Leadership

The art of the meeting-Part 1

 I am sure looking at the title of the article today brought you some level of anxiety.  You already possess preconceived beliefs about meetings, and they are not good. Contrary to most people, I love meetings.  As a coach, I could stare at personnel charts or X’s and O’s for hours at a time.  As an administrator, I had the same urge.  A good meeting energized me.  I believed others had my same passion for these meetings.  I believed others enjoyed them equally as much.  The truth is few people like meetings.  Most people hate meetings and dread attending them.  Today we will take a look at how a leader runs a meeting and how he/she can productively drive a meeting.  Next week we will take a look at how a participant should perform at a meeting.  As a result of reading this article, maybe the next meeting that you attend will be an energizing and positive experience.

First of all, every meeting must have a clear purpose.  Likewise, every agenda item must have the same clear purpose. I know there were times in my career where there probably was not a need for a meeting, but I had one anyway because we always had a standing time for a specific meeting.  Especially in today’s technology driven world, “administrative minutia” can be handled electronically.

However, in a school, I believe it is imperative that leadership take the time to be in the same room to discuss, interact, and perhaps argue about a topic.  I believe it is also imperative that meetings are used for professional development.  In these venues, we can all learn from one another.  Unfortunately, credible discussion rarely occurs, and intellectual debate or dissent rarely happens.  A culture seems to have been established that as a group we should say as little as possible in order to end the meeting more quickly.  This is a terrible attitude to have for any personnel.  More importantly, this attitude is deplorable for an administrative team.  Why does this occur?

There are probably many reasons for this disengagement, and each person may have his/her own personal reason.  I believe the two major reasons this occurs is that there is little intellectually offered at the meeting and most people involved feel they are over-worked and overburdened with building or departmental tasks that are more important than the meeting.  This may or may not be true.  The creator of the agenda and the host of the meeting can control and understand this.  If given a choice, most of the participants required to be at the meeting would forgo the meeting to stay at their job assignment and check off items on their daily to do list.

I would like to share a summation of a post written by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folman discussing the productivity of meetings.  I will list their thoughts and following that I will provide anecdotal evidence that I have experienced in the meetings that I have run.

In addition to having a general overall purpose of the meeting, Zenger and Folman suggest that we do the following ten items:

• Have an agenda
• Provide a clarity of purpose for each topic
• Set time limits for each topic
• Leader must manage the process
• Use idea building methods
• Clarify decision making
• Contain conflicts
• Maintain energy
• Keep minutes
• Evaluate meeting (Zenger and Folman, 2017)

A trusted colleague of mine always would tell me to follow a very simple set of rules when preparing a meeting.  He  implored me to always have an agenda and to start and stop the meeting on time.  If we followed these two simple rules, most meetings would be much more productive.  I would like to talk about the development of the agenda.  I suggest that as you prepare your agenda you take some time to think about it and determine what is important and what points need to be made.  Do a small litmus test on each agenda item.  Does it really need to be there and what do you plan on accomplishing with this discussion?  There were times I spent a great deal of time and effort thinking about my agenda and planning it.  But there were other times when I felt overwhelmed that I just threw an agenda together without thinking about each item.  I believed that these items would flow naturally or I could “tap dance” through them.  I am convinced that anyone reading this that has had to prepare many agendas has done the same thing.  I also believe that the quality of these meetings parallel my preparation.  Those that were well prepared were good meetings.  Those that were not prepared well were a waste of everyone’s time.

I will combine the third point in the aforementioned list in this discussion by stating that you have to have a time limit on each item.  There were meetings that perhaps were going quite well, but I spent too much time on early agenda items and was forced to rush through the final items on the agenda.  Unfortunately, they were equally important.

You must have a clear understanding of how long people can stay engaged.  An administrative team at 9:00 AM had a longer attention span than a Board of Education at 7:00 PM after a long day at their own place of business.  I had to learn to place very important items early on in the agenda if I was to hope for getting everyone’s attention.

You may also have to limit the number of things you want to accomplish at a meeting.  Sometimes it might be just one important item.  By grouping several significant items on an agenda, you run the chance of never reaching a decision on any of them.  It is important that you plan your meetings to get some final decisions made.  Do not overwhelm or over stimulate your participants.

I believe it is also important that before any meeting happens everyone understands the framework of the meeting and how decisions will be made. What are the rules?  It is great if on every descion a consensus could be reached.  But that will not always happen.  So, clear parameters must be established early in the process about how final decisions will be made.  When new people arrive on your team, it is critical that these rules are reviewed, and it is imperative that each person understand these rules.  One person who is ignorant of the rules can block any credible decision making.

Whenever group discussion occurs, especially ones that people are passionate about, conflict is expected.  How will you deal with this conflict?  It is important that dissent happens and is aired, but it can never denigrate into personal attacks that are disrespectful and damaging.  Allowing this to take place will destroy the meeting and the hopes of ever reaching a decision.

When you are leading the meeting, LEAD!  It is easy for someone to hijack the meeting.  Some may be vocal and overt in this process, but others can be sly and manipulative and can destroy a meeting covertly.  By preplanning, you should know the agenda and the purpose of each agenda item thoroughly.  Do not allow you leadership to be undermined.  Remember it is your meeting.  Yes, discussion, dissent, and hearing from everyone is important, but you can never lose control.

It also extremely important that as a leader you keep your emotions in check.  I wish I could have always practiced what I preach here.  When I lost my patience, or became emotional, I ended up sabotaging my own meeting.  Some on your team might be an expert at pressing the right button for you to lose your patience.  Be smarter than your participants and do not let them push that  hot button.

Thorough meeting notes should be taken.  You cannot lead a meeting and take notes at the same time.  It becomes a mess.  You end up being a poor leader and a poor note taker.  It is critical that someone else that you trust take notes.  It is not a bad idea to bring a confidential administrative assistant to the meeting with the purpose of taking notes.

Next, it is critical that you maintain energy at the meeting.  You can gauge this.  Sometimes the air gets depleted from the room.  Eyes start to droop and some may be sleeping with their eyes open.  You may feel your energy dwindling.  It is time for a break.  Get some air, stretch your legs, come back, and re-focus.  Your energy many times will dictate the energy of the group.  If you are not passionate and enthused, how can you expect others to share the same energy level?

Finally, take some time to reflect and evaluate on how the meeting went.  This can be done with a small group of trusted colleagues who can honestly and candidly talk to you. Be smart, accept their feedback, and do not take it personally.  Reflect and professionally grow as a result of this feedback.

I covered a great deal of ground today.  I always have argued that many of our teachers are boring our students to death.  The same argument can be held for superintendents and principals.  We are boring are colleagues and boards to death.  Be cognizant of this fact and work to not let it happen.

I ask everyone to reflect honestly on the points I made today and work to make your next meeting your best.  Good luck!

References

Zanger, J. and Folman, J. (2017).  10 Steps to Accelerate Meetings and Drive Productivity.  Retrieved from http://www.tanveernaseer.com/how-leaders-can-accelerate-meetings-and-drive -productivity.