This article continues to explore good meeting culture and how leaders and team participants can foster it. It covers what should be best avoided and drives unproductive meetings as well as what you can do to support your meetings being effective and productive.
Building on the last article on meeting culture, today’s article expands on what to avoid and what to watch out for when working to create useful meetings.
To make the best use of the skills in the room, the environment needs to allow everyone to participate.
You want a psychologically safe environment, where everyone feels comfortable to contribute and appreciative, constructive communication is practised.
Whether you are the team, unit, department lead or the leader of this particular meeting:
setting the tone of the meetings you are in will be your leadership responsibility.
In the last article on meeting culture we covered some fundamental language to avoid when you don’t want to mentally block those working with and for you.
Beyond what was, this slightly more subtle type of language will also hamper making the best use of your meetings:
That’s exactly what I was thinking of.
- Why is it not helpful? You are signaling to the idea originator that you already had the same thought. In another guise this also happens when leaders listen to an idea from a team member and then suggest the same idea later on in the process, obscuring where it came from. When leaders tacitly claim authorship of ideas they take recognition away from the author of the idea. Most will not do this consciously and will follow an instinct born from having to justify themselves too much to others. Unfortunately, they will others will not share ideas as freely in future.
- A good leader communicated the origin of ideas in their teams and organization and makes them visible to others. By saying things like ‘Elsa’s idea on topic xy was essential to it’s success.’, ‘Toby’s contribution on topic yz was really helpful.’
Why should I explain that to you?
- This question not only signals that as a leader, you are not willing to explain something to a person who has asked you for help. It also implies on a more subtle level that you consider yourself more knowledgeable and intelligent than the person who has asked you for help and are not willing to share that position of power.
- As a good leader you realize that supporting your team and making sure all involved have understood the tasks at hand is part of your job. You take opportunities to clarify and develop your team members further, making sure that all involved are on the same page and understand complex topics.
I don’t want to go on too much, but…..
- And then you go on….. for a lot longer than is usually needed and taking up a lot of the air in the room. For what is, in the end, usually a very small benefit for the team. Leaders, through their position, often have a habit of communicating a lot. Most leaders are not in the habit of others stopping them when they digress far beyond the topic at hand. That compounds the effects of unproductive and ineffective meeting culture.
- A good leader knows what is worth sharing and shares this so others can understand and follow, in a directed, concise way. If they do happen to digress, others are allowed to “reign them in”.
If you have caught yourself using these phrases: welcome to the human race. We live in a patriarchal society that values power highly. That encourages people to communicate in ways that elevate themselves above others. As your business coach, I can help you find alternative phrases for your daily leadership routines. And help you make sure you get in a habit of using them.
What else can you do to support good meeting culture?
- make sure everyone is heard. Pay attention to who speaks and who does not, and use
- questions,
- going round the table (if virtual or not),
- brain storming, etc… as ways to get input from everyone, even the meeting participants who are normally more quiet.
- establish a quick check-in at the beginning of meetings in order to allow everyone to physically and mentally arrive.
- communicate a clear meeting goal.
- invite only those participants who are needed to contribute in this meeting and use meeting notes to keep those who are not present informed.
These are small measures that “merely” require practice and trying out. I write “merely” in quotes, as it isn’t always straight forward to change habits and behaviours. I can support you in this as your business coach. In finding a new way of doing things that fits for you. As well as making sure you get into enough of a habit of using these new methods to be able to implement them in your daily work routine.
