5 Questions for Efficient Meetings

Efficient meetings – a dream or reality?

I am sure all of us have attended way too many meetings where too much time is wasted. It can be frustrating to struggle through a discussion that takes forever to get anywhere. Then even worse the destination turns out to be a dead end.

No one wants to waste their time. But also we don’t want to rush and make people feel left out, or dominated by the powerful, or end up making a bad decision because we didn’t take everything into account.

Being efficient does not mean rushing. Being efficient means only talking about things that actually help us to make a good decision!

There are many tools that help us to make good decisions in a time-effective way. This post looks at five questions that can help us to be clear and focused on the task, and ensure that we know when we have talked enough to make the decision.

What are we here for?

This is not a question that needs to be asked every time but it is something that should be considered from time to time. There will also be situations when it is just the right question to get people back on track.

I have been to many meetings where an issue comes up and people want to tell you their experience of this issue. Or the conversation leads to commentary on the motives or credibility of the people bringing the idea. Have you ever been to a meeting where the group is asked to provide advice on a question and they want to spend their time saying what they think should be the final decision? All of these things cause a meeting to wander away from its purpose. They are classic time-wasters. When people talk about what is not their business it is very inefficient!

Any member of a committee can remind the group of their purpose. If no one else does it then it is up to the Chair. Simple comments like: I think the question before us is …; or We were not asked to make a decision on this subject but to identify the relevant issues for the Church Council; or We don’t have the authority to act in that way so there isn’t much point talking about it; or Can you help me to see how this conversation is helping us to get an answer to the question in front of us; etc.

There are many ways to pull people back on track. However, too few people are prepared to do it and so meetings wander off into all sorts of blind alleys. If the meeting is wandering one very useful tool is to remind people of the purpose of the meeting/discussion in which they are involved. Be polite – but just do it.

What is the issue?

A common way that meetings waste time is to not address the main issues. Instead, they talk about all sorts of things that are irrelevant to the topic. Often this is not done deliberately. People think they know what the issue is but they are wrong – so they talk about things that just don’t help to get the job done.

So the absolutely best way to make your meeting efficient is to make sure that everyone understands what is the issue that is before the meeting. Now, this is not as easy as it seems! Let’s look at an example.

Recently I was having a conversation with a regional church leader who said that a local congregation and his committee had to make a decision about whether a local church Minister would get an extension beyond their current term. On the surface, it looks pretty simple. The issue seems to be “Should  Rev X get to go beyond 10 years?”

But dig deeper and the issues expand. Ask the question again: “What are the issues at stake when we consider an extension for this Minister? Now we start to see that the deeper issues include

• • the effectiveness of the mission of the church
  • the health and well being of the Minister and congregation,
  • the Minister’s professional and vocational development
  • the personal needs of the Minister and congregation
  • the best use of her gifts across the church
  • is there a “church policy” that needs to be accepted or challenged

As you can see, by digging deeper to find the issues that lie beneath the presenting question we can better see what we need to talk about. If we don’t dig deeper then when the talking starts some people will speak to the first point, others the fourth and the talk will jump all over the place and make it hard to get to a point of decision.

This list of “what we need to decide” is very important. Write it up so everyone can see it. You are going to come back to this list. After creating this list, ask one more time: “Is there anything else on which we need to make a decision as we discern this matter?”

One outcome of this process is that it is possible to systematically work through each area rather than wandering all over the top of them and confusing the discussion. A second benefit is that you can prioritize the issues. Another is that you have now moved the conversation from one about strategy (in this case an extension) to goals (ie why would we give an extension).

What do we need to know?

What information do we require if we are going to understand these issues and be well informed? This step significantly reduces the potential for people to bring up red herrings, irrelevant minutia and overweighting their bias rather than dealing with the data. All of these are great time wasters.

So in the example above, the answer for issue one might include things like:

• •  we need to know the mission priorities for the congregation
  • the skills of the Minister and the members
  • decide if the Minister can make a significant contribution to that mission direction
  • etc

Do we have the information that we need?

I am often amazed at how often meetings are prepared to make a decision when they do not have the information that they need! To make a good decision you need the right information. By agreeing ahead of time what you need to know then you can decide if you have the answers that you need. This helps efficiency in at least two ways. First, it means that you only have a discussion when you are in a position to make a decision. Second, it reduces the chance that someone will turn up at the next meeting and say “We didn’t take this into account” and start the discussion all over again. Yikes!

If you do not have the information at this meeting then ask: how do we get it, who will collect it and by when? If this question is right up front then it is less likely that you talk for ages and someone decides that they have to postpone the discussion until another meeting because there is something they need to find out.

Have we talked this through?

Talk through the issues one at a time then move to the next one. Summarize the comments. If there is agreement then note it. If there is a difference of opinion then acknowledge it.

After going through the list of issues that you wrote up at the beginning of the discussion summarize what has been said and see if there is a consensus on the presenting question. It may be that the conversation leads to discernment about the appropriate path forward on the presenting question.

It is also possible that people want to give more weight to one of the underlying issues than to another. For example, some people may want to give the most weight to the family’s needs, others a policy or bias against long terms, or others the mission of the local church. Not all considerations are created equal! But getting these out in the open reduces the risk of it becoming a shouting match or a time for accusations that some people just don’t care about the Minister’s family.

If it becomes clear that there are strongly held different views on what should be the most important factors then make that topic the discussion for a time. One thing that may be helpful is to give people two or three coloured dots and ask them to put a dot next to the two or three things that are most important to them as they make this decision. People can share why their top one is important. This kind of process encourages transparency and makes it possible to address the feelings and values of the committee members as well as their ideas. This step plays into achieving positive relationships among the members and ensures that everyone is respected and has the chance to share their point of view. This may seem to some to sacrifice efficiency for a feel-good vibe in the meeting. However, that sets up a false choice. At the end of the day good, respectful and open relationships enhance the ability of a group to work effectively together over time.

Conclusion

It is very easy for members of meetings to wander all over the place and take way too long to get to a conclusion. The best solution is to have a structure for exploring any issue that is before the group. This post could only offer one example. However, I encourage you to think of an important agenda item from a recent meeting that you attended. Were there more issues under the surface than seemed obvious from the way the business was presented? Did the group try to make a decision without realizing all the information that is needed? Did the meeting go around in circles or have people talk back and forth at each other because they had different priorities and they were trying to wear the other person down? All of these problems can be overcome if you ask the five questions for efficient meetings!