Why Meetings Really Matter: Most of us take meetings for granted. They are like traffic, just there. And like traffic jams, most of us also take bad meetings for granted. Just another part of life to be endured until it's over. This is a mistaken perception. Meetings — for better and worse — play a critical role in the success or failure of any organization or group. They are the single most important vehicle for achieving all of the following:
— Setting clear goals and figuring out what we are trying to accomplish and how we will get there.
— Accurately defining a problem or issue and getting consensus among key stakeholders on what the problem is. It is quite stunning to think about the number of times that we solve the wrong problem.
— By sifting through our differences, identifying our choices, we find the one that is best and come to a clear decision.
— Getting key people to "own" solutions and commit to a specific set of actions; getting everyone pulling in the same direction.
— Achieving clarity and eliminating ambiguity so that it is possible to communicate what we are doing to others and eliminate sources of mistrust and suspicion.
— Finally, meetings in a sequence provide a consistent thread and a set of links from framing, to deciding, to acting to following up and assessing what we have achieved.
In recent years, the importance of high-quality meetings has been recognized across all three sectors: business, non-profit and government. We can see that good meetings are a solid indicator of healthy organizations, and that bad meetings are usually a sign of trouble.
The Virgin Islands as a World Leader in Bad Meetings: In the aftermath of the breakup of the Soviet Union, I worked on a large project in the newly independent Ukraine. Patrick Lencioni has written a book titled Death by Meeting in which he underscores the importance of effective meetings. His "death" is metaphorical. In Ukrainian meetings, death is more literal. It is death from boredom as speakers drone on, usually about a past which was horrible but often looked a lot better than the present. Seventy years of communism bred an extraordinary tolerance to sit through hour after hour of this junk.
But meetings in Ukraine started on time and everyone showed up. (Many Virgin Islands' readers will immediately see where this is going.) For Virgin Islanders, failing to show up for meetings seems quite normal, and meetings usually do not start on time. Like being caught in traffic, everyone is used to it. As an outsider, I have been quite stunned to have a meeting scheduled and the person simply not show up, and no explanation given. When one reads the Source, there are regular items about an important meeting where business could not be conducted because a quorum was not present. I know of no other place where this happens with such frequency. Then there are the regular occurrences of disruptive behavior and personal attacks. And finally, a regular feature of these meetings is flowery language that is ambiguous in its meaning and doesn't provide a platform for action.
The price that Virgin Islanders pay for these failed meetings is far higher than one would think. Failure to hold meetings means that important decisions are not being made on a timely basis. Just to take two examples, WAPA and GERS are institutions that are critical to the health and viability of the territory. Postponements and bad meetings result in ambiguous outcomes and further fuel the factionalism that often prevents meaningful action. The Constitutional Convention sessions seem to fall into this category. Rather than building ownership and alignment around shared goals, these meetings tend to sharpen differences and feed individual and group antagonism.
As a result, the critical goal of getting everyone pulling in the same direction is undermined rather than advanced by bad meetings. And the personalization of issues produces a backward-looking norm of blame and blame-shifting when a focus on the future is what's needed. These meetings also have the effect of giving individuals or small groups a veto over actions that are clearly favored by majorities of participants.
In combination, these outcomes (ambiguity, lack of alignment and buy-in, personalization and blaming) block meaningful action and contribute to a norm of pessimism about the possibility of real change. This may seem like a heavy burden to place on bad meeting quality, but step back and think about it. Visualize meetings that are focused, where agendas and choices are clearly presented, where conflict is focused on finding the right answers, where people trust one another and where the outcome is a shared commitment to concrete action. That is the reverse image of much current reality.
The Path to a Brighter Future: Unlike many problems, this one is soluble, the solutions cost nothing, and everyone — well, almost everyone — will be much happier. This is truly a case of problem as opportunity. And the positive impact will be striking. Sounds easy, but it's not. The starting point should be a set of meeting rules that are universally followed. The hard part is that anyone who cannot abide by these rules should be excluded from the group, whatever their role or capacity. Being willing to exclude "outliers" is the one prerequisite to success. That's the hard part.
Here are ten rules for transforming meeting quality in the Virgin Islands. If people accept them, there should be no "phase in" period. Post them on a wall, get everyone to commit to them in the interest of the greater good, and agree to enforce them from Day One.
1) Every meeting should have a clear purpose and an agenda, and participants should have the agenda in advance of the meeting.
2) All of the right people needed to make decisions should be in the room.
3) Meetings should start on time, grace periods should be limited to 5-10 minutes and the meeting should begin without latecomers. No-shows and chronic latecomers should be removed from the group. Everyone should understand this rule and agree to abide by it. If someone is too busy to come to a meeting or get there on time, they should step out of the group.
4) It should be clear to everyone who is running the meeting, and this person should control the agenda and enforce these rules. (Enforcing the rules does not mean heavy-handedness. Humor is often a useful tool. But, at some point, the rules must be the rules or they lose meaning.)
5) There should be a single, focused conversation with one person speaking at any given time. Side conversations should not be allowed. They are disruptive and impolite.
6) Problems and issues should be clearly defined in simple terms, and there should be agreement on the impact: what happens, or is likely to happen, as a result of this problem or issue.
7) Choices, criteria for making decisions and the actual decision should be clear and spelled out in simple operational language. This step helps shape the best decisions and also aligns people around a shared set of values.
8) Everyone should have a chance to speak, but the goal is commitment rather than unanimity. Individuals cannot veto group decisions.
9) Disagreements must focus on an issue and not on a person. Personal attacks are not allowed, and the person running the meeting must prevent them.
10) The focus of the meeting must be on the future, on decisions and actions rather than on the past. The meeting leader should summarize decisions, who will do what and the specific actions are to be completed by the next meeting. Those with assignments should agree that the assignment is reasonable and commit to whatever the action is. People should hold one another accountable for what they commit to. This is another hard part, but essential to successful outcomes.
If groups stick to these rules until they get used to them, they will experience a marked improvement in performance, especially performance related to the execution of
decisions. And the great part: the cost in dollars is zero.
Next week: Part III Why factionalism and victimization undermine forward movement in hard times.
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