"As a participant in any meeting, Sheila, have you ever walked out at the end saying, Darn, I wish we had done this at the meeting."

"Well, yeah. Almost every meeting I go to, is like that. Sometimes, it wouldn't take much to make a meeting more meaningful," she replied. "Almost every time, it misses the mark."

"So, you think a meeting would have been better if it had just included some unspoken element?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Then, up front at the beginning of the meeting, does it make sense to get those unspoken elements out on the table?"

Sheila tilted her head. "How would you do that?"

"If you are the leader of the meeting, early on, after establishing the purpose for the meeting, simply ask, What is your condition of satisfaction for today's meeting. What has to happen, by the end of the day, for you to say, this meeting was worthwhile, to say, you are glad you came, you are glad you contributed?

"As the leader of the meeting," I continued. "You might as well know that up front." -TF

"They could have done two things up front that would have made the meeting worth attending," Sheila started. "First they could have published the goals for the meeting. It's like it's a big secret. Why not just tell us what they are trying to accomplish with the meeting?"

"And what else?" I asked.

"You know, I said they could have put it all in an email. They could have published all the INFORMATION stuff up front so we could look at it before the meeting."

"You really read that stuff?"

Sheila smiled. "No, well, yes, I would have at least skimmed it beforehand to get a basic idea of the details."

"So, what else? What else could have guaranteed the meeting would get you engaged?" -TF

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"It was a waste of time," Sheila complained. "Some of us had to travel to get here, we lost two days of productivity back at the office. All for this BIG meeting. They're rolling out this new program, but for my time, they could have told us all about it in an email."

"What did you learn?" I asked.

"Well, I learned how not to run a meeting," she replied.

"So, when you run your own meetings, with your department, you now know what NOT to do?"

"Well, yeah, but I didn't need two lost days to learn a lesson like that."

"Is it possible, that after all the expenses, all the planning and all the effort that went into the meeting, that your company failed to accomplish what it set out to accomplish?"

Sheila started to chuckle. "You're right, they probably didn't intend to have a bad meeting. I am sure they had some goals for the two days, they just didn't share that with us."

"Tell me, Sheila. What could they have done differently, to have the impact they were looking for?" -TF

From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:

My last meeting was a one day-seminar working a live case with creative breakout sessions. A warm-up on the beach, 3 coffee breaks and a large lunch break. Instead of 15 minute breaks, the team takes 30 minutes. Instead of 30 minutes for lunch, the team takes 45 minutes. So they found creative techniques to mess with the timetable, and the content of their solutions was not that great.

With this particular group, this happens a lot. I asked for their expectations up front, but that doesn't work. Normally when I make agreements for a session like this, with other groups, we have no problems.

Response:

So, what is different about this team? The answer to your predicament is not some technique on how to handle a group in a meeting. The answer is in what's different about this group.

I work with groups all over North America. While I have very consistent program material, I have learned that every group I work with is different. And my first job, as a facilitator, or your job, as a manager, is to discover that difference.

If I fail to discover that difference, the level of engagement suffers. When the group is not engaged, they will do something else to fill the time. It appears as misbehavior, taking long breaks, falling asleep or playing with Blackberries under the tablecloth.

Is it the group's fault? Or is it my fault?

It's my fault. I failed to engage. I was too impatient, I didn't listen, I rushed into the content without drawing in the group.

So, over the next few days, we will explore how to do that. -TF

The conference room was comfortable. New leather chairs and a marble top. Nothing like success to create a little overhead.

Sam had assembled a cast of the brightest minds in the company. Marketing was represented, sales, customer service, production and accounting. Everyone looked armed with official looking reports, charts and graphs, ready to defend the slightest attack.

Sam was good. He wasn't looking for a scapegoat. He knew the problem wasn't from someone being lazy, or even a wrong decision. He knew it was more likely that the organization's system needed some attention.

He began by explaining what he had observed, and asked each member to accurately report the real figures behind the events. Unfortunately, four weeks worth of excess finished goods had translated into an eight-week inventory turn. Something had put the brakes on the market.

"So, take a piece of paper," Sam began, "and write down your condition of satisfaction for this meeting? What has to happen in the next two hours that will indicate time well spent?"