Three Points for Changing Your Meetings
In the previous column, I said that a company where meetings continue like this has no future: people don't know that meetings cost money, don't know what a “meeting” (uchiawase) really means, and don't prepare.
In this column, I will explain how meetings should actually be run... introducing three points for changing your meetings.
Appointing a Facilitator
First, do you appoint a facilitator for every one of your meetings? This column is not the place to explain what a facilitator is, so if you are not familiar with facilitators, please refer to the various websites that introduce them.
The following site in particular explains it in considerable detail.
https://jinjibu.jp/keyword/detl/32/
Just to be sure, here are the roles of a facilitator (as we see them):
(1) Conducting an icebreaker:
Introducing participants to one another and deliberately engaging in small talk to make it easier to speak
(2) Confirming the meeting's purpose, goals, and procedures:
First, explaining the background and purpose of the project and what needs to be decided.
(3) Promoting consensus building:
Drawing out participants' opinions and building consensus on the agenda items.
(4) Managing the progress of the meeting:
(5) Assigning tasks for next time and confirming action items
I have seen many meetings, but I have hardly ever seen one in which a facilitator was appointed or in which anyone acted like a facilitator. As the site above also notes, a facilitator and a chairperson are completely different things. So those unfamiliar with the concept of a facilitator may not be able to imagine what facilitation is like, but there is a world of difference between meetings with a facilitator and meetings without one.
Facilitation does not require a qualification, so anyone can study it. That said, I think being a facilitator requires considerable training as well as aptitude. I am convinced that it is beneficial for a company's top management to first learn the concept of a facilitator, find employees with an aptitude for it, and have them study and train as facilitators.
Additional Preparations for Holding Meetings
Appointing a facilitator raises the quality of most meetings, but appointing a facilitator does not mean the job is done.
From here on, I will discuss matters other than the facilitator's role.
Selecting Participants
Selecting participants is very important. Surprisingly common are cases where participants are selected without much thought.
There are various patterns for selecting participants, but I cannot cover them all, so I will introduce two here.
(1) Whether a participant's participation is effective
In your daily meetings, are there people who hardly speak, or who say only a word or two? At some companies, that gets you excluded. Many companies remove people who cannot speak in meetings from subsequent meetings (this is especially common at foreign-affiliated companies). If you think about it, it is simple: if someone does not contribute in meetings, it is better to have them work on other tasks. I can almost hear people say, “They're a new hire in training, so it can't be helped that they don't speak,” “We had them join to share information,” or “They just joined the project, so they don't have enough information to speak up.” But these are all excuses.
At our company, we often include new hires in meetings, and we have them participate expecting the perspective that only a newcomer can offer. From their training onward, we teach them the meaning of speaking up in meetings and train them to do so. Also, there is no rule that says nobody needs to speak just because they are attending to share information or have just joined the project.
On the contrary, precisely because they have little information, they must actively ask questions. In most cases, people who make such excuses will find another reason not to speak at the next meeting as well.
(2) Whether the selection of people is appropriate
There are several types of meetings, but for example, when holding brainstorming sessions such as an ideas meeting, some people only voice negative opinions. Various psychological factors lie behind people who voice negative opinions, but in most cases, they are aware that they themselves cannot come up with ideas, and they try to show off their intellectual identity by negating others. https://the5seconds.com/jinkaku-hitei-20028.html
In brainstorming, even when novel ideas emerge, we ultimately also carry out a negative check. It is fine for such people to participate at the negative check stage, but it would be wise to leave them out at the brainstorming stage.
It is said that there are four types of people.
These four are:
(1) Controllers, who value their own position
(2) Promoters, who want their own value to be recognized
(3) Supporters, who find joy in supporting others
(4) Analyzers, who find meaning in what is correct
https://hq-hq.co.jp/articles/251023_260
For meetings, depending on the type of meeting, and also when selecting project members, it is necessary to analyze not only each person's experience, abilities, and track record but also their type (especially their personality).
For example, in a project with many controllers, quarrels and factions arise among them, and in a project with many promoters, everyone just pushes their own ideas and nothing ever comes together... Haven't you witnessed meetings like that?
For meetings, it is necessary to analyze the types and psychology of participating members and to consider whether the combination is appropriate.
In this way, meetings require preparation even before the meeting.
Taking Minutes
“Of course we take minutes.”
You may say that, but surprisingly many meetings (companies) do not take minutes.
At companies that do not take minutes, individuals may indeed be taking notes, but when each person records the meeting's decisions according to their own interpretation, this in itself causes trouble. It is essential to designate one person to take minutes and share them with participants once the meeting is over.
This not only unifies the meeting's decisions but also frees other participants from the trouble of taking notes so they can concentrate on the meeting. At our company, new hires are responsible for taking minutes. This is because you cannot write minutes without clearly interpreting the content and intent of the meeting and judging whether something is a decision or not.
New hires become highly focused so as not to miss anything said in the meeting, and at the same time they rapidly gain knowledge about the work. Naturally, they are very tired when the meeting is over, and it is highly effective as new-hire training. Taking minutes also requires skill, and within a few years even new hires become dramatically better at summarizing.
There is the “Ebbinghaus forgetting curve,” proposed by the German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus.
- After 20 minutes, people forget 42% and remember 58%.
- After 1 hour, people forget 56% and remember 44%.
- After 1 day, people forget 74% and remember 26%.
Thus, no matter how effective the ideas or decisions made in a heated meeting may be, 74% of the content is forgotten within a day. It is no exaggeration to say that not preserving information in minutes renders the meeting meaningless.
Please look back once more:
How many meetings in the past week did you take minutes for?
Meeting Techniques
Finally, there are still many more techniques for making meetings better, but due to space constraints I will introduce just one. This is a technique that is rarely introduced even among facilitator techniques. Haven't you often seen executives who say things like this?
“The employees at our company don't share their opinions or speak up in meetings.”
There are several reasons why people do not share opinions or speak up, but there is a technique that gets them talking in one go.
Long ago, there was a president who said the line above in a way that made fun of his employees, and perhaps because I was young (lol), I declared,
“Then I'll get 100 ideas from your employees within 60 minutes.”
“If that were possible, we wouldn't have any trouble,” the president said as he left the room. I asked him to come back 60 minutes later.
As for the method, first I had them prepare a whiteboard or several large sheets of blank paper. Then I divided the 20 or so employees into 5 groups of 4 each and appointed a leader for each group. Then I had them resume the ideas meeting.
Ideas were written one after another on the whiteboards, and I went around each group supporting the proceedings. Then, an hour later, the president came back. “Now, sir, the four groups will present their ideas.”
Each group gave a presentation, and with a sense of rivalry with the other groups, the presentations became heated. The content was excellent, and the president was surprised.
“How did they come up with ideas like this?” I then explained the reasons to the president.
“When there are many participants in a meeting, people think about all sorts of things when speaking up, like responsibility or embarrassment. Also, don't you always make the final decision yourself? That dampens people's willingness to come up with ideas. So I simply divided them into small groups, spread out the responsibility, and created an atmosphere in which it is easy to talk.”
The president could not argue back and looked sour. (Today I would advise him more gently... lol)
It sounds simple once you hear it, but surprisingly many companies do not know this technique.
In Closing
What did you think of these ways to improve meetings?
How many of the items described above have been adopted in your company's meetings? (Let me briefly summarize once more.)
(1) Do you appoint or train facilitators?
- Conducting an icebreaker: introducing participants to one another and deliberately engaging in small talk to make it easier to speak
- Confirming the meeting's purpose, goals, and procedures: first, explaining the background and purpose of the project and what needs to be decided.
- Promoting consensus building: drawing out participants' opinions and building consensus on the agenda items.
- Managing meeting time:
- Assigning tasks for next time and confirming action items
(2) Do you prepare for meetings in advance (selecting members, preparing materials, creating agendas, minutes, etc.)?
(3) Do you know, study, and adopt meeting techniques?
I believe companies that do not know meeting methods like those above will eventually lose their vitality, and in fact, among the meetings I have experienced, I have hardly seen any company that implements all of the above. Conversely, knowing and implementing meeting methods becomes a competitive advantage. I would be delighted if you would reconsider how your company runs its meetings.
There is still much more I would like to say about meetings, but I will conclude this column here.
Text: Hiroshi Ashida
●Column articles are scheduled for publication on the 1st of each month.
Column scheduled for March: “Our Criteria for Accepting Work”