As a manager, what drives you the most crazy about running a meeting?

Trying to take decision at meeting ! ! !,,,

Meeting should be designed to ratify decision, with this objective in mind,everyone looks forward to it.

A meeting that does not have a framework for why it is being held or a goal to be achieved and a timeframe for its beginning and end drives me absolutely crazy and it's disrespectful to the invitee's. Again the 6 W's; What, When, Why, Where, Who, and How is missing, No thought process, thereby gaining the company more disengaged employees. We demand more but waste their time instead of finding ways to give them more time and efficiency of process.

My meetings never lasted more than a minute times how many participants (15 X 1minute = 15 minutes)plus any information/updates/need to know's we had to deliver and these had a 3-minute limit; we discussed three things as based on Franklin Covey's Execution Discipline;

1. The goals (in their areas of responsibility)
2. Did they achieve what they said they would do? (from last meeting)
3. What are they going to do over the next week?

The meeting began on time...Tardiness was not tolerated,the door was locked at start time...the meeting ended on time. Notes were taken for folks who were on vacation, out sick, or were tardy ( :
And "crucial conversations" were had with the tardy folks...

In my areas, Productivity increased more than 50%, Respect immediated improved and Accountability, Efficiency and Timliness went through the roof.

Although I am an entrepreneur today...I still run meetings this way and get accolades from my team, collaborators and colleague about the effectiveness of my meetings.

I'm surprised that nobody has yet mentioned...
"The number of meetings"

Using meetings as the primary work unit devalues meetings... encouraging the behaviors mentioned. (late, inattentive, dishonoring, lack of prep, etc)

We need a new cultural movement to reduce the number of meetings along with a reduction in length, and number of invitees.

Leave folks time to do work... and to prep well for those few important meetings. Make it unacceptable to be late or unprepared... as the host or as the attendee. Provide a post meeting survey that rates the meeting on 2 factors... 1. was it really needed? 2. was it really excellent?

When the meeting goes off on a tangent...so does anyone know of any Italian restaurants in Atlanta?

1. Going beyond the agenda
2. Bringing up personal concerns
3. Not respecting others' time by going beyond the schedule

Regards,
Sudeep

Thanks, Sudeep!

People being late and not let me know
Unprepared people even through an agenda and actions items are sent early

Michael,
Thanks for your reply. I'm wondering...as a manger, do you ever confront those who aren't prepared? What are their excuses, I'm wondering?
Anita

we have say here in our offices that goes "the absent are always wrong", which means that if they're late, they will have to catch the train running, if they don't show up, decisions will be taken without them, and they are not prepared, too bad the train will keep running and they will have to put - outside the meeting to avoid wasting people's time- extra effort to catch up with the relevant people. Hard but effective.

I do not confront them in the meeting -- That would waste more time and does not look good for them or me. I speak personally and off line and the excuses are what you may think -- No time, some one else's fault, etc. - few take responsibility. But again, the have been a few with valid excuses (sick for a week, death in the family, Their boss dropped a big project on them at the last moment). But an email alerting me that he/she is not ready is a courtesy I appreciate but rarely received.

That is in a business environment, I do a lot of volunteer work and you just have to nicely explain and live with it if you want to keep volunteers.

Seinfeld meetings, aka as meetings about nothing.

This could be as simple as no one coming prepared to discuss to topic(s) at hand to interruptions of the meeting by cell phones, intrusions by other employees etc.

Every interruption stops or slows down the meeting, late attendees miss crucial opening remarks, etc.

Thanks, John. I'm familiar with "Making Meetings Work" ...helpful in putting together my story.

Anita -- I'd love to read your piece when it is published. Can you give me a "heads-up" when it is out?

Thanks, John

It is no good blaming the subject matter, audience, timing or location. You are the manager and you are responsible for delivering an informative, inclusive, lively and relevant meeting. If people turn up late, do not get engaged, argue or misbehave it is most likely due to some failure on your part. I would encourage the manager to be brave and ask his audience how could the next meeting be improved.

Alan,
I like the idea of feedback. How would he/she do that? Through an anonymous survey? Or, do you think people would be honest with the manager to his/her face?

It very much depends upon the relationship. If there is mutual respect and no fear maybe this can be achieved through open discussion.

If we are not at this happy state I would recommend an anonymous forced score survey with the manager presenting the summary to the team for discussion. I would only recommend this if there was no danger of defensiveness or attack.

Much like any relationship you have to start somewhere and positive dialogue must be included.

If I were the manager I would do two things before creating the anonymous survey. First, I would talk to my HR about the questions I should ask and second, I would ask HR if there was an internal benchmark meeting that I could sit in on and observe the process.

Again, all good relationships need the help of a positive third party occasionally.

I hope this is helpful.

Answering mobile phone.

I endorse John Anderson, we used to follow some of these points in one of my earlier organizations, only difference was we used to start with review & action accomplished of last meeting. During last and meeting immediately thereafter a time keeper used to monitor actions required to be taken before next meeting. This way we used to save lot of time in subsequent meeting. Besides I would like to add, fix the meeting only when it's required if an agenda can be achieved by con call or VC better it's. It saves lot of time. Basic point to be remembered for any meeting be it VC, con call of F2F meeting, it should be controlled by the chairperson and for that he/she has to be strict & disciplined person.

When the purpose of the meeting isn't clear, then it is very easy to be derailed. Not all meetings are decision making meetings. Perhaps you need to build commitment towards a course of action.

Many meetings are merely update meetings and with a system for sharing info means a meeting could be devoted to discussion on areas of complexity or problem solving.

If efficiency is more important than effectiveness, then don't call a meeting. Rushed meetings where meaning is ill defined or pre determined outcomes are rubber stamped would best be handled using another approach.

Regards, Judi

Judi,
Thanks...those are great tips!
Anita

when people come late and not follow the agenda. Also people who love to over-democratize the meeting.

NO SEATS....

Have an Agenda and stick to it. I have been running meetings for the past 15 years and they seem to always cativate the audience.

Meeting Frustrations -- People not being prepared for the meeting and creating distrations such as coming in late, consistent checking/answering emaills and side conversations.

All of this can be overcome by: sending agendas in advance, sticking to the agendas (so people can be prepared), setting and keeping meetings to 23 minutes or less (minds tend to wander at this point), asking open ended questions to create input/ownership of meeting, and finally (but most importantly), create at least one action item that you leave with (normally something that is very simple and can be accomplished quicky) and execute on that action task promptly to show people that the meeting meant something.

I agree with everyone who has posted so far. The main goal should be to have a set agenda before the meeting starts, with each person attending being made aware of that agenda.

But another problem that I've run into is, that I find myself ruining the meeting by allowing myself to get off-topic. So not only try and keep your attendees focused, mind what coming out of your own mouth.

Hi Anita, good luck with your story. I have to say that most of the above are common issues around holding meetings, as a manager. My pet hate is attendees turning up late and when they feel like turning up.Usually these are other managers, who feel a lack of importance around the meeting.
I think Tonya has addressed some great points above,i.e.
- Lock the door on commencing the meeting
- Keeping the meeting short and to the point
- Addressing the key agenda items
- Setting goals
I think to run an effective meeting, a manager needs to make clear of the importance of holding the meeting. Inviting each attendee and setting a clear acceptance date, i.e. 'Please confirm your attendance by the .....
During the meeting, it is important ther is a a note taker, separate to the person running the meeting and that these notees are collated and fed back to the attendees as quickly as possible after the meeting, with actions followed up at the beginning of the next meeting.
All excellent points above. Thanks Anita for raising this topic.

People not coming prepared for the meeting.

When a couple of attendees decide to hold a sidebar conversation.

1. They are not paying attention or contributing to what is currently being discussed and..
2. If it is important enough to discuss then share it with the group, we all might benefit from the conversation.

Lynn

How meetings are run and what's acceptable has a large cultural piece. If some people play by the rules and others don't, overall improvement in making meetings productive is nearly impossible.

Topics I am currently covering in "Making Meetings Matter" workshop with ~ 100 employees, held in groups of

Coming to a meeting, announced in advance, totally unprepared. (and it is noted on their performance review).

enage the participants in to the meeting with various techniques. One such technique is mind manager software- real time recording of discussion items. It also gives out taks to indivduals for follow up. This helps focus everyone on producing great meeting results.

enage the participants in to the meeting with various techniques. One such technique is mind manager software- real time recording of discussion items. It also gives out taks to indivduals for follow up. This helps focus everyone on producing great meeting results.

Lots of good information in this stream, but I notice that much of it is "off topic." Many responses address how a meeting should be optimally managed by the manager but the question posed is from the manager's perspective. EHAT DRIVES YOU CRAZY ABOUT RUNNING A MEETING? Assuming best practices have been followed for planning, scheduling, running the meeting as cited in this stream what can still derail and be frustrating?

This is a much more challenging question to answer, because then most of the annoyances or distractions cited would not be an issue. So it should be stated specifically that the owner of the meeting must own the results. Attendees will very quickly adapt to the organization's "meeting culture" and be on time, prepared, action oriented if that is what is expected and modeled.

Shelly,
Guess this conversation has been run like a meeting at times...:)
You make an excellent observation that managers have to manage themselves in a meeting in order to make sure things don't go off topic. Thank you so much for your input.

Thanks to all of you who responded to this question. You can see some of the responses published here in my Intuit story: http://bit.ly/rdUGqf