“Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems to me to typify our age” – Albert Einstein.
Do you have a clear improvement target to be achieved as a result of making changes to your meeting? Have you specified what you want people to do and feel differently as a result? Or how much time you want to save? Or the difference in the rate of progress or the achieved result?
You may feel that you cannot do this, because you do not know what your planned change, or your selected tool, is capable of. But, if that is so, you need to shift your perspective – it is the goal that is important and should be set, not the means. The means should adjust to meet the goal. It may be that your chosen tool or technique will not achieve all that you require. In fact, it may be that several tools and techniques are required. But your goal will identify what is needed, and why.
Begin by looking at your current data: Your feedback scores and comments; your time and attendance statistics; your delivery performance on actions; any consequences and implications for yourself, your business and your customers. Clarify for yourself how you want these to be different and why. Be specific. Begin by clearly defining the WHAT and the WHY – set clear SMART goals for yourself, and this will maximise the impact of everything else you do.
You may not be clear on HOW you will do this, but that is where the next question comes in …
You may be aware of issues in the feedback ratings you have received from meetings, but lack the level of commentary around that feedback which would explain why people submitted those ratings.
This is far from uncommon – particularly in the early stages of using meeting feedback. But it is also not a problem.
Meeting metrics are a stimulus for dialogue, not an alternative to it. And the ratings received from your meetings provide the ideal opportunity for you to both engage in that dialogue, and to make sure that it is meaningful. You can do this in three ways:
- You can share your feedback ratings, and explain that you are looking to improve and that it would help you if people could add a few comments to their feedback on the sort of improvements that would be most welcome. In practice, this is the least preferred of the three. The ‘comments’ route may appear ‘safer’ to some, but it lacks the potential richness, relationship-building, and personal self-development that can be achieved through dialogue.
- You can share your feedback ratings with one or two trusted individuals outside of the meeting. These individuals should be people who have attended some of the meetings, who have your interests at heart (or at least will not take advantage) and who are willing to ‘tell it to you as it is’. Explain to them your goals for improving the meeting, and ask them how they think you could set about getting better ratings from the meeting (or why you might have got particular low ones). Ensure you do everything you can to put them at their ease – explain why you picked them, that the feedback is anonymous, that you trust their opinion, that you are open to speculation, that you need their help. And listen very (and obviously) openly – avoid all defensive reactions, or rationalisations, or explanations – just listen, encourage and ponder.
- You can share your feedback ratings with the meeting as a whole, and say that you would really like to take time to work together to explore some options for improving those ratings. As with item 2 above, put them at their ease and listen very openly. If they are all confident with you, take suggestions to a flipchart, and then get them to prioritise with sticky dots. If some may be a bit less confident, you might suggest that everybody writes three to five post-its of things to improve and sticks them on the wall in groups of similar intent. These can then be discussed as a group. The advantage of this approach is that the meeting can take a degree of collective ownership for the improvements and work together on bringing them to fruition.
Your goal in answering this question is to understand how your people see improvement, and the changes they are looking for to bring that about. However, there is a danger that this could provide you with more ‘opportunities’ than you can realistically handle. But the third question will help you with this …
All change is disruptive, and disruption carries its own consequences for meeting effectiveness. It takes time for people to get used to a new way of working, to adapt and better realise its potential, and to see the benefits.
If too much change is happening at the same time, it can confuse the picture, benefits can be suppressed, and people can lose confidence in what is happening.
It is therefore better to pick one or two things to do at a time, to implement them efficiently, and then to move on to the next thing. Continuous improvement is exactly that: continuous. There is no end point, so there is little point in racing toward it. Identify what is manageable, and select what will be most productive to include within that.
If you have involved the meeting in clarifying the changes they want to see, involve them also in its prioritisation. This will maintain ownership of the change, and a sense of responsibility for its outcomes, with the meeting membership.
The Meetng Toolchest pages will help you to identify which tools and techniques are likely to be most effective in helping to bring about the improvements that you (and your team) want to see.
However, to paraphrase a number of Generals, “No plan survives contact with the enemy”. Whatever you imagine your ideal implementation to be, there will be a number of unexpected issues which will make it turn out differently. This is entirely normal. However, if we fail to spot these issues, they can sap the benefits out of the solution and produce a far from optimal result.
The best way to avoid this is a continuous implementation process called PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act):
- Plan the next steps of improvement. Prioritise one or two changes which will bring the greatest benefit, and agree how they will be taken forward, by whom, and by when.
- Do the plan. Implement the change in your meetings, and ensure that people are properly equipped with what they need to operate it correctly.
- Check that the change is generating the required improvements. Use meeting reviews to track the improvement, and gather feedback on what is working and what is not.
- Act on the feedback. Fix the things that may have been overlooked or which are not quite working as expected.
- Plan the next steps of improvement … (and repeat the cycle … and repeat … etc.)
