The quiet before the brainstorm

The quiet before the brainstorm…

In previous newsletters I have shared various techniques for generating ideas and talked about the obstacles to effective brainstorming – things like mind-set, assumptions, politics, lack of experience, introversion etc. And I will continue to explore these themes in future newsletters.

But whilst observing a number of meetings recently I realised that I had never written about what needs to happen before the brainstorming even begins in order for that session of generating ideas to work.

When I design a team offsite or an important meeting I spend at least two days on preparation. That is generally sufficient for a meeting lasting up to a day. Longer meetings require more preparation.

Are you shocked? Maybe not. But how long do you spend preparing for meetings? What about meetings that you are in charge of? If the meeting is half a day long, are you dedicating a day to preparing it?

I don’t mean preparing your presentations and pulling together your facts and figures. I mean designing the meeting itself – how it will be structured, who is coming, what you personally want to get out of the meeting, understanding fully what other people’s expectations, concerns, reservations and needs are for the meeting, establishing how you are going to handle the different agendas of the people present, deciding how you are going to “be” in the meeting, what role you are going to play…

See why it takes some time?

Given that about 50% of time in meetings is unproductive it doesn’t make sense to skimp on preparation. Just calculate how much your company is paying people to sit in your meeting achieving nothing. Spending time in advance considering these important questions could make the meeting 80-90% productive, maybe more. It may mean one meeting is sufficient where normally two or three would be needed. It might mean that action begins immediately rather than being delayed while misunderstandings from the meeting are ironed out.

Where to start?

I’ve presented a rather long, incomplete and random list of pre-meeting considerations above so to make it more manageable here are my top three tips:

1. Why are you holding this meeting?
Some meetings are held regularly and no one really considers what the purpose of each session is…and whether it is valuable. These kinds of regular meetings often turn in to information sharing opportunities where most people can contribute nothing for the majority of the meeting because the issues being discussed only interest the chair of the meeting and the person speaking. What a waste of time! I’m not saying that you don’t hold these meetings but that you consider every time: What must we get from today’s meeting? What is our primary purpose in getting together? Is it different from last time we met? How can this meeting be of most value to everyone present?

2. Who is invited and why are they there?
Some meetings just grow over the years and no one ever asks – do we all need to be here? Are the right people here? People are invited for political reasons or because they’ve always been invited in the past. But do you ever consider “uninviting” them if they really don’t need to be there? How about a few fresh faces, depending on the issue? How about someone external to the organisation that has expertise in this area…Once you know what the meeting is meant to achieve you can decide who really needs to be there…and who doesn’t.

3. How does everyone else feel about this meeting and about these issues?
Even if you are very clear on what you want to achieve in the meeting, you must fully understand other peoples’ agenda. This is not to say you agree meeting content by committee. Not at all. But unless you understand how people feel about a particular issue, their expectations of the meeting, even how they feel about you, the meeting cannot be a success. Very often these revelations occur during the meeting or after.

If they occur during the meeting they can be very disruptive. Meetings go off track because important considerations were not built in to the design of the session and certain individuals tend to dominate because they have more of a need to be heard than anyone else.

If they occur after the meeting they can invalidate decisions made at the meeting, and what a waste of everyone’s time that is.

Of course, this is one of the reasons companies employ external facilitators like me to design their meetings! This stuff takes time. But I challenge you to try it for yourself. Without the right foundations you will find, when you ask for ideas and contributions from the floor, that you get the same old tried and tested ideas as always; the same people arguing for the same solutions that they always argue for; and the same people walk away feeling unappreciated and unheard.