Conducting Effective Meetings

Recently, I attended an insightful Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) Orientation workshop in Lahore with Armand Kruger; our colleague from South Africa. He has over 30 years of experience working for numerous clients from diverse industries. He specializes in helping clients understand and replicate the conditions necessary for Peak Performance within their industry.

His analysis of what makes meetings effective was particularly helpful. By effective meetings, it is meant that the meetings have a meaningful and measurable effect on the actions and achievements following the meeting. Effective meetings are meetings which are productive of effective activity following the meeting. He shared five generic ways to diagnose if the meeting being conducted is right on track:

1) A measurable outcome – The facilitator of the meeting needs to check what the meeting has produced in terms of an outcome. Ideally it should be a document or a recommendation that is specifically deliverable. The meeting should produce a clearly formulated outcome.

2) % of time spent on ‘repeats’ – Too often participants reiterate a problem, a consensus or a re-cap more than necessary. Frequently it leads to the conversation veering off in other directions as well. A facilitator needs to keep checking if repetition is killing the ideas and solutions and repressing the recognition of options. If there is nothing new to be added, the meeting needs to be brought to a conclusion.

3) % of time devoted to solutions – Armand mentioned that in his work as a consultant he has seen the best problem solving teams spend only essential minimal time to understand the problem and the rest of it in working out the solution itself. This solution-analysis ratio should ideally be in proportion 70:30 of the time in a meeting.

4) % of time on incongruent and irrelevant topics – A facilitator needs to ensure that the content being discussed is congruent to the roles, competencies and responsibilities of the participants. For instance, a meeting for the front desk employees must address the issues and scenarios relevant to their roles and function.  Likewise, the discussion has to be relevant to the desired outcome of the meeting. The business suffers by the minute if the conversation in a cross functional meeting on lagging turnaround times veers to the virtues of a cigar against a cigarette!

5) % of time spend on advocacy vs debate –  If participants bring to the table their agenda of being heard and seeking significance, then advocacy takes precedence over a curious interaction and earnest debate. This kills the spirit of collaborative problem resolution. A facilitator needs to ensure a healthy balance by neutralizing too much of advocacy with a genuine need to understand and be understood.