{"id":2447,"date":"2011-11-28T08:30:52","date_gmt":"2011-11-28T07:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2447"},"modified":"2011-11-28T08:30:52","modified_gmt":"2011-11-28T07:30:52","slug":"how-change-world-by-changing-meetings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/2011\/11\/how-change-world-by-changing-meetings\/","title":{"rendered":"How to change the world by changing meetings!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many thanks to Graham Allcott for this guest article. \u00a0Graham is a social entrepreneur, fellow-Brightonian and founder of Think Productive.\u00a0 His career has included running a charity, advising the government on youth and volunteering policy, setting up two international development charities and lots of other things in his attempt to change the world.\u00a0 If you\u2019re looking for meetings facilitation training<\/a>, then their \u2018Making Meetings Magic\u2019 offering is well worth a look.<\/em><\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve been hugely privileged to work alongside some people who are serious about their meetings.\u00a0 I first met Martin Farrell in\"\"<\/a> 2003 at a conference and we struck up an immediate rapport: I was the young voluntary sector worker on a mission to change the world, and Martin was the middle aged guy who seemed even more hungry than me to change the world.\u00a0 By complete coincidence, a year or so later I got a job running a charity called Student Volunteering England and found out that Martin was one of the trustees.<\/p>\n

I later learned that Martin\u2019s job was as a facilitator.\u00a0 He ran a facilitation company called get2thepoint, and worked with groups large and small to do what appeared to me to be pretty magical: he\u2019d help a group of people in a muddle to solve a problem or harness considerable enthusiasm to get to maximum results in a short time.\u00a0 Martin had learned his trade from people like Lois Graessle, co-author of \u2018Meeting Together\u2019 and was coached by Nancy Kline, author of one of my favourite books, \u2018Time to Think\u2019.<\/p>\n

The truth is, as Martin told me years later, there\u2019s no magic to what he does.\u00a0 But by practising some specific approaches and learning the art of proactive, determined listening, it appears as such.\u00a0 It\u2019s the real tragedy of the modern working environment: meetings SHOULD be wonderful opportunities to change the world.\u00a0 It\u2019s just often we fail to plan them, we fail to listen during them, we fail to act after them.<\/p>\n

So, what can we do to change this?\u00a0 Here are a few ideas.<\/p>\n

Introduce Scarcity… <\/strong><\/p>\n

Meetings seem to the organiser like a \u201cfree\u201d activity, whereas in reality, meetings are one of the costliest business activities there are. They not only cost our organisations money, but they rob us of our attention. I recommend introducing the concept of scarcity to your team when it comes to planning meetings.\u00a0 Does everyone you\u2019re inviting need to be there?\u00a0 Who are \u2018nice to haves\u2019?\u00a0 Who are, frankly, completely expendable?\u00a0 You can use a tool like this to get the message across in a fun way!<\/p>\n

http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2010\/04\/23\/time-is-money-a-review-of-the-meeting-cost-calculator-and-clock\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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…and Skip Meetings!<\/strong><\/p>\n

For those people in your teams who just can\u2019t resist block-booking meetings, you need a more stealth-like approach.\u00a0 Tim Ferriss has a great take on this in his book \u201cThe 4- Hour Work Week\u201d where he suggests a range of cheeky tactics to avoid meetings. He suggests doing everything possible to skip those two hour update meetings and simply read the minutes or catch a quick update from a colleague. Cheating is OK! Tim\u2019s general approach to productivity is pretty ruthless and not for everyone, but here he is talking about the book.<\/a><\/p>\n

Purpose<\/strong><\/p>\n

Think about the last few meetings you attended. At each of those meetings, do you remember the chair reminding people of the purpose of the meeting at the very beginning and revisiting that purpose at the end? Probably not! Purpose is critical, and meetings (usually) need leadership, so don\u2019t be afraid to be the one clarifying the purpose beforehand or drawing people back to it as the meeting goes on.<\/p>\n

Huddle<\/strong><\/p>\n

Two hour update meetings are long, boring and inefficient, whereas if you break that same update communication into a structured 15 minutes a day, you\u2019ll actually start to see amazing results from relentless alignment to the key numbers and key questions in your team or in your company. At Think Productive, we developed a daily huddle based on the principles from Verne Harnish\u2019s excellent book \u201cMastering the Rockerfeller Habits\u201d. Here\u2019s me explaining more.<\/a><\/p>\n

Being prepared<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re the one running a meeting, you need to ensure you\u2019ve covered all the bases.\u00a0 Now I implement many of the ideas that Martin has taught me over the years.\u00a0 He\u2019s also Think Productive\u2019s \u2018meetings magician\u2019 when he isn\u2019t running meetings with the UN Climate Change Secretariat, the Cabinet Office and a range of international organisations. Here he is talking about his 5P\u2019s+1 framework<\/a>, which helps keep everything on track.<\/p>\n

Follow through!<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re running a meeting, try to focus your time and energy using the 40-20-40 approach: spend 40% of your focus on the preparation, 20% on the session itself and 40% on productive follow-through, holding people to account and ensuring that agreements are kept-to. We usually focus most of our energy on the meeting itself, and miss the two most important stages. The 40-20-40 approach is from the aforementioned book, Meeting together.<\/a><\/p>\n

So next time you\u2019re either sat in a boring meeting or invited to one, don\u2019t sigh out of frustration.\u00a0 Realise each and every meeting is an opportunity to change the world.\u00a0 And also realise that if you don\u2019t make it so, there\u2019s a good chance no one else will either.\u00a0 It\u2019s time to be the change!<\/p>\n

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