Meeting management is an art form. It’s also a political skill that you must learn, if you want to move up the ladder. Ram Charan writes a column on Yahoo! Finance called “What Every Company Should Know.” His article “The Key to Worthwhile Business Meetings” outlines five tips effective meetings. According to Charan, the right design of a meeting’s function should dictate its form:

1. The critical intersections: “You have to pinpoint where decisions and tradeoffs must be made. Some critical intersections are obvious: between functional silos, geographic areas, and business units.”
2. The right people: “Be very clear about who should — and who should not — attend meetings. Everyone in the room should be there either because their input is needed or because the topics being discussed are important to them.”
3. The right information: “Many meetings sputter or fail because the group doesn’t have the information it needs to move the discussion forward or to arrive at a decision. Be specific in spelling out the information participants are expected to bring to meetings, and to hold them accountable for coming prepared.”
4. The right frequency: “Meeting too often is a distraction, and not meeting often enough allows problems to fester. In determining the frequency of meetings, think about their cumulative effect. A weekly staff meeting can accomplish several things: The leader might lay out a vision or set of goals, gather crucial information on how well the strategy is working, figure out how to overcome obstacles in executing the plan, or surface a simmering conflict among team members.”
5. The right behavior: “You have to be attuned to people’s personal agendas and call them out. You have to challenge the dominant personalities and draw out the passive types. This will take a great deal of personal fortitude, but it’s necessary in order to keep the meeting focused on its intended purpose and to keep underlying issues from ballooning.”

Learning the Hard Way

I used to manage the most political monthly meeting in one of my former companies. While I did well, there was one particular meeting, where my VP clearly did not like my meeting management performance. She didn’t embarrass me, but she clearly took over the rest of the meeting. When we met privately afterward, she gave me feedback on where I ran into trouble, explaining why she did what she did. She was firm, yet patient. My VP managed me on how I made some mistakes and what to do the next time around. I appreciated the coaching, as she held me to her higher standards. More importantly, I appreciated that she save me in the meeting.

Bonus Tip: Learn the Technical Skills of Meeting Management

Months later, I reported into a new Director, who took over managing this political meeting. Unfortunately, month after month, something always went wrong with his meeting management:

1. Was late to his own meeting with all of us waiting for him on a conference call line and Internet Microsoft Live Meeting
2. Didn’t schedule the MS Live Meeting, so no one could log into the meeting, but we were all still sitting on the conference call
3. Couldn’t LOGIN into his own MS Live Meeting

Every month his meeting management errors started off this meeting. Other middle managers stayed silent, while other C-levels ignored his missteps. Meanwhile, my former VP did not attend 90% of the time to see my new boss in action. I was always curious if my former VP coached my new supervisor’s poor performance on meeting management.

Smart Lemming Tip: learn the technical skills of meeting management. If you use web conferencing, then become an expert on how to use it.

Meeting management can be an art form and a political skill that you must learn, if you want to move up the ladder. Don’t forget to learn the basics on how to use technology, agenda, and time management. After mastering these elements, develop Charan’s five skills on meeting management. Charan teaches us why meetings don’t have to drain resources and how it’s all about output. Meetings do matter, especially when the meeting is managed with an agenda and all the prep work has been done in advance. As Charan says,

“Make sure meetings not only represent a good use of your time but also that they support your goals, reflect your priorities, and above all deliver on the business output you are accountable for delivering.”

Recommended Books on Managing Meetings

• Essential Managers: Managing Meetings (DK Essential Managers) by Robert Heller
• The New Manager’s Starter Kit: Essential Tools for Doing the Job Right by Robert Crittendonli
• The Simplicity Survival Handbook: 32 Ways To Do Less And Accomplish More by Bill Jensen

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