Five Tips for Running Better Meetings

Hi, this is Wayne Rivers at The Family Business Institute. Thanks as always for tuning in. Please give us the benefit of your
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This week I want to talk about five tips for running effective meetings. So, why are we talking about this? We talked about
it in a blog, not all that long ago. So, why am I bringing it up again? Well, it's important because executives tend to spend
about half their time in meetings. 50% of their time is consumed by meetings. And as we talked about in our last blog
about meetings, you know, some people, some huge percentage, I forget what it was, would rather have a root canal than
have to go to another meeting. And of these executives, according to McKinsey, only 37% or about one third, a little better
than one third said that the meetings produced decisions that were both timely and of high quality.

So, you think about that, how much time you spend in meetings with internal, external. Just how much of your time is
consumed with these things? And, yet only a third of people report that any decisions come out of them that are
worthwhile. I mean, it's really rather shocking. So, five tips here for making your meetings more effective. And then next
week we'll talk about how to actually drive decision making in those meetings too. So, a little bit of a corollary blog next
week.

All right, the five things and one pet peeve by the way. So, you might say six and I'll get to the pet peeve at the end. But
the first thing is the meetings need to have a purpose. I mean, don't have meetings just for the sake of having meetings.
Just because you've had a meeting, you know, once a month for the last six years. Does the meeting really have a purpose?
Is it really necessary? That's the first thing.

The second thing is psychological safety. We talked about this in a blog before, but psychological safety is an atmosphere.
It's a culture where people can speak up and be recognized and have their opinions heard without somebody coming
down on them like a ton of bricks. It's a place where they can speak their minds without the fear of retribution or ridicule
or shame or anything like that. So, when your people are talking in meetings, try to keep your trap shut, try to listen. That's
one of the keys for great leadership. You've got to be a listener. And so many of our hard driving entrepreneurial clients,
they're action oriented and they're not great listeners, they're doers, they're doers, they're not mentors of people. And
to be a great leader and a great mentor, you've got to listen and you've got to have psychological safety in your
organization.

The third thing, think about the frequency and the duration of your meetings. In the IT world, this idea sprang up 15 or 20
years ago about having stand up meetings every day, sort of reassess and reassign. A five minute stand up meeting. So,
maybe your 30 minute meeting is a five minute meeting. If you could just get together quickly, stand up, review some
things very quickly, and get people off and running in the day. That's a great thing. Whatever it is, think about the frequency
and the duration of your meetings. Maybe you don't need to meet every day. Maybe you don't even need to meet every
week, maybe once a month is sufficient. So, think about that.

In terms of your time and duration of meetings and frequency, companies sweat bullets over every dollar. And you know,
our clients are thrifty people, family businesses are thrifty. They sweat bullets over every dollar. They scrutinize every
expense to the nth degree, and yet they let their time be wasted frivolously, and it's foolish things, meetings and errands
and foolish things like that. So, go back to the book we talked about a couple of years ago. Time Really is Money. That's a
great book. It's by a man named Rob Slee, S-L-E-E. Get it, read it. Commit it to your heart and in your companies. Think
about your time in the same way you think about money. Just as you sweat bullets over every dollar your company spends
in terms of expenses, you should be sweating bullets over how you allocate your time and how you let other people suck
your time away from you. All right, so time really is money. Think about money. Fine. You think about money one way,
think about your time in that same way, it's that precious.

The fourth thing is decide to decide in meetings. Make sure you come out of your meetings with conclusions, and we'll
talk about this in more detail next week, but if you're having meetings and this is a common problem with meetings, they
get together, talk, talk, talk. No decisions get made, no concrete decisions, no actions take place.

And, the fifth thing is once you decide, use action registers to document your decisions. And your action registers are
really pretty simple. Who's going to do what based on the decision? When are they going to do it? When's the deadline?
What is it specifically they're going to do? Because they have to have clear instructions and leadership. And finally, what
resources do they need? Do they need budget money? Do they need other people on the team? Do they need technology
resources? Do they need outside resources? So, four things. Who, what, when, and what resources. Oh, and also what
they're going to do. That's very important.

Now, number six, 5A maybe is my pet peeve. Do not allow cell phones and tablets in your company meetings. Have a box
at the door or a basket and people put their phones in and put it outside the meeting room or just tell them not to come
into the meeting room with the phones. It's a huge time waster. And when you're having a meeting and you know you've
got 10 or 12 people around the table and you see people's heads down in their hands under the table, you know what
they're doing, you know they're not engaged. And that sucks time and value away from the meeting too.

So, meetings are huge time sucks. They just vacuum away your time and having better meetings will give you more time
to do the things you really care about and the things you really need to do. Plan your meetings and execute in your
meetings and you'll come away much more productive and your team is going to be much more excited and motivated
about coming into the meetings at the beginning. This is Wayne Rivers at The Family Business Institute. Thank you.