Oftentimes people are hesitant to attend meetings and if they can get away with it, will delegate specific meetings to subordinates. In some situations, delegation is preferred, as you may have a subject matter expert who is better suited for some meetings as far as contribution or planning. Other times, it is obvious that a leader delegates some meeting simply to get out of attending it themselves.
As a middle manager, you may not have a say in whether you attend specific meetings, but as a leader you should. You should thoughtfully consider which meetings require your expertise and which ones would be better suited for a representative. This article is directed at the person who is the decision maker of who does, or does not, attend meetings for their department. However, if you are the person being picked to attend meetings, reading this article may help you either be more productive during these meetings, and possibly, help your boss understand that he/she should select someone else, or even consider attending themselves.
Contrary to popular opinion, meetings in themselves were not, and should not be a complete waste of time. Not just another opportunity for management to sit at the head of a table, receive information and potentially give powerful words of wisdom and advice at the end – or the even more dreaded meeting where everyone briefs the same thing they brief every day/week/month (usually with slides with old ‘updated’ dates on them) where everyone just wants the meeting to be over. In the latter, nothing gets done, no one is truly heard, and nothing is ever accomplished. Meetings should be an opportunity for leadership and respective subordinate leadership to update each other on relevant topics, synchronize efforts, and most importantly, create an environment for sharing and communicating. Meetings are a way for leadership to introduce new team members, to praise work well done, to help synthesize information, and most importantly, be updated on what is happening in the organization. Below are some examples of good organizations and some bad ones. Further down we will discuss what meetings should consist of and how we can use these times to be more productive individuals, but also to help your teams be more productive in the long run.
Here are some ways organizations get it right:
1. Meetings are predictable. The recurring rhythm and length should be consistent, and never start early.
2. Meetings are productive – You know what is expected from you and your department when the meeting is over and have a better sense of what is happening in other departments as it relates to your mission.
3. Meetings that are project specific should have a shelf life. A beginning and an end date. For example, establishing a meeting, to ‘prepare’ for a busy season is unnecessary – You don’t need practice having meetings, especially if your organization already does them on a regular basis. Publish a format if you must and leave it at that.
4. You never add a meeting without removing another one. Even in situations like #3, you don’t add another meeting unless you absolutely have to, as doing so conflicts with #1.
5. Internal sidebar conversations and open discussion are welcome. Even though few people like the person who asks a hundred questions, so long as it’s within reason (and time-frame), allowing for open discussion usually proves fruitful and often helps organizations in the long run.
Here are how some organizations get it wrong:
1. Spontaneous meetings. “Mandatory syncs”, “really quick pow-wow’s”, and “late night planning sessions”. These are considered the most annoying as they are usually requested on otherwise ‘personal time’. These meetings are rarely productive and usually only serves as a way for specific managers to exert some kind of weird power.
2. Discussion is shut down. When a leader only wants to hear an echo of their own opinion, this meeting is a waste of time and everyone involved should do their best to help it end early.
3. Allowing dominating conversation (constant interruptions). Whether it’s the boss, or someone who routinely does this to their peers – constantly interrupting people during discussion creates a hostile environment where few ideas are exchanged. This is dangerous to an organization because it creates an echo chamber where a few make all the decisions and everyone else simply goes through the motions.
4. Finishing briefs for a pre-appointed delegate. If you have ever had a manager who insists they “had to finish the brief for you”, you know what I’m talking about. This type of environment is usually lead by a person who never really wants the responsibility of blame, but rather needs to be seen by their management as a, “fixer” who had to come in and “do the right thing”. If it was really necessary for this person to brief, they would have attended previous meetings, put together the slide deck and put in the work. Usually the person who “had to take over”, is incompetent and uses any public situation available to bring what they would consider ‘positive attention to themselves’.
5. Finally, are the philosophical meetings lead by the phantom boss. This is when a leader who rarely attends a meeting in which they are supposed to chair, shows up and holds everyone hostage to speak about something unrelated to the discussion or in some situations even the organization. These are rarely productive and if you find yourself in this room, confine yourself to updating your planner, because it’s going to be a while.
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE ANNOYING
A firm understanding of what meetings should be will be the best way to help someone who doesn’t prefer them, at least be more productive during meetings. The best case for not only wanting to attend meetings (the ones that are relevant to you, and where you can be most productive… please don’t begin to volunteer for meetings), is understanding ba. Ba, is a concept “originally proposed by the Japanese philosopher Kitaro Nishida and was further developed by Shimizu… Ba can be thought of as a shared space for emerging relationships.” Simply a way to understand that without allowing for shared space, we lose something as an organization as organizations are made up of many people. Allowing for these shared spaces, not only allows for people to get to know each other, but for an opportunity to share ideas. These shared ideas rarely remain in the space of workplace, but oftentimes extend to personal life, past experiences, and personal opinions. Why is this important? This is important because when we allow for these shared spaces and for shared experiences, we allow for leaders to truly exchange ideas.
To understand this, you must acknowledge that when you first meet someone or begin working in a new organization, you sit back and observe. You wait to ensure you have a solid understanding of what is being discussed before wholeheartedly participating. Why do you hold back when presumably, only a few weeks ago at your last office you were easily participating in this type of discussion if not leading it? Nishida would argue you hold back because you are not comfortable enough to share what is considered ‘tacit knowledge’. Nonaka and Konno explain that there are two types of knowledge, explicit and tacit. Explicit is the information we can share that, “can be expressed in words and numbers and shared in the form of data, scientific formulate, specifications, manuals, and the like.” Whereas tacit knowledge is, “highly personal and hard to formalize, making it difficult to communicate or share with others.” This is why we say, ‘leaders get paid the big bucks’. Leaders must participate in these shared spaces and must contribute to discussions held in these places to not only ensure proper synchronization, but to also contribute what role their department has to play, and what support they need from other departments to be successful. Experience or ‘tacit knowledge’ is not something that you can delegate away and due to its complexity, isn’t something you can equip your delegate with before attending certain meetings.
Nonaka and Konno elude to the real reason you wait a few weeks before really contributing in a new organization is you must first become comfortable with your environment before sharing tacit knowledge. You must first understand who you can share this information with – Can you trust this person, will this other person simply ignore you, etc… Meetings, boring as they can sometimes be, allow for a space to get to know your peers and your leadership. Meetings or other forms of ‘shared space’ depending on your profession are also important within your section for these same reasons. This is why when you review the earlier examples of what make some organizations good and others bad, you can see how ba plays a role. Predictability is necessary if you want everyone to feel comfortable, fostering an environment where everyone is heard, and no one is allowed to bogart the conversation is also necessary if you want a good exchange of information. Impromptu meetings by poor leadership is seen for what it actually is – a reason for this blowhard to talk about themselves and ‘flex their muscles’. A test of this; the next time a manager insists on an impromptu meeting (like he/she has done before in the past), pay attention and offer an opposing view or thought, for the sake of discussion and in the most professional manner possible. Nine times out of ten, you won’t even be allowed to finish your sentence because this manager will be eager to continue their monologue.
So as you prepare for your next meeting or decide on which of them to delegate, try to keep in mind that even though you can’t control all aspects of a meeting, you can at least understand what they can be. A shared space for you and your peers to exchange information, communicate past experiences, and discuss solutions as you move forward in your position. Likewise, when you hold your internal meetings try and hold true to some of the basics of what this shared space should be – if you have internal meetings that everyone is just trying to get through, maybe consider getting rid of it. Ask if anyone has a recommendation of how it can be done better and see if everyone on your team feels comfortable enough to speak up – at a minimum, see who their eyes turn to, because you may be able to spot the person that tells them not to participate or the person you are allowing to dominate your meetings.
This is Part-1 of a briefing series. As it stands I will follow this blog up with two others – “Who should hold the whiteboard marker”, and “How long have you used that slide deck”. If you want to receive notifications of new articles, please like the Facebook page or follow this blog at the links provided on this webpage.
Journal Reference:
Publications, Sage. “The Concept of ‘Ba’: Building a Foundation For Knowledge Creation.” Review of International Studies, vol. 6, no. 2, 2015, pp. 301–13.
Leaders Check 