Outstanding companies pay special attention to developing a culture of Productive Meetings. New technological tools are allowing a quick and easy diffusion of these methodologies in such a way that they can become habits and part of a high performance culture.
1. Introduction
Meetings are part of the day to day of organizations today. They are used to analyze problems, make decisions, achieve commitment from work teams, develop projects, but as many executives mention it, they are also used to "take care when there is no clarity of the day's priorities."
The way in which meetings are carried out in a company are a reflection of its Organizational Culture.
"Productive Meetings create Productive Companies" One of INTEL's internal slogans, one of the most productive companies on the planet. Andy Groove, its CEO and manager of one of the most efficient cultures, personally trained his executives in making Meetings truly Productive events.
This article focuses on an extremely simple way to improve company results, building a High Performance Culture, using the Best Practices of outstanding companies.
2. Reunionitis One of Your Biggest Problems
Intel meeting room walls ask:
- Do you know what the purpose of this meeting is? Do you have an Agenda? What is your role in this meeting?
Being a direct invitation to rethink the need and time dedicated to a meeting.
However, the reality of most organizations in the world shows the opposite:
A study published in early 2005 with more than 38,000 managers worldwide, along with other studies show that:
And that the quality of a company's meetings is directly related to financial results.
However, many executives are neither interested nor willing to change the habits that generate unproductive meetings.
Many people:
- They have never experienced or thought about the power that a highly effective meeting can have, therefore they do not recognize the importance of these. They have great resistance to changing an inefficient practice and therefore it seems to them that it is more convenient to continue as before. They have received training, tools, or methodologies to make their meetings effective. They are full of tasks and meetings, they don't have time to finish the basic tasks: Who has time and energy to improve the efficiency of their meetings? And meanwhile, much of your productive time is spent on them.
They consider this as a "light" topic that is not a priority in their work.
2.1 Before the Meeting
Our experience with world-class corporate workgroups is that when people answer these questions, they are able to avoid many meetings that were not really necessary. "In a meeting, every minute that passes must be multiplied by the number of participants in it" this is the cost of the meeting, plus what those people could have been doing if they had not been there.
2.1.1 Previous questions
Much of the agility and ease of meetings begins long before the meeting:
Some questions can help deepen the meeting:
2.1.2 Planning the Meeting
Business Mapping is an extremely powerful and easy solution for planning Productive Meetings:
In a Template Map, the key questions are quickly placed and the core elements planned. Note that the interesting thing about the map is that the need to write long paragraphs is eliminated, keywords are used in conjunction with images, structuring the information by the relevant categories:
A base template to easily carry out this planning is this:
After the meeting is planned, those involved are informed of the details of the meeting, as completely as possible. The meeting map is an ideal tool to be sent by the participants, whether it is a paper copy of it or if you have a Digital Maps Solution, it is sent by email. The participants will know in advance not only the objectives, the agenda, the logistical details and others, but they will be able to prepare the information or their concepts before the topics to be considered.
This first step "Planning and Sharing the plan" of the meeting alone will bring great efficiency to the development of the meeting, while creating the right environment to value the time and resources invested in these. Our experience shows that the meetings that take place take much less time and fewer meetings are required to achieve the stated objectives.
2.2 During the Meeting
The Map of the Meeting then becomes the guide for its development.
If you have a VideoBeam and a Digital Maps solution, to manage visual information, it is used to carry out the meeting and to capture the key information during it; If not, each participant can be given a copy of the map, as well as the basic rules for the meeting are defined:
Likewise, some of the most powerful Digital Maps solutions incorporate a whole host of possibilities to attach the key information required for the meeting.
The mere inclusion of the map in the meeting brings concentration and efficiency to the work teams, while the capture of live information brings a great sense of participation and commitment to the decisions made.
The meetings become highly participatory and motivating events, as well as the visual format of the maps facilitates the presentation and analysis of the problems.
2.3 After the Meeting
At the end of the meeting, an Action Map of the meeting is then ready, ideally with details of tasks, responsibilities, commitments and dates.
The meeting notes map becomes the minute, with perhaps a few additional editing settings and ready to be sent to interested people.
In an easy and fast way, the Map process, together with a simple methodology of good management practices, has given the company the opportunity to bring effective productivity to one of the areas where time and resources are most invested.
3. Conclusions
Meetings have become a daily and growing activity in the work of today's professionals. However, many business leaders do not attach importance to this issue and have no interest in changing their unproductive habits. As multiple studies show, this issue is not only key in organizational development, but is directly associated with the financial results of companies.
The Digital Maps or The Information Visualization Process, appear as a solution of immediate application that, in addition to being motivating and easy to learn, does not require major financial or time investments by companies.
The mode of operation is "learned" just by participating in a Meeting using these tools and is quickly disseminated throughout the company.
Bibliography:
- Survey Finds Workers Average Only Three Productive Days per Week. Microsoft suvey with 38,000 executives worldwide. March 15, 2005A network MCI Conferencing White Paper. Meetings in America: A study of trends, costs and attitudes toward business travel, teleconferencing, and their impact on productivity (Greenwich, CT: INFOCOMM, 1998), Robert B. Nelson and Peter Economy, Better Business Meetings (Burr Ridge, IL: Irwin Inc, 1995), 5.Eric Matson, "The Seven Sins of Deadly Meetings," in Fast Company, par. 11-13 Pen Computing Group, 1998 George David Kieffer, The Strategy of Meetings (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1988), 13.
