This problem is only getting worse as organizations, including those in healthcare, become more complex and collaborative. But does increased collaboration have to mean more conference calls and meetings? Probably not, but it does mean meetings need to be tighter and more valuable. Quality over quantity, yet again.
Harvard Business Review has some tips for running better meetings. Some seem like common sense — “Don’t hold a meeting for the sake of holding a meeting.” — that you hope executives would have by the time they reach a C-suite. (But Mr. Mulligan’s recent changes suggest this probably happens more often than not in large companies.)
There are also a few refreshing reminders.
The Rule of 7 states that every attendee who makes the meeting group more than 7 people reduces the likelihood of making sound, quick and executable decisions by 10 percent. If the group hits 16 or 17, decision effectiveness nears zero.
Use a decision log to capture every decision made in a meeting. If the log is blank by the end of the meeting, people will want to know why the meeting was held at all. If the log has a couple decisions, but less than you’d expect after 30 or 60 minutes, maybe it’s time to revisit the frequency, length or number of people attending meetings.
Excusing people isn’t rude. If done gracefully, the excused will probably be quite grateful. A friend of mine recently said she is often caught in meeting runoff — the point in which her responsibilities were addressed, but people around the table linger to talk about matters specific to them and their work. “I just wish my boss would excuse me,” my friend said. “I have no idea what they are talking about.”
It’s also okay to excuse people at the very start. Many people may cast a wide net when scheduling meetings, especially far in advance. As the meeting convenes, it’s helpful if the person running it reexamines attendees and whether they play a role in the decisions to be made.
In closing, here’s a story from The Onion that so wonderfully captures the essence of the poorly run, overblown and vague meeting. My favorite part is the last line, which mentions follow-up meetings for three consecutive days.
Employees Still Have No Idea What’s Going On After Attending Meeting
The staff of Viacom’s regional syndication and licensing division have “absolutely no idea” what is happening with their operations, planning, or corporate structure following their four-hour-long operations, planning, and corporate-restructuring meeting, employees said Monday.
“Well, it seems like we are either heading into an ‘amazing new era,’ or losing our jobs,” assistant project coordinator Lisa Morgan said. “Or maybe it’s something else altogether. At the very least, I’m fairly sure that this meeting concerned how we operate, plan, and structure our work. I think.”
Morgan said she hoped some of the finer details of the meeting would be made clear in one of the follow-up meetings on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
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