5 Things I Do to Lead Meetings I'm Not Leading

My husband came home from work a little later than he usually does, and he told me about a long meeting, in his words, half of which could have been an email. So he and three others he works with met to discuss an idea someone had about implementing a new protocol that was mandated by their organization. The meeting time frame was just the standard length that Google Calendar assumes unless you change the settings, which is an hour.

One person was late, so they waited a little bit to get started. Once they finally began, they were sharing ideas, questions were being asked, tangents were welcomed. And once they finally got to the end of the meeting, it was well past the hour for which it was scheduled. This is definitely not unique to his organization. You have probably experienced this exact thing yourself. I know I have too.

These situations, where we find ourselves in the throes of an unproductive or inefficient meeting, are due to, of course, you're going to hear me say it, a lack of clarity. I want to use today's episode to talk about some boundaries we can set to help us gain clarity and have super beneficial meetings that leave you feeling successful, competent, and help the people you're meeting with to feel that same way.

I have five different things to share with you that might help you set boundaries and have very productive, clear meetings. As we go through these, a lot of them you're going to think, well, that's common sense. For whatever reason, we don't practice these things. We don't put them into practice. And I think sometimes that's because if you are not the person that calls the meeting, you feel as though you don't have the authority or power to do some of these things.

Let me challenge you. You do absolutely have the authority and power to do some of these things. This is where you can step up in leadership. It doesn't necessarily mean you're taking over the meeting as facilitator. It could be that you're doing these things for yourself because you need clarity, because you are seeking clarity. And it is okay to come at the situation with that phrase ready to go: I am doing this because I want to gain some clarity.

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1. Set a Purpose Before and During the Meeting

I can't tell you how many times a meeting has been scheduled and when you look at the invite, whether it's Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook, it doesn't matter which platform you use, it's so broad and unclear what the meeting is about that you're left wondering, what is this meeting about? What do I need to bring with me? How do I need to prepare?

If you are the facilitator sending the invite, be super clear about the purpose. Dig a little deeper. If you label the invite data meeting, that could look different for any one person who comes to that meeting. So you might say in the description, during this meeting we are going to analyze this data and walk away with these things. Be extremely explicit about the purpose before the meeting happens so people arrive with a clear idea of the intended purpose and outcomes.

Then state that purpose again when you all sit down together. I just want to remind everyone the purpose of this meeting is XYZ. The purpose of this meeting is to brainstorm ideas for an upcoming event. We'll be successful if we walk away with three to five ideas. It takes no time at all to state the purpose and intended outcomes, and the time it does take will save you time because it limits the tangents people go on.

If you are not the person conducting the meeting, you still can make that bold move when you all meet together and say, I just want to be clear, our purpose of this meeting is this, correct? And what would be our intended outcomes? If we walk away from this meeting successfully, what will that look like, sound like, feel like? You can be the person to do that.

2. Set a Time Frame

Specifically if you are conducting the meeting, my challenge to you is to change your settings in whatever calendar you use. Do not set it for a full hour. Set it for forty five or fifty minutes instead.

This can do a couple of things for you. First, it gives you a little wiggle room at the end if you do go over. It also saves you time if you have another meeting coming up right after. But it also gives everyone a significant outlook on the time frame. We recognize we don't have an hour, we've got less time, so we want to be sure we're using it super efficiently.

Otherwise, we're going to take the full hour. If I'm looking at the clock and I notice we still have ten minutes left, well, guess what? A lot of people are going to try to extend the conversation because they said our meeting would be this long. An easy way to break that habit is to just go ahead and set your time frame for forty five or fifty minutes and let people know that up front.

3. Make Clear You're Starting On Time, and Set a Hard Stop

Make sure there is a clear starting time, and also make clear what the hard stop is. Even if you're not the person who put the meeting on the calendar, you can say, I know we said this meeting would be this long. I have a hard stop at this time. So let's say someone scheduled a meeting for forty five minutes, starting at one o'clock, ending at one forty five. If you know you have something coming up at two o'clock and need some wiggle room in between, you could say, I have a hard stop at one forty seven so I can give you two extra minutes, but that's it. Then watch your clock.

If we say the meeting is starting at one o'clock, we should start at one o'clock. If you're the person conducting the meeting and you're running behind, and this just happens sometimes, instead of texting everyone and saying I'm a few minutes behind and having them wait on you, you could say, I'm running behind, I'll be there in a few minutes, go ahead and get started without me. That also means people have to have the autonomy to get started without you. They have to know exactly what they can do to begin.

If you're a person who is not leading this meeting, here are a few ways you could potentially begin without the facilitator there.

• Begin with any adjunct things that don't have anything to do with the actual purpose or intended outcomes of the meeting.
• List five to ten questions that you have before the meeting officially gets started.
• Set some roles, like who's going to take notes and who's going to be the timekeeper, so the meeting can stay efficient and productive.
• Or just begin with the meeting itself, depending on the topic and what your role is.

Just because someone is late to a meeting and you can't start on time doesn't mean you can't utilize that time effectively while you're waiting.

4. State the Purpose and Discuss the Intended Outcomes

I've already talked about this, but I want to be sure I mention it again because it leads into the very last thing. Really, that first point I made was to set the purpose before the meeting and during the meeting. You also want to state the intended outcomes.

That could look a couple of different ways. It could be that you say, what are our intended outcomes at the conclusion of this meeting? You could say, what is it that we're hoping to accomplish during this meeting? What is it we're hoping to understand better at the end? What are the decisions that have to be made by the end of this meeting? Just be really clear about the intended outcomes or the success criteria at the close of the meeting.

5. Close With Clarification

It's so interesting how many meetings I went to where we closed, but there was really no closure. There's a big difference between ending a meeting and having closure to a meeting. When we don't have closure, which means we haven't gained clarity at the end, we run the risk of everyone walking away and muddying the waters further.

This happens a lot when we don't set clear boundaries. We go over time, we talk in circles, we leave with different understandings of the topic at hand. So we leave the meeting potentially feeling that we didn't make any progress at all, or maybe we actually feel less clear than we did before the meeting even began.

Closing with clarification can really help rectify that, and it's simple. You could use a couple of different phrases. One of my favorites, which I use to end PD sessions, coaching calls, and often meetings, comes from Michael Bungay Stanier.

"What was most useful for you here today?"

Michael Bungay Stanier

It's a simple question, but it leaves everyone thinking about the most useful piece of that meeting, making it feel productive and successful, even if it's a small thing, even if it was a hard conversation. I'll tell you that when I've had hard conversations within a meeting, we get to what was most useful for you here, and a lot of people say it was most useful to be able to talk about it and have an open, honest conversation.

You could also simply say, just to clarify, and then clarify whatever it is you need to clarify. You might say, so just so we can be sure we're clear, what we're walking away with is X, Y, Z. Or, just to clarify, our purpose was this, and today we're ending with these next steps. Or, just to make sure I'm understanding, here's what we said the decision was, am I correct in that, or is there a way we can clarify this more? End with clarification. We need closure to meetings. It's so incredibly important.

Where could you see some of these boundaries being helpful today, for you and the teams you meet with regularly?