The higher up the food chain you and your peers are, the more expensive your meetings. AND the higher your hurdle rate should be for the value that the time you send in meetings produces. Regular ground rules are not enough to help you ensure that this precious time is spent wisely. To that end, I created a suped-up set of meeting ground rules just for you! Let me know what you think.
X-Factor Meeting Ground Rules
Participation is not an option, nor is it an invitation to grandstand or over-participate. Everyone is expected to participate in team discussions in ways that moves conversation forward. Each person is also expected to help bring out the best thinking in others. If participation is not strong and focused, it is a team failure.
Share relevant information in ways that will be heard and understood. Your candor about concerns, worries, reservations, and ideas is important and required, but say things concisely and clearly.
Discuss and agree on communication plans. Your meeting outcomes can be of value only when others in the organization understand how decisions and strategies impact them and your expectations for next steps and measure for success. Each issue resolved in a team meeting should have corresponding agreements about how and when the information will be communicated and managed.
Meetings are where leadership and management occur and are the primary tool the team has for creating common understanding and leading the organization forward. The effectiveness of meetings, therefore, is of paramount importance to all team members and this shows in how you model meeting and teaming skills.
Don’t tolerate low-value added conversations. If you do not see the worth or value of a leadership team meeting discussion, it is your responsibility to address this concern with the group. It is not acceptable to become distracted or disconnected from a conversation – be proactive in fixing the situation.
Time is precious and expensive – don’t waste yours or your peers. Every moment that the team is waiting for late attendees represents dollars wasted. Get the meeting started on time regardless of who is missing or disband and reschedule the meeting if a quorum is not present. Late or absent participants are expected to support and represent the decisions made by the quorum.
Meeting agenda items and goals should have the potential for meeting or exceeding the Value of Meetings Hurdle rate. Other agenda items should be handled in more economical methods, delegated, or eliminated.
Every meeting will have mandatory pre-work and preparation. The time a leadership team spends together will be of greater value when all team members take sufficient time to prepare. Meeting leaders or designates should define the pre-work and preparation that will best enhance meeting discussions and desired outcomes.
Focus on the quality of conversations. While every meeting has a desired focus and goals, the quality of the dialogue (which leads to better thinking, actions, and results) is most important. This may mean that some discussions will take longer than expected and others can be quickly concluded.
Preparing for meetings and completing assigned action items is a core function of each leader’s job. A failure to meet these requirements will constitute a performance issue and could result in career consequences. The cost of meetings requires a high level of results orientation.
Meeting outcomes shall be communicated in one consistent voice. It is not acceptable for leaders to share the nature of disagreements discussed in meetings and it is never OK to bad mouth peers. It is the team’s responsibility to represent each other well at all times, because a division at the top becomes a gorge of dysfunction at lower levels in the organization.
Demonstrate respect, trust, and care for each other, even when discussing diverse ideas. Strained or unproductive relationships wreck the quality of thinking, actions, and results. Leaders are expected to work well with all team members and not let differences in style clash and get in the way of the team’s results.
Bring your best energy and passion to each meeting. An energized and engaged leadership team will imbue the entire organization with a high-velocity vibe that will impact how everyone approaches their work. Be the culture and disposition you hope to see at lower levels of the organization.
Be and model agility and good change leadership. Your organization’s capacity for change begins with how their leaders lead, communicate, and manage change. Your leadership team will be making decisions that create change, and it is important that your meeting discussions demonstrate agility and best practices for how to implement changes. Be cognizant of the “marathon effect,” and that you are farther along in understanding and accepting changes than the folks who you will rely on to make changes the new norm.
