Quick tips for making all-hands meetings tolerable and useful
My recent articles discuss how all-team meetings (or “group meetings” or “all-hands meetings”) are essentially risky endeavors for group leaders (here and here). So here are some tips on how to mitigate the risks:
1. Don’t make the meetings mandatory
If you have to make a meeting mandatory, it is a sign that something is not compelling about your meeting. Call meetings that people want to attend. As a corollary to this, try not to have your lower level management team spend time in their team meetings talking about why it is mandatory and why people need to attend. Instead, they should talk about what team members are expected to get out of the (preferably) non-mandatory meeting. Read on for what that might be. . .
2. Stick to the strategy
People want to hear what the strategy is. The strategy should be stated, and discussed. When getting everyone together, the main objective should be getting the full team on board to understand the group or company strategy. Anything other than the strategy is, to a certain degree, specific execution, and probably isn’t appropriate at the “all-group” or “all-hands” meeting level.
3. Review the key performance indicators, and performance against these
As part of the strategy, look at your key performance indicators, and show that this is what the management team is looking at. Avoid showing stress at the metrics that are lower than target. Instead, discuss how you are going to support improving not only the underperforming metrics, but further accelerate the metrics that are above target.
4. Stop there.
This makes the all-team meeting short and sweet. It shows level that the layer of management running the meeting the strategic level at which they are working. If there isn’t much content beyond looking at the strategy and the key performance indicators, then the meeting can be short and sweet. Your greater team will thank you that you haven’t taken more time out of their work.
5. Don’t mistake “Q&A” with “interactive”
Many managers leading all-hands meetings say that they want the session to be “interactive.” This often means that there is a question an answer session after the presentation. This isn’t interactive, since the vast majority of the attendees aren’t interacting during the Q&A session. It’s a Q&A session, not interactivity. Meeting leaders can budget time in for Q&A, but know that it doesn’t create the impression of openness and interactivity to leadership. Instead, it shows that leadership is implying that their interactions with the larger group is limited to all-team meeting Q&A sessions.
6. Have the team work together to solve a problem or generate ideas
Many managers want their all-team meetings to be “interactive.” They also want the members of the larger team to “get to know each other.” Many times they’ll have post-meeting receptions, or require that people introduce each other during the all-team meeting. These actions rarely create lasting connections.
Instead, here is a way to create interactivity that is more meaningful:
Break up the larger session into groups of 4-6 people. Now issue a challenge with a time limit – what can we do to better execute this strategy? Improve this key performance indicator? Improve the work environment? What areas are we not investing in, but you think we should?
In short, find a problem that the leadership team wants solved, and then put the larger team to work to solve it. Have the teams document the results, and have them delivered to the meeting leaders. The leaders (or the groups) can then share them back to the larger group or a few other groups.
The meeting leaders now have tons of ideas related to their strategic concerns, and with tons of problem-solving brainpower. And it was interactive, work related and a more meaningful use of time. I would consider this a little bit better than introducing each other or having a post-meeting party.
OK, follow these tips for all-hands meetings, and you’ve increased the chances that the all-team meeting is useful, relevant and meaningful to the attendees, and the meetings will probably be a lot shorter and cost less. Not bad!
Related articles:
Do your all-team meetings make your team cringe?
Reasons many employees dread all-team meetings
If you’re the manager, it’s your job not to act surprised
Nine simple tips to make meetings more compelling
More reasons mandatory meetings are bad for you and bad for your team
Making it a mandatory meeting sabotages the meeting
More reasons mandatory meetings are bad for you and bad for your team
Managers behaving badly: Training the team not to report bad news
What to do when you see a status or metric as “Red”
Reasons many employees dread all-team meetings
In my previous article, I mentioned that all-team meetings (big meetings with 30+ people) create a risk of degrading employee’s experience as an employee. When managers a) try to entertain or b) praise the great work of people that aren’t so great and who did work that was terrible, it is guarantee that at least some people in the room will cringe. Especially when the director calling the meeting makes it a mandatory meeting, this guarantees that people who don’t want to be there will be there.
But why stop at two reasons people cringe at all team meetings when there are so many more reasons all-team meetings could be considered high-risk and even damaging to the team?
Forced interaction that is not work-related
Frequently people will have to introduce themselves to their neighbor or someone they don’t know and “get to know” them. This is great on one level, and painful to many on another. Those who like to get to know each other and socialize love it. Those who would rather be back at their desk getting work done think it’s pointless. Just because the director thinks that all the people ought to all know each other, this is not a good venue for doing this.
The director should instead identify work-related efforts to get people from different parts of the organization to work with each other. Creating a working relationship that involves producing real deliverables will be much better than ad-hoc forced networking at an all-team meeting. If you want people to socialize, then socializing should be the main event (but still don’t expect everyone to be there).
Not relevant
I warn against trying to entertain people at an all team meeting, because this can create the most embarrassing moments. Slightly less embarrassing, but no less painful, is being bored through lack of relevance. An all team meeting is boring precisely because it often talks about stuff not related to the person’s job.
Long
I haven’t been able to figure out why it is that the bigger the meeting is, the longer it is. My observation is that an all-team meeting is at least two hours, sometimes three, maybe more. And they tend to go well past the regularly scheduled time. So if the director is trying to set an example of how to manage a meeting, and meeting runs long by 45 minutes, so much for setting an example on the smart use of time.
Irrelevant Games
This is an off-shoot of trying to entertain the full team. Play a game! I don’t really care what game it is, unless you are entirely skilled at creating a game that is specifically related to a work-challenge currently at hand, then it this will come across to some –not all—as filler, and as a waste of time. Games are fun, but is fun the objective of an all-team meeting? If so, is the message that you expect the non-all-team meetings to be half-filled with non-work-related game time? That’s the message that’s being sent. Games should be played during breaks and off hours, so wrap up the all-team meeting and let people go out and play.
The costs of the meeting
There are those who attend a meeting with 50 to 100 people, and immediately start calculating what the cost of the event is. Let’s say the average salary is $50,000. That’s about $25 an hour. 50 people, 2 hours at $25 hour. That’s $2500 to hear the director play games, entertain, and talk – and then there’s the stuff that is not being done while everyone is at the mandatory all team meeting. Is it worth it? I’m sure there will be some who doubt the director’s fiscal responsibility.
Not able to get work done
The director has called an all-team meeting for 60 people, lasting 2 hours. Perhaps a quarter of those 60 people had some pressing deadline or responsibility for that day. That’s 15 people who don’t want to be there, would rather do their work, and do a good job at their work. That better be a really good meeting to pull these folks from getting their work done on time. It might be a late night at the office for these folks.
Not having to do something differently after the meeting
Perhaps the most pernicious of all. You attend an all-team meeting. You’ve heard three or four director-level people talk. You’ve learned a lot about the organization. Now what do you have to do differently on your job? Nothing. There is rarely an effort to equate the information being shared at a group meeting with what on the job needs to be done differently. This, of course is hard to do. However, one the hallmarks for a good meeting is that there is some change as a result of the meeting. If the all-team meeting can’t do this, then should you expect the other meetings that happen in your organization to be any different?
I’m being pretty tough on the all-team meeting. That’s because all-team meetings can be pretty tough. I’m not saying all people hate all-team meetings, just a lot of people! So if you’re planning an all-team meeting, beware!
Related Articles:
Do your all-team meetings make your team cringe?
Quick tips for making all-hands meetings tolerable and useful
Criteria to generate a virtuous cycle for meetings
How to get out of what seem to be useless meetings
How to get out of really useless meetings
A leading indicator for team performance: Chart your meeting quality
Nine simple tips to make meetings more compelling
More reasons mandatory meetings are bad for you and bad for your team
Making it a mandatory meeting sabotages the meeting
More reasons mandatory meetings are bad for you and bad for your team
Do your all-team meetings make your team cringe?
I was talking to an independent consultant the other day, and she told me that, while tempting, she didn’t want to go full-time at the business she was consulting with. The reason she didn’t want to report to the client as a full-time employee was that she didn’t want to go to that team’s “all-team meetings” (also known as “all-hands meetings” or “group meetings.”) She felt that her relationship would go right out the window as soon as she had to attend one of those dreaded meetings. She would go to that meeting kicking and screaming, and then cringe through the whole thing. Instead, she’s happy as someone who can focus on doing her work, getting results, and establishing great relationships with her clients.
The lesson learned from this discussion – “all hands” meetings can be de-motivating and take away from good work.
So clearly something is wrong with all-hands meetings. So wrong, in fact, that this highly capable consultant who would otherwise consider working for the company full time has ruled it out for this reason only. Yikes!
So what’s so bad about these all-hands meetings?
First, as the name implies, the “all-hands” meeting is usually “required” or “mandatory”. So, by definition, a certain percentage of the population doesn’t want to go for whatever reason but is there anyway. The “mandatory” element builds in a tough audience from the start.
Next, oftentimes all-team meetings make the attendees cringe — especially the ones didn’t want to go. Perhaps they didn’t want to go because they know the proceedings will make them cringe.
Perhaps you know what this cringing looks like – I call this the “horrified at the all-team meeting gesture” where participants look away from what is happening at the front, heads down, hands over eyes. This gesture is often seen when the events are so embarrassingly awful that participants have to look away. They cringe at the terrible proceedings unfolding before them.
But Walter, you may ask, what could a manager or director or senior vice president be doing that is so bad? What is it that they could be doing that is so awful that people on the team can’t bear to watch?
OK. I’ll give you two common actions and tell me if you’ve never witnessed these:
1. Performing skits that attempt to entertain
This was a large part of the premise of the comedy series “The Office” (I recommend the The UK Version
The humor from the show stems from the phenomenon that people in management positions often mistake being a leader with being an entertainer. Managers who try to entertain are, by definition, amateurs at entertaining (they should be professionals at managing). Their ideas as to what is funny and what works as entertainment are usually poor. Also, many people find it a waste of time. Attempt to entertain only if you have professional entertainers there to assist you (and probably at great expense). Even then, know that a percentage of your audience will consider it cheesy.
Attempting to entertain should be considered a highly risky endeavor and, at best, would constitute advanced “style points” of being a manager. At worst, it negates all of the good work done as a manager.
Similarly, you can be a great manager without ever having to entertain the troops.
2. Publically praising the wrong people, the wrong projects, and the wrong work
All-team meetings are often used as venues for the leader to publically praise people on their hard work. They will call out different people for what they did and why they are great. This, too, should be considered risky, since the leader of the meeting will risk praising the hard work of someone at work that others have noted to be ineffective, difficult, or otherwise produce poor work.
Here’s how it works: The director says, “I want to thank Jeremy for his amazing work.” Now, perhaps Jeremy has indeed produced great work – for the boss. But imagine if Jeremy is also the proverbial “A**hole at work” — Jeremy has been unresponsive to multiple people, yelled at others, lied to get ahead, called people he doesn’t like “stupid,” has dumped work on them or taken credit for other people’s work. And now the director stands in front of everyone and says how much she likes Jeremy? You can expect that many in the room will cringe.
Not only that, many in the room will wonder just how clueless the director is, to publically call out someone who is clearly an awful co-worker. Then they will get depressed, knowing the difficulty of shedding light to the manager on the problematic aspects of Jeremy.
Now, the same thing can happen for projects. Let’s consider Project Y: It is over budget, the people working on it have extended the timeline multiple times, and it is generally considered a debacle. Then the director says, “I want to thank all of those on Project Y who have worked so hard to make it a success.” The director may earnestly be trying to show support for those on Project Y, but by highlighting project Y – even with an eventual positive outcome, those on Project X, W, V and U (projects that, if run smoothly, didn’t get attention from the big boss) get upset about the public praise, because now they feel like they are being ignored, and the boss has no concept as to who is doing the good work. Cringing ensues.
In previous articles, I discuss “public feedback” (another common all-hands meeting error), where the manager attempts to provide corrective feedback to the entire team. “Public praise” has a similar problem. Providing the manager’s view of who the top performers are in front of everyone and in real time has own dangers.
These cringe-worthy actions are exacerbated because these all-team meetings are often deemed “mandatory.” This means that the people who will not be entertained – no matter how high-quality the entertainment — have to sit through the entertainment. This means that the people who feel that they are not being recognized, while the less deserving do get recognized, will have their worst fears confirmed.
A disastrous all-team meeting might even be a galvanizing reason someone will want to leave their job (i.e., leave their managers), as they will see many things they don’t like about the job compressed into a single event and channeled through the senior leadership’s so clearly on display. As in the case of the consultant I was speaking with, all-team meetings are the first reason she didn’t want to join an organization.
So what I’m saying is: All-hands meetings should be considered high-risk. Managers and directors risk inadvertently embarrassing themselves and their team, and also inadvertently make it seem like they don’t know what is happening on the team and how the team feels at the precisely moment they are trying to assert their leadership.
In my next article, I’ll enumerate more reasons all-team meetings are high risk.
In the mean time, please share your memorable “cringe-worthy” moments at all-team meetings!
Related articles:
Reasons many employees dread all-team meetings
Quick tips for making all-hands meetings tolerable and useful
Criteria to generate a virtuous cycle for meetings
How to get out of what seem to be useless meetings
How to get out of really useless meetings
A leading indicator for team performance: Chart your meeting quality
Nine simple tips to make meetings more compelling
More reasons mandatory meetings are bad for you and bad for your team
Making it a mandatory meeting sabotages the meeting
More reasons mandatory meetings are bad for you and bad for your team
How to create a team strategy document—use the team
In my previous post, I discussed the expectations that any team manager should have some sort of team strategy document. This is a key deliverable of any manager. OK, so how do you create one?
The operative word in the term “Team Strategy Document” is the word “Team.” Use your team to create the team strategy document. The manager who doesn’t use the team will create a manager strategy document, which will reflect the manager’s view of the world, and not the team. The team will ignore it, and therefore it is not a team strategy document.
So here’s how you do it:
1. Have a team meeting with the objective of creating a team strategy document
Don’t do the usual agenda items like updates. Those are likely boring anyway. This meeting should be focused on the team strategy document, and the objective is to have enough information to create a document.
2. Set up the meeting to be collaborative and brainstorming
Many team meetings end up being one person (perhaps the manager?) giving various status updates, news from above. This meeting needs to be different. It needs to require input from everyone on the team, even the quiet ones and the ones who possibly think team meetings are useless. Say, “In today’s meeting, I’m going to ask all of you to provide your input. This is an opportunity to think creatively and to get our ideas out. I welcome all ideas, and later we will hone it down and consolidate.”
In addition, find some tools to allow everyone on the team to provide input. If you’re serious about getting input from the entire team, do not just stand in front of the white board and ask people to shout suggestions during brainstorming. Instead, I suggest getting a pen and paper or Post-It notes in each person’s hand. Bring these tools to the meeting.
How to get out of really useless meetings
In my previous article, I propose a simple set of questions to determine the usefulness or uselessness of a given meeting. In it, I explore what to do when you can answer “Yes” to one or more of the questions. Today, I explore what to do when you answer “Yes” to NONE of the questions. That means it’s a really bad meeting and is worthless to you and probably a bunch of other people. You should get out of it.
First, let’s review the five questions for determining the meeting’s usefulness:
Do the other attendees bring some value to me? (Y/N)
Do I bring value to the other attendees? (Y/N)
Does the anticipated value of the meeting exceed what I can get accomplished if I don’t attend? (Y/N)
Will the meeting content get me un-stuck, make my work better, easier, more efficient, or compelling? (Y/N)
Will I have to do something differently in my job as a result of the meeting (Y/N)
Now think of a meeting that you are dreading to attend. Why are you dreading it? It’s because you answered “No” to all five questions. You should get out of that meeting. Here are some suggestions for how to do it: Read more
How to get out of what seem to be useless meetings
In previous blog entries, I propose a simple set of questions to determine the usefulness or uselessness of a meeting. In today’s post, I’ll help you use this framework to get out of the useless meetings! Ready? Let’s go!
Ok, so the first thing to do is to become familiar with the set of questions you need to ask before accepting or walking into the meeting:
Do the other attendees bring some value to me? (Y/N)
Do I bring value to the other attendees? (Y/N)
Does the anticipated value of the meeting exceed what I can get accomplished if I don’t attend? (Y/N)
Will the meeting content get me un-stuck, make my work better, easier, more efficient, or compelling? (Y/N)
Will I have to do something differently in my job as a result of the meeting (Y/N)
Now think of a meeting that you consider worthless and ask yourself these five questions in regards to this meeting.
Nine simple tips to make meetings more compelling
In my previous posts, I described a common mistake that managers make in regards to meetings: Calling mandatory meetings. In subsequent posts, I’ve listed criteria what makes a meeting more compelling from the participants’ view, and how you can even measure and track your meeting quality based on this criteria. In this post, provide nine baseline tips for making meetings more compelling, and helping you move your meetings up the meeting quality index.
1) Wait until there is a reason to call a meeting.
Instead of scheduling a regular meeting, and then try to find a use for it as that meeting approaches, wait until there is a reason for the meeting, and then call the meeting. For large groups, sometimes it is difficult to find a meeting time at the last minute, so the way to work around this is to have a regular meeting scheduled (such as a quarterly meeting). But if you don’t have immediate and obvious ideas for what will fill that time with, then cancel the meeting. Even if you have paid a deposit on the room, you’ll still save money if you don’t have immediate ideas for what the meeting is for.
A leading indicator for team performance: Chart your meeting quality
This is part of a series of posts designed to help break the mandatory meeting cycle. The better you make the meetings, the less you’ll need to make them mandatory. In my previous post, I described some basic criteria for what makes a meeting valuable and compelling to the attendees. With these criteria, you can start to measure the quality of your meetings or any meeting you attend.
After a meeting, it is often ambiguous whether the meeting was a success. The person calling the meeting may have obtained or shared the information they wanted to, but was it a compelling meeting?
Here are some ways to measure whether the meeting was compelling – for all participants. You can then chart this out and create an index over time to create a leading indicator index of meeting quality that you or your team members attend. Read more
Criteria to generate a virtuous cycle for meetings
How do you make meetings more compelling? This is the latest of a series of blog posts discussing how to transition from making meetings mandatory to having an organization with meetings that people actually want to attend.
Many meetings are not compelling, they are just required. Meetings should be required to be compelling. I previously discussed some alternatives to even calling a meeting – if it is unidirectional communication, then a meeting isn’t necessary. In today’s post, I discuss the criteria for what makes a meeting useful and compelling, and thus not required to be mandatory.
Your basic goal should not be attendance at the meeting. Your goal should be instead to create value in the meeting, whether it is a large group meeting or a small team meeting.
Here is my set of criteria for what compels an employee to attend any meeting, whether or not it is deemed mandatory:
The first step to getting out of the mandatory meeting cycle: Don’t call meetings if you were planning one-way communication
In my previous posts (here and here), I discussed why calling “mandatory” meetings is a bad idea. It doesn’t work at getting more attendance and it creates contempt for the meeting before it even started. Yet, many meetings are still called “mandatory”. This blog post is the first in a series dedicated to help you break the cycle of making meetings mandatory.
As explained in the prior posts, if you feel compelled to make a meeting mandatory, then it is an indicator that the meeting isn’t worth having.
So the first question should be: Is the meeting format even necessary?
If you were planning to convey information to your team or group – and had no plans for additional interaction — then the meeting format isn’t necessary. This is also true of other “guest speakers” you may have planned. If they were planning to talk in front of the group – and nothing more—then the meeting isn’t necessary. Read more
