The Dos and Don'ts of meetings
We drown in meetings. When the end of humanity comes, it will probably happen in a meeting. We humans are creatures that thrive through communication and collaboration, and meeting can - at least in theory - be prime places to identify goals, clear obstacles, and energise a team towards a joint goal. Instead, however, many of us cement ourselves into an endless track of useless meetings that are dull, aimless and numbing. Here, I will outline my perception why it came to this, and propose my attempts how to make it out of this conundrum.
10 reasons why our meetings fail
1) Meetings without an agenda or established norms. Meetings should either have a clear agenda or follow an established norm. Ideally, the agenda is either sent around before, or there is a central repository that contains the items to be discussed. Ideally, an agenda needs to be shared early enough to allow for a proper preparation. Within my role as a dean we established as a team a central document where everybody can add agenda items. This is to me really helpful as it is both empowering and also helps participants to prepare themselves for the meeting. More often than not, items can already be cleared beforehand, and an agenda helps structure a meeting. Fist, the group focuses on items that are relevant for everybody, and then make a smaller circle focusing on a subset of items. In an ideal world, each item should be solved in the end, and it should be clear from the beginning to everybody how this will be achieved.
2) Unprepared Meetings. Unprepared meetings are not only due to a lack of an agenda, but also because participants did not clarify their role and manage their own expectations. If I decide to join a meeting I would ideally want to either trust the person leading the meeting, or alternatively prepare my own agenda. The latter is a strategy with which I actually made some good experience in the past. Writing your own agenda if an actual agenda is missing is a good move to ultimately turn a dull meeting into something that at least contributes to your own goals or to the parts of the institution you represent. I have great admiration for some specific colleagues who prepare diligently for meetings, which can make even the most minor or junior role a raving success.
3) Wrong composition of people. Any given meeting will gain its dynamics out of the composition of participants. To me, the composition of team members in a meeting is so relevant since group identity is built over time. Resilience is built out of diversity, and it is quite important to enable people to have their say in a given meeting. Though some people are missing at some times - or may have colliding obligations - I came to the conclusion that in the long run, those people participating in meetings are the ones who build and propel the team spirit further.
4) Lack of facilitation. Facilitation can be defined as a designed support structure by one or several people to foster constructive integration within a specific setting. Facilitation is currently somewhat of a holy grail in academia and beyond, and rightly so, as we were widely missing out on this dimension beforehand. Facilitation done right can be a form of art, and facilitation can be prove that a path can surely be more important than the actual goals. One could write a whole book on all aspects of facilitation, yet since it is experience based, the most important advice is to encourage people to try it out for themselves. While some are clearly naturals, other may struggle. Still, gathering this initial experience can help everybody understand the struggles and challenges of the role of a facilitator.
6) Lack of balance. Lack of balance can manifest in many ways within meetings. Often, one or few people totally dominate a meeting. This can be ok if the goals are still achieved, and other participants do not feel disempowered. In my experience, it can however be quite a negative experience if a substantial amount of talking time is monopolised by one person. While this can be an indicator of some underlying problems in the team, it makes the meeting often a frustrating experience. Like commitment and facilitation, this is something where you need to build an identity as a group and openly reflect upon such a disbalance with the respective person afterwards. Another disbalance can be created if one agenda item dominates the meeting, which is often in coherence with one person dominating the scene. To this end, it is most important to highlight when you are not gaining some ground on the respective item, or you start going in circles. While this is a matter of experience and diplomacy, in my perception it is often these situations where you end to step in and suggest to have another - maybe smaller - meeting later to focus on the respective issue. Time in a meeting is shared time, and this should take the interests of all people present into account.
7) Meetings are not work sessions. Lack of balance links to a common mistake we all face: when a meeting becomes a brainstorming session. This can be ok if a meeting is designated as such, yet more often than not it defeats the purpose of a meeting, and throws the time off balance, and creates an setting that is focused on few people. Brainstorming sessions are already hardly good in a large group and with a generous time budget, but many meetings are even larger, and have limited time available. This makes leadership and facilitation a core challenge. It should be already clarified before the meeting how the meeting will go down, or this can be manifested with a good code of conduct within a team. If it is part of the norms of a group what such meetings are made for and what should be avoided, then you can really gain some ground.
8) Lack of a follow-up agenda. Having clear action items at the end is another often forgotten cornerstone of any successful meeting. While this demands commitment and team spirit, I made very positive experience in a less hierarchical setting, as people do not only feel empowered, but also want to show their worth, especially but not exclusively if you include early career students. Who will do what, and until when? While this seems trivial, it is often moving to the background, and people tend to leave meetings and never think about what was being said or discussed. The best meetings I was in were always the ones that made me think about the next steps, and others as well. A meeting is an exchange of a current status of a a group's thought process, yet time goes on, and so should our thinking. Importantly, complex challenges will evolve over time, and it may take some time to come to conclusions that then translate into the next step. Often, a single meeting is insufficient to make progress, and it takes several meetings to become something good. By showing investment inbetween meetings you may show the participants how valuable the meeting time is for you, and thus value the other people's time best.
9) Group identity voids. Building team spirit takes time. Put that in a fortune cookie! I remember how when I was young, I felt that these team meetings sometimes waste my time, yet people were patient with me, and in the midrun I learned that building a joint identity does not happen overnight. Especially the informal time spots before and after a meeting are the times that are most relevant. Being part of a larger institution with many diverse meetings can equally help you to establish your profile, and proves to other your value by contributing to the greater good. Not all meetings are sources of instant gratification, and we should always remember how the others feel. Within an ideal meeting, you become a mirror for the other people, and through your reflection they move the agenda forward together. In my experience, people understand your agenda and solutions best when they actually think they came up with them themselves.
10) Dare to differ. There are quite some established norms and procedures when it comes to meetings, yet it is not always the case that all these things were well planned and designed, but often such settings just kind of happened. While I would always advise you to basically say nothing in a setting where you are new - unless you are leading the meeting - after some sufficient amount of time, maybe some ten meetings, you may want to discuss ideas to improve the setting if need be. Typically you should not raise this in the big group, but instead to the person that has the right ratio of open-mindedness and experience to consider your suggestion. If you are in the right group for you, things may change over time, yet never forget to be patient.
Personally, I believe that writing a code of conduct is the single most important step you may consider as a team to build a joint meeting culture. It is good to discuss these things within the group, agree on certain rules, certainly not too many, and then write these down. Nothing will bring you faster and more reliably to a good meeting culture. Always start with why you have the meeting, who is present, and what potential outcomes or goals are. I have one colleague who I greatly admire who starts every meeting like this, guides you gently but diligently through the meeting, and ultimately summarises all conclusions and next steps at the end, and sends you an e-mail about it as a last step. What a difference it would make if we would all find the strengths and stamina to do this!
Not all meetings are equal
Another core point worthwhile considering is the different types of meetings we have at our disposal. Most meetings are a handful or more of people, and these should have clear guidance structures, an unbiased facilitation, and a good time management. However, there are other types of exchanges that we should check out in order to differentiate from such ordinary meetings
1) Meetings with two people This setting is the most intense, personal, and focused type of meeting. It also has a great flexibility, which makes it tempting to get distracted, but can also be great to create a joint identity. Being a mentor, it can be great to structure your thoughts beforehand, and to identify tangible goals that you want to reach. Two-person meetings without a goal can often be a pain, and I am often very insistent towards myself to derive goals in such personal settings, if only for myself. Yet we also have to acknowledge that just like any other meeting, such exchanges may build over a longer timeline. Having regular meetings i.e, with PhD students can be a beacon of hope, and are often the most fun. Since such settings are deeply personal, as a mentor I feel you need to adapt to each and every single person. Still, honesty goes a long way. Pushing people out of their comfort zone can be hard, but necessary if you are thriving towards a continuous development. I am often taking notes afterwards, yet try not to come to obviously back to prevoious points in a follow up meeting. Another key point is that within such meeting you may want to focus your attention without any compromises, yet be also clear when it comes to expectations and the time frame. If someone goes into such a meeting with a challenged mindset, you may not shift that within one hour, but it can be good to make that visible, and reflect about it. Things take time.
2) Brain storming sessions are an altogether different beast. Here, the timeframe should be more or less long, and you will not necessarily reach tangible goals, but only start to develop ideas and a follow-up structure. Different people act in different ways in such settings, thus adapting speed and making sure that the individual gains are shared is essential. More often than not I get so carried away in such a process that I need to remind myself to regularly check if the other people are still with me. Similarly is it important to clearly indicate if your are lost, or feel disconnected. Brainstorming sessions are about trust and joint identity. A whiteboard is often the key tool, or maybe working in a shared document. I spent a lot of trial and error until I got my brainstorming session to work best for me, and this seems to be a reoccurring challenge among many people. Building experience to this end demands patience.
3) Emergency calls can be a lifeline when people are at their wits' end. Within a team, establishing such safety nets that help people that are stuck in their mind can most rewarding, as it catches people when they are most desperate. Asking for help is - sadly - still difficult in our society, yet all the while so important. Often, it already helps to just get it all out to clarify your thought process. Within such situations, a healthy peer-network can be a lifesaver, and often builds on informal structures. Within a team, great care should be thus taken to leave no one behind, and to consciously seek out whether people are stuck or shifting into crisis. Remember that any team is only as strong as its weakest link.
4) The last meeting type are informal meetings. The corona crisis exemplified how much we miss the casual exchange in the hall or at a coffee place, often without any goal whatsoever, where suddenly ideas begin to develop. Our team has informal games nights that are often gold for the team spirit at least for some people, and a recent barbecue after a long corona hiatus showed how much a joint evening can do for the team. If there is one part where we still have to learn the most, it is tacit knowledge. There are all sorts of informal meetings, and these are at the heart of institutional knowledge. I consider informal meetings to be most relevant of all, often the most fun, yet hardest to tame and just get right. We all know how it is to be in an informal meeting where do not want to be. Honesty and clear communication goes a long way to this end.
I recognise within our team a great effort to make meetings worth our while. We often differentiate in our meetings how we worked regarding research, teaching and management. These are the three elements that allow us to have a more clear structure in our meetings. Also, I recognise that we have a strong set of norms where new people that join the team are introduced to. Over the last years, a lot of informal knowledge and experience accumulated, which made the meetings continuously better. We have weekly team meetings, project meetings, smaller meetings, informal exchanges, meetings with individual PhDs or Postdocs, mentoring sessions, writing day meetings, and so much more.
I believe that what defines us humans the most is our interconnectedness, and how we want to explore this. The 21st century will be most focused on making a difference to this end, and I look forward to a future where the connections between us will be way more important than the differences that define our individual identities. I invite you to reconsider the way you meet people, and to try out new ways to facilitate meetings. I hope in a not too far future we will all be more versatile to this end, at least this is what I am thriving for. --- The author of this entry is Henrik von Wehrden.
