A very true post from my friend Adam Sigel:
The other day my friend Max was asking how to have better meetings. He’s a bright guy, so I was sort of surprised that the obvious answer evaded him: have an agenda and share it in advance.
As our conversation continued, I realized that his problem was not functional but procedural. Max is among the countless people who have bad meetings thrust upon them by others. He was wondering how to impart change in someone else’s domain.
Anyone invited to a meeting has the ability to improve it and the right to skip it.
If someone sends an invitation without an agenda, ask for one. No one will be upset. You’ll be surprised how often that one question helps the organizer realize that he only had one question, and there’s no need for a meeting at all.
Hold people accountable. If the agenda includes a review of the user base, make sure the latest numbers are circulated in advance. Sometimes the organizer will say, “I prefer to wait until the meeting to share the information,” and there are scenarios—like a design review—where this is appropriate because you don’t want the material reviewed in a vacuum. The question, then, is “What should I come prepared to discuss?”
If you get an agenda and determine the meeting won’t be worth your time, it’s okay to leave early, or decline entirely. Just keep doing your job. In my consulting days, I had to track my hours and review the hours of everyone who billed to my accounts. One of the easiest ways to save hours was to shorten or reduce the number of internal team meetings. Talk was anything but cheap. (On one account, a weekly, 30-minute check-in call consumed 25% of the monthly retainer!) Most meetings are time spent not doing work, so they have to be worth it for the attendees and the organization. If you call a one hour meeting with three developers, you need to generates at least three hours of equivalent value through productivity gains or directional adjustment.
The next time Max skips a meeting he knows isn’t relevant to him, he’ll not only save himself the trouble, he’ll also save the company money. Way to go, Max.