an issue, rather focusing on what to do about it. The frustrating hours spent talking in the shadows rather than talking openly about how to solve the problem.

If you want to elevate your leadership, look for opportunities to say what will make the biggest difference regardless of whether it is easy to hear or hard to hear, or whether it will be perceived as positive or negative.

Make Three Meeting Ground Rules for Effective Meetings a Habit

Whether you are leading a meeting or participating in one, using these ground rules as a facilitator or a participant begins with adopting the mindset that the success and satisfaction of every conversation is up to me.

Once you take on that mindset, these meeting ground rules for effective meetings can be your guide in transforming every meeting you attend, whether you actively use them in the foreground as a meeting facilitator, or use them to guide your own behavior in every meeting you attend.

Learn to apply these three meeting ground rules well and you will elevate your leadership one meeting at at time by transforming any meeting from a costly, frustrating waste of time into an opportunity to leverage the intelligence of your team to make satisfying and remarkable progress.

Are you ready to be the one to transform meetings into a productive, satisfying experience for all?

If so, please do share your experience and your questions, when you apply these three ground rules for effective meetings where you work.