How to make meetings more efficient and powerful
John Chisham 🇺🇸
Managing General Partner of Solid Rock Recruiting - Working with top Companies to place elite talent in the Construction, Accounting, and Legal Industries - 605.502.1385 john@solidrockrecruiting.com
How can you make meetings more Effective? H/T Elon Musk
Elon Musk put out a memo to his companies- specifically his managers regarding meeting efficiency. Of course, it leaked. Here is a summary:
1) Avoid large meetings. Large meetings waste valuable time and energy.
Don’t schedule large meetings unless you’re certain they provide value to everyone in the meeting. Smaller meetings are better. When forming a meeting also make sure that within the group are people who may take a different stance or have a different point of view. Do not make the mistake of having an echo chamber.
2) Leave a meeting if you’re not contributing. If a meeting doesn’t require your:
Your presence is useless. It is not rude to leave a meeting. But it’s rude to waste people’s time.
3) Forget the chain of command- Communicate with colleagues directly.
Not through supervisors or managers.
Fast communicators make fast decisions.
Fast decisions = competitive advantage.
4) Be clear, not clever. Avoid nonsense words and technical jargon. It slows down communication.
Choose words that are:
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Don’t sound smart. Be efficient.
5) Ditch frequent meetings. There’s no better way to waste everyone’s time.
Use meetings to:
But once you resolve the issue, frequent meetings are no longer necessary.
You can resolve most issues without a meeting.
Instead of meetings:
Don’t interrupt your team’s workflow if it’s unnecessary.
6) Use common sense
If a company rule doesn’t:
Avoid following the rule with your eyes closed. Don’t follow rules. Follow principles.
We are all guilty of this in running businesses. Making sure meetings are not just to check a box, rather, to engage and encourage people to do better. As this is the goal, we need to get very specific in our meetings. Let's make them smaller - let's make them more engaging, and let's make them shorter.