111–120 of 147 posts
>agenda I once worked at a company that had something like 3 to 5k employees. Everyone had to take an online class (about 8 hours) about effective meetings. Rule 1 was to have an agenda available in the meeting invite. I loved this, it made for FAR more productive meetings. Nobody at the company that I knew of outside myself and one other person had agendas available for our meetings, including leadership. I think se…
I'm the only person I know of who writes real agendas for meetings at my company (which is only about 120 people). It's clearly not caught on, but I do it anyway almost as a protest at this point.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m in a company of +6k. > Rule 1 was to have an agenda available in the meeting invite Same rule here, but enforced. We are allowed (and encouraged) to cancel or decline invitations without an agenda here. In my experience, it makes a big positive difference, when people have to justify why they need someone’s time and provide a rough frame for the discussion. Much more focused, much more efficient. Fewer meeting wh…
Yep. Right now I am living the opposite, consulting to a huge company where anyone can convene huge meetings with no agendas, especially if they are a compliance person, or product person. We have many, many meetings where many people have no idea what the meeting is about, or even worse they will talk about 3 or 4 different topics. They also practice what I call Rumor Driven Development. It is not fun.
In consulting you tend to encounter this a lot given that its the largest visible symptom of a lot of root problems such as: 1/ no owner 2/ unaligned priorities 3/ a lot of fear or lack of ownership mentality
Generally I push for an agenda and an owner of each topic (or all topics) and a recap, preferably in a transparent location like confluence. Given all the synthesis tools in the market, synthesis has gotten easier.
I also generally push to have leadership realize how costly each meeting is and encourage people to excuse themselves from meetings if they are not: owners, influencers, stakeholders.
The human brain hates meetings. It sees people. Tall, short, poorly dressed, overly dressed, it sees the sittings arrangements, someone with the arms crossed, someone is laughing, wait, are we here to talk about technical issues? They want answers now? Why now? Someone is not happy, why? Someone has a question, is Dan, probably something obvious.. That is not how the human brain works. To believe a creative mind is i…
Who is Dan?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m in a company of +6k. > Rule 1 was to have an agenda available in the meeting invite Same rule here, but enforced. We are allowed (and encouraged) to cancel or decline invitations without an agenda here. In my experience, it makes a big positive difference, when people have to justify why they need someone’s time and provide a rough frame for the discussion. Much more focused, much more efficient. Fewer meeting wh…
I get the "must have agenda" rule, and I'm all for enforcement of that rule, but how did they ensure that the agenda was contentful and meaningful? Not "(1) Convene and take roll, (2) Talk about projects, (3) Set do-outs." [or is it due-outs?]
If you have a poor agenda you look like a clown and people wont come.
That said, asserting that most meetings are either brainstorming or decision making, is naive. When an organization grows beyond ~100-150 people (Dumbar's Number) the org must metastasize into smaller, "self-contained", orgs that are far less than that number. Once this happens, there is need for meetings that drive accountability, closure, and alignment at scale. For example, monthly or quarterly business reviews.
These are NOT brainstorming meetings or decision-making meetings. They are meetings where leadership drives accountability and alignment by ensuring light is shined (in a way visible cross-org) on the right topics for the biz.
I think this misses the mark for why people join. We're talking about a professional setting here, I'm coming to your meeting because you invited me to join, not because of fear of missing out (on what?). All the points given in the article are good, but it misses the most important one: if you're hosting a meeting, only invite people who MUST [0] be there. If the meeting could still take place and be useful without…
No! Do the opposite of this.
I enjoy the meetings where I can listen in and learn something from others. There can be a lot of value in these meetings — and if truly not, it is easy to slink away.
It is the meetings where the organizer thinks I "must" be there that are always a waste of time. Never fails. Keep me off these invite lists. They are useless.
this feels like advice for the person running the meeting, not the one being dragged into it. I'm just picturing myself telling my boss "Sorry, this meeting doesn't have a clear goal, so I'm dropping off." Anyone actually have the guts to do this when you're not the senior person in the room?
this feels like advice for the person running the meeting, not the one being dragged into it. I'm just picturing myself telling my boss "Sorry, this meeting doesn't have a clear goal, so I'm dropping off." Anyone actually have the guts to do this when you're not the senior person in the room?
Can't speak for your boss, but I definitely am sometimes a few abstraction layers further up in concepts than the ICs on the team, and it's a lot more frustrating to realise the others don't really know what I'm getting at because I didn't create clear enough goals than getting that feedback right away. People in leadership usually get there because they value time and efficiency, and if you don't spin that as "your…
I understand why it may initially seem frustrating to realize that you are not offering value to the team, but us ICs are used to recognizing that and quickly cutting you out of the picture. It is no big deal in the grand scheme of things. Don't worry.
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It's a power play for sure for some managers. It's also a very strong tell of a bad manager / someone who absolutely has character flaws that should disqualify them from being in management.
Or more charitably, the manager had no idea and none of their reports had enough social skills to explain?
Leadership comes from the top. That’s what they’re paid for.
If there’s a culture of speaking up and nobody does, sure blame the underlings. But CREATING that culture is the responsibility of management.
Managers needs training, too, and I’m willing to give it if they’re willing to listen. I stick my neck out for really important or really offensive items, but it’s awkward when the culture isn’t there.