Meetings: The Best Thing Managers Can Do

Manager As Mediator of Meaning

Every week there are work teams meeting in multiple sessions over multiple days. Presentations, discussions, and break-out groups generate an overwhelming amount of information; problems, solutions, and ideas abound.

But is everything important?

No. And that's why the best thing a manager can do is listen intently, ask questions, and take notes. Then, commit to this valuable act of leadership:

Each morning, synthesize and summarize what you saw the day before. Point out what is genuinely important and what is a "nice idea" to tuck away for future use. This single intervention provides focus for the day's discussion as well as focus for the immediate future. People know what they need to pay attention to today and for the weeks ahead. Equally important: they know what to let go of.

Synthesize, summarize, prioritize. That kind of direction keeps people in the "performance zone."

Comments

[Frode H]

This reminds me: If you bring your laptop to a meeting use a tasklist, and create tasks as they surface, and say: "Than I am going to do..." - And if you need other to do something; Do you put that on your tasklist. I use my tasklists a lot, and this move the discussion into action. A lot of people write down what the meeting is all about and never read it again, these people might as well sit and draw something with crayons. Moving the meeting into action is very important, and if this does not happen, the meeting is actually of no use.

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