How to Establish Objective Driven Meetings - By: Ed Bones

Quite recently I went to several meetings during an introduction to a new client's business. Each one of these meetings was an absolute waste of time, in that nothing of any significance was actually achieved. Individuals on the 'calling list' were nowhere in sight, while others wandered in late or left before the meeting was finished. It was common practice for actions outstanding from the last meeting to remain completely unaddressed, and I can't say that anyone seemed even remotely bothered about this. Generalising a bit, it seemed to me that these meetings were held and attended as a formality to uphold some odd requirement to set a meeting, why? I never understood.

This experience can be repeated every day in all areas of business, and because it's so common there is no real attempt to change, to bring about an improvement. In this we find the cause of this time wasting activity engaged in daily by millions of workers, managers and executives, these meetings had no purpose other than to work through an agenda.

I have experienced meetings where the supplied agenda and supporting material would have looked well for a royal visit. Where the agenda was well supplied with references and the participant list should have been a guarantee of a fast moving decision making and effective gathering, but still they failed to have any serious impact on the participants or the organisation they were part of.

Perhaps the worst of all meetings are those where a series of presentations have been planned. Individuals - or sometimes their teams - arrive to deliver what can only be called 'Death by PowerPoint', where the sub-agenda appears to be focussed on the best presentation slides regardless of content. The result of this battle for dominance is a meeting that either extends past its time allocation - where one was actually in place, or is rearranged as it proceeds to remove 'less significant' items from the agenda.

And then I remember a different scenario. Working at a senior level in a large organisation I had a department head whose meetings were different. People invited to his meetings were given a clear statement of purpose and timing. Meetings started on-time, and finished on-time, and were brief. Nobody arrived unprepared - at least not more than once - and contributions were brief and focussed on the meeting objectives. That was and is what separates normal meetings and successful meetings.

When meetings have a definite purpose and are run by leaders who realise that purpose, digression rarely occurs and gatherings have real value to both the individual and the organisation.

Quality management processes are intended to support process improvement through the efforts of employee groups. Inevitably the activity of these working groups will involve participation in meetings where decisions are to be the outcome. It is an unfortunate fact that the meeting ethos will be set by what they see around them, by their experience of how it is done by their leaders and others, so the outlook is not good.

Managers and all who might be involved in the management of meetings of any sort must learn that while an agenda is a good idea the meeting should be driven by an Objective. Why are we here, what are we attempting to do? Any participant diverging from that line must be redirected to this objective - and that includes the meeting leader!

Agendas don't work, Objectives do.

About the Author

Ed. Bones is a chartered quality professional, an IRCA registered Lead Auditor, and is a senior partner with Meon Consulting Group, providing expert audit and consultant services for ISO9001 & ISO14001 management systems. The company web site provides detailed information, and includes the offer of FREE Advice.

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