Three Tips to Acheive Meeting Clarity
In a previous blog, The Evolution of Culture Shaping Meetings, we explored a perspective on how to transform meetings from “meetings that just happen” to “meetings that are peak experiences.” Peak meeting experiences shape culture and drive new performance levels.
The Meeting Ladder by Island Inspirations Ltd.
Getting to the top of the meeting ladder requires meeting effectiveness and meeting engagement. Yet one proceeds the other. You won’t truly see the benefits of engaging meetings where people are doing their best thinking and unleashing potential in the session without first establishing the basics for effective meetings.
In other words, skipping rungs on the ladder is risky. It would be best if you took it one step at a time.
The first aspect of meeting effectiveness that we concentrate on is PURPOSE. Purpose moves meetings from “meetings that just happen” to “meetings with clarity.”
In this blog, we will take a closer look at PURPOSE and explore three tips you can use to get clearer on purpose.
What do we mean by purpose?
A quick google search on ‘meeting purpose’ will generate hundreds of responses. There is no shortage of material telling you the importance of knowing your meeting purpose.
Purpose is more than just knowing the objectives for a meeting or the outcomes that you want to produce. Instead, purpose requires you to think deeply about intent — the why. And as you begin to dig deeper and deeper into intent, this often creates shifts in the original ideas held for the session and may even draw into question if the meeting is necessary.
For example, I have seen a session change from a standard status update session focused on communicating information to a participatory process to generate ideas. This shift came from asking why multiple times. Why do we need to have this session? Why else? The change occurred as we unpacked what was essential and what the team required at the time.
Priya Parker says the single biggest rule we break when trying to gather — whether physically or virtually — is assuming we already know its purpose.
In organizations, it is pretty standard that we default to assuming we know the purpose of sessions, especially with repetitive meetings. Often people assume the name of the meeting is the purpose, e.g., weekly status update or monthly governance meeting. Unfortunately, meeting names do not equal purpose. Relying on this as a communication mechanism misses the opportunity to connect participants to your session’s true intent and meaning.
One reason gatherings are boring, repetitive, and ineffective is because they’re too vague and lack clarity and context. It’s difficult for people to form a connection or participate effectively in meetings if they are unclear on purpose. They won’t understand if they are there to contribute, share knowledge, or help shape solutions. This leads to frustration. And frustration leads to unhelpful meeting behaviors, which leads to ineffective meetings.
It all hinges on purpose. If you can’t easily say why a meeting is essential, why have it?
Here are three ways to achieve meetings with clarity.
Know Your Gathering Genre
You may never have associated the term genre with meetings, maybe only with movies or music, yet gatherings have genres. And having clarity on which genre(s) you are focusing on is the first step to getting clarity on purpose. There are 6 Gathering Genres. (Note that these are called gathering genres and not meeting genres.) Gatherings can refer to any intervention where people are coming together.
The six gathering genres are Communicate, Connect, Control, Coordinate, Create and Learn.
Spend some time thinking about your meeting and identifying your genre, don’t forgo this with the excuse of time or assuming it is obvious. Specificity is necessary for context and clarity; more often than not, the genre is not apparent or identifiable. Instead, use the clarity of genre to feed and flow into the articulation of your meeting purpose and design.
BEWARE:
Most gatherings try to lump together too many genres. Instead, challenge yourself to identify a primary (and perhaps secondary genre). Meetings that cross too many genres confuse participants and leave them with a sense that nothing was accomplished.
Gathering Genres Worksheet
For more on Gathering Genres, listen to this episode of the every little model podcast for more on the 6 Gathering Genres.
Download a free PDF of the Gathering Genres worksheet here.
https://signup.islandinspirations.co/gatheringgenres
2. Craft and Iterate a Purpose Statement
Practice writing purpose statements for your meeting.
Meeting Purpose Statements
Here are two examples:
We are meeting to brainstorm on themes for our upcoming centennial celebration. By the end of our session, we will have co-created a one-pager of themes and top ideas for the celebration. We will include this one-pager in the upcoming board presentation.
We are meeting to analyze expense reports and identify budget overspending areas. By the end of the session, we will have a list of at least three areas in which each department can reduce spending.
BEWARE:
Don’t go with your first attempt at your purpose statement. Instead, give this a few tries, and iterate. Keep asking yourself why and use what emerges to help craft the statement. Try it 4 or 5 times before you settle on the one that feels right.
3. Articulate a compelling invitation
Chances are your inbox is filled with overlapping calendar and meeting invitations. These might be emails or calendar invitations, and you may not give them much thought. Depending on your schedule, you may simply click accept or decline.
Most meeting invitations are filled only with logistics, who, where, and when making them feel automatic, stale, and impersonal.
Your meeting invitation is a chance to tell a story of why this meeting is important and why the invited person is critical to the experience. It is your chance to create hype, buzz, and excitement for the session. Your meeting invitation should prepare participants for what you are asking of them, what to expect, and how they can contribute. Think of it as your marketing opportunity and use it wisely.
Your meeting invitation should contain the following:
a short, clear, easy-to-scan subject line — bonus points if this is also catchyan authentic and personalized introductionthe brief story of why and what we will be doing (your purpose statement)logistical details — date, time, time zone, and locationa high-level summary of what we will be doing in the sessionhow participants can get ready for the session
If you are looking for a simple one-pager to help you work through these topics and set the expectations for the upcoming meeting, try the IDOHART or Terms of Reference worksheets.
IDOHART stands for Intent, Desired Outcomes, How we will work together, Agenda, Roles and Rules, and Time (and Logistics). Although you can use either, you may find you prefer one vs. the other for different genres of meetings.
BEWARE:
Separate your meeting invitation and your calendar invitation. Don’t default to the outlook or google calendar request as your meeting invitation. Instead, take the time to write a short email invitation to your participants and then follow this up with the calendar request.
IDOHART WorksheetTerms of Reference Worksheet
Getting to Rung 1 — Meetings with Clarity
Meeting participants are giving you their most precious resource, their time. You owe it to them to provide them with clarity on why. Why you are meeting, Why it is crucial, and Why they should participate.
Honing in on purpose will lead to meetings with clarity, the first rung on the meeting ladder. Getting to this rung will benefit everyone, meeting leaders and those in attendance. It will begin to create shifts in the effectiveness of your meeting. Spend time working on meeting purpose and exploring the impact this has on your sessions.
3 Extra Bonuses for you!
The Meeting Effectiveness Checklist
Try tracking your meeting effectiveness scores by using our free meeting effectiveness checklist, download here.
https://signup.islandinspirations.co/mtgeffectivenesschecklist
2. Leading Better Meetings Worksheets
You can download the 4 worksheets shown in this blog and 8 additional worksheets for leading better meetings at this link. These will help improve the effectiveness of your meetings.
3. Interest List for Upcoming Course on Meeting Effectiveness Tools and Practices
A new course on everything you need to know about leading effective meetings is in the works! If you are interested in learning more about this, sign up to be on the interest list and qualify for special discounts and bonuses!
https://signup.islandinspirations.co/mtgeffectivenesscourse
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