The Stake Out
"Hey," said Alberts as he struggled to pull what looked like a football wrapped in butcher paper out of his coat pocket. "Anybody want a sandwich?" Both men shook their heads. "Nah. I'll just chew on my coffee" said Lewis swirling the dregs in his cup.
"You guys look beat. It's after 7. What are you doing here so late? What's the situation?" queried Alberts. Dawes tossed his magazine onto the van floor and stood up to stretch. "We've spent all day witnessing a colossal mess of meetings. I haven't seen anything this bad since that boardroom debacle back in '98. We thought it was going to be a slow day. According to the room scheduling program, there was a meeting at 8am, one at 10am, an 11am, and then nothing until 2pm with no other meetings after that." Alberts looked over at the video feed streaming on the laptop screen. A group of distraught looking individuals were huddled at the far end of a conference room. Take-out containers, empty soda cans, and wadded up napkins were pushed into a disheveled mountain in the middle of the long oval table. "So what happened?" asked Alberts squinting at the screen.
"I'll tell you what happened" replied Lewis swiveling his chair around. "Our informant completely played down the severity of the situation. This copany is in far worse shape than we thought." Without pausing to take a breath, Lewis barreled head long into a rant that would make Dennis Miller proud. "The 8am meeting was between Mr. Jenkins, the company President, and his executive team. Three of the eight people scheduled to meet actually showed up on time. Jenkins strolled in at 8:18am with the other four people hurrying in on his heels. It's their weekly meeting, so no one thought it necessary to put together an agenda. McMichaels, the VP of Operations got hung up on a production issue. Jenkins started brainstorming on the flipchart and before you know it, the 10am group is gathered outside the meeting room watching the executive team through the glass walls. Stevens, a marketing manager leading the 10am meeting, was so intimidated he just stood there without saying a word. Fifteen minutes later, the execs vacate and Stevens finally gains access to the conference room. He had an agenda, which was good. But two people in the meeting never looked up from their BlackBerries. The domino effect of delayed meetings was well underway. The 11am meeting didn't get into the room until noon. Instead of diving right into it, the group decided to get their lunches. This was no working lunch. We learned some interesting information about everybody's kids and vacation plans as well as the plot of this week's NCIS. By the time they started discussing issues, it was 1:05pm. One woman brought up the same production issue that came up in the executive meeting. She would not let it go. No one interrupted her. Halfway through, a guy walked out of the meeting stating that he had to go to another meeting. Having reached no significant conclusions by 2:15pm, the group decided to schedule another time to reconvene on the original points they were supposed to cover. The 2pm meeting participants settled into the room at 2:25p. At 2:26pm, Holt, an analyst, announces that he has a 2:30pm meeting so he can now only stay for a few minutes. Benson joins the meeting at 2:40pm. Despite his efforts at a covert entrance, the whole group stops talking. He explains that he had three meetings booked at 2pm so he decided to attend all three but only stay for twenty minutes in each." Exhausted from his recount of the day, Lewis swiveled back to the computer screen.
"Wait a minute. Is this the 2pm group still?" Dawes smiled at the shocked look on Alberts' face. "No man. They cut out at 4:30. This was a quick impromptu gathering that started at 5pm. One of the HR managers asked a few people to join her for a short conversation. She promised it would only take a minute." "Wow, this company is going to need the full court press" said Alberts as he slumped into a seat. Lewis thought about the true meaning behind Alberts' words, "the full court press."
Like so many other companies the Meeting Squad was called in to help, this one was going to need a lot more than just an agenda template and a few meeting ground rules. The heart of the matter lay in the company's culture. Emanating from the executive team, a host of attitudinal and behavioral miscues had permeated the whole organization. It's a congenial place to work. Everybody likes each other and no one wants to jeopardize the positive rapport they all share. They're under a misguided notion that holding each other accountable to meeting rules and etiquette would damage relationships and stagnate creativity. The entire staff has been complicit in allowing meetings to run amok like children at recess. The price is a dramatic loss of productivity and efficiency. However, after years on the Meeting Squad, Lewis knew that "productive meeting" did not have to be an oxymoron. His gaze shifted to the checklist taped to the wall of the van.
The list was titled, Starting with Company Culture. Here's what it said:
Grassroots: locate people already conducting well-run meetings or find willing converts. Be sure to identify respected individuals with credibility. Designate these individuals as Meeting Champions. Equip the Champions with the tools and techniques to run productive meetings. Check in often to hold them accountable and encourage them through the challenging moments.
Coalition: build a network of influential managers willing to support the culture change initiative. Elicit their help in drafting a Meeting Manifesto outlining guidelines for redefining the company's culture around meetings. Leverage the influence of the Coalition to gain access to senior management.
Top Down: present a business case to the executive team illustrating the tangible improvements to morale, productivity and output that can be achieved by implementing a company-wide strategy to improve the effectiveness of meetings. Encourage the executive team to edit and help finalize the Meeting Manifesto. Teach the executives the meeting leadership principles and tools needed to make the Manifesto a reality. Earn permission to hold them accountable to communicating the Manifesto and modeling the desired attitudes and behaviors.
Roll-out: when sufficient momentum has gathered around the idea that the meeting culture is changing, train the remaining staff on the tools and techniques required to run efficient meetings. Establish a recognition program to reinforce consistent application of new guidelines and methods. Help departments with their own sub-cultures tailor the meeting norms to fit the nuances of their environment. Continually assess progress and make modifications to incorporate best practices.
Posted in Business, Change, How To, Leadership Tagged: Best practice, Business, Leadership, Management, Meeting Efficiency, Meetings, Organizational Change, Productivity