On Friday 16 Jan I facilitated a meeting for the 40 senior managers in the Futures Housing Group who are based in Ripley in Derbyshire. We were looking at how they can deliver on their corporate values which are:
- Making a positive impression
- Operating as one organisation
- Reaching our potential
- Embracing innovation
We used different problem analysis and idea generation techniques to explore these challenges in depth. One of the issues that arose was the problem of too much time being spent in meetings. It is a common problem across many organisations. Here are some ideas that came up for tackling this:
- Before calling a meeting ask, ‘Is a meeting really necessary here? Can we cover this another way?’
- Have a clear agenda for each meeting.
- Set a time limit for meetings and items within meetings. ‘This issue is worth 20 minutes of our time and no more!’
- Use de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats to speed up meetings and decision making.
- For every minute that the meeting overruns, the chair of the meeting has to do a sit-up. 15 minutes over means 15 sit-ups for the chair. A powerful (and healthy) incentive to keep meetings to time.
We all have to constantly fight the meetings monster. A mix of good discipline and innovative thinking can really help.
Paul Sloane
