Run meeting lite
What if meetings were viewed from an opportunity cost perspective? My bet is at least 75% of meetings would evaporate.
Most leaders spend 20-25 hours each week in meetings, according to Harvard Business Review, and over 70% of executives say meetings are unproductive or inefficient.
Imagine if companies reallocated that time towards deep thinking or âmaker timeâ? Towards
Whatâs a good meeting
Good meetings usually involve small groups making decisions or discussing specific ideas with intentionality.
They also have a clear owner, a written agenda, and identifiable outcomes. Here are some examples:
- A recurring team meeting where the lead is responsible for delivering a specific agenda
- A sprint kickoff where a team makes decisions on what to work on next
- A âcreativeâ where a group fleshes out an idea, and decides where to take it
- Regular 1x1s with your team lead, or other folks you work closely with
Additionally, good meetings should include:
- Priming
- Decision-making
Priming is the movement from divergence to convergence, where participants debate and ask questions about the principals of the problem. It also brings in incremental data to increase the decision quality. Effective meetings have already worked out much of the priming through pre-meeting preparation and information sharing to allocate more time on the decision-making process.
Lastly, good meetings should invite radical candor and radical respect, encouraging individuality and collaboration.
The Six Thinking Hats
"Six Thinking Hats" is a way of investigating an issue from a variety of perspectives, but in a clear, conflict-free way. It can be used by individuals or groups to move outside habitual/instinctive way of thinking to try out different approaches and then think constructively about how to move forward.
In group discussions, it is essential that everyone uses the same hat/mode of thinking at the same time. This is known as âparallel thinkingâ and avoids personal preferences and conflicts between modes of thinking.
- Blue Hat: The Conductor's Hat
Thinking about and managing the thinking process
The blue hat is the control hat. It is used for thinking about thinking. The blue hat sets the agenda, focus and sequence, ensures the guidelines are observed and asks for summaries, conclusions, decisions and plans action.
- Green Hat: The Creative Hat
Generating ideas
The green hat is for creative thinking and generating new ideas, alternatives, possibilities and new concepts.
- Red Hat: The Hat For The Heart
Intuition and feelings
The red hat is about feelings, intuitions and instincts. The red hat invites feelings without justification.
- Yellow Hat: The Optimist's Hat
Benefits and values
The yellow hat is for a positive view of things. It looks for the benefits and values.
- Black Hat: The Judge's Hat
Caution
The black hat identifies risk, which is essential. It is used for critical judgment and must give the logical reasons for concerns. It is one of the most powerful hats but often overused and can lead to indecision.
- White Hat: The Factual Hat
Information
The white hat is all about information. What information you have, what information you need and where to get it.
Meeting alternatives
There's a lot of alternatives to bringing people in on meetings. Write a doc. Record a Loom. Get together with a smaller group.
Bad meetings are the bane of productivity and should be cancelled with prejudice. Youâre not actually getting anything done, and taking time away from our time doing real things â like building products, talking to customers, or growing teams.
This is important to get right as you scale. Meetings can proliferate exponentially as people do. If you find yourself with lots of these on your calendar, it should be a moment of reflection.
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