How often do you start a meeting late waiting for just a few more people to arrive?
Do you have a set time to end the meeting, and you let it go over because someone brought up a totally unexpected issue?
Do you have a written agenda? Is the amount of time for each item given on the agenda?
Do you keep track of commitments from the meeting? Does each commitment have a due date and time?
Many leaders don’t feel comfortable demanding this level of accountability. When you think about it, we don’t do it because it takes more preparation on our part to prepare the agenda and to think about what we can reasonably accomplish in the meeting. Since we don’t tell people exactly what we plan to cover, they don’t prepare either. And, they can duck accountability since we didn’t tell them they would be expected to prepare for these items.
As Stephen Covey says in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People “Begin with the end in mind.”
People say they hate meetings – not these kinds of meetings. Your high performers will love this. They will help you enforce the rules. They will call out loose behavior by their peers.
Teach new managers how meetings are conducted in your company. Over time this becomes part of the culture. If you want more tips and techniques, read Death by Meeting by Patrick Lencioni. Go to Mike Scott’s website totallyaccountable.com and look at his tools.
Pick two new practices and try them out this week. Let me know what worked for you.
illustration courtesy of silentwatcher.co.uk