A couple weeks ago, I was in Bangalore for a workshop, catching up with an old client over coffee. We were talking about the way forward, and some dire circumstances that demand attention. The usual stuff.
Along the way, they mentioned about how the teams were struggling keeping up with too many (rather unproductive) meetings in a day.
“If we keep attending meetings all day then when do we do the actual work?”
“Too many meetings that could have just otherwise been an email fill our calendars up”
“Everyone talks, nobody listens. After 3 hours of discussion we still have no consensus and no resolution. Then we have the next meeting for the same topic again.”
“Any and every meeting has an agenda. But that’s quickly forgotten in the first 30 minutes, and the rest is just off-topic discussion”
These were some statements thrown into the mix, while addressing their challenge to be more productive as a team.
Don’t get me wrong, this is a very passionate team who loves their job and is attached to the greater good.
“How about we try and facilitate one of your team huddles? Let’s see how that works out.” I quipped.
The client was supportive enough to take the suggestion; and post-lunch we broke into a team huddle.
I scribed my way through the meeting, encouraged metaphors into discussion, and each person had a designated time to speak. Questions were structured and specific, and the team was split into smaller groups that worked on 2 topics parallelly.
All in all, the client was overjoyed to know that what would have otherwise blocked 4 working hours of their day; only took 1 instead. That too, with concrete CTA, next steps, and designated individuals who would lead the project.
The scribing also saved them extra time and efforts to prepare a report and MOM.
Have you ever tried to facilitate a meeting? Let’s get going!
Ps- no pictures were taken due to obvious confidentiality reasons.
