Written By Curt Mills:

How to get Stuff Done and build a culture of Action!

Don’t even think about showing up to a meeting without a notepad, laptop, tablet or any other method for taking notes and recording “opportunities for accountability.” This sends the message that you’ve not prepared anything for the meeting, that you expect to learn nothing of value in the meeting, or that you don’t envision leaving the meeting with any actionable items.   Irresponsible, unprofessional, unacceptable.

From this introduction, you may have already guessed I’m just slightly passionate about meetings.  Meetings should have a purpose, meetings should have a plan, meetings should produce results, meetings should be a meaningful use of everyone’s time….EVERYONE’S time.   Strive to accomplish the “Four Ps” of meetings and you’ll be on track to see meeting results!

PLAN:

Thankfully, long gone are the days of placing calls to eight different individuals, checking schedules, and circling back multiple times just to get a meeting scheduled.  The software tools in the market, 20+ years or more in some cases, simplify all of that.  First determine the appropriate attendees for the meeting.  In most cases, only invite participants that are influencers and are needed to impact the outcome of the meeting.  If there are some team members that only need to be aware of the results of the meeting, then invite them as optional or don’t invite them at all.  Meeting minutes, outcomes, mandates, status, next steps, etc can all be shared with anyone after the meeting.  The duration of the meeting should only be long enough to accomplish the business at hand and limit sidebar discussions to keep everything on schedule.  Be aware of everyone’s time involvement and work to keep team members as productive as possible, whether it means attending or not attending your meeting.

PURPOSE:

There are always agendas for meetings…..ALWAYS.  These can be structured and formal, or more informal.  In addition to the typical meeting features like date, time, location, conference bridge, and attendees, the agenda should also indicate these items that may sometimes be overlooked.

Facilitator – Stating the facilitator will make it clear to everyone involved who owns and runs the meeting.  This person is ultimately responsible for ensuring all the people that need to be there have been invited and that the participants are engaged in meeting discussions.

Scribe – This is the notetaker and just stating the fact there is an assigned notetaker sends the message that serious business will be taking place during the meeting, so please attend and be prepared to… Get Work Done.

Objective – The meeting objective may exist as the agenda items themselves, or it may be a single brief sentence stating what the meeting is about.  If the meeting attendees are to review or prepare any materials in advance of the meeting, make them aware of that on the agenda and meeting invite.  If the objective of the meeting is to agree on a recommendation to the Board on the final purchase of the new inventory system, attendees should have reviewed and researched all materials in advance and come prepared to offer their opinion and personal recommendation.

Action Items – For long-term initiatives or projects that perhaps span months or years, there may be a benefit to storing Action Items in a separate Action Log or Decision Log.  This provides a one-stop-shop for the historical archive and retrieval of key actions.  For short-term initiatives or more informal committees, it makes sense to store the Action Items as part of the agenda and minutes.  The prior meetings assigned action items are the following meeting’s “what’s the status of these” action items.

PARTICIPATE:

Meeting participants are certainly not exempt from an accountability role in meetings.  If you’ve been invited to a meeting as a required participant, you’re expected to attend.  You’re deemed as someone that has valued insight that needs to contribute in the meeting, or someone that is privy to confidential information, or perhaps someone that is just there on a need-to-know basis, and you NEED-TO-KNOW.  If you can’t make the meeting, let the facilitator know.  If they confirm your criticality for the meeting, ask if you can send a proxy.  If that’s not an option, politely ask them to consider rescheduling the meeting.   If you’ve been provided materials in advance of the meeting and asked to review those, then read through the provided materials and come to the meeting prepared to discuss and provide your opinions and recommendations as relevant for the format of the meeting.  And finally, be punctual.  Sure, there will always be unavoidable situations that prevent someone from calling in on time or arriving at the meeting location on time, but those should be the exception.  Meetings are not the place to show up “fashionably late.”  Showing up late is not about you; showing up on time sends a message to the facilitator that you respect their time, that the time of everyone in the meeting is of equal value, and that you’re there to help impact a positive outcome from the meeting.

PRODUCE:

I started work at a new company some years ago.  The first week on the job, I participated in my first management meeting.  It lasted about 30 minutes, had some interesting topics, and great discussion.  Afterward, I followed up with the meeting moderator as I had plenty to learn about our protocol.  I asked “When do we typically get the minutes from the meeting and who is generally responsible for following up on those action items we’d discussed?”  Her surprising response was “Oh, we typically don’t do those things.”  As expected, the commitments and quality ideas shared during that meeting just seemed to evaporate over the coming weeks.   When the meeting has completed, always distribute meeting minutes or some level of summary notes to the attendees and those that were invited to the meeting.  This serves several important purposes:

Documents the decisions of record.  There was no doubt important business matters discussed and resolved.  Make these known to everyone. There were numerous occasions in my career that I referred to past minutes to know what decisions were made, why they were made, and who was involved in the resolution.

Validates the meeting importance.  The mere fact there is now a formal record of what took place and who it took place with tells everyone this was a valuable use of my time and people are more likely to attend and participate the next time they are invited.

Shows progress. Whether your meeting is every day, every week, or every month, this formal record of the meeting events will clearly show work is progressing.  Everyone appreciates seeing their efforts come to fruition and knowing they are making a difference.  On occasion the minutes show that progress is other than optimal, then there is a documented transcript of this as well and it makes clearer the course-correction path to be taken.

Continues the path forward.  A byproduct of the meeting minutes are the action items, the next steps, the go-forward-plan that will make it obvious to all involved what actions are to be taken and by whom to move business forward.   Defined action items beget identifying action item owners begets accountability begets PROGRESS!

When distributing the meeting minutes, always ask the participants to review and reply with any additions or corrections that need to be made.  This provides humble messaging that you value their input while admitting you may have made a mistake or misunderstood a resolution at some point in the meeting.  The entire group has a responsibility to ensure this permanent record is correct.

These items will take a little extra effort but will provide long-term benefit in your organization that helps to foster a culture of cooperation, professionalism, and get-it-done-ness!

Curt Mills – Client Services Manager

Curt has been a consultant with Momentum for 5 years.  He has more than twenty years of IT and functional experience in the areas of application software development, business analysis, project management, product deployment and client support. He is experienced with analyzing existing organization and design of systems in all areas of IT, including business, departments and organizations.  Curt currently oversees Momentum’s Senior Advisors, Employee Initiatives, and Service/Product Offering Development research and evaluation.