Archive for January, 2009
Posted on January 26, 2009
Last week’s call came from Elliott, a VP in a medium-sized firm. He was frustrated with Conner, his CEO.
“What do we do with this guy?” Elliott groused. “We just spent two hours in a management meeting and only covered half the things on the agenda. We never even touched on a critical staff issue.”
“Why does Conner even put together an agenda? I see an agenda and develop expectations about what we will get done in the meeting. And every time I’m disgusted by our lack of progress.”
I’ve heard this before from other clients. The CEO puts together a meeting agenda and doesn’t stick to it. Too much time is spent on the first one or two issues, so the team doesn’t have time to get to all the issues.
Or the CEO lets someone go off on a tangent that has nothing to do with what the team is trying to accomplish. Or the CEO, as moderator, lets someone rehash issues and background covered in the last three meetings.
Cry for Help
“How do we turn this meeting into a productive use of our time?” Elliott asked with a sigh.
Here is what I suspect is going on.
CEOs tend to be big-picture people. Big-picture folks put together agendas to satisfy other people; they don’t really need agendas because they often don’t follow them.
Big-picture folks don’t always have the best sense of time. So they may think they can cover 8 issues in a two-hour meeting, but, in reality, they can’t.
What You Can Do
If you find yourself in Elliott’s spot, here are a few things you can do.
* You can consult with the CEO then you create the agenda with time limits on discussion for each point. Two hours is 120 minutes-you can’t squeeze any more from that two hours.
* Volunteer to be the time-keeper for the meeting. You watch the clock and keep the team informed of where you are on the agenda and how much time you have left.
* Get someone to man the metaphorical “parking lot.” A “parking lot” is a place to record thoughts you don’t want to lose, but that don’t fit into the discussion at the time they are raised. When the agenda has been covered, the “parking lot” manager reviews those topics. The team can decide to put them off until next time or to continue the meeting in order to cover one or more parking lot issues.
* Someone needs to gently let Conner know that others get frustrated when the agenda doesn’t get covered.
* And one last suggestion from a reader: Once you know how to have an effective two-hour meeting, figure out how to cut it down to one hour.
Posted on January 13, 2009
Two weeks ago, a client and I were discussing (1) his inability to prioritize his work and (2) how he spends his time. We came up with a to-do list and set deadlines. He met one deadline, but he didn’t complete the other three things on his to-do list until this week.
Why the delay? And why now?
He delayed the work because he didn’t want to do it. He finally completed the remaining tasks less than an hour before we met–because he didn’t want to have to tell me that the projects weren’t finished.
I like to motivate people, but not like that.
Procrastination is an art form for about half the U.S. population. Procrastinators, and I am one, are pros at putting things off. Why do something today when you can put it off until tomorrow?
For procrastinators, the Internet is like a candy store. It’s virtually unlimited in terms of finding stuff to do rather than do what we should be doing.
So, where’s the help for procrastinators? Here are a few ideas that might work.
* Set 2-3 achievable goals every day and meet them. Don’t try for meeting 8-10 daily goals. That’s what the other half of the population does. A procrastinator needs to learn to handle two or three things well before adding more to the list.
* Successful people use their time well. When an urgent task threatens to pull them away from what they’re doing, they don’t rush into it just because it seems urgent. They always ask: Which of these two things is higher on my list of priorities?
* Turn off the phone from time to time. Can you get more done by leaving a voice message and turning the phone off during certain periods of the day? The telephone is one of the most insidious thieves of our time. It’s urgent but rarely important. It shoves out the less urgent but more important things.
* Only check email three times a day-when you get in, at lunch, and an hour before leaving. Don’t let the email lure you away from meeting your daily goals.
For the procrastinators reading this, do one of the above NOW. As Nike says, “Just Do It!”
Posted on January 2, 2009
This week John emailed me about setting up a meeting with an employee of his. The three of us are getting together to review their personality types and how they work together, where they might run into trouble, how they complement each other.
I’ve worked with John for a long time. He has received lots of coaching from me about his communication style and how to communicate effectively. But he seemed to forget some of that in this process.
On his to-do list, John had “set up meeting with Pam and June.” He suggested a time and asked me to follow up with June.
June and I couldn’t meet that day, so we picked another day. Not a good day for him, he said. John was leaving that day to go on an extended overseas trip.
An extended overseas trip? Why didn’t he say that in the first place and give us his time frames when asking us to set up the meeting?
When you are trying to meet with someone and your availability is limited, let them know in a polite way. Then they will be able to accommodate you the first time you talk.
It’s the same thing when you ask someone, usually by email, to get you certain information. Let them know when you need it and why.
For example, I received an email from someone I barely knew telling me to send her certain information. As it so happens, I didn’t like this woman and didn’t appreciate the tone of her email. Thus, I didn’t send her the information at all. (Not the best picture of my character.)
Had she told me why she needed the information and by when, I probably would have accommodated her, even though I didn’t like her. You need to give people a context for understanding your requests.
