agenda topics as questions

List agenda topics as questions the team needs to answer. Most agenda topics are simply several words strung together to form a phrase, for example: “office space reallocation.” This leaves meeting participants wondering, “What about office space reallocation?” When you list a topic as a question (or questions) to be answered, it instead reads like this: “Under what conditions, if any, should we reallocate office space?”

A question enables team members to better prepare for the discussion and to monitor whether their own and others’ comments are on track. During the meeting, anyone who thinks a comment is off-track can say something like, “I’m not seeing how your comment relates to the question we’re trying to answer. Can you help me understand the connection?” Finally, the team knows that when the question has been answered, the discussion is complete.

Roger Schwarz

“How to Design an Agenda for an Effective Meeting,” Harvard Business Review. March 19, 2015 as quoted in HBR Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter. Harvard Business Review Press. 2016.

seek agenda input

Seek [agenda] input from team members. If you want your team to be engaged in meetings, make sure the agenda includes items that reflect their needs. Ask team members to suggest agenda items along with a reason why each item needs to be addressed in a team setting. If you ultimately decide not to include an item, be accountable — explain your reasoning to the team member who suggested it.

Roger Schwarz

“How to Design an Agenda for an Effective Meeting,” Harvard Business Review. March 19, 2015 as quoted in HBR Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter. Harvard Business Review Press. 2016.

what happened at the big meeting?

…we always ask the meeting owner—the most senior executive hosting it—the same two questions:

• What do you want to have debated, decided, or discovered at the end of this session that you and the team haven’t already debated, decided, or discovered?
• What do you want attendees to say when their team members ask, “What happened at the big meeting?”

In almost every case, the response is the same: “That’s a good question—I hadn’t actually thought about those things.”

It doesn’t matter if it’s an eight-person board meeting, a 15-person executive team meeting, or a 150-person leadership conference—your first step when planning an important one-off or non-routine get-together should be to draft an initial set of goals based on the answers to the two questions above. In the words of Stephen Covey, “Begin with the end in mind.”

Bob Frisch and Cary Greene

“If You Can’t Say What Your Meeting Will Accomplish, You Shouldn’t Have It,” Harvard Business Review. April 18, 2016 as quoted in HBR Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter. Harvard Business Review Press. 2016.

renaming meetings

Organizations are drowning in unproductive meetings, and part of the problem is the fact that we refer to them all in the same way. Vague and imprecise language obscures the true purpose of these gatherings, making it difficult to know how to optimize for their success. It also makes it harder to distinguish the worthwhile ones from the worthless.

In order to have fewer, more purposeful meetings, we need a more robust vocabulary to describe them. So let’s do some renaming, starting with three common “meetings” that you’ll soon realize aren’t really meetings at all.

• Meetings with just two people aren’t meetings. They’re conversations... 
• …sometimes people... huddle around a laptop or whiteboard to generate real work product together. Let’s call these group work sessions...
• ...meetings where the primary goal is to generate ideas… call it a brainstorm... 

Now let’s address a few types of meetings that are difficult to justify if you name them correctly.

• [Meetings] called primarily because managers have information to disseminate... These are convenience meetings  and almost always a bad idea. They’re typically convenient for the individual, and inconvenient for everyone else.
• Meetings called as a matter of tradition or habit — formality meetings — must also be banned... 
• Some meetings are called under the guise of collaboration or alignment, but it’s really connection we’re after. We can call these social meetings. 

Finally, we come to the decision-making meeting, a total misnomer as is it implies that the meeting itself is making the decision. But meetings don’t make decisions, leaders do. Group discussions can help support that process, of course, so let’s call them decision-supporting meetings to remind the leader that it’s her job, and hers alone, to make sure action follows...

Imagine a culture where people regularly talk about meetings using this kind of precise language. Picture someone pushing back on a meeting invitation by calling it a formality meeting... Better language isn’t the only step you must take to transform your meeting culture, but it’s a powerful start.

Al Pittampalli

“Stop Calling Every Conversation a “Meeting”,” Harvard Business Review. November 3, 2015 as quoted in HBR Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter. Harvard Business Review Press. 2016.

let's schedule a meeting

“Let’s schedule a meeting” has become the universal default response to most business issues. Not sure what to do on a project? Let’s schedule a meeting. Have a few ideas to share? Let’s schedule a meeting. Struggling with taking action? Let’s schedule a meeting.

Although scheduling a meeting can be the right solution in many instances, it’s not always the best answer. I’ve come up with a decision tree to help you quickly determine if a meeting makes the most sense.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders

“Do You Really Need to Hold That Meeting?,” Harvard Business Review. March 20, 2015 as quoted in HBR Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter. Harvard Business Review Press. 2016.