To Be Good, Managers Must Have Good Meetings



The other day, I was invited to attend a meeting with 11 top executives, the Big Wigs. The Big Wigs meet every Friday to discuss strategy. As a little wig, I was attending to fill the role of note taker.
The topic of the day was about refreshing IT resources in the field. There was no meeting agenda. The meeting started 7 minutes late. One Big Wig had already laid out papers to work on during the meeting. Four of the Big Wigs sent their deputies to “cover” the meeting. The 2nd highest ranked Wig in the room began checking messages on his phone (or playing video games, I’m not sure which) after only 3 minutes. At the end of 60 minutes, I had not recorded a single meaningful discussion or action item. Not one.
To hold this particular meeting cost the organization roughly $800 in salaries and benefits. We spent $800 to teach 11 Big Wigs that field reps are getting new laptops – even though all 11 knew that new laptops were on the way before the meeting started.
I'm relaying the story here, not to criticize the Big Wigs, but to point out an obvious waste of resources. If $800 was laying on the table, one of the Big Wigs would have picked it up and put it to good use. Because the cost of the meeting was not obvious, and tradition dictated that Big Wigs meet every Friday, no one objected to the lack of structure, process, or discipline in the meeting. Worse: everyone who attended the meeting was aware that the meeting was a waste of time before they arrived.

In his book, "Mining Group Gold," Thomas Kayser provides a very useful organizing scheme and some detailed content on the topic of running meetings. Although the book feels like it was written in the 1950's, it offers some pretty sound advice on how to get things done in a meeting format. 

 The book is a worthwhile read, and it led me to one inescapable conclusion:

 The way to tell a good manager from a bad one is to look at their meetings: Good managers have good meetings.

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