Are we just having too many meetings?

Sometimes, but volume is usually the symptom. Meetings multiply when they don't finish anything — an unresolved decision has to be scheduled again. Fix how a handful of meetings reach decisions and the number of meetings tends to drop on its own.

Would a stricter agenda fix it?

Only partly. An agenda lists topics; it rarely says what has to be decided or how the room will get there. Replace each agenda line with a decision and a method — who gives input, in what order, and how it closes — and the same agenda starts working.

Why do people agree in the room and then not act?

Usually because they never actually agreed. Nobody objected, which isn't the same thing, and no owner or date was named. If you can't point to a written line that says who does what by when, the meeting produced a conversation, not a commitment.

Do we need an external facilitator for regular meetings?

Not usually, and it isn't the first thing to try. It's worth it when the person who would chair is also a stakeholder in the outcome, when the same decision has been deferred repeatedly, or when the dynamic in the room is changing what people are willing to say.

Resource — meetings

WHY YOUR MEETINGS GO NOWHERE

Meetings go nowhere because of process, not content. No decision was ever named, nobody owns how the conversation runs, the real disagreement stays unsaid, and nothing gets written down while the room is still there. Five causes, and what each one looks like when you fix it.

The five causes

WHY UNPRODUCTIVE MEETINGS STAY UNPRODUCTIVE.

Every one of these is a process failure. That matters, because process is the part you can change without changing the people, the subject or the calendar.

NO DECISION WAS EVER NAMED

Most stalled meetings have a topic instead of a decision. "Discuss Q3 priorities" can be talked about forever and can never be finished. If nobody can say in one sentence what will be true at the end that isn't true now, the meeting has no way of ending — so it ends when the clock runs out and gets scheduled again.

NOBODY OWNS THE PROCESS

In most meetings everyone in the room owns content and nobody owns process. Someone has to decide what question is on the table right now, cut off the tangent, notice who hasn't spoken and call the moment where a decision is made. When the chair also holds a stake in the outcome, they can't do that job and argue their case at the same time.

THE REAL DISAGREEMENT NEVER SURFACES

Rooms are polite. Objections get parked, softened or raised afterwards in smaller conversations. A meeting can look like agreement and produce nothing, because the thing people actually disagreed about was never said out loud. Silence is not consent — it's usually cost-benefit.

DISCUSSION HAS NO SHAPE

Good meetings separate the modes: information, then options, then a decision. When those run at once, someone is arguing an option while someone else is still asking for context, and the conversation loops. The loop is the symptom people notice; the mixed modes are the cause.

NOTHING IS CAPTURED IN THE ROOM

If the decision, the owner and the date aren't written down while everyone is still present, you don't have a decision — you have a shared impression of one. Two people leave with different versions and the next meeting starts by relitigating it.

Shane McGrath working through a response framework in a live session — Live from a session

What to change

FOUR CHANGES THAT SHOW UP IN THE NEXT MEETING.

Write the decision, not the topic

Turn every agenda line into a sentence starting "we will decide". Anything that can't be written that way is information — send it beforehand and take it off the agenda.

Give the process to one person

Name who is running the meeting as distinct from who has a view. If that's the same person, say it out loud and let them step out of the process role when they argue.

Go looking for the objection

Ask directly for the case against before you close. Written input for sixty seconds, then round the room, gets more of the real disagreement out than open discussion does.

Close on the record

Before anyone leaves, read back the decision, the owner and the date. If it can't be read back, it hasn't been made — say so and book the shorter meeting that will make it.

Questions

COMMON QUESTIONS.

Keep reading

STILL THE SAME MEETING EVERY MONTH?

If the decision keeps getting deferred, the fix usually isn't another agenda. Tell me what's on the table and I'll tell you how I'd run it.

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