9 ass-kicking tricks to shorten your meetings

I’m standing in the conference room as the members of the team I’m facilitating start to come in. The third one in the door says he has to leave early. “How early,” I asked. “3, he says.” Then there’s a 3:30 guy, and the 4pm at the very latest woman.

WHAT?!?!

The meeting was booked until 5. We’ve had it booked for weeks.

I could have lost my cool. I could have freaked out. I had my lecture about commitment and obligation ready to go.

Instead, I decided to prove that any meeting can be shortened by 25%

Want to borrow my techniques to take a chunk out of your meetings?

1. Rearrange Your Topics

The first thing to do to shorten an agenda is to get the order right. Our original version had action plan updates in the morning and the more substantive discussions in the afternoon.

Flip. That. Order.

You want to flip that order for two reasons:

First, you want to have the difficult, conceptual, discussions when the energy is high; and

Second, you want to make sure you get to all the items that require decisions and ensure the things you don’t get to are the ones that won’t be held up by being dropped.

2. Start by Surveying the Territory

You’re used to starting a new agenda item and diving in.

Diving in is the wrong mental image. Diving in takes you deep in a single area, which can be totally inefficient. What if it’s the wrong area?

As you broach each topic, start by trying to understand the breadth of the issue you are discussing. Survey the whole territory rather than staying on any one spot. It’s snorkel, not scuba.

Diving in is the wrong image. Stay on the surface until you have mapped the territory.

Go around the room trying to unearth the different aspects of the problem that need to be considered. Each time someone goes deep and gives examples it will lure the team into a discussion of a specific aspect of the issue. Try to bring the conversation…