Note: This follows on from the post: Review your calendar for improved value (or “Finding low-profit meeting time")
Now, taking our analysis of recurring meetings from the last blog post, we can start to identify meetings we wish to address/attend differently in order to get more value from our effort. Or maybe we can change our effort but derive the same value; or even different and better value.
I can’t define hard and fast rules or specific actions that would work for everyone reading this. Instead, I have set out some examples to help get your thinking going. Read through the general drives and apply the same sort of thoughts to your meetings.
If you feel a sounding board would be useful during your exploration, feel free to reach out to me and we can explore how I can help with a few specific 1-to-1 sessions.
Review the meetings for action based on the effort vs. value measures
Medium / low input, medium / high benefit:
These are the sweet spot
Make sure your energy goes into participating in these well
Keep spending well-planned time and energy on the inputs, participation and any actions received
That said, it is worth looking for opportunities to be more efficient with the time you spend but getting the same value
Can you use the meeting time to also present ideas (maybe in any other business), develop better relationships, practicing speaking up more, offering to help others who have issues?
Medium / high input, medium benefit:
These are similar to those above
However, given the greater effort required to generate the input, you might consider the following…
Can you think of ways to increase the benefit, maybe not 'directly'?
Is there an opportunity for you to train/coach a colleague into taking over some or all of your role in the meeting, over a few sessions?
Low input, low benefit:
You might think “Why am I going to these? I’ll just get out of them.”
If there is nothing stopping you from using the time for something else more beneficial, then you could work out how you either excuse yourself or just stop going
However, there might be an approach that is more beneficial to you in the medium term for some of these meetings
Perhaps use these to practice an area of growth or get greater exposure in the firm; keep reading for some ideas
Low benefit meetings that are mandatory and/or attended by senior colleagues
Identify meetings that present you with opportunities other than just to ‘do what is expected of you' in your role
Mark up meetings where there are seniors present
Mark up those where you also know the benefits need to be greater
For these, consider ways you could increase the overall value of the meeting
The increased value to you is then being seen to improve the value of the meeting
Consider alternative approaches, rather than just “How do I get out of this meeting?”
It will be tempting, or easy, to dwell on how to 'get out of’ a given meeting.
I’d strongly encourage you to consider other approaches; by doing so, you may find greater value than just the time you get back from ‘avoiding’ a meeting.
For the low value and/or high effort meetings, think about:
Who runs the meeting and who are the other attendees?
How big is the meeting in terms of attendance?
What is the intended outcome; is that outcome valuable but just not being achieved?
How would you change the meeting to achieve the outcome?
Show leadership with "leading by example":
Exploring with attendees on how to make the meeting more valuable is an opportunity to show leadership and taking ownership
Demonstrating to your seniors how you transformed a meeting into a high-value use of time for all attendees can only be beneficial
Consider the following approaches:
If the meeting has a small number of attendees, is it worth finding out if they get value and discussing how it could be more valuable for you all
If it is a mandatory meeting consider checking in with the chair to understand the intent, discuss ways of how you could help to achieve that intent
Some low input, low-value meetings may provide non-obvious opportunities for value:
Consider using these to practice areas of growth or greater exposure in the firm
Actively identify meetings that present you with chances to practice some leadership growth skills: deep listening; summarising, asking open questions, mediation, driving to decisions or actions, etc…
Measuring yourself on success in the above ideas is an excellent way of repurposing the time to add extra value to the meeting – even if not immediately obvious to others, over time your growth through practice will come through
Link to steps towards leadership summarising in meetings co-ordinate decisions etc...
Exercise:
Mark each meeting the ease of increasing the value, or reducing the effort
Brainstorm the specific tasks or habits you will use to generate that change; this step needn't be 'perfect' - simply reflect on each meeting openly in your mind; taking notes if you like
Pick 1 or 2 meetings you have identified as could be improved; really try to focus on just 1 or 2 to start with
For each of the two meetings, write down specifically what the most important change needs to be; how you could spend less time, get more value or both
Write down 3-4 specific actions you will take to try and make the change happen
Try the actions and see how things change over a few weeks/meetings, reflect on how that goes
Over time pick the next 1 or 2 more meetings and repeat the bullets above
Good luck and I hope you can reduce your effort while also increasing the benefit of your meeting time bit by bit, over time.