6 Bad Meeting Habits and How to Change Them

6 Bad Meeting Habits and How to Change Them

1) Poor Attendance / Late Arrivals – Nothing screams “waste of time” more than the actions of your supposed participants.  When people habitually arrive late (or not at all) then you should take this as a sign that your meeting isn’t of much value to those who should be attending.  A person’s actions (not their excuses) show their priorities.  If you often have empty seats, this indicates misalignment of priorities between you and your co-workers.   Talk with the prospective participants about the importance (or lack thereof) to determine if the meeting is even necessary.

2) Straying from the Point – It’s easy to get into a lengthy discussion about a topic that somehow just “pops up” during the meeting.  If that topic is unrelated to the meeting’s purpose, then table it and have that topic discussed outside the meeting.  Two tools can help you keep your meetings on track.  First, never ever hold a meeting without a predefined agenda outlining the expected outcomes.  Second, use a parking lot list.  Any off-topic discussion can be halted, placed on the parking lot list and then dealt with once the scheduled meeting concludes.

3) Allowing Annoying Distractions – Candy, chewing gum, snacks and drinks are bad enough.  You should also eliminate productivity-busting interruptions.  Make, and enforce, rules about using laptops, cell phones, and blackberries.  If the temptation is too great for some participants, then place a 5-gallon bucket in the corner of the room.  Toss all such annoyances in it and close the lid.  Assign a technology gatekeeper to handle and screen any interruptions.  If there’s a real emergency, then the technology gatekeeper can attend the call and involve the appropriate person, instead of interrupting the entire team.

4) Back-to-Back-to-Back Meetings – Ever get caught on a Meetings Treadmill?  Get off it!  Don’t accept or participate in multiple, back-to-back meetings.  You have to give yourself break in between meetings and schedule time for yourself to get your own work accomplished.

5) Conversation Domination – Everyone has a different style when it comes to conversation and interaction in a group setting.  Most teams have at least one person who gets on a roll and takes over the conversation.  Be sure to include every participant in each agenda item discussion.  Make an effort to keep the meeting flowing, but allow your soft-spoken coworkers an opportunity to contribute as well.

6) Status Quo – So, your weekly meeting is terrible. However, you’ve begrudgingly resigned yourself into believing that “that’s the way it is.”  Nonsense!  Invite an Outside Facilitator to audit and adjust how you hold your meetings.  There’s no excuse for accepting failure in your meetings.  It’s too costly and time consuming not to take action and make some changes.

Change What You Can, Deal with What You Can’t

Many studies show that attention spans only last about 20 minutes.  Couple that with other studies that show the diminished capacity to retain information over time and it’s easy to see how meetings fail to provide much value to your business.  You can’t change how the human mind works.  Identifying the bad habits, acting on what you know, and changing those habits is the only way to make your meetings any better.