All of us have wanted to sneak silently out the back door of an unproductive meeting. These awkward and unproductive meetings are often the stage for our interpersonal or inter-departmental tensions and thus are the crucibles for improving these relationships. Here are a few tips and techniques that we believe can help you and your team hold better meetings and simultaneously increase your connection.
TRY THIS: Amazon founder Jeff Bazos always makes sure that his meetings follow the “2 Pizza Rule” – never have a meeting where two pizzas couldn’t feed the entire group. It works with the assumption that the more people who are in a meeting, the higher the risk for groupthink and poor individual contribution (“social loafing”).
TAKE A HALFTIME: The purpose of meetings is not to talk; the purpose of meetings is to arrive at ideas or solutions, but have you ever walked out of a meeting wondering how that solution was actually reached? What is often lacking in meetings is the actual space to thoughtfully synthesize the information that has been presented. Halfway through your next meeting, schedule in a two-minute break so that individuals can collect their thoughts and establish an informed point of view before moving toward a solution.
LEARN ABOUT THIS: Kevin O’Connor originally wrote about BPT (Brainstorming Priority Technique) in 2003, but the need for its implementation is being felt more than ever, as our abundance of data leads to endless ideas. Whether you love or loathe brainstorming meetings, BPT will draw out all possible answers, weed out any bad or unfeasible options, build consensus within your team and save time. To summarize:
- Figure out which team members should be involved — no more than 10.
- State the specific problem and allow everyone to shout out possible solutions without taking the time to analyze each option. Write down all the ideas for everyone to see.
- Now the hard part. Once you have 20 to 100 ideas, the BPT leaders should divide the number of possible solutions by three in less than ten minutes.
- Then the BPT leader should read each idea out loud, take a vote, and write the number of votes next to the corresponding ideas.
DOWNLOAD THIS: A new Bay Area startup called MeetingHero recently launched a web and mobile service that streamlines the way teams create and share agendas and meeting notes. As much research has noted, technology can actually shift human behavior, and we believe that a tool like this can reduce the friction that hinders meaningful boardroom conversations. This app and its email reminders help make sure your meetings have published agendas, are focused on substantive topics, and conclude with action items.
AND IF ALL ELSE FAILS: Just follow this post’s 10 Tricks to Appear Smart.