How to Conduct Effective Meetings?

Here is a simple strategy of 3 simple steps and 3 simple questions to start with:

1. Know the Purpose (Why?)
2. Co-Create the meeting along with the participants (How?)
3. Play, Embrace and Open Up for whatever is coming up and ALLOW yourselves NOT TO KNOW. In other words – stay hungry, curious and naive (What?)

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But Hey, What’s Wrong with Our Business Meetings?

These past few weeks I've had the opportunity to gather lots of food for thought on the topic of “effective meetings”. Essentially, I've been exploring what makes business meetings so ineffective and what – if changed – could help businesses boost up the results of the meetings and spend their time more wisely. If only they wished for it. 

Let's start... with the 3 main reasons why business meetings happen to be so ineffective:

• Participants are not aligned or clear about the purpose of the meeting – and they are barely aware of the answer to the question: “What am I doing here?” Now consider this – if you don’t feel quite at place, or if you feel your time is being wasted, how can you contribute to a meeting? Because in the end of the day, your time is your responsibility, right? And it is entirely up to you how you are going to use it! Ding dong, a cute reminder, right?

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• Participants are not included in the decision-making process – instead they are rather being told what to do or simply used as a resource to answer questions and speak up, and that is if and only when being asked to. So, not only are you unaware of the purpose of the meeting, and no-one even bothers to fill you in, but you also feel 'used' for you-don't-know-what-exact reason. In the course of the meeting you might eventually get to realize what it is all about, yet the bitter taste of your being used does not vanish quickly afterwards…

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• The initiator of the meeting or the participants usually want to fast forward to the outcome or the decision – without spending enough time to open up for the process and let other possible answers emerge. Here’s where Einstein’s famous quote applies just beautifully – if you’re trying to solve a problem using the same way of thinking – you could only get exactly where you were when you started off. It’s simple – jumping off to solutions won’t get you further!

So How to Create Effective Meetings?

Know the Purpose (Why?)

• Be clear about why you are having this meeting and make sure everyone else is aware
  
• Start with the end in mind – clarify and be specific about what you all like to have achieved at the end of the meeting as a group and individually. Yet leave space for and embrace anything that comes up along the way.
  
• Aim at something simple at the end of the meeting – do not overrun yourselves by going up for a marathon if you’d only need a 100-m sprint. Maybe you don’t need to get out with a whole plan for just an hour of a meeting. Maybe it would still be enough to have clarity around what you want to achieve and have someone get inspired about leading the project and creating that very plan along the way?

Some Questions to support you:
(before the meeting ask yourself) Why are we meeting? / Why am I conducting this meeting? 
What do I, as Initiator, want to get out of it? Who do I need to invite for the meeting?
(at the meeting ask) Where do we want to get to as a group at the end of this meeting?
What specifically are we aiming for till the end of our time together?
What is everyone’s intention for this meeting? How can each one of us contribute to the meeting? 
And what is everyone’s personal reason to choose to attend this meeting instead of being somewhere else?

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Co-Create the meeting along with the participants (How?)

• Have a common agenda and common agreements – make sure that everyone is looking at one and the same direction - both as to the "destination" and the "road" to it. Here are some agreements, that if honoured, give a lot of push for fruitful meetings: “go with open mind and open heart”, “experiment”, "nothing is right or wrong", “have fun!”
  
• Provide for space and stimulate creativity – open up with some kind of exercise that makes people go down from their “heads” and into their “bodies". No scientist has ever come up with their brilliant ideas, while thinking - they have done so while in the state of no-thinking. The state of FLOW. That is how the creative process works and we are all creative beings! Make use of this!
  
• Facilitate: ask more, instruct less – especially if you “need” the brains and creativity of the people in the room. Make them feel that, know that, acknowledge them for that! Ask them questions and be open to hear what they have to say. Be curious about them and appreciate everything they are offering to you and the group!

Some Questions to support you:
(before the meeting ask yourself) How do I engage everyone fully? 
What are some activities I can use to elevate the mood and make it a fun place to be?
What do I need to be/do/have in order to provide space for myself and to allow space for the others?
(at the meeting ask) What rules or agreements can we create now to support us in this meeting?
How can we make our time together truly useful and pleasant for everyone in this room?
What else do we need to be/do/have in order to make the best of our time together?
(throughout the meeting) Be curious about what everyone has to offer

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Play, Embrace and Open Up for whatever is coming up and ALLOW yourselves NOT TO know. In other words – stay hungry, curious and naïve (What?)

• Consider the creativity process is about Open-Explore-Close framework – first open up (both energetically and question-wise), then explore the possibilities and opportunities, and only then close by choosing what specific steps you would take forth. See also this - Gamestorming
  
• Allow yourselves NOT TO KNOW – give yourself the gift of not knowing! This gives so much space and provides for curiosity and openness in the process of exploring the possibilities. And it pays off hugely!
  
• Be here and now! – Forget about what did not work the last time or 10 years ago! The only time you are creating something is right now! Not tomorrow, not yesterday, not even a second ago! The Time is NOW! So stay tuned with whatever is relevant right now! Just be in the process.

Some Questions to support you:
(before the meeting ask yourself) What do I need to believe so that I can open up fully during this meeting? What do I need to believe so I can allow myself to NOT KNOW?
What supports me in being curious? When was the last time I was being curious? And what were the circumstances around it?
(at the meeting ask) What do we all need to believe, so that we open up, embrace all that's coming up and play throughout the meeting?

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Last But Definitely Not Least, HAVE FUN! 

And for God’s sake, stop taking yourselves seriously!  ~  If play is out of the game, make sure you bring it back! 
Remember, it’s all about perspective and perception. And about how we use every moment of every second, of every minute of our life! So better make it worth while!

Happy Meetings! :-)