If you’re a typical manager, your day is full of meetings, and most of them probably suck. They suck because they go too long, because other meetings get pushed back or because you don’t understand why you’re even present.
Cameron Herold, the founder of COO Alliance, who is known as “the Business Growth Guru,” knows why your meetings suck. And he can help you fix them. “The reality is, anything would suck if you didn’t have exposure to how to do it well,” says Herold. “If you wanted to play guitar, and you picked up a guitar and started playing it, you would suck because you don’t know how to do it.”
Herold says most people don’t know how to run a meeting because they have never been to an effective meeting. “They’ve been on a bicycle, but they don’t know how to ride it,” Herold explains. “Because it’s a bicycle built for two.”
In his book Meetings Suck, Herold seeks to change ineffective meetings, and teach meeting leaders how to be more efficient. Here are Herold’s tips for running an effective, efficient meeting.
1. Hold In-Person Meetings As Often As You Can
Herold blames a lot of our miscommunications on instant communication. While texts and emails are convenient, they can leave a lot of room for interpretation. “Consider the six-word sentence ‘I didn’t say you are beautiful,’” says Herold. “That sentence can be read in different ways depending on which words you put the emphasis on.”
If meetings or important information are shared over email or phone, you can’t see the person in front of you. You can’t read their body language or facial cues. You don’t even know if they’re paying attention. “We need to have more face-to-face meetings,” says Herold. “They don’t need to be long; we just need to have them.”
Face-to-face meetings ensure that your message gets across clearly and your team is engaged and participating. They also ensure that you do your best to be efficient in the ways you are leading your meetings, and that you are building relationships with the people with whom you work most closely.
2. Start Off Your Meetings With A Clear Explanation Of What To Expect
Herold says that a rookie mistake of many leaders is a lack of clear purpose for the meeting. “They’ll have a meeting without an agenda, so they don’t know what they’re covering,” he said. “They haven’t talked through how many minutes they’re spending on each agenda item. They haven’t figured out the order that they’re covering it so that people know why they’re showing up, and what they’re showing up for.”
He recommends diversifying your meeting types. “You need to think about all the different types of meetings you have, and create a certain meeting rhythm for your company,” says Herold.
He says you might consider having a weekly leadership team meeting, where you review the numbers, have team leaders give 5-minute updates and then look at the dashboard together. Herold also recommends holding one-on-one meetings the same day as the team meeting—that way, everyone is still on the same page from the day’s earlier meetings.
3. If You’re Attending A Meeting, Be On Time. If You’re Running It, Be Early
If you’re running the meeting, start it on time. If you’re attending the meeting, show up early. Herold says there’s nothing more annoying than someone who is late for a meeting: “That’s the one thing that always drives me crazy.”
Because time is money, and money is therefore someone’s time, you don’t want to waste their time or their money by being late. And you definitely don’t want to waste either of yours. But Herold says being on time is about more than simply showing up. It’s also important when it comes to the meeting’s duration.
“Along with being punctual, I like to stop all my meetings 5 minutes prior to the scheduled ending time,” says Herold, and emphasizes the importance of efficiency. He ends his meetings a few minutes early to check his calendar, talk to his assistant and get coffee.
4. Book Your Meetings For Shorter Periods Of Time
“I like booking all the meetings for half the time I first think of booking them for,” says Herold. He believes that this way you can compress time and get the meeting done faster. And it saves everyone money in the long run, as an hour-long meeting could cost as much as $1,000 when everyone’s time is accounted for.
“It’s like Parkinson’s law,” explains Herold. “Work expands so as to fill the space that we give it.” If you don’t overestimate the time you need for a meeting, you will find your meetings becoming more efficient and you’ll absorb more time that you need for other tasks. After all, no one ever complained about a meeting being too short.
5. End Your Day With A Team Huddle
Pull all your team together in one place, and hold a meeting with them all. Make it short (Herold recommends 7 minutes), and make it a standing meeting. Herold says the shorter you can make these huddles, the better.
He also recommends a format for these meetings. It looks a little something like this:
• Start off by sharing all the good news from the team.
• Review the numbers. Whether they’re post metrics or sales numbers, share your key numbers with your employees.
• Go over what everything means. Take a look at what your budgeting is looking like, and extrapolate what it might look like in a day, in a month and so on. Herold says you shouldn’t wait until the end of the month to convey this information to your employees.
• Ask for an update from each department head. This might get buy-in from other employees, and will create better communication and collaboration across your business as one department might be willing to offer help to another for some tasks.
• Let your employees air their grievances and frustrations in a safe environment. After someone shares what they’re frustrated with, ask someone else in the meeting to tackle the problem head-on to make sure it gets fixed.
• Make sure you give a loud cheer. Think of your favorite sports team and what they might cheer. Herold warns it’ll be a little awkward at first, but people will grow to love it.
6. Know Your Meeting Role, And Make Sure Others Know Theirs
Herold says there should be 5 key roles in any meeting you host: the moderator, the notetaker, the timekeeper, the participants and the closer. “Meetings, the way you run them, should all be the same,” says Herold. “But then you have other people that you’re inviting to meetings, and you have to get them to speak.”
Herold says if you invite someone to a meeting (whether or not they are assigned a specific role other than participant), you have to give them an opportunity to contribute. Otherwise, there is no point in inviting them.
“Regardless of who is running the meeting, you have to have ways to get the quieter people to share their ideas about what is being discussed,” says Herold. “If you’re not going to ask for everyone’s input, then why are you inviting them in the first place?”
Depending on the size of your meeting, it might be a challenge to get everyone’s input. There’s one exercise in particular that Herold recommends. “I like to do a Post-it note exercise, where I get everyone to write down all their ideas,” he says.
He asks everyone in attendance to write one idea down on a sticky note. Then he goes around and has each person read what they wrote down and put it on the wall. This way, everyone gets to voice their thoughts in a concise, effective manner.
Learn more about Herold’s advice on meeting roles here and more on his Post-it note exercise here.
